Team Fortress 2 and its characters belong to Valve. Most of this stuff remains canon; teams are portrayed in a more realistic manner (or as realistic as you can get with a game like this) while trying to stay true to the personalities of the characters involved. Have fun reading or simply close out of it if you don't.

Cheers.

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"M.I.A?"

"Missing in action, son," said a Soldier gruffly as he looked over the list of dead Red members attached to the clipboard in his bandaged hand.

The Sniper bristled with mild irritation, "I know what it means, mate. But 'ow could he be missing in action? We got all the bodies, roight?"

"I don't know what to tell you, son. Maybe he defected, maybe he got blown to smithereens, but I'll tell you right now we've counted and recounted all the stiffs and your little Spy friend isn't among them."

The Aussie felt frustration, he felt anger though he knew better than to direct it against the Soldier in front of him. There was nothing he could do -- he knew there was nothing he could do. Knowing is what frustrated him the most, it pushed hope's face right into the dirt.

Gradually he allowed his aggressively stiffened shoulders to relax, a lengthy sigh leaving him as he nodded and moved away from the Soldier, "Thank you.."

He'd already found the Engineer (thankfully in one piece though a bit knocked around) and returned the goggles, his bare eyes rimmed with red irritation. The dust of battle dirtied his face and clothing too, leaving him looking even more roughed up than usual as he strode in silence toward his room.

Once there, he sat down on the bed and rested his elbows on his knees in order to lean forward. Hands folded, they propped up his stubbled chin and allowed him to stare down at the wooden floorboards beneath his feet.

-He's dead, mate. Just let him go..- he thought to himself.

It should have been easy, accepting the death of a man in war -- Everything in the professional part of the Sniper told him so.

He should have been grateful for being allowed to survive, grateful that he'd taken out so many enemy troops and protected so many of his team members without a terrible amount of injury on his person. But as his grey eyes lifted from the floor to his desk, he saw it sitting there, saw it resting unassumingly next to yellowed postcards and a lovingly-knit brown & red scarf from his mother. The mug.

#1 Sniper..

His eyes narrowed with a feeling far from his professional side, a feeling he had not encountered since the last time he phoned home: bitter sadness. The feeling that he had not done good enough. The feeling that he was letting someone down..

Despite the dirt-laden sweat remaining on his face, he felt a new batch of moisture trickling down the side of his jaw.

This one was a tear.

But tears weren't the only thing falling tonight. Rain had started up. It came first as dry thunder and heat lightning, springy rains drifting down over the bloodied buildings before coming down more steadily and beginning to wash away the mess of today's fight. It was strange.. almost as if nature had known what had transpired and wished to wash the hands of all those in participation.

It gathered in puddles and dripped off the rifles of Blu Snipers (those that remained) and the helmets of Red Soldiers.

Far below the summer shower in what was assumed to be the belly of the Blu base, the Red Spy conversed with his faceless roommate and continued trying to free himself..

"You do not have to say it, mon Ami. I can already see zhat zhis place makes you uneasy.." The voice fell silent suddenly as if something disturbed it, "Lay still, soon we shall not be alone," it cautioned.

The Red Spy could hear water splashing quietly and then nothing more from behind him. Presently he heard something else, booted footsteps on metallic steps before that too fell silent.

His eyes took over, a deep frown carved on his face as he observed a man in a white coat stepping into the room as he adjusted his rubber gloves. It was a Medic.. sort of. He held no Medigun and, likewise, no fluid tanks on his back. 5 o'clock shadow surrounded his pleasantly smiling mouth though the look of hunger in his brown eyes chased away any warming effect it might have had.

"Ah.. comrade, I see you are awake, da?" he was Russian, it only took a few words to determine it as the Medic came to a halt at his bedside. He rudely placed a large hand on the Spy's chest, the other cradling his face as he chortled and took a look at the Spy's masked features, "Ah.. You are a man of some distinction, aren't you? Don't worry, I proh-mise dat won't last."

Irritably, the Spy turned his face away, jerking himself from the Medic's hold without reply.

He could hear the man laughing at him, feel him moving along his body with both hands. It took him a few moments to realize he was checking for damage, his limbs receiving examination, his ribs.. All he could do was lay there in enraged silence, eyes so narrow that they may as well have been closed.

"Da.. excellent, we can begin testing in deh morning. Do svidaniya, Spy, you will need your rest.."

The Red Spy could feel him grinning, wolfishly running his eyes over his restrained body and licking a canine tooth in anticipation for the mutilation that he was probably planning. The Red only stared him down, hazel eyes dark with hatred until the Medic turned away and left the room.

He waited until the sound of boots retreated until he exhaled, eyes closing with anger and an inability to do anything about it.

Water. It splashed again from behind him and he opened his eyes expectantly.

"We need to leave tonight, Monsieur.."

The Red Spy scoffed, straining against the straps before laying flat once more, "And how do you propose such a zhing? I cannot move!"

"I will require your assistance if we are to escape.."

"Can. Not. Move!"

"Mon Ami~" the voice crooned.

"What!"

"Relax, I will help you. But first you must calm down and do as I tell you."

The Red Spy gritted his teeth, quickly thinking over his options before grudgingly laying still and allowing himself to.. relax no matter how hard it seemed to him.

"Zhere is a design flaw in zhe strap holding your left wrist. Do you zee it?"

He glanced down, arching his sore neck as far as he could to peer where indicated. It took a few moments, but he saw it. The strap's buckle was rusty. .. very rusty.

"Zheir efforts to inflict pain on zhe subjects result in a poor maintenance of zhe non-vital equipment. Eet is zheir downfall zhat your binds fall into zhis category."

Hope flickered in the Spy's ribs, left hand flexed before he clenched it into a fist and sharply pulled it toward himself. The metal buckle dug into the material of his suit, pinching him and causing him to grimace as he tried again.. and again!

A snapping clink followed the fourth try and the Red Spy quickly began to rotate his wrist until the strap loosened enough to set him free. He lifted his liberated hand, adjusting his wrist sorely before immediately going to work freeing his other hand. A hiss of approval came from behind him though he was too busy to look.

"Oui... Oui! Zhat is zhe way, mon Ami.." it said breathlessly, anxious anticipation readily apparent in the way it spoke.

The Red Spy swung his legs off the side of the bed, rubbing his wrists one at a time and finally stealing a glance off to his right in the direction of the voice which had guided him.

..he was admittedly not ready for what he saw, hands falling still in his lap as he tried to make sense of the spectacle before him. It was a tank as he had first assumed, similar to a zoo exihibit though he could see the flickering rays of an energy field separating him from the entity inside. The enclosure was half water and half open air with a metal ledge placed inside like a crude jail cot. The water, from what he could see, was murky and dirtied, but what was truly bizarre about it was the.. thing staring hopefully at him.

It was a Blu Spy.. sort of.

For all intensive purposes he looked normal, but his waist disappeared into the deep waters at a height that would far surpass a standing human man of his build. Furthermore, when the thing spoke, he could see that every last one of its teeth were sharpened to a point like the nasty biting blade of his butterfly knife.

The standoff could have continued for hours if it weren't for the damned thing speaking up.

"S'il vous plaît.. Monsieur. One Spy to another, I have upheld my end of our deal," the Blu Spy looked toward the control panel that must have controlled the electrical field before looking back at the Red Spy, "Eet is time for you to uphold yours."

The Red Spy stood, staring with a mixture of confusion and wariness at the.. man(?) in front of him.

Indeed, he had helped him to get free, but.. A Blu Spy? What was he doing here? (What WAS he?) Could he be trusted? Obviously someone didn't think so or else there wouldn't a high-voltage field humming between them..

The Blu looked increasingly desperate as the moments ticked by, his expression of composure shifting into a sad and hopeful smile, "Monsieur?"

"What is your plan?" the Red Spy managed, pocketting his case of the creeps for the time being.

The Blu bristled with desperate joy as he pivotted in the water and pointed across the room where the Red Spy looked as well, "Zhere is a drainage grate over zhere. I.. I zhink I can break it."

The Red looked at him skeptically, "Zhat is solid and heavy iron, I doubt you could--"

"Zhe pipe will take us to zhe sewers. We can escape zhis place. We can.. We can make it to zhe surface but you will need me to navigate."

It took him three more minutes of thought, but seeing as he had no other thoughts on how to escape, he found himself examining the electronics panel and de-activating it with a sharp eye on the man in the tank. When he didn't come lunging for him, he calmed slightly and went to search the lab for his equipment. It had been set aside on a counter, no doubt they hadn't expected he'd be able to get away.

Splashing caught his attention however, his fine Italian shoes scuffing the floor as he turned around and gripped the counter with both hands. "M-mon.. Mon di.. M. .." He just could not get the words out. His eyes shot wider as the Blu Spy hoisted himself out of the tank with his uh.. Really? Were those??

The Blu Spy appeared sheepish, gathering himself in a dripping puddle beside the tank and hunching his shoulders self-consciously, "Tentacles, yes. Forget zhe intel, I can tell you incredible.. Incredible amounts later."

..tentacles.

The Red Spy stared at him, utterly mortified as the Blu stumbled and crawled in the direction of their 'escape hatch'. Apparently land movement had been lost on him during his time in that cramped tank, not that the Spy was in any which way level-headed enough to think about it. He was witnessing a god damned freak of nature. A Blu.. Octospy! A Spypuss. A.. oh merde..

Those alien tentacles coiled around the thick iron bars, a slow and grating screech sounding off as metal scraped metal. The sheer strength of those writhing appendages occurred to the Red Spy though gradually he worked up his nerves and stepped nearer as the deformed Blu set the grate aside and peered back at him with a determined and surprisingly comforting look of honesty.

He held out a hand to the Red Spy who was having second thoughts about the whole escape plan as he caught sight of the sludgy water below.

"Ah.. Perhaps.."

"Zhere is no ozher way, mon Ami. ..unfortunately I have been here long enough to know."

The Red Spy looked from the dirty fluid to the waiting abomination, swallowing his anxiety and putting on a mask of duty as he grabbed the Blu's wrist and disappeared down into the sewage with him.

The underground lab grew even more hollow as a fleeting blue tendril pulled the grate shut behind them.

(Yea, Tentaspy. Come on, you knew you wanted him to show up eventually.)