The obvious disclaimer: "Disclaimer: I am in no way the legal owner of anything in this fictional work. All interllectual materials are the properties of their respective owners."

Next, commment responses:

TheAusticGamer: Yes, chapter 7 was Wheatley-less, but with him sitting in a room, charging his batteries, him 'running' around and meeting everybody wasn't really that sensible. When it comes to the Ap-Sap, no, I'm not including that in this story. The Spy might use Wheatley (core form) in a similar fashion to how one would use said sapper, though. We'll see.

Multi Burst: The Enrichment Center wishes to congratulate you for successfully understanding basic review parameters such as: their existence, and how to recognize them. Congratulations! (And yes, I am working on this story, but school's started so I might slow down a bit once the homework starts pouring in.)

Now, let this longer-than-usual chapter begin.


The Hand and the Pyromaniac

He looked around for the billionth time. Or, at least, that's what it felt like; he'd not really bothered to count.

Yep, still dark.

Why was he even bothering anymore? The light seemingly had no intention of repairing itself, so what was the point in checking every few seconds? Hmm, he'd have to think on that...

Whilst he was pondering the question, his audio receptors picked up on a sound which sounded suspiciously similar to footsteps.

He immediately started babbling.

"Um, hello? Anyone there? 'Cause if you are, it'd be good if you could, could come in 'ere an' turn the light on."

The footsteps stopped. A second later, the sound was heard again, coming closer.

One of the two doors which made up the entrance opened a little, and a figure sneaked in before closing the door again.

The click of a light switch was heard, but nothing happened. The same sound appeared again, still nothing.

"You don't happen to, to have any other light with you?" the core asked, before he remembered something. "Oh, wait, maybe..."

The core's flashlight turned on, lighting up the room and the character within. The character in question was almost entirely blue, with a rubber suit covering its whole body and a gas mask over the head. Wheatley couldn't even determine if the character was a Human or a robot, could be anything, really.

The character cried out in surprise, and then asked "Whu urr yuu?"

The core didn't understand a word, so he just blurted out a "what?"

No immediate response was given, with the character instead slowly walking forward towards the core, soon standing rather close. Said character then prodded the core on the left side of his lower handle.

Wheatley reacted as though one might expect. He flinched back in surprise, and then asked "What are you...?" in a still-surprised tone, trying to figure out exactly what the character was doing.

It must have been misinterpreted, because what the character did next was point at itself and say "Muh. Purro." upon which the character pointed at Wheatley and said "Yuu?" The character then stared at the core, seemingly expecting a response.

Despite not being the brightest of cores, Wheatley still managed to correctly guess the meaning of those words.

"Ah. Name's Wheatley."

The character -apparently called 'Purro'- clapped its hands and exclaimed "Whuthuy." in a -rather poor, according to Wheatley- attempt to pronounce his name. Purro (yes, since Wheatley believes Pyro's name to be Purro, that's what'll be written from Wheatley-POV until he hears about the right one) then proceeded to grab a hold on the core's upper handle, once again surprising Wheatley.

Before Wheatley got any chance to react, he was lifted up, Purro bringing him into a hug. The core, however, was more confused than anything.

"What exactly are, are you doing..?" the core asked, clueless. Half a second later, his optic widened in realization, and he asked "Is, is this a hug, th't we're doing here?"

Purro brought the core out of the embrace, holding its arm -and by extension Wheatley- out, whilst nodding frantically.

After that, Purro started walking away, the core still in-hand, but the movement was stopped when the limit of the connecting wire, between the core and the other machine, was reached. So the Purro started pulling and, whilst Wheatley was Aperture tech and therefore easily capable of withstanding the force of the pull, the wire was not, and so it snapped.

Wheatley was now disconnected and, although he wasn't really ready for it, it didn't matter that much, did it? He was done charging his batteries, anyways, and it was not like he was really doing anything (other than being really bored, that is.)

With Purro holding Wheatley in its right hand, the pair got out through the door, and then started walking down a nearby corridor, positioned left-ish. They'd gotten about six meters away when two more pairs of footsteps were heard, accompanied by voices.

"Ah left the core here a while back." one of the voices said, Wheatley being quite sure that it was the Engineer's voice. A split-second later the sound of a door opening could be heard.

Then the same voice -Engineer's- spoke again, saying: Where in tarnation...?" upon which several sounds resembling what one would hear when digging through various metallic objects could be heard. Engineer spoke for the third time in a row, saying "Dammit, Ah can't find him."

After that, a voice which Wheatley did not recognize spoke up, saying: "Oui, zhe core's gone."

Wheatley spun his optic around in his shell in order to get a view of what was behind him. He did it just in time to spot Engineer walking out of the workshop and also spotting a tall, slim, Human clad in blue -a piece of clothing Wheatley was fairly sure was called a 'suit'- which covered most of his body, and also a mask hiding most of his face. The latter had a mysterious smoking object in his mouth. The core hadn't seen such a thing before, so he'd have to ask the not-Engineer-Human what exactly it was.

After spotting the two, Wheatley blurted out a "'Ello" as a way of greeting the two Humans.

Both of them turned their heads towards him, simply staring for the first second. After that, Engineer said "Pyro.", which caught Purro's -or maybe it was Pyro, the character was pretty bad at speaking- attention. Said Pyro turned its head towards the pair, stared at them for half a second, and then took off running in the other direction, Engineer quickly giving chase.

Wheatley, confused, shouted out a "Wait, wait, where're we going?" but no response was given.

A second later, Pyro and the accompanying Wheatley turned a corner, to the left, Wheatley catching one last glimpse of the unknown Human, who was doing something Wheatley believed was called, was it face-palming?

Another second into the race between Pyro and Engineer, the former started giggling. "Dammit Pyro, it's not funny!" the Engineer shouted out, but it was too late; Pyro's giggling was beyond control.

The Pyro was obviously a bit faster than Engineer, because the latter was starting to trail behind.

Three seconds after the previous corner had been rounded, the still-giggling Pyro rounded another, turning to the right and then running head-first into another Human. The Human in question was wearing weird blue clothing, some sort of oversized helmet and he had two yellow apples (or that's what Wheatley assumed they were) strapped to his chest.

With the Pyro stumbling on the newly-appeared Human, Wheatley was dragged along for the fall, quickly finding himself on top of the previously-mentioned Human, who was now laying face-up on the floor.

Then the Human screamed "Robots!", pulled out a shovel from nowhere and started hitting the core with it.

"Ow-would you-ow-stop, it hurts-ow-STOP IT!" the core shouted at the Human, getting more and more upset with every hit.

"You will not kill me, I will kill you first!" the maniacal Human screamed back, before proceeding to hit the core again.

"Help!-ow-Human-ow-stop!" Wheatley screamed, his casing getting more and more sore as the Human's shovel hit – again and again.

Then Engineer rounded the corner. At first, he got a look of surprise as he took in the scene, but half a second later it had become a stern look, aimed at the Human with the apples.

"Dammit, Solly, that thing's on our side!" Engineer shouted out, stopping the maniac -apparently Solly- in the middle of one of his hits. Solly was now staring at Engineer, a look of surprise on his face.

"Oh... Sorry, private." Solly mumbled to the core, who was glaring angrily at the Human in question.

"You could've jus', jus' asked b'fore you hit me, y'know. Now my casing's all sore." the core said, highly upset and taking the chance to complain about his now-sore casing.

Immediately after the AI had finished his sentence, Solly quickly got back up on his feet. Surprised, Wheatley was dragged along on the way up, his upper handle having caught on to the lower 'apple' on Solly's clothing.

"Waaaaah!" the core screamed, entirely un-prepared.

Whilst Pyro was getting up from the ground in the background, Solly semi-shouted "You WILL get off my uniform, maggot!" to the core.

The Personality Construct wiggled his handles a bit, getting loose from Solly's clothing after a few seconds. Engineer then proceeded to pick him up.

Wheatley then spotted something yellow -one of that Human's apples- hanging onto his upper handle. He spun his optic around, taking a look at the Human who indeed now only had one apple on him. "Oi, you dropped one 'o your, your apples, Solly." he said.

Then everything happened really fast.

Somebody shouted out "Grenade!" and Solly dove down on top of Pyro.

When Wheatley heard the word 'grenade' he was first confused, he didn't know what it was, but when he used a quarter of a second to find the word in his dictionary, he quickly decided that it was NOT good.

So he did what he does best in these situations. He ignored the problem, electing to close his eye shutters in an attempt to make the problem go away. 'If he didn't see it, it wouldn't notice him and cause trouble, yeah?'

Then an explosion was heard, and Wheatley was sent flying, hitting the wall about a meter away. He was showered with some sort of warm liquid immediately after. He was starting to panic, but then remembered that 'no, he was ignoring the problem' and by such he managed to calm down a bit.

Then a scream was heard, and Wheatley opened his eye. He saw Engineer, who was covered in red stuff -maybe blood- and he was grasping at his right hand, the one with the glove. Or, rather, where said hand had been a minute ago, now there was only a bloodied stump left.

Solly and Pyro, both seemingly unharmed, quickly got up and proceeded to try and help the Engineer. Then Wheatley closed his eye, not wanting to see any of it, and repeating "This is not happening" to himself. The last thing he needed was to run out of Humans - again, the last time with the relaxation center had been enough as it was. If he repeated the sentence enough times, maybe it would come true. Yes, that was it, just a few more times...


- Change of POV to Engineer -

Pain. That was all that was registering in the Texan's brain right now.

He was faintly aware of being carried.

They were moving. Where he did not know, and his brain didn't feel like trying to find out.

All his tired brain could concentrate on now was to conserve energy in an effort to not die from blood-loss.

Pain. It was still there, not diminishing. He sincerely wished it would, but it didn't.

He was being put on a table.

He felt the distinct feeling of a medigun on him, and the pain was starting to diminish.

Still too tired to attempt to move, he remained on the table, waiting for the wounds to heal.

With his thoughts returning to a normal level, he quickly remembered what happened.

His right hand had been blown off.

Judging by how his surroundings looked, he was probably in the infirmary; maybe Medic would be able to help him get his hand back.

Right now, though, all he could do was rest and wait for the wounds to heal as much as they can.

A while later, Soldier and Pyro, the ones who had carried Engineer to the infirmary, had left to do other things, and to give Engineer and Medic some time alone for medical talk.

Engineer sat on the operating table, looking at his right arm. Whilst most of Engineer's wounds had healed, his right hand was still gone. The medigun had been unable to restore it, and so he was -for the moment- one-handed.

"So, Doc, can ya fix Mah hand?" Engie asked.

"Vell, zhe medigun vas not built to restore vhole bodyparts, so it cannot heal your hand vizh zhat. During battle, ve vould only send you through zhe Respawn, and you vould be fine."

"But that would'n work now, would it?"

"I'm afraid not. Ass you vell know, zhere vere some problems with Respawn during longer durations. Ve vere both on zhe project of building zhe Respawn machine, ja?"

Yes, Engineer did remember that. Back in the day, when the Doc and himself had been amongst those who developed and built the Respawn machine, they had encountered a rather troubling problem: the samples which were compatible with the Respawn machine had poor longevity, and would start to degrade after a few hours. The longer the samples were left un-updated, the more "corruption" would spread into the Respawn data, making it increasingly risky to use.

The samples themselves were impossible to both increase the longevity of and simultaneously keep compatible with the Respawn machine. They solved it by adding a mandatory update bio-scan before each battle, so that the sample would be fresh and safe to use every time. Without this, Respawn would cause random mutations and errors in the respawned individuals during the next day's battles, and since there would be no functional sample to reset them with, they would be stuck in their mutated state, potentially a state which they would not survive whilst being in, resulting in an endless respawn cycle.

As the Doc said, had the accident happened during the middle of battle, they would've just gone through Respawn and everything would've been fixed. Now, though, with not only the night but also a whole day of ceasefire since the last update, the samples were almost certainly corrupted, so using the Respawn machine now would most likely cause more damage than what it would fix.

"There's got to be some way that Ah can get Mah hand back." Engineer said, hopefully.

"Vell... None zhat I know of." the German responded, thus pretty much obliterating Engineer's hopes.

Silence drifted into the room; aside from the faint whirring of some electrical device in the background, and the sound of breathing, nothing could be heard.

After a few seconds of silence, it was broken by Engineer, who said: "Well, Ah was hopin' it would'n have to come to this, but we seem ta be out of options."

"Vhat are you zhinking?" the Medic asked, somewhat intrigued by this notion of a 'last resort'.

"Basically, as of late Ah've been workin' on an invention meant to substitute lost body parts. Now, well, Ah seem to fit the description of a person with a lost body part."

"Interesting..." the Medic added, obviously a bit curious about this device.

"Ah've got a prototype in Mah workshop which just so happens to be a right hand. Ah call it the 'Gunslinger' and, with my hand lost, Ah was thinking it'd work as a replacement."

"Vell, I vill have to take a look at it to see if it vill vork."

"Ah'll go an' get it." Engineer said, starting to get off from his seat.

"No, you are ein patient, you should rest. I vill get it." the Doctor said, stopping Engineer and then moving towards the infirmary's entrance.

The Healer left, leaving Engineer to his own thoughts. Other than worrying about whether or not the Gunslinger would actually work, Engineer did not do much. He mostly sat there and waited; something some of the other Mercenaries such as the Scout would essentially be unable to do.

After about ten minutes, the Medic came back, holding an object which was indeed the Gunslinger.

"Zhis one, ja?" the Medic asked, holding out the Gunslinger.

"Yeah, Doc, that's the one."

"Vell, better to begin now zhan to vait." the Doc said.

"Ah guess you're right..." Engineer said, and then the process of getting the Gunslinger installed was started.

After twenty minutes of working on attaching the device, they succeeded, only to notice that the connections were set wrong, causing problems such as trying to bend the thumb bended the middle-finger instead, and trying to bend all the fingers at once made a highly well-known, one-fingered and rude gesture. Thus, they had to disconnect it and start all over again.

Another thirty minutes passed before they were -once again- done, and this time the device worked as intended.

Engineer bent his fingers one by one, testing their functionality. He span his hand around, giving it a full 360 degree rotation.

"Well, seems to be working to me." Engineer said, stretching out his new hand for a shake with Medic's.

Whilst the Doc was obviously a bit uncomfortable with shaking the new, mechanical, appendage, he still did, adding in a rather awkward "Ja... It vorks..."

Noticing how uncomfortable his fellow mercenary was with the new, mechanical, hand, he set forth another question.

"Say, Doc, you would'n happen ta have one-a my rubber gloves anywhere around here?" he asked, deciding that it would be best to continue wearing his rubber glove as if he still had his original hand.

The Healer looked around, spotting the sought-for object after a second or two. "Ja, zhere." he said, pointing towards an orange rubber glove that had somehow managed to get into the glove compartment which was used to store the blue rubber gloves Medic used in battle.

Engineer got up, grabbed the glove and put it on his right hand, effectively concealing his Gunslinger.

"Ah reckon we're done, then?" Engineer said.

"Ja, ve are. Zhe new hand seems to be vorking, und you are not exhibiting any symptoms of other injuries. Now I have some papervork to do, so if you vould get out I vould be able to finish earlier." the Medic said

"Sure thing Doc." Engie responded, upon which he then proceeded to leave the infirmary.


And yeah, chapter 8 everyone. This one was a bit longer than the usual chapter, but it doesn't hurt if a chapter occasionally is a bit longer than my usual length target.

On another note, when it comes to the Engineer losing his hand, this is my reasoning: So I found myself with Wheatley, Soldier and Engineer in the same place, and came to think of the two facts that one: Soldier has grenades, and two: engineer's gunslinger cannot be equipped whilst he has a normal hand. Coincidence? Hardly. A while I was torn between Engineer already having the gunslinger, and simply having the mechanical hand blown off, or not having the gunslinger and letting him get it now. Eventually I went for the latter, since it not only made a more solid background for the Gunslinger itself, but also allowed me to explain this story's view on the Respawn system, and generally fill out the story a bit more that what "oh, my mechanical hand was blown off, replace it with a duplicate" would have.

Additionally: Comments and reviews are appreciated.

PS: that spy was indeed face-palming, this time at the idiocy of his teammates due to Engineer not realizing that if nobody gave chase the fun in the game would disappear for Pyro.