Niklas slid sideways, grabbing for the medi-gun before it could fall into the moat below. One knee hit the ground, scraping across the ground, but he was up in an instant, the pain forgotten.

All that mattered right then was getting to Billy, whose screams echoed through the fort so loudly that he didn't even need to use the team's communication system. So Niklas scrambled forward, medi-gun bouncing against one hip and stomach churning. Hoping the Blu team wouldn't get to the Bostonian before he could.

The doctor found Billy just inside the Red team's sewer entrance, shivering and eyes wide. His right hand was clamped around his left arm so tightly the knuckles shone white.

"Vat is it?" Niklas's heart pounded. Annoyance twinged at him – here he'd run halfway across Teufort, abandoning Ivan and Lawrence, and Billy was safe on their side.

"They got me, Doc." Billy's voice shook, ringing an octave higher than normal. "That- their Pyro came outta nowhere, and he had a needle in his hand. He scratched me. I dunno if it went in, but... but I wanted t'make sure."

Slowly, with all the wincing and whimpering of pulling a bandage off a wound, Billy removed his hand from his arm. Niklas leaned in, squinting in the darkness and ears tuned for any noise that might come from the sewers below. Though he didn't speak, his mind raced.

They'd been right. The Blu team was coming for them, too.

The scratch was long, but not deep, a white line stretching from just below Billy's shoulder to his elbow. Niklas breathed a relieved sigh. "You're fine, Herr Walsch. It did not break ze skin."

Niklas thought the Bostonian would collapse in a puddle in front of him. Billy swayed on his feet and stuck an arm out to keep from falling over. "Thanks, Doc. It had me worried."

"Be careful, ja?" Niklas shouldered the medi-gun and turned back to the fort's entrance. "At zis point, ve need caution more zan anysing else."

Billy nodded, rubbed at the scratch, and darted back toward the sewers, leaving Niklas to trot toward the Red fort's main entrance. The communication system shrieked in his ear, one notification after another from his coworkers, who were suddenly – and understandably – much less confident than usual. The doctor sighed, jostling the medi-gun so it was gripped in both hands. As he passed through the wood-framed door, he chanced a glance down at his watch. Then sighed again, but louder, and more drawn out.

They'd only been fighting for fifteen minutes.

(-)

The Blu spy twisted beneath Fischer's hands, his suit jacket rumpling where the syringe dug into his back. Fischer held on, breath hurried beneath the gas mask. Fog clouded the lenses.

With one last, frantic jerk, the Blu spy pulled free, and the needle dropped to the dirt floor, rolling into a corner. He scrambled across the dirt, one hand flailing to press at the injection site and the other clawing at the ground.

"You," he gasped. The word practically dripped venom.

Fischer smiled, even though the Blu Spy couldn't see. "Play with fire, and you get burned."

Snarling, the Blu Spy charged up the steps. Fischer chased after him, his movements slowed by the coveralls and the Detonator in his hands.

But soon, Fischer thought with a smirk, the spy would slow down, too.

Conagher had done his job well. Halfway across the hay room, the spy dropped onto his side, an inhuman scream tearing from his lungs as he reached both hands over to claw at the injection site. By the time Fischer reached him, he writhed along the floor, back arching and limbs twitching uncontrollably.

Another smirk. "It doesn't feel good, does it? And, oh, guess what." The redhead leaned close. "All your buddies are outside fighting. There's no one to help you. You're mine."

"Not quite."

Fischer spun, raising the detonator and firing in the face of the Blu Engineer, who rounded the corner with his pistol drawn. It exploded across the engineer's face, sending the man screaming into the barracks, hands over his eyes and skin ablaze. Fischer wanted to laugh, throw his head back and crow victory over the spy and the engineer, and get back to enacting his revenge.

Then a memory flitted through his head. Of Niklas, one leg balanced on the other as he sat on the barracks bench and talked about cloaked sentries.

The redhead jerked his head from side to side, ears tuned for the telltale beeping that Niklas said was the only sign the sentry had been near. At his feet, the Blu Spy moaned, his suit shifting as his muscles clenched and relaxed in rapid succession.

Surely, Fischer reasoned, he'd have found evidence of the sentry, if it was somewhere in the hay room or the courtyard. He'd have heard it – or worse, been shot by it.

He could hear the Blu Engineer in the blu barracks. Fischer assumed the man was blindly tearing through the first aid locker, hunting for something to heal the burns on his face. Slow satisfaction crept through him. How long had it been since he'd seen, heard, smelled burning flesh?

But the locker was stocked with medications that could do anything, and in record time. Fischer knew he was racing against the clock – and he had a feeling that this time the Blu Engineer would come out shooting. He looked down at the Blu spy, who lay prone against the wooden floor, face obscured by the balaclava. As much as he wanted to burn the spy alive – working from the bottom up – Fischer had to admit that he was out of time.

The spy moaned, and an idea flashed into the redhead's mind.

Well. Conagher had said they preferred them alive.

Fischer grabbed the spy by the back of the collar, hauling him roughly to his knees. The spy hung limp, head down, but breathing as Conagher's poison worked its magic on his system.

Fischer's rubber boots ground against the floor as he dragged the spy toward the grated room. Once they reached the room, Fischer shoved the Blu Spy through the hole in the grate, allowing the man to topple into a heap on the first floor. From there, they headed to the sewers.

He might have decided not to kill the spy just, but Fischer still had plans. And right then he wasn't sure whether those plans included leaving the spy alive.

(-)

To Lawrence's dismay, the Blu Sniper had seen him coming.

"Buggar!" He hissed, leaping to the side of the bridge just as the telltale blue dot centered itself on his torso. As far as he knew, he'd respawn without issues if something did happen, but he didn't exactly feel like taking any chances.

And what the hell were Niklas and Conagher thinking, sending him into close combat? That kind of nonsense was for other classes, the ones that didn't mind the occasional gaping wound or third degree burn.

But he hadn't argued because he'd had a feeling Niklas and Conagher had given him that particular assignment for a reason – to take out the Blu Sniper.

Keeping his eyes peeled for any more blue dots, Lawrence crept across the bridge with measured steps. As far as he knew – as far as he hoped – his teammates were keeping the other, more stabby members of the Blu team in check. Letting him focus on the Sniper. The one member of the team that could kill from five hundred yards away.

Thinking about it, it made sense. The two Snipers spent a lot of time staring at each other through scopes, reading each others' snarls and rude gestures and coming to a kind of vicious camraderie. Lawrence was comfortable thinking he understood the way the Sniper's mind worked, and he had a feeling the rest of his team knew that. Hence the syringe and the look Conagher had given him that made it clear. One target. Take him out, and it was an enormous blow to the Blus.

Unfortunately, Lawrence also had a feeling – and his feelings tended to be correct – that the Blu Sniper knew enough about him to be a nuisance. Or, worse, to be dangerous.

Just has he reached the end of the bridge, an explosion sent Lawrence flying. He hit the ground hard, skidding several inches across the tramped-down dirt and gravel in front of the Blu fort. But before he could even register the pain, Lawrence was up, scurrying toward the relative safety of the moat like a terrified rabbit.

A hand roughly grabbed the back of his shirt, yanking him backward. The sub-machine gun skittered toward the bridge.

Lawrence's blood froze in his veins.

The SMG hit the thin wooden barrier where the bridge began, changed course, and kept going.

Right into the moat.

The person holding Lawrence's shirt chuckled. Lawrence's boots scrabbled along the ground, but his captor held him just high enough to keep him from getting any traction.

"Look what we have here." The gritty voice of the Blu Soldier. "All by his lonesome, without anyone watching his back."

Lawrence froze, just in time for the Blu Soldier to shake him back and forth. "Where's the rest of yer team? Hidin' out, like you should'a been? Got a little present for all of 'em. You too."

Without stopping to think, Lawrence kicked backwards and was rewarded with a grunt as the heel of one boot connected with the Blu Soldier's shin.

"Nice try, but yer nothin' without yer fancy guns, are ya? No fightin' like a real man for you."

If he'd been facing the Blu Soldier, Lawrence would've spit in his face. "Go to hell."

"Oh, we're in hell, sonny. 'Til you Red scum are wiped off the face of the earth."

Something sharp prodded Lawrence in his jeans pocket. A fresh wave of horror crawled down him as he realized the syringe had worked its way free and was dangerously close to falling to the ground.

He had one shot. The one-in-a-million kind that would mean a broken neck – possibly the kind of broken that stayed broken - if he screwed it up.

Luckily, those were the kind of shots Lawrence was best at.

Twisting, Lawrence kicked again, aiming a little higher this time. Though he didn't manage to bury his boot in the Blu Soldier's crotch like he'd hoped, he did succeed in making the man flinch back, just enough to loosen his grip. With a snarl, Lawrence shoved forward, got just enough traction to dig his boots into the ground, grabbed the syringe from his pocket, and turned.

The needle hit the Blu Soldier in the side. The soldier reacted quickly, yanking away and flinging the syringe to the ground like it was a poisonous snake. But even as the soldier flung himself on Lawrence, bringing both of them to the ground, he saw it.

The syringe was half empty.

More than enough to do the job.

He didn't have time to feel satisfaction. All he felt was a flurry of rock-hard fists, pounding away at his face, his head, his upper body.

"You god-"

The Soldier didn't finish. Instead, he went deathly quiet, and in a heartbeat pulled a syringe of his own. Through swollen, blood-filled eyes Lawrence could tell it was almost identical to the ones Conagher had given them.

When the Blu Soldier spoke, his voice was raw. "Eye for an eye, eh sonny?"

The syringe dug into Lawrence's arm, and an instant later the Blu Soldier fell to the ground, twitching and moaning.

Lawrence blinked back blood and sweat and finally closed his eyes to stop the stinging. He didn't know whether to brace himself for the pain or relax and hope whoever found him made it quick.

Something warm and rough surrounded Lawrence just as the first wave of pain tore through him. He barely noticed the sensation of being picked up and dragged away, and moments later, being dropped and surrounded by darkness.

Right then, there was only the burning, and the tremors, and the bile in the back of his throat, and the realization that anything was better than the white-hot pain trailing up and down his body like spiderwebs.

Even death.

Author's note: Okay, apology time.

At no point did I ever anticipate putting this story on hiatus. Six weeks or so ago I was chugging along on a chapter, and then some pretty crazy stuff happened. That includes some awful issues with work, the worst of which resulted in me completely burned out. Which the led to a hiatus, because I was disgusted with everything, writing included. Once I finally felt normal again, I had to churn out a bunch of content for work, for my novel and for another anthology with a fast-approaching deadline. I've been busy. Stupid busy. Bang-your-head-against-the-wall busy.

Now. That said. I'm sorry if any of this chapter sounds weird. It's been awhile since I've written the mercs, so I can't promise I got their voices right. Hopefully as I get back into the groove that'll get back to where it's supposed to be.

For future reference (and it's not like I expect this to happen again, but it's just a heads up), if another hiatus happens, or if I miss an update, I'll mention it on Tumblr. I can't post a chapter here saying that the chapter will be late, but I can (and will, and do) whine to no end about it on Tumblr. For the record, I'm not asking people to follow me – just, if an update's mega-late and you get curious, you might look there to see why. .com.

We should be back on track update-wise. We're getting close to the end, in case you can't tell, and I'm gonna do my best to keep it as close to what I'd originally planned as possible.

Thanks to all the people who followed, faved and reviewed this story during the down time. And another thanks to everyone who PMed me or messaged me on Tumblr asking if everything was alright.

See you all in two weeks. I promise.