In the Badlands, in Doctor Wolf's office, a particularly peculiar pony dropped in.
He was mainly bright red pegasus with a black tail with red highlights on the edges and a black mane with red tips. He wore black horseshoes and bands on his upper front and back hooves, a deep red top hat with a black band near the base, and a black scarf wrapped around his neck.
His eyes were blueish green and his cutie mark was a microphone crossed with a writing quill. His name was ToonKriticY2K, an analyst.
"Hey!" He greeted jovially. "I heard you were looking for some BLU team members to spar against." News apparently travelled quickly in the Brony Community.
"Why yes." Said Doctor Wolf, the diminutive canine said with a smile from behind his usual desk. "I do remember you were hoping to show your skills." His look turned pensive. He put a hand to his chin, with one arm propping up his elbow and looked up in thought "Although, have you spoken to Eliyora about this yet?" He asked. Eliyora was ToonKritic's marefriend and the RED Pyro and well, she had a notoriously violent temper.
ToonKritic blanched, but quickly recovered "Huh? Oh, oh, yeah, yeah," he said nervously, eyes darting around and chuckling nervously "She's uh, she's totally on board for it!" He lied, "You know, team building exercises, against one another, with uh, with guns..." He trailed off briefly "What could be better, right?" He asked rhetorically with a nervous grin.
Doctor Wolf didn't look convinced. "Are you sure about that? I've seen what happens when Eli gets angry and I'd much rather direct that anger away from me." Eliyora was a good teammate and a good friend, but, even Doctor Wolf feared her wrath.
"Mhm! You got nothin' to worry about Doc, I'm one of the best players you can ever afford to get." He said confidently.
"I see." Said Doctor Wolf pensively. "Well, at the very least this would be a good opportunity to show your skills and I like the idea of having friends as sparring partners than enemies." He pulled out a contract from one of the drawers and put it on the table for ToonKritic. "Just sign on the dotted line so that we know you understand all the risks involved." He said.
ToonKritic pulled a feather quill similar to the one of his cutie mark out of his hat and dipped it in ink, ready to sign.
Elsewhere in the Badlands, Eliyora suddenly felt mad. "I feel mad. Why do I feel mad? Is something happening?" She wondered, then it occurred to her "Where's TK?" She asked, advancing over to Doctor Wolf's office.
ToonKritic had just finished signing the contract and letting a drop of his blood fall onto the petri dish that would be put in the respawn generator so that if he died in game, he wouldn't die for good. "Sweet! Ah man this is gonna be so cool, I'm have a bazooka and an outfit, and I'm gonna shoot stuff..."
Doctor Wolf just smiled in amusement, said amusement faded quickly when his door was promptly broken down by none other than a livid Eliyora.
"TOONKRITIC!" She snarled, Axetinguisher held in her purple aura.
Both the red and black pegasus and the greyish wolf suddenly felt utterly terrified.
"Let me guess," said Doctor Wolf in a disapproving tone, putting 2 and 2 together. "You didn't talk to her about this?" He asked, though he knew the answer.
"It's a possibility that I may or may not have-yes." He said, seeing Eliyora's axe getting very close to his face.
"What the *yay* do you think you're doing?!" Demanded the brown furred Pyro, axe still felt aloft.
"Uh, " he chuckled nervously "Hey, babe, uh, good to see you! I was just uh, signin' up for some TF2 practice?" He said, sweating bullets.
"Signing a bloody contract with with Doctor Wolf implies you're settin' up for the whole frickin' shebang!" She yelled.
"Well, I wouldn't quite say that, I mean..." He quickly shut his trap seeing the Axetinguisher's edge millimeters away from his muzzle.
"Lie to me. Go ahead. See what happens when I get lied to." She snarled dangerously.
"Oh no, I've seen what happens when ponies piss you off, " he said "Kinda hot though," he added to himself, "But hey, I just thought it'd be fun, y'know if, uh, you and me got to go out and, shoot stuff. As a means of, " he paused briefly, mind racing "team building exercises, right?"
"Mister Toon." interrupted Doctor Wolf, moving out from behind his desk "The whole point behind hiring BLU team members was to improve our cohesion on the battlefield." He said simply. "This is not what I had in mind." He said sternly. "However, there surely must be a way to work this out so that everyone can feel better about it." He said reasonably.
Eliyora still looked annoyed at her beau.
"Well, I saw how much fun you were having the last time and I thought to myself 'Hey, this could be fun, fighting alongside one another, or against one another...'" He grinned nervously. "I just don't get to see you often enough, babe, I just wanna have fun."
Eliyora's anger melted away and Doctor Wolf smiled a bit.
"That's what I want most." Finished the pegasus.
"I do miss us doing things together and it would be nice to be able to enjoy games together but," she paused, collecting her thoughts "How much do you even know about TF2?"
"Oh I know lots, I've been doing stuff like this for years!" He said confidently. "Just not against other ponies." He admitted. "But hey, computer schmuter, I got this." He said with a cocky grin. "You got a star player to go against, honestly what could go wrong?"
So Eliyora accompanied him to the BLU spawn so he could get his outfit and pick his Rocket Launcher. As this was his first time, he'd only be using his Primary Weapon. "All right Toon," she told him after he'd donned his uniform, a blue jacket with 2 hand grenades strapped to them and an unstrapped brownish green helmet. "The Soldier is one of the two classes capable of explosive damage, the other being the Demopony, only difference is, you only get one explosive launcher, anyway, " she opened the supply cabinet displaying an array of various rocket launchers, "The Soldier has a lot of choices, there's the stock Rocket Launcher, can load up to 4 rockets, nothing special, just regular rockets, can do a lot of damage at point blank, but since your rockets hurt you if they go off too close to you, I don't recommend it." She pointed at the stock Rocket Launcher, as she said, nothing special, but deadly in the right hooves. "Next up is the Rocket Jumper, doesn't do any self damage but it doesn't hurt your enemy either and has a larger ammo capacity."
"So what's the point of it?" He asked.
"Simple. Rocket Jumping." Said the Pyro.
"What?" Asked the bewildered Pegasus.
"Rocket Jumping. You shoot a rocket at your hooves to propel yourself in the air. Valid tactic and pretty deadly if you know how to."
"So, why doesn't the Jumper hurt me when all the others do?" He asked.
"Simple. Compressed air rockets." Said Eli.
"Oh. That's kinda useless since I can already fly though." Said ToonKritic.
"Good point. Next is the Direct Hit, it doesn't have as big an explosion radius as the stock, but if it DOES hit dead on, it's going to hurt a lot more, and it also does extra damage to airborne targets." She explained.
"Sounds interesting, but not my thing." Said Toon. "Hey, what does this one do?" He asked, pointing at a rectangular rocket launcher.
"Huh? Oh that's the Black Box, it heals you if you hit someone with your rocket but it only has 3 rockets in the clip-"
"Mine!" Said Toon, grabbing it, surprised at how light it was.
"You sure about that?" Queried the brown mare.
"Hm? Oh yeah sure, trust me, being able to heal by hurting is really useful!" Said the crimson and black pegasus.
"If you say so, now go out there and show us what you can do, I'll be observing your progress with Doctor Wolf." said Eli, trotting out of the BLU spawn, the mechanism that prevented the other team from entering offline as they weren't in mid fight.
"Whoo yeah, Shoot everything! Shoot everything!" Crowed Toon, firing his Black Box randomly. He looked like he was having the time of his life as evidenced by his manic grin and mad laughter.
Naturally, shooting rockets randomly everywhere meant that one eventually came back and hit the ground near him, sending him flying. "Oh, OK, I'm alright." he said weakly.
Doctor Wolf looked less than impressed and Eliyora looked worried, then facehoofed. "Doc, is he reminding you of Phantom Horn?" She asked.
"If he isn't improving by the end of the day, I'm going to have to find someone else." He said simply, not in the mood for a loose cannon that didn't know what they were doing. He then walked away, scribbling on his notepad, followed by Eli.
"Oh for f*squee*s sake, come on! I totally got you that time!" He protested, having missed another rocket.
"Babe, what are you even doing?" Asked Eli, coming up behind him. "You do know you need to aim, right?"
"Of course I do!" Said Toon.
"Then, why aren't you?" Eli deadpanned. "You're not stupid, come on, I've seen you play shooters, what's going on with you?" She asked. She then barely dodged one of Toon's own rockets.
"Ow! Motherf*squee*! That really hurt that time!" He hissed in pain "Ugh, OK, maybe I'm just off my game today. Or this piece of crap isn't wanting to work with me." He said, shooting his weapon a dirty look.
"Nevermind, I see the problem." Facehoofed Eliyora. "Keep moving, watch our back and AIM when you shoot." She told him. "If you don't, then your tail's gonna get blown off faster than Silver Quill runs from me when I'm ticked off!" She said with a vicious grin and brandishing her weapon.
"OK. No pressure there, Allons-y!" He exclaimed, and fired a rocket at his feet and spread his wings, then fired a rocket at a Scout bot and a Pyro bot, sending both flying.
"Haha! Now that's what I'm talkin' about!" He said triumphantly. "Woo!"
Eliyora just sighed, and applied her hoof to her face. "3, 2, 1..." And right on cue, ToonKritic got hit dead on by a Direct Hit crit rocket courtesy of a Soldier bot, leaving him on the ground, battered, bruised, and with the tip of his tail on fire.
"FYI, arrogant hotshot idiots don't last long either." She told him, blowing out the small fire on the tip of his tail.
ToonKritic rose, fury in his eyes, "OK, that, is, it. Why don't you stop shooting the noob huh? If you even think about shooting me again, I'm going to rip off your face and use your body as my new Black Box and then I'll show you all. I'll show all of the RED team what happens when you mess with Mister ToonKritic. Ya gots it?" He hissed, eyes slowly turning a fiery orange in pure rage at his rant went on.
Dr Wolf had come to check up on him and much like Eliyora, was completely stunned by ToonKritic's speech.
"Well then," Eliyora chuckled darkly "That is more like it! Sounds like he's stepping up his game!" She said, sounding exceedingly pleased. "Guess that means I'll have to also. Can't go letting him outdo me after all. Gotta keep it on equal footing!" And with that, she went to join him in sparring practice.
"Interesting, he may have quite the learning curve, but if this actually helps Eli become more efficient than I guess this can work after all." He chuckled slightly "Learn something new every day."
"WAVE COMPLETED. WELL DONE." said the voice over the speakers.
ToonKritic flew over to where Eliyora was and stowed away his weapon. "Babe, did you see how far that guy went when I shot him? He went flying!" He said in a sing-song tone, obviously having enjoyed the round.
Eli just grinned "Please, it's way more satisfying to see them slowly burn to ashes in front of you. You can enjoy their screams that way." She said with a manic look in her eye.
"Oh you are so cute when you're angry." He said.
"You're way hot when you're ticked off." She said, and then they kissed.
"See ya on the battlefield next wave..." She said, trotting off.
"Oh yeah. It. Is. ON." promised Toon and went off to join her.