"God!" what's taking them so long?" Scout cried out in annoyance as he slammed his hands against the table. Spy, who was seated away on one of the courches in the common area removed the cigarette from their lips as he blew out a stream of smoke, "Need I remind you that it's quite a long trip from here to town? Miss Pauling said they would be here at 1 sharp and it's only been about 10 minutes passed. Knowing her, they are either here or just arrived." He reasoned.

For the first time in a long while the whole team was there, all seated around as they waited for their newest member. Many of them were feeling a broad spectrum of different emotions, jittering about, for the newest class. Every single one of them had a different impression of who'd they'll be judging on the state of their crate.

They found random items in that box, but there was hardly any clothing in there to judge. The box was rather bland as they shifted through the top of it. Poorly made candles, books, and random fabrics that were coarsely cut on the edges. There was a box of beads and yarn. Scout even pulled out a decent sized wooden cross out of the box. The rest were in safe boxed below, unable to be seen as they quickly examined the carefully sealed crate.

It left most of them to talk, whisper, and imagine what type of mercenary this would be.

From the first day each and every one of them started this job for RED, they were aware of the 10th, empty room that had always lingered at the end of the hall. Unlike all the other doors down the hall, this one had two slots on it for class slots. Originally, the Heavy's emblem was on top of the door, however Miss Pauling had quickly plucked it off from day one and moved it to the other vacant room towards the side. After that, the Spy's emblem was left and was quickly moved as well. From there, Miss Pauling had pulled out a new slip from her clipboard. With careful hands, she slipped it into the slot and softly grazed her hands over it, only to quickly turn away and look at all of them again. All that was left was the last emblem she left hanging on the door for more than a year later.

A skull and crossbones.

It was odd to see at first. With a symbol that means danger, it left a curious ebb in all of them. Scout had joked that maybe a pirate would be joining their crew, however Miss Pauling wasn't as adamant as he was to hear him joking about it, or anyone for that matter. That impression left a lasting mark on them, this curiosity that would spike as the year went on. It had died down as the years progressed but sometimes it would linger up again. When Miss Pauling had mentioned the arrival of the 10th class again, everyone turned towards the empty room.

Medic had reasoned that the skull and crossbones were used as a symbol for danger or as a label for anything poisonous to the human body, and thus the 10th class was most likely someone who had to deal with dangerous chemicals. A chemist as he put it, and hopefully someone who could match his intellect. Sniper reasoned that perhaps it was a powerhouse like heavy, a bulk, close ranged combaten able to beat the crude out of anyone and anything. It had to be a dangerous class with a mark like that.

Spy had simply stood at the back of the group for that announcement, a hand resting under his chin as his eyes darted at the blankness of everything, considering about every option there could be. Miss Pauling had told him specifically that he could not look into the background of the 10th hunter, however that was at the beginning when they had all initially joined. A year later, there wasn't a single warning not to do it and his curiosity was growing. There was a burning sense that he needed to know about everything.

As a man skilled in Espionage and having lived most of his life in such a condition, he imagined that it wouldn't have been too difficult to find information on this new individual. In a way, he understood what Miss Pauling meant when she said not to look at their backstory as the days kept on passing by. As much as he tried, he could hardly find anything at all. If anything, he had more questions than answers over who this class was. There were only rumors, tales that lead to dead ends and ones that looped back to the start. The farthest back he could even trace was from 14 years back when the tracks burn into the ground with nothing past it. It was frustrating, but intriguing all the same. Spy was left with only the assumption he's managed to collect, bits and pieces he could only imagine and wait to fill out himself. However there was one thing he knew, and that was their title.

Man Hunter.

Everyone had a set impression of what they thought the 10th class would be, and that was that.

Now, there they all were, sitting within the common area as the men played card games at the tables, other reading and writing, doing work that needed to be attended to. Spy even slightly impressed by Medic's curiosity. The usual hermit had sat himself at one of the barstools with files upon files of papers, furiously scribbling things down as he worked, attempting to drown out the sounds from the rowdy bunch. Archimedes was persistently sitting by his side, nibbling on the papers left discarded to the side.

The dining table was covered in cards, chips, booze bottles, and cans of Bonk. Scout, Demoman, and Soldier were all crying, playing a couple game of cards as they were the loudest and rowdiest of the bunch. Sniper was left to his own device in the corner of the room. His legs were propped up on a table as a bottle of chilled beer sat beside him. His hand rested on his rifle as he smoothed it over with a rag, cleaning it as he looked out, pensive. Engineer was in the kitchen, cooking up a storm for lunch and for the newest member and Spy had no doubt he would cook even more than usual. Pryo was there, seated at one the table indies of the kitchen mumbling here and there his muffled demands as he swung his legs from the chairs. Heavy and Spy across from one another as they each held their respective books as they read but Spy knew that everyone, one way or another, was too distracted to focus.

The clock ticked in the background, haunting each and every one of them as they waited anxiously.

The door creaked open suddenly. All eyes turned to look at the person entering only for hums of slight disappointment to resound. Miss Pauling cleared her throat as she looked at all of them, attentive eyes all on her. She paused as she heard a noise emanating from the kitchen as the two others there stumbled out, wondering why all the loud yelling suddenly disappeared.

"Gentlemen", Miss Pauling began to say, straightening out. "As you are all aware, you have a new Teammate. I know that many of you have probably seen her emblem around before you even knew about the 10th class, but it's finally happening now. Due to the year in between initial recruitment, she will have to be evaluated once again. if all goes well, she will be joining you all permanently."

She looked at the clock on the wall again and pursed her lips. "I will have to go, but I want all of you to behave and be nice to her. She will be working with you all and I hope you can respect one another. Their class is the Hunter, and they are currently in the shower and will be with you all shortly. I need to leave now but if you have any questions, ask Hunter, she's been briefed on most of it already and can probably answer most of your questions."

With that she turned on her heels and walked towards the door, opening it as she turned towards them once more. "Goodbye Gentlemen, I'll see you all another time." and with that she was gone as the echo of her heels silently went off down the hall. A silence filled the room for a moment as all eyes turned to look at each other.

"THE 10TH CLASS IS A GIRL!"

Soldier shot up, the table shaking as his knees hit the table, leaning forwards over the cards and chips. "You're concerned about that?" Scout called out, rushing up, "There is currently a NAKED girl in OUR showers. I don't know about you, but I wanna see that." With that, he was darting for the door. Demoman laughed, taking a large swig of his booze as he sighed satisfactions, "Lad, wait for me!" and thus he started following after them. The rest of the men proceeded to get up as they followed after the two.

"Give girl privacy!" Heavy called out as he shut his book and rushed after them. "A bunch of perverts." Spy cursed out under his breath as he began to walk with the group as well. Engineer grabbed his hardhat and ran back into the kitchen to shut everything off as Pyro looked around at the group and began to skip towards them too. "Wait for me!" Engineer called out as he ran out.

And down the hall every single one of them went.

"Batatas! Cabrón, podrías dejar de moverte por un segundo?"

She laughed as she hugged the squirming bundle to her chest, holding a pail to her side as she hummed. Miss Pauling smiled at that, looking at the pair as she walked beside her.

"Are the showers also contaminated?" she asked with mild curiosity as they walked towards the showers. "We recently put in a couple new pipes and changed things around a bit once they burst. They should, in theory, be good. I suggest using your filter however. Bottled waters however are always accessible since there's lead in practically everything." Hunter frowd a bit at that, but nodded.

"At least I can give this guy a bath to clean him up."

they arrived at the shower doors where Hunter paused, turning to Miss Pauling. "I hope I'm not keeping you too long Dama." she stated as the younger woman shook her head. "Not at all. You've been debriefed on everything so you should be able to handle introductions on your own, right?" Hunter nodded, "Of course. You can count on me for that, Dama." Miss Pauling looked at her watch again and hummed.

"They should be in the dining area. It shouldn't be hard to find since that's where all the noise is coming from. I'll inform them that you're here and you'll see them in a bit. Need anything, you know where the phone is but again…"

"Use it only for emergencies since you are such a busy woman. Admirably so."

Miss Pauling flushed a bit at that and shook her head, "I would agree if it wasn't so… taxing." she stated with a grin and walked off to do just that. "Take care Hunter!" And then the other woman smiled broadly. "Hasta luego!" and with that, Hunter was alone. She sighed looking after Miss Pauling who quickly walked down the hall towards the others.

She would be lying if she said she wasn't a bit nervous. Having been away from people for so long, it felt odd to be thrusted in such an environment like this, but to have a piece of mind and consider everything over, she enjoyed the idea that the young woman allowed her to take a break on her own to think about the introduction she would have to do.

With heavy clicks of her ebony heels, she walked towards the door to the bathroom and pushed it open. Hunter was welcomed to the sight of the bathroom, being smaller than she really imagined it to be, but to be honest, she wasn't expecting much. There five stalls against the left side of the wall, large enough with curtains covering each and everyone and from the look of it from the outside, they looked decently sized, if not large compared to her. On the right side of the wall, there were five sinks, all aligned besides one another as a large, long stretching mirror covered the side completely.

She simply sighed in relief when she realized there were stalls to begin with. The thing she was fearful was, was the fact the showers would all be opened, with simple shower heads on top side by side without any form of privacy in between.

All the curtain to the stalls were opened and with careful steps, holding the pail in her left hand and the platypus in her other arm, she slowly strutted by, looking inside each and everyone. Once she had inspected all of them, she picked the cleanest one. She removed her heels and placed them by the sides of the stall. The pail was also put down as Batatas was carefully placed inside. He squeaked lightly, his little tail tapping against the metallic material in a beat as he stood on his hind legs, looking up at her, rumbling.

She grabbed the edges of her skirt crimson skirt and crumpled it up in her right hand as she took one step inside, reaching for the head as she turned it away towards the opposite wall. Then, she turned the nozzle on and reached her hand towards the spray, feeling the mist cast over her dress, and the warm water turning colder the longer she held it at the end. She smiled slightly at that and stood back turning to the bucket where the platypus eagerly rumbled and whined. Scooping him up she placed him inside and grabbed the homemade soap like mixture she had for him. She placed the little balled up mess to the side and leaned down towards him, seeing the little guy roll over as he did.

She began to laugh as she looked at the happy boy. His hind leg lifted up to scratch his behind as he rolled his front torso over to the side as he squeaked in joy. She lowered her hand and began to pet the top of him as he whined in joy.

"Water must be nice after such a long, and dry trip."

Her eyes darted towards the dirty water coming off of him and frowned.

"Now to clean you up cabrón."

And with that she began to rub his smooth, brown body as he twisted and turned. The dark brown brushing off of him as she did. Grabbing a little bit of the ball, she rubbed a very small amount into her palms and brushed over him. She needed to get him as clean as he could be with all the desert air clinging onto his skin, and the cool the little idiot down.

She was so entranced by cleaning Batatas up that she almost didn't hear the door to the showers open.

Almost.

Author's Note

I hope you guys are enjoying the story so far. TBH, as much as I wanted to write this, it's always harder to think of a beginning than it is to get the middle and the end. You already have an idea of interactions, or how these relationships are but it's a matter of developing and actually creating them that has always seemed challenging.

There are two things I would like to note for this chapter and for ones to come that I hope you call can consider:

Batatas is a Platypus and I only did research on one specific area of the Platypus which you guys will find later. As a result, I will most likely, if anything, get some things wrong when writing to him. For example, he is getting cleaned this chapter however there is encouragement of little soap, and better yet homemade soap, due to the fact that some animals shouldn't be washed with it. Some hold natural oils that protect them, and there are other factors to washing a creature. So platypus facts may be inaccurate, however I want his waddle and movement to be.

The second thing is language. I know how to talk in Spanish mildly. I used to be very good at Spanish before I moved to college where I haven't found myself around others who also speak it so my Spanish is rather lacking than before when I was more or less fluent. Without practice, you can tend to lose that ability. Thus most of Spanish, or most of all the languages I do are going to be through some sort of translator. I will use some Google Translate, however I'm gonna also use some random websites. Google Translate is the most readily available, however form experience, it's horrid to use and not very accurate at all. For example, when Yams was put into the translator, I got Batatas which I never heard before in my life. I always knew yams, or rather sweet potatoes, as camote but at the same time, this is also how I learned that Batatas are white sweet potatoes. You learn something new everyday it seems.

I hope you guys are liking the story so far, and hopefully I will continue to update regularly. Comments and other things are what encourages me to write and I am so happy when you do. So thank you so much. I appreciate you and hope you have a good day.