Once an industrial style battlefield masquerading as an abandoned power plant, Hydro had changed drastically from the last time the warring bands of mercenaries had been here. On the surface, perhaps, nothing was amiss: the bases were tucked into their corners, water rushed out the bottom of the dam uninterrupted. However, it was what lay beneath that was unrecognizable. Tunnels had been bored into the red earth like Hydro had become the home of a hundred giant ants; passages and shafts that went nowhere, an unexplained mine that had simply sprung into existence.
The RED Sniper stood in front of a basement sinkhole and scratched his head. The BLU Pyro found one bursting through where their bunk used to be, and began puffing flames down the tunnel, seeing how far the darkness would go. However, no one had time to do more than acknowledge their existence. A match was starting early in the morning, after all.
No, the only regard the weird new holes in lower levels of the base were afforded were brief huh s of curiosity, or maybe as an interesting morsel of small talk over dinner, but that was all. Certainly stranger things had happened. No one had the energy for more. Two evenly matched teams went off to bed, aiming to recover from the long drive south.
Morning found RED and BLU shouldering their weapons, blinking away sleep as they observed the inside of their respective gates. Some of the most enthusiastic were running over internal maps in their mind, trying to refresh on the best sentry spots or flank routes, where the good ammo packs spawned. Most just stared ahead, urging the gates to open so they could get on with the day.
"Announcement begins in ten minutes."
For anyone paying attention, they would have noticed something off about the Administrator, and her message. Some did. The RED Engineer muttered something to his Pyro, who could only shrug, but discerning something wrong didn't actually help him in the least. He was just as stuck as the rest of his team, waiting, listening for the catch.
No one had to wait long. Because, just as the voice implied, the mission did not begin.
At 8AM, the time the doors had opened every morning without fail for the past six years, they stayed resolutely sealed, almost mockingly. A couple of the mercs tugged on the gates, but it was just as fruitful as trying to pry them open outside of working hours. The teams began to huddle close to each other, discussing what to do, theorizing that it was a malfunction or maybe even some sort of sudden attempt at relocation. Hydro itself had actually popped up on the schedule rather suddenly after all, maybe it hadn't been intended to be there in the first place.
All speculations were silenced as the promised announcement came on.
"Congratulations. You have unlocked Sudden Death. From this moment on respawn will be disabled and attempts to leave designated map premises are not permitted. Please proceed to kill all members of the opposing team as in compliance with previous mission details. Sudden Death will persist until mission completion. Good luck."
The message lasted less than thirty seconds. It was followed by ten seconds of dead silence before all hell broke loose.
