When dawn arrived a sleepy Demoman came wandering out of the base, bending down to pull up the shutter gate that separated the mercenaries from the outside. Still wearing the thin red jacket that made an attempt to keep him warm, he rubbed his one eye and yawned, not yet realising that neither of the two mercenaries on guard that night were around.
He walked out into the open, his mind not yet awake, and called out, "Aye lads, ye can go back inside now. I'll take over yer shift now." When no response came, he frowned, looking around. "Lads?"
His question was greeted with nothing but silence and the distant call of birds flying across the pale dawn sky. Neither of the mercenaries were hanging around, waiting for someone to come take their shift. Maybe they're further down, Demoman thought. Unsheathing his Eyelander in case of anything, he held it close and began to make his way down to the shipyard where bots usually streamed in from.
As he walked, he kept a watchful eye out for any sign of the two mercenaries. Every second he didn't see any trace of them got him even more worried, making him speed up his pace and hurry to the shipyard.
The shipyard was as quiet as a ghost town. It seemed… peaceful. Streams of light filtered in from the roof panels on top and came in directly through the large ledge that led to Gray's moveable bot deployment facility, painting the shipyard in a milky dawn light. Nothing seemed out of place.
Demoman wandered around, heading up the ramp to the higher platforms where sometimes Engineer would set up his sentry. He would have gone up the stairs had he not tripped over something hard.
"Bloody hell-!" Demoman hissed, looking back to glare at the offending piece of whatever it was he'd tripped on. One eyebrow raised in curiousity as he stared at the piece of scrap metal. He was no engineer, but nonetheless he bent down to take a better look at it. He picked it up, feeling over the smooth, blue edges of the metal. It wasn't much of a sight to see, but it did lead to more scraps of metal. Not much of the original machine could be told from the scraps lying around, so he started to rearrange them in a way that made sense.
It took a few tries to swap around the bits of broken scrap before it resembled something round and vaguely familiar. He gasped. Before him was the remains of a teleporter.
"Bloody fookin' hell," Demoman hissed, collecting the scrap metal in his arms and making a run back to base. He couldn't quite make the story out entirely, but he had the idea that Pyro and Medic were both gone, and the bots were at fault. Of course! The bloody bots would pick them off at night. I just hope the lads are alright, Demoman though, smacking himself mentally.
Upon reaching back to the base, he flung the shutter open with his foot, having no hands free. He dumped down the metal and yelled for the others to get off their asses and take a look. A tired and irritated Heavy was the first to respond, slowly coming down the stairs with a yawn.
"What does leetle bomb man want?" He demanded, his eyes slowly drifting to the metal. The large Russian fighter suddenly froze, his eyes darkening. "Where is Doktor? And Pyro?"
Engineer was the next to come down, followed by Scout dragging himself and flopping down at the table. "This better be good if ya goons dragged me outta my sleep," Scout snapped irritably, completely ignoring the metal on the table.
The RED Texan stared at the metal scraps, scratching his head. "Uhm… d'ya wanna explain this, Demo?" He asked, even though he somewhat had an idea of what had happened when he realised Medic and Pyro were not around.
"That's th' thing lad, I don't know what happen. All I know is that th' Doc and Pyro are gone and this," He said, gesturing to the metal, "has something ta do with it. I tried ta do a little reassemblin' and it looks like a teleporter."
Engineer frowned, opening his mouth to say something when Scout leapt up. "Whoa whoa, ya mean Doc and Mumbles got captured by bots?" He said, his eyes wide with excitement. "Man, then we gotta go get em! Who knows what that creepy old man is doing with them!"
"Settle down boy," Engineer warned. "We don't really know what happened. Demo, you sure this is what happened? When did it happen?"
Demoman shrugged. "Beats me lad. I just go out ta take over their shift and they ain't there. Must've happened last night while we were all sleeping."
"Guys, what the hell are we waitin' for? We gotta find em!" Scout chimed in again.
"Does Ms Pauling know?" Heavy asked. "We should tell her, or old woman will get angry if we just leave. Backup needed as well."
"Man, ya wanna wait? We can take on the bots!" Scout hissed.
Heavy stared him down. "Nyet. You are scrawny leetle boy and we cannot take on the bots ourselves. We must call for backup."
The team of four stared at each other for a moment, before Engineer took out his radio and began to make contact with Ms Pauling.
…
"What do you mean, 'they got captured'?" Ms Pauling hissed into the radio. She was hurrying over to the RED base in Teufort to find enough mercenaries to send to help. "The Administrator is going to kill you for this. Look, I can't send anyone noticeable or I'm going to get skinned alive. I'll try to do what I can, but I can't promise anything. Just… look, if you can kill Gray Mann while you're there maybe the Administrator will spare you, because one way or another she's going to find out."
"So… ya want us to kill Gray Mann too?" Engineer asked. "All we're looking to do is just, y'know, bust out Doc and Pyro."
"Yes Engineer, that is what I'm saying. If you don't you're probably going to die by the Administrator's hand. It's just advice. Now I need to go, but I'll try to send someone over, okay?" Ms Pauling said, not waiting for a reply before she clicked off the radio and hurried into the RED fort.
Her heels clicked against the wood floor as she walked briskly, making her presence known to the present mercenaries. Sniper glanced up from his newspaper, raising en eyebrow at the sight of the lady in purple.
"Surprise ta see ya here, Ms Paulin'. Ya need somethin'?" The Aussie marksman asked. Ms Pauling usually didn't show up unless she had monthly reports or unless it was an urgent matter. And it was not monthly report time.
"Where's Spy?" Ms Pauling asked. She knew Spy would be the only one who would go and actually be somewhat useful, or even go, for that matter. She looked around for the hooded assassin, but his presence was not in the room. Ms Pauling had gotten very good at telling when Spy was in a room, but cloaked, just through gut feeling, but he wasn't around.
"Th' bloody bloke went ta go brood in his smokin' room," Sniper answered, flipping up his newspaper again. Ms Pauling briefly thanked him and hurried away, ignoring any of the other REDs who made comment about her sudden presence. She stopped before the heavy cedar wood door that kept other mercenaries out from Spy's personal smoking room, flinging the door open without knocking.
Instinctively Spy stood up and pointed his silver engraved revolver at the intruder, a scowl formed on his masked face. His hood was down on his shoulders, so his eyes weren't shrouded by darkness. He relaxed when he saw Ms Pauling walking up to him, and kept his revolver away.
"My apologies, Ms Pauling. I did not expect you," Spy said, turning towards her. He was significantly taller and had to look down at the short lady when he spoke. Ms Pauling grabbed his wrist and began to drag him towards the door without a word. Irritated by the action, he dug his heels into the floor, preventing her from pulling him any further. He pulled his wrist from her grip.
"Maybe you'd like to explain yourself, before you start dragging me places? You seem flustered," Spy commented.
Ms Pauling spun around to look at him. "The mercenaries fighting off Gray have gotten themselves into a little bit of trouble and they're requesting backup," she said, not wanting to go through the lengthy explanation.
Spy thoughtfully put a cigarette to his lips, taking a brief moment out of their conversation to light it. "And you need me because…?"
"Because you're the only one who will actually go…"
"Not true. You can ask Soldier. That madman will gladly go."
"…without fucking things up."
Spy paused. "Fair point. Although I fid it a bit ridiculous that you'd be asking me to go. If they've requested backup to fight robots, then I don't think it'd be fair for me to say I'm the most… useful against robots." It was a little hurtful for him to say that, but he was honest.
"The thing is Spy, the Administrator doesn't know yet. She's going to find out soon but where possible she doesn't need to know. Anyone else's disappearance from battle will be too obvious. You're the only one who can leave and no one will know, at least not for now," Ms Pauling said.
Spy considered it for a moment. "Raise my pay and I'll do it." Irritated, Ms Pauling took out her wallet and handed him an extra hundred dollars to show she was serious.
"You'll get the rest later," she said, hurrying off again. Spy smiled, tucking the money into his jacket, and followed her without complaint. He flipped up his hood again, refusing to answer any questions from anyone who asked.
…
The band of robot-fighting mercenaries weren't particularly glad when their only backup was a Spy. "He'll have to do," Ms Pauling said curtly. "Now I have to hurry back or the Administrator is going to find out." Before any of the mercenaries could ask questions, she turned and walked away, leaving them to help themselves.
The team of five looked at each other. "So what's the plan?" Scout asked. He didn't notice Spy giving him a certain, unreadable look, but the Spy was starting to regret his decision. Not you again.
"The plan?" Engineer asked. "We storm in, get them, and get the hell out."
In theory it was a decent plan. Storm in with the biggest guns possible, shoot everything that moved, and go get the mercenaries. Put into practice, however… it was by far the stupidest idea ever thought of.
But stupid plans sometimes worked out.
Sometimes.
