No one's dead! I tried to hint that in the last chapter. Do you reviewers think I could improve my dramatic writing skills a bit more? If you do, say so in the comments. R and R, here we go!
Hallucinations seem to give me the perception of death. It's as if it was all a trick, a wild setup to make me give up everything that I ever had and all my desires. I've never experienced anything worse than this in my life. I'd been fooled. And now I felt stupid. I feel like the underworld spirits were laughing at me. They were laughing because of half of their plan was successful. They didn't have my soul. So really, they were half happy and half sad. But of course, they'd never let their failure show. I didn't have a choice to show mine. A stream of red leaked into my chest. After I'd thought I'd bled all I could, the color red had saved me. It wasn't blood, and it wasn't the color of my uniform. It was a silky, creamy red that sparkled the slightest. I couldn't identify it as a gas or air substance. Why? Because when you need it as much as I needed it at that time, the only thing you could identify it as was a miracle. I turned my head with more ease. Olivia sat up partially straight, shaking at Keira. Her eyes streamed tears, silently. I knew she'd be okay. But the knowledge of a mercenary is very different from a six year old. Some memories can drive you insane; others can make you laughed out loud and remind your parents so they can share the joy too. If something really tragic did happen to you, then it has the ability to haunt you forever. To live in your mind. All it takes to get rid of it is a day full of no worries, even spent alone if you'd like. I motioned for Olivia to crawl over. I was still laying down, trying to contemplate what had happened within the last few hours. She looked back at Keira, whose eyes were closed lightly. She was now experiencing the red miracle that had saved our lives so many times before. Her long red hair got tangled around Olivia's foot. She shook it off and made her way over into my puddle of dried blood.
"Are you feeling okay?" I asked her.
"No, everyone's dead."
"Not quite, they'll all be okay. Just give it some time."
The previously missing lady in purple dropped one of Medic's healing crossbows into my hand.
"Help me." She said darkly, not wanting her employees to die on the job. Olivia stayed close by as I released one of the crossbows into the doctor himself. He was still handing around the tree branch, blood running across his broken glasses. The bow landed into his stomach. I knew it'd take more than one for him to even start waking up. I kept firing, one by one. As I did this, I wondered:
When had I started talking like a seventeenth-century philosopher?
I turned down the thought and kept doing what I was doing.
"Zhat's enough." He said. He looked up, and his glasses dropped. Olivia caught them and handed them to me. The old man crawled down from the tree, adjusting his robe.
"Wanna say somethin' to me doc?" I asked, expecting a "thank you."
"I see that you're feeling good." he responded. "Thank you, Scout." I saluted him. "Now get going! Just stab these into them. Anywhere's fine." He grabbed some of the bows out of the stock and shoved them to me. I thought it was a bit dangerous at first, but I didn't question it. The only people that were awake that I was aware of were me, Olivia, Ms. Pauling, Medic, and possibly Keira. Five outta eleven still isn't enough. For the next few minutes, we all played doctor and tried to bring our teammates away from the hallucination of death. Eventually, after many hours and self-checking, everyone was okay. Not scared, hurt, or excellent. Just, okay.
We sat in a large circle. Ms. Pauling talked on the phone, and before we knew it, police and even the FBI came around. They looked through the debris and found Grey. I knew where he was going. No one from the team said anything. I think it was time for some isolation. Back to step one, you know? Not to re-live this situation all over again, but just to stop and imagine how everything was before. Before the robots, before the brackets, before the Saturday check-ups (which we hadn't got around to in a couple of months), and before those weird nights where Keira had her little spasms. I couldn't really think of what it was like. I looked around. The pyromaniac had her face buried into her knees, shuddering. On the other side, Spy picked at the ground, his other hand over his face. Heavy just plain stared at the ground. Demoman didn't really know where to look. Olivia layed on Engineer, who started to make a mini-catapult out of some sticks and stones. Ms. Pauling walked in the center of our gathering. She looked tired and stressed. Her hair was down, and her dress was littered with all kinds of gunk.
"You guys didn't fail," she said softly, looking at the ground. "I found out that the explosion blew up the robots underground too, and even the whole system to set them up."
"Yeah, but no one's gonna come back here to go on with their lives like it didn't happen. It's gonna take years to get this place back together."
"Merasmus can-" I interrupted Soldier.
"Merasmus ain't gonna do crap unless we get on his good side, Soldier." I said. Olivia got up and poked Keira's chest region with a stick.
"What the-?" She saw the little girl wanted attention. She looked irritated, but took her into her arms anyways.
"Guys..." Ms. Pauling said. She was standing on the edge of the cliff that separated Grey's land and Mannworks. We got up and went in her direction to see what was worth looking at. It wasn't much, really. There was a building that was half-standing, half-collapsing. There were small patches of fire, and pieces of metal everywhere. We looked at the miss.
"This is good!" She exclaimed. "This is repairable! We can fix it!" I don't even know where she was going with this. I looked at her dress pocket to find the Kritzkreg Medigun stuffed in. So she was the one that-
"Oh no," I turned around and saw that Keira had gone missing. Ms. Pauling tapped on my shoulder and pointed me towards the patches of fire. I cringed. Keira walked into the center of it, and it instantly burned itself out. She did the same with the others, and only small blue flames remained. She climbed back up to the territory we were on afterwards.
"That's taken care of." She brushed her hands against each other.
"We need to get y'all back to the base." Ms. Pauling yelled, and directed the helicopter flying was flying it obviously didn't have any training.
"Right here!" She screamed, pointing to a random landing spot. The helicopter came down with a cloud of dust. We crawled in, squeezing into the space that was really meant for half of us. Heavy managed to close the door, and we took off.
"It's the administrator!" Engineer squealed.
"Yes, I've come to save the day again." She said sarcastically and laughed.
"But now I must fill you in. Unfortunately, you will not be able to attend the ceremony." She swerved. We all gasped and complained at the same time.
"Hey! The reason why is because of your disqualification of the brackets. And also-"
"That is bull-crap! We've spent how long protecting these cities so we can fight on them again? That at least deserves something! Can't you just force them to let us in?!" Keira said angrily, her hands lit up.
"The head administration believes in organization, special awards are only given if they planned it out." She paused for a dramatic silence. "I am only the administrator for teams RED and BLU. I am nowhere near their level of authority." She explained.
"Helen, what about Hale? Can we talk to him? I know we're just arguing over awards and stuff but-"
"Ah, but these are life-benefiting awards. More special than the regular military. They're given identification cards that help with finances, child care, insurance, and whatever else they'll need help with once they leave Mann Co. and out into the real world. Not to mention pure bragging rights."
"So...they'll basically set you for life?" Pauling asked.
"Yes. And without them, it'll be hard to keep going. They're eligible in all countries. We'll even give you a number for body guards if you need it, but I doubt that. No one can arrest you for possessing a gun-"
"Or a flame thrower."
"Yes, Keira, or a flame thrower, unless you use it to terrorize the public in some way. Miss Pauling, wasn't Hale accompanying you and the others on this mission?"
Pauling's face went dead pale.
"Y-yes but I-I'm sure he'll find a way back...?"
"YOU FORGOT TO BRING HALE BACK?!" The Administrator had let go of the control, and we were starting to spiral.
"The plane the plane!" I warned. She put her hands back on the steering-thingy.
"Please calm down Helen! I'm sure we can-"
"SAXTON HAAAAAAAAAAAAAALE!" We all looked in the direction of the meaty Australian himself, skydiving from the top of the plane. He waved hello, and flew through the air.
"Saxton, how did you even-? What?!" Ms. Pauling was shocked, and so were we.
"Well that problem's taken care of!" I cheered. We flew all the way back to our base. Not the fancy one, but the original one that was home to much chaos, screaming, fighting, sexual jokes, fire and more. I'd expect the trip to take longer, but it was only three hours at tops. The helicopter landed roughly on the ground. Everyone seemed to be asleep except for me. I suffocated slowly as they woke up, not aware that I couldn't breath under all the weight.
"Ach! Get off!" I said, panting.
"Maybe if leetle man were stronger, there would be no breathing problems." Heavy said, and smiled. We piled out, and walked towards the good 'ol base. It had been repaired when we were gone. The front yard had been cleared, and it looked more stable.
"What about our personal belongings?" Spy asked.
"Um, I'll have them shipped by tomorrow!" Ms. Pauling said. I knew that was a lie, but it'd be worth the wait if we could stay here until the season was over. As soon as we walked in, there was a giant sign that read, "Welcome Home Mercs!" on it. There were red balloons for the team color, and a half-eaten red-velvet cake. Darn, that was my favorite.
"Surprise! Oh and sorry about the cake, some sacrifices had to be made." Ms. Pauling said. Saxton Hale came through the door, fashionably late. We had already gotten our slices of cake and headed to our old dorms. It was even easier to get lost now since we hadn't been here in forever. I'd probably wake up in the middle of the night like I've always done, and check for e-mails from Ma. Most of my stuff was at the other base, but I still had a few shirts and baseball cards to entertain myself with. I collapsed on my bed and fell asleep, forgetting that I had a slice of cake to eat. Meh, I'd have it when I wake up. If I ever did wake up. I knew that I was gonna sleep for so long that Medic would have to come shake me awake and make sure I wasn't in a coma. But I can deal with that later.
At least I was back home. But while I'm asleep, I'll need to help the team come up with a plan to get us into the ceremony.
From what I was taught, can't we communicate in our dreams?
*laughs evily* Well what have I come up with now?
Keira: Why does Olivia get all the attention?
You're a fully grown woman. Such matters shouldn't be argued over.
Keira: But-
(Engineer's "nope" face crashes through the wall)
R and R!