TEAM FORTRESS 2 IS A GAME BY VALVE
Spy took too many risks to get Scout out of the danger zone after a shot in the leg crippled him, but he managed to bring the boy alive.
"Medic!" He shouted, seeing how he was losing too much blood.
But Medic could help no one at the moment: he had been pushed to the ground by the blast wave of a grenade and hit his head with a rock in the fall. He had not recovered consciousness yet. Heavy was carrying him in his arms to the dispenser, trying desperately to wake him up, show some sign of life. Engineer's nest seemed the only safe spot they had. Around them were only robots, massive robots, with seemingly unlimited ammo. Engineer tried to keep the sentry and the dispenser working desperately under the fire, but for how long? The robots soon understood that both machines were what kept the mercenaries alive and focused their strategy on taking them down.
Retreating was impossible. An undefined number of snipers made sure of it—Pyro found out the hard way: she was still alive because she managed to cock her head just in time to keep her brains in their place but her mask was damaged.
They wouldn't last long. That idea was on everyone's minds, even though they kept fighting like there was a chance, held onto the smallest, tiniest hope.
But it was a matter of time that the robots would get them. Sooner or later, they would.
All of them were dead already, Soldier thought.
He looked around, gazed at his partners—his brothers. Their clothes and skin were stained with each other's and their own blood. When they ran out of ammo, they used their weapons in any way they could, like Sniper, who broke his SMG hitting a Robo-Scout that was approaching too much.
Men he had lived with for six years. With whom he had shared endless nights on duty, canned food, beers under the stars, scarcity, blood even. Some good laughter too. Like the conga lines over the corpses of their enemies, the skull-cracking games just to kill time. They got to know each other in a deep level. Give a crap when no one else out there would have minded if they had ended up eaten by vermin in the middle of nowhere.
He looked at Demoman and thought of his blind mother. Scout, who was just a kid who had all of his life ahead of him. Heavy...If he didn't make it, it would kill Zhanna...Some had someone out there waiting for them to go back home. Some others didn't, that he knew, but that didn't mean they had to die like this. They had to die from very old age, while sleeping in their beds.
Zhanna...Thinking of whoever his partners had made him remember his fiancée, the only family, in a way, that he had in the world...So beautiful...So deadly and ruthless...
...He knew what their plans for the future were, what he promised her...But she would understand...
A soldier's got to do what he has to do...
"Sniper." His thunderous voice was heard over the explosions and the shots. "Pay attention. Perhaps you can spot the bastards hiding around...I'm gonna end this once and for all."
Demoman stopped and looked at him. "What are you going to do?"
Knowing Soldier, it could only be something crazy.
Soldier gazed at Pyro, who could barely keep herself standing and was staring at him. He didn't reply. He just looked down, at the grenades in his belt. He would need something more potent.
Not replying to Demoman and Sniper's insistent questions, he grabbed one of his one-eyed partner's explosives and ran out of the nest. Medic opened his eyes just in time to see him run towards the robots, unarmed, alone.
"SOLDIER!" Demoman yelled, going pale.
"Have you lost your mind?!" Spy exclaimed.
"Get back here! No!" Engineer hesitated whether to go after him or not.
Soldier turned around, looked at each one of them under the helmet and saluted them, his chest swollen, grinning like he always did.
Once the robots detected this target, they didn't waste a single second.
Soldier's smile broke when, suddenly, he was hit by a bullet to the chest. Another one got him in the stomach. One hit a rib; two others, almost simultaneous, went through the chest, around the heart.
"SOLDIER!" That shout could have been everyone's.
Sniper didn't let himself get distracted—there was nothing he could have done. He forced himself to follow Soldier's orders. To look away and follow the trace of the shots.
"There, Pyro!" He shouted to his partner. He still had some bullets left, which he had been saving, and Pyro had her flare gun; they could do this. At his signal, Pyro shot into the direction some of the shots came from, and they saw an iron giant running around aimlessly, like panicking, in the distance, all covered in flames, before falling down the stone wall. Sniper got another son of a bitch in the head.
Soldier did not stop. Allí of this just slowed him down. Even if he couldn't breathe. Even if his body was numbing. He kept running towards the robots. They were surrounding him, ready to turn him into a bloody pulp on the ground.
His men and him wouldn't die like dogs.
They were on him. It was the moment. He grabbed one of his grenades and pulled the pin with his teeth.
"C'mere, cupcakes...!"
The robotic versions of him got ready to fire. He smirked, and then he disappeared in an explosion of metal, blood, soil and fire.
After that boom that shook the whole valley, silence followed, a silence and stillness only Spy dared to break.
"Let's go."
No one moved, those who did barely an inch.
"If we stay, it will have been for nothing. Go!" Spy insisted.
"Come on, everyone...Let's go..." Engineer's voice trembled as he spoke, grabbing his box and leaving.
It was not improbable that more robots were on their way...
All of them looked back at some point, like expecting him to return, to show up unscratched. Demoman had to softly push Scout, because he kept staring, with tears in his face, sobbing quietly.
After a year, Coal Town was still burnt to the ground, a cursed land nobody wanted to rebuild. Everything was practically the way they left it, with all the rubble, the rusty pieces of machinery scattered on the floor.
And in the middle of that no man's land, a solitary tombstone. Soldier had spent alone most of his life, and it almost seemed the next life wouldn't be any different. But it was not true, because that grave was not abandoned. Absolutely. All the members of the team and Zhanna made sure that this tombstone was well taken care of. After all, Soldier didn't even tolerate finding mud in their boots.
Flowers were a bit of a sissy thing, so they put ears they cut from their enemies instead. And, of course, the American flag, so he could wave it forever proudly. That day, when the team showed up, they offered him the beer they had been saving from last night's toast. It was hard not to get nine drinks anymore, even after so long. So many times they expected him to show up, naked, bathed in honey, rocketing through the roof, with a family of raccoons on his shoulders, beating Merasmus up...
They couldn't live with it, but now they found that it was being hard to live without it too...
Heavy was proud of how his sister was handling this, surprisingly kind of better than they did. She almost seemed happy about it. After all, not many had the opportunity to die the way they want, and Soldier did. And he gave up his life for others. The best death for the best man.
In silence, all of them remembered that day when Soldier saved the lives of his team at the cost of his own. If they ever had children or grandchildren something possible thanks to Soldier, they would tell them about his courage and sacrifice.
"Oorah!"
Demoman looked around.
"...Did you hear that?" He asked in low voice.
"What?" Scout asked.
All of them listened, just in case they were in trouble.
Nothing.
"It was just the wind." Medic said.
"Boots on the ground, boys!"
"Now I've heard something." Engineer said, looking around. "But it can't..."
"SCREAMIN' EAGLEEEE!"
Damn, all of them could hear it now! It was impossible not to. There was an explosion which shook the valley and a figure flew over their heads, a rocket launcher over its shoulder.
"QUIT THE CRYING, PRIVATES! YOU LOOK LIKE A BUNCH OF FAIRIES! YOU CAN'T GET RID OF ME SO EASILY! DEATH CAN'T KILL THIS OLD WOLF! I AM NEVER LEAVING THIS TEAM! I AM LIVING FOREVER!"
THE END
In loving memory of Rick May (1940-2020)
