A little warning: this chapter will contain some strong language.

Chapter 3

Engineer was an exceptionally smart and socially capable man, everyone on the team would agree on that. However, even though he had known that the tenth class wouldn't add anything substantial to the team, even he could have never foreseen the utter gradation of opinions that arose in the team after the Strategist's arrival. About half of the mercenaries were incapable of coping with this change in their team. Now some of them were just plain confused as to what was to happen next, but others -especially Scout- really didn't like the woman, which was of course completely logical, since she wasn't exactly the nicest person to be around, and sometimes, she would lash out to anyone within ten feet of her for no reason at all. Spy just made sure to not be around her all too often, and if he did, he would be polite to her, not getting too close.

It was the morning before the first battle that would be fought with ten classes. Slowly, the mercenaries started entering the living quarters and sat down at the long table in the middle of the cheerless, industrially lighted room. Spy was always one of the first men to rise. The clock indicated it was half past seven and he was casually sitting there in one of the uncomfortable chairs with his suit jacket loosely hung on the back of the chair, sipping from his second cup of black coffee when Engineer clumsily entered the room, carrying his tool box under one arm and a ridiculous load of blueprints under the other. He dropped them on the table and put the box on the ground.

"I would assume a man of your intellect would have known those prints par coeur by now," Spy dryly stated. Engineer looked up in that particular, confused-scientist way that was further enhanced by his ever-present goggles, then smirked and shook his head.

"Just wanna show the new gal how these things roll, she might find it useful."

Spy nodded slowly, taking his cigarette container from the table and taking one out to light. "She does not seem like someone to ask for help or even accept it when offered, especially when it concerns her profession."

Engineer shrugged loosely. "Just an idea. Y'know, maybe the idea of someone actually takin' time to explain something to her would make her open up to the team a lil'."

Spy wanted to say that he found that really naive of him, but he wisely shut up. Maybe he was wrong himself, maybe the Strategist just needed someone to befriend her and she'd open up and they would be one big happy team. Or maybe he was the one being naive there.

The other mercs had started to enter the room, grabbing food from the kitchen and sitting down at the long table. The coffee machine had to work at full capacity.

No Strategist anywhere to be seen, while the other mercs went about with their morning routines, getting up to the locker room after breakfast.

The clocks' hands had creeped alarmingly close to the indication of 8 o'clock in the morning, which would be the start of today's mission, when the short form of the Nordic female walked into the room with a slow yet somewhat menacing pace.

Spy shook his head when he saw Engineer rushing toward her when she lingered in front of a locker way back in the corner, that had evidently been appointed to her. He pointed out a couple of things on his blueprints, talking to her like he expected her to listen. She didn't shove him aside, but didn't look at him either, just nodded periodically while struggling to get the locker key in the rusty padlock. She then continued to get her weapons out of the locker.

Spy had to admit to himself that he was kind of curious as to what the Engineer had to tell that did not bore her right away, so after tucking his revolver in the holster underneath his jacket he moved a little closer to eavesdrop on their conversation.

"... expect ya to, y'know, also carry some kinda blueprints? As in, to map out your strategy and be able to show it to us?"

"I have got everything I need up here, sir Ingenjör." Strategist loosely tapped against her head. "Mapping out strategies is only something that one would do in a movie. Any kind of physical representation of a strategy can be lost, or worse, stolen. Secrecy is vital."

Engineer nodded. "Never thought about it like that. Anyway, you should start communicatin' your plan to the team, otherwise it won't help nothin'."

"Mission begins in sixty seconds."

She shrugged, still with a blank facial expression. "I will do so on the battlefield." Then she turned away from the Texan, inspecting her weapon, something that looked like a hunting rifle of which the barrel had sloppily been sawn off.

"Tough crowd, isn't she?", Spy asked as Engineer walked away from her with a concerned look on his face.

He smirked. "Pretty much... She's gotta force herself to be a lil' more extroverted in a couple 'a moments though, or she won't get nothin' done."

"Missions begins in ten seconds."

Spy wasn't optimistic.

"Five."

Not optimistic at all.

"Four."

The RED Medic yelled he had an übercharge ready.

"Three."

Demoman began to launch sticky bombs around the door opening, to prevent the first few BLU mercs from entering their base.

"Two."

Medic übered RED's Heavy.

"One."

Spy activated his cloak, rendering him invisible. Strategist had been looking in his direction, a puzzled look on her face when he faded away into the surroundings.

Immediately as the gates of their base opened, Soldier took a bullet to the head from the enemy Sniper, and he sunk to the ground with a deafening scream.

Spy rushed out of their base, only to find a huge load of BLU sticky bombs on the ground. He quickly stepped away from the mine field. The Heavy, whose übercharge just wore off, was less lucky, standing in the middle of it as the BLU Demoman decided to detonate them, tearing the Russian to little pieces.

The BLU Engineer had put a sentry at a platform, a location that was tough to approach without being seen: there were no obstacles to hide, and Spy wouldn't be able to cloak for the entire time while he was sneaking towards the Engineer and his construction. Also, the physicist had put his dispenser next to the platform, so if Spy were to disguise as a member of the opposite team, he couldn't approach the Engineer pretending to need some ammo, that would be too suspicious.

"Lady and gentlemen," he said in his earpiece. "I cannot possibly sap the BLU sentry right now."

"Du, Spion." The Strategist's voice sounded in his ear. "Maybe wait until the other RED mercenaries get close. Then you... could disguise as a BLU Scout and hide behind the sentry as if scared. Then kill the BLU Engineer."

Spy shook his head to himself, retreating behind a wall as his cloak wore off. This was not going to work.

He overheard the Strategist giving insecure commands to the other mercs, none of which were responsive- except for Engineer, who gleefully obeyed her.

Other than that, she didn't get any response. That was, until Scout felt the need to show off in front of his team, darting around at the front of the battle, firing his scattergun all around him, killing only two BLU mercenaries in the process.

"Spana. Scout. Retreat from the crossfire at once."

Scout didn't even listen.

"I will repeat this only once. Scout. Retreat at once. We need you later on."

"Okay, now you listen up, you friggin' idiot. I ain't no merc in this team to be told off by some ugly as hell, fat-ass chick all th'time. It's not like anyone on th'team is gonna like you anytime soon, so just quit trying and get outta this battle, imbecile."

The silence afterwards seemed to last forever. Spy strongly disliked Scout's tirade of abusive words. He could understand a boy of that age didn't like to receive commands from a girl only slightly older than him, but even though Strategist could be unnecessarily mean at times, this was straight down disproportional.

A sharp click sounded. Strategist had turned off her earpiece.

Spy was about to scold Scout for his inappropriate behaviour, but someone else was first.

"Scout. Get back. Immediately." Engineer. Spy had never heard the Texan speak so cold, like he was trying to contain an immense anger fit. Scout stood still immediately, then got his head blown off by a missile launched by the enemy Soldier.

"Oi. Could we use the intercom for emergencies only? Try'na do my job here." Their own Sniper had spoken, and right after he finished talking he neatly shot the BLU Soldier through his chest.

Nobody used the intercom for the rest of that round. They won. During the next rounds, Strategist was nowhere to be seen.

Spy was the last one to enter the locker room after the last battle, only to find a nasty silence in the room. Scout was strutting around like he was proud of what he'd done. Nobody spoke up, until he himself proclaimed that he had liked the last battle better than the first one.

A few mercs shook their heads, Heavy gave him a sternly disappointed look, Engineer was just sitting on one of the benches in front of the lockers, looking down.

"I totally owned that chick, didn't I, right?", Scout said, ever so slightly nervous, probably hoping that the others would root for him.

Engineer stood up, taking off his goggles, ignoring the Bostonian kid. "I'm just gonna see whether I can find 'er. Everyone, do not tell th'Administrator that she wandered off during the last battle... That would count as desertion from the battle, gettin' her fired at once."

"Would you need any help with that, Engineer?", Spy asked, taking off his jacket, exposing the gun holster strapped to his shoulders. He then carefully unloaded his revolver and took off the leather holster.

If anything, now would be the time to get closer to Strategist, while she was probably curled up in her room, vulnerable as can be.

Engineer looked at him, slightly frowned, then shook his head. "Better not. I'm th'only one she seems to be able to stand at this point... She could completely shut 'erself in if she don't trust you, in which case she'll never be truly 'one of us'."

"Which she'll never be anyways," Scout yelled while the Texan walked away.

"You know best. Always try too hard to be part of things yourself," Heavy mumbled, just loud enough to hear for Spy, who gave a dark chuckle.

But now, you are standing here with empty hands again, monsieur Espion, and Engineer is going to get closer to the lady.

Even though he didn't deem it appropriate, his curiosity towards the Nordic woman had grown increasingly, and so he decided to eavesdrop on any kind of conversation that Engineer and Strategist would have.

He casually followed the physicist to the living quarters. Demoman was sitting as the table, tracing the text on his bottle of alcohol with his finger.

"Demo," Engineer asked, "have you seen the girl?"

The Scotsman took a huge swig from the bottle, then wiped his mouth and burped loudly. "As far as I know she headed for the gym to punch some kickbags. Not looking too happy anyways."

"Off to the gym then," Engineer said, turning around on his heels to exit the living quarters. Spy stood there waiting for a moment, receiving a deadpan look from Demoman.

"Well, I think I am going to head for my smoking room now, pour fumer quelques cigarettes," he said, taking the cigarette container out of his jacket pocket to make it seem as he was actually going to do that. As soon as Demoman looked at his beloved bottle again, Spy rushed out of the room, also heading for the gym.

Why did he want to get closer to Strategist so much? Why did he care this much?

It's almost like I have fallen for her before I even started to flirt with her myself, he thought sarcastically. At least, he liked to think he was being sarcastic.

In reality, that thought had contained more truth than he would ever care to admit.

A/N: Language lesson time again!

par coeur: (French) Kinda hard to explain, literally 'by heart', so being able to recite a text or something similar without needing any kind of mnemonic.

Ingenjör: (Swedish) Engineer

Du, Spion: (Swedish) You, Spy (used informal, more like 'Yo')

Spana: (Swedish) Scout

pour fumer quelques cigarettes: (French) To smoke a couple of cigarettes

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