BLU had taken over the old facility at the left of the train station and repelled all of RED's attacks coming from the right side. They tried to gain ground themselves but their pushes were neutralized by RED. This way, both teams found they were stuck and the situation was going on for so long it was starting to become exasperating.
"Beat it, you RED assholes!" The BLU Scout shouted from a window.
"Your dad's an asshole! Come here and kick us out yourself, if you've got balls!" RED's replied from a corner in the opposite building.
"Do you even know yours, jackass?"
"Yours wished he used a condom!"
Both teams let their hotheads talk crap to each other to keep them entertained while they figured out a strategy to invade each other's territory.
"The water room's not safe." RED's Demoman came back to say, his right foot in his hand.
Although it was time to focus, the block gave them enough time and quietness to think about what happened to Scout the other day. That transformation he didn't remember about.
The boy kept swearing he didn't remember a thing and couldn't believe at times that all of this was real to begin with. But he was shown the recordings from the security cameras and had to admit...that was really freaky. He barely recognized himself. Like, he looked cool, but at the same time he wasn't cool. He was a real monster. Yes, the other guys got on his nerves, but he would have never done the things he did to them, or say what he said. Oh, and that dirty trick Spy performed on him, pretending to be Miss Pauling, had him brushing his teeth ten times an hour and swearing to this and that that he had an alternative, he had to. Medic begged him to let him examine him, but was disappointed to find that there were no traces from Perfect Pitch and there was nothing unusual in his check-ups. Whatever happened was gone for good. There was just one treat for him: Scout mentioning a voice talking to him before he lost consciousness. But those were probably his own thoughts, so he didn't give Medic too much hope.
Oh, yes, and there was Sargeant Bug too, but Soldier was the only one who talked about him.
"A true patriot who doesn't hesitate to risk his life to fight evil! Yes, sir, I like that man!" He declared.
To which the others rolled their eyes and proceeded to ignore, because this was just one more nonsense from Soldier and what was important was that Scout never turned into Perfect Pitch again. They kept an eye on him just in case.
It would have sped things up, though...
Soldier used these moments of watching to instruct Tikki on the art of war.
"Those smurfs there are our enemies." He pointed at the mercenaries in front of them. "We are here to kick them out of this place."
"Why?" The kwami asked.
"That way, we'll have full control of the railroad."
"What for?"
"Accomplish the mission."
"Yes, but what's the point of your mission?"
"Control the railroad."
"I mean, what do you want the railroad for?"
"Expand our territory as much as we can."
"And what will you boys do with it?"
"We? Nothing. It's for our boss, Redmond Mann. It's all his."
"What does a single man need so much space and a railroad for?"
"Tikki, what did I tell you about questioning the motives behind your master's actions?" Soldier looked at her severily from under his helmet.
"Not to..." Tikki sighed.
"Exactly. We are going to use your powers to get something done here."
"Oh, no, please! I can only attack in self-defense, and never kill!"
"Aren't I your master? Then you must obey me!"
Tikki pouted and Soldier frowned.
"Don't look at me like that! I'm hungry, and cold, and so bored my fighting fire is dying, and Zhanna's coming to Teufort in three days and if we don't finish this quick, she'll be alone!"
"You've talked about her. What is she like?"
Soldier's expression changed at the mention of Zhanna. A smile replaced the frown.
"She's a beast. She's...just perfect. She will be my wife one day soon and I'll make her an American and give her six kids minimum."
Tikki giggled.
"You are so in love with her." And she quickly added what Soldier told her to say every time she addressed him. "Sir."
"Oh, yes, I am. I am the luckiest of men." Soldier nodded.
Thinking of Zhanna, thinking that she didn't deserve being left alone in a place she didn't know, gave him determination to end this and looked for a place where he could safely destroy the enemy sentry.
Engineer frowned in thought, staring at the map of the facility.
"I'm thinking...perhaps we could use a distraction...And I could build a teleporter so y'all could sneak in..."
"I already tried that." Spy replied, and turned around to show him that the back of his suit was burnt. "It didn't work. Now they have their Pyro checking all around."
"We get rid of the Pyro and get in." Heavy proposed, watching with his arms crossed.
"There's also the Demoman, with sticky bombs planted everywhere." Spy objected.
Talking about Pyros, theirs walked in carrying a big pot in her hands.
"You must be hungry, guys. I made you gumboo!" She announced with singing voice.
There was no way they could ignore her, for she placed the pot on the papers and made sure each one of them received a spoon.
Yes, perhaps eating something would have cleared their mind, but the stew she brought...It made the Engineer pale, Heavy's heart skip a beat, Spy freeze for a second. He was the only one able to talk.
"...Thank you, but...we're not hungry..."
"Oh, come on, we haven't eaten in so long. Come on, just a little spoonful. For me." Pyro begged.
The mercenaries exchanged a look.
"Don't snub me." She probably didn't mean to sound as aggressive as she did.
No, they didn't want that. Reluctantly, they sank their spoons into the gumbo. None of them wanted to, but they all ate it. Pyro smiled under the mask and joined her hands full of delight.
"I'll leave it here. Leave some for the others, okay?"
And she left, and the others were free to retch, like Engineer did, walk out to get some fresh air, which Heavy did as fast as he could, or run to the restroom to induce vomiting, what Spy did next.
Because what gave the gumbo its special taste was the limbs and the head of the BLU Heavy.
In the dark of the storage unit Merasmus was forced to live in, Merasmoth rubbed his hands at the vision in front of him.
"That was brutal! Inhuman! Utterly disgusting! It is perfect! Madness and innocence is a dangerous combination which serves perfectly to Merasmus' purpose!"
He joined his hands, creating an akuma which he sent flying.
"Go, akuma! Make that madwoman a bigger psychopath!"
And the akuma travelled to that old train station, crossed the BLU territory, passed by RED's sentries, and finally found the Pyro.
She had found a red bandana inside one of the pockets of her victim—probably kept it hidden because, you know, nothing RED was welcome in BLU—, and liked it so much she kept it. She tried to put it in several parts of her uniform, then finally decided it looked swell wrapped around her head. Now she looked like those ladies from advertisement, or Rosie the Riveter. Oh, did she like how it looked on her! She was sure her blue little friends would notice when she visited them to give them some of her gumbo.
The first creature to notice it was the akuma, which introduced itself inside it.
Then Pyro heard a voice.
"Inferno, are you bored? Merasmoth's got a little game for you. It is very fun. See this?" The image of all the jewelry appeared on Pyro's mind as clearly as if she had them in front of her.
"Pretty!" She exclaimed.
"Yes, pretty! The rules are simple: Soldier's got them. You will have to catch him, get them from him and bring them to me. The rest of the team will try to stop you..."
"Is pushing allowed?"
Merasmoth snickered evilly. "Everything is allowed in this game, so do everything necessary to get them out of the way."
She liked that game! It sounded so fun! She clapped enthusiastically as darkness engulfed her.
"...And your hat's ugly!" BLU Scout provoked RED's.
"Yo, come here and say that to my face!" Scout shouted at him, taking a few steps forward.
"Alright, that's enough." Sniper grabbed him from the shirt and got him out of there before the enemy shot at him. A shot which would have gotten him if it wasn't for his intervention.
"He started!" Scout protested.
There was a boom and the ground trembled.
"See? While you two were fighting like kids they blew something up." Sniper frowned.
They immediately ran to see what that was. They met their teammates.
"Sounds like it comes from the parking lot." Soldier said.
"Heavy, Medic, Engineer, Sniper, keep watching the front. It could be a trap. The rest of us, let's see what that was." Spy said, grabbing his revolver.
"Wait, where's Pyro?" Engineer asked, looking around, gun in hand.
"Let's hope they didn't blow him up." Soldier said, and ran to check.
Hearing him say that made Tikki feel very uneasy inside the pocket of his coat.
Sniper looked through the scope. The BLU were right where they left them. They hadn't moved. They were all looking through the windows.
"What was that?" The BLU Demoman asked.
The Engineer had to get down just in time to avoid Sniper putting a bullet in his skull—he couldn't resist, he had him in the perfect position. Theirs took a look from his scope.
"Something exploded. It's all demolished." He told his partners.
"Did we do that?" The Demoman asked.
All of them shook their heads and said no.
"Wait..." The Sniper muttered. "...Something's moving in there..."
Something enormous...
The defensive cordon in RED's territory looked around when the ground started shaking.
"Earthquake?" Heavy frowned.
"Seems like...steps..." Medic muttered, looking up, at the trembling ceiling which made dust fall over their heads.
The BLU Sniper's lips parted.
"...What the hell is that?"
"Look!" His partner the Pyro could see it without scope, and he pointed at it.
When RED's group reached the place where the explosion took place, they couldn't believe their eyes. They stopped their race suddenly.
What caused the tremor was a reptile, the biggest lizard they could have ever imagined. It had red scales, a very long and spiky tail, clawed paws. The thing flapped a pair of wings. The snout looked darker than the rest of the body, almost black, like the animal had introduced its face in a chimney and soot adhered to its scales. Spikes protruded from the top of its head too—on one of these horns there was a red bandana, like a pretty bow. If the claws looked frighteningly sharp, its fangs were completely terrifying.
"What...the...HELL!" Scout trembled.
There was no time to tell the boy to shut up. Inferno caught their scent anyway. She turned around and contemplated the group.
Her vertical pupils widened. There was Soldier, with the Ladybug Miraculous in his sleeves—her target.
Let the game begin!
She roared, making them scream and run away. They did not stay to see her charge.
When their partners appeared running and screaming, the rest of the team looked at them with confusion.
"What in Sam Hill...?" Engineer started to say.
"RUN! RUUUUN!" Soldier yelled.
The others were glued to the spot for some more seconds, as the whole building shook, announcing the coming of Inferno, who then tore down a wall with her enormous body. Now they needed no more to follow that suggestion.
"What is that?! What the bloody hell is that?!" Sniper shouted.
Soldier was running away. But Pyro was confident that she could easily win the game. She licked her massive fangs and chased him.
"They got a dragon! Those sons of bitches got a dragon!" Demoman yelled.
They all turned right and hoped the monster couldn't fit through the doors, but they had already seen that it didn't make a difference, because the dragon was too massive to be stopped by a simple barrier of bricks.
It was so massive that the floor, damaged by the years and the lack of maintenance, succumbed and crumbled. The mercenaries and Inferno fell into a bed of debris. There was no time to feel pain or shake the dust off themselves.
"The resupply room!" Spy pointed, and all of them ran to take refuge in there.
All except Soldier, who took the chance that his partners were too busy running and screaming to take a different path and take Tikki out of her hideout.
"Alright, this is one of those situations when you are allowed to use violence, right?"
"Something must be done, yes. I sense that creature was a human before." Tikki replied.
"It's happened again?" Soldier asked.
And then it hit him.
They were eight. There was one teammate missing.
"Pyro didn't blow up or get eaten by this thing. Pyro's..." He muttered.
So he had to play the exorcist again.
"Very well! Let's go, before he destroys everything!" Soldier said. "Tikki, spots on!"
And he transformed.
In the meanwhile, the team bunched together at the extreme of the room, since Inferno was trying to get into the room, unsuccessfully. Her head didn't fit. She groaned and opened her jaws. Fire came out of them, making them cling to the walls even more, if that was even possible.
"And it spits fire, of freaking course!" Scout protested.
He grabbed his Force-A-Nature and shot at the monster's head. They all did the same. But it seemed the beasts' skin was too thick to be bothered by it. Only a few bullets hitting her eyes made her a little uncomfortable, to which she protested spitting fire again. She had been warned that dirty tricks would be allowed...
"We've got to get out of here before it roasts us!" Medic said.
Engineer couldn't help thinking of Pyro in a moment like this. Where was he? Was he the first casualty? He hoped his pal was alright. Hey, perhaps he was still alive—so he said to himself, like a dim ray of hope. Perhaps he made it and was figuring out how to fight fire with fire.
His eyes met the bandana around her horn, and he remembered seeing it when Pyro came to bring them that atrocious gumbo. And an association of images and ideas hit him like a train.
"...Pyro?!" He exclaimed.
His stomach sank when the monster cocked her head at him, in recognition of that name.
"That thing is...?!" Sniper exclaimed. And now he saw how much sense it had.
"Don't tell me it happened again!" Spy groaned.
Scout transforming into a freak was one thing, but Pyro, that was completely different. Scout was way smaller and manageable. And he could be reasoned with.
Engineer still tried, just not daring to approach. "Py, come on, buddy, it's us. It is us, man."
They thought for a second that Inferno started to reconsider things. She introduced her head as deeper as she could to sniff around, study the scents.
But she realized something: Soldier's was not in there with them.
So they were distracting her! Clever, but it wouldn't work. She retreated and roamed the base looking for the only mercenary which interested her.
Scout let out a loud sigh of relief. "Okay, now what? 'Cause if Pyro's normally a pain to deal with, now..."
"Same as other day." Heavy frowned in thought.
"Do you think so? Pyro's been possessed too?" Demoman was the first to walk out of the room.
"In that case, we know what to do: find the object finding that evil butterfly." Spy said. And he felt so stupid saying this.
"Don't we need Soldier for that?" Demoman turned around to ask. "So where is he?"
Silence, when they all realized he was not with them.
"I'm gonna kill him one of these days, I swear..." Sniper grunted.
"Alright, so RED's got a dragon in the base." BLU Medic said. "A monster which will surely eat them all and might go after us next. Shouldn't we do something?"
"Nah." The Demoman grabbed a chair and popcorn and sat in front of the window to eat and watch. "It'll be fun to see how it slaughters them."
They had been ridiculing and beaten by RED for so many years. Yes, it would be one hell of a show. So they all looked for a seat and shared the popcorn.
The facility seemed empty. Inferno roamed the whole place but found nothing. Sometimes she felt something moving, saw shadows from the corner of her eyes, and spat fire, only to find it was just a little mouse or the wood cracking. But she didn't surrender. This made things more fun. It was like a tag game. Soldier could be hiding in any corner, under the planks...Inferno broke them with her claws and sniffed, trying to find his scent.
The BLU team got up from their seats when they saw it broke the front door and took a look outside. She didn't approach them yet, though. She was just checking the surroundings.
She stopped suddenly, then looked up. Just in time for Sargeant Bug to jump from a window on her head.
Inferno roared and tried to shake him off with violent jerk. She managed to squash him against a wall. She then charged; Sargeant Bug got up and ran just in time to avoid her and make her crush against it. She shook her head and grunted.
"Come here, Wally Gator..." Sargeant Bug encouraged her with a gesture of his hands to approach.
Inferno charged once again, and Sargeant Bug avoided her with the art of a bull-leaper. He found that he didn't need his rocket launcher to jump very high: when he was transformed, his legs became so very strong, and he gained agility! He kept doing this, in an attempt to tire her up. Frustrated, Inferno spat fire, intending to make him still by roasting him. Sargeant Bug let out a profanity and ran to take refuge behind a wagon. Inferno stomped on the melted wagon and tried to get him, but he wasn't there. He was jumping in the air, with his yo-yo spinning in his hands.
"You earned the muzzle, private!"
And he wrapped its cord around the dragon's mouth, keeping it close.
It was a good idea, he thought—too bad Inferno was way stronger than him. She only needed to shake her head and Sargeant Bug was sent to the ground. With her claws, she got rid of the leash and ran towards Sargeant Bug, roaring, like a gigantic nightmare.
"Eat him!" The BLU Soldier shouted from their base, and his partners howled, thirsty for blood.
Heavy spoiled their show. He grabbed a barrel, stood between Sargeant Bug and Inferno and threw it at her mouth.
She had no difficulty to break it with her jaws. Next, everyone could swear they heard her snicker. That was before getting the Russian into her jaws.
If it wasn't for Medic being there, he would have been devoured. But the Medi Gun gave him enough strength to keep the mouth open.
However, even with the uber, he wouldn't last long, and so the others rushed to help.
"Hey, you! Over here!" Scout tried to distract her, hitting her in the tail with his bat. She only needed to swing it to send him to the ground.
Spy jumped on her head and tried to stab her in the eyes, after seeing it was probably the only sensitive part of her body. That seemed to bother Inferno, because she shook her head trying to get him off her and grunted. With this, Spy managed to make her spit Heavy out, but had to face a new problem: now she wanted him dead for bothering him so much.
She slammed him against the ground and took deep breath, ready to burn him, when Medic ran as fast as he could and used all the power left in his device to create a barrier which protected them from the fire.
Engineer built a sentry which started firing bullets and missiles at Inferno, while at the same time Demoman threw bombs at her and Sniper unloaded his SMG on her, hoping all of them could wear out her skin barrier.
"What you did, is good time to do now!" Heavy shouted at Sargeant Bug.
"Roger that!" He nodded.
And he grabbed his yo-yo and exclaimed: "LUCKY CHARM!"
Again, a flash, and a ladybug-patterned object fell on his hands.
A cardboard replica of him.
"Yeah, that's exactly what we need!" Scout ironized.
Was Tikki mocking him? Were these powers blind? Or did they have a sick sense of humor? Sargeant Bug couldn't see how a cardboard poster could...
But again that strange sickness which made him see dots everywhere gave him the solution. The water channels, Demoman's stickybomb launcher, his partners' guns, the cardboard...
And, for the first time in a very long time, he had a good idea.
"Alright, gentlemen, I know what must be done. Demo, bombs here! You guys, aim at the eyes!"
Inferno saw that if she wanted to reach Soldier, she had to get rid of the others first. Using her powerful tail, she destroyed the sentry and sent her teammates to the ground. They kept shooting at her, at the eyes, as Sargeant Bug told them, but for a moment they saw themselves dead anyway, because she charged, roaring, fire coming out her nostrils. She didn't need to see them to destroy them.
"HEY! PYRO!"
She stopped at hearing that voice and turned around.
Her sight was blurry because of all shots she got, but she could distinguish Sargeant Bug's silhouette.
"IT IS ME YOU WANT! COME FOR ME!"
She was not going to reject her target when it offered itself to her. She rushed at Sargeant Bug, opened her mouth to swallow him whole...
...not noticing that she was going after his cardboard replica, and that its rear side was all covered in sticky bombs.
There was an explosion and Inferno fell to the water channel. The mercenaries cautiously approached. There was no movement for a second, and then the dragon started to writhe inside the water. The Pyro they knew loved some liquids like gasoline or soda, but water, as the natural enemy of fire, was something she barely approached to. Probably didn't even know how to swim. Seeing the way she moved, that was more than probable. The state the bomb left her in prevented her from being able to emerge. The tunnel wasn't big enough for her to drown, but she had swallowed enough water for her esophagus to feel irritate. The creature coughed, shook her head in discomfort, retched. Not a single flame came out of her.
"The bandana!" Engineer exclaimed.
Sargeant Bug grabbed it with a jump and ripped it in half. The akuma left it.
He didn't let it escape. Using his yo-yo, he repeated the process which had proved to be successful with Scout and trapped it.
"Oorah!" Sargeant Bug exclaimed, and opened it.
A white butterfly flew up, up, up, to the sky.
"And now, let's clean all this mess up!" Sargeant Bug said, and soon a swarm of magic put every brick back to its place, extinguished every fire, restored everything broken.
And Pyro recovered her human form.
"Huh?" She gasped, finding herself surrounded by water, sinking.
"And that's how you do it!" Sargeant Bug said, satisfied.
"What the hell did I just watch?" Scout rose an eyebrow.
Something similar was what the BLU team was asking itself. They were so disappointed this didn't end with a massacre.
"Really, Soldier, what is this about?" Demoman asked.
"I told you I am not Soldier. Your partner might be...I don't know. Somewhere. Don't question him. Anyway, I have to go. But I will return every time you need me. Goodbye!" Sargeant Bug said, and he jumped over the roofs.
"...Now seriously, what...?" Scout looked at his partners.
They couldn't answer. They just shrugged with different gestures.
While they were helping Pyro out of the water, Soldier appeared.
"You are alive!" He said. "The roof collapsed over me and I tried and tried but...Where's the dragon?"
"How long is this going to...?" Medic frowned, but Engineer was more of the opinion that they had to humor him.
"Everything's taken care of."
"Ah, good. And I see everything's back to normal. Good. Hope the BLU didn't take the chance to make a move."
"Well, actually..."
He was grabbed from behind by the BLU Spy. In fact, they were all surrounded by armed men.
"Thank you for unblock the situation and giving us something to entertain ourselves for a while." The BLU Spy finished the sentence.
"Blast! Soldier wasn't supposed to think! But it is alright, for soon the tables will turn, and my vengeance will be terrible! TERRIBLE, I SAY!
The humiliation round was...humiliating. Stripped from their weapons and, in Scout's case, his clothes too.
"I hate you so much..." He said to his counterpart, the one who thought it would be funny to keep him in his underwear and hit him with his boss' whip.
"You what, now?" The BLU mocked him, and hit him again in one buttock.
Soldier's BLU counterpart also stripped Soldier from his clothes in order to find hidden weapons or information. He took a look at the ladybug earrings he used as cuff links.
Soldier feared he would use them to transform into an invincible adversary.
"...You will have to pry that from my cold dead hands!" He exclaimed.
The BLU rose an eyebrow. He glanced at the earrings, then put them on the table.
"I am not interested in cheap accessories. But your papers...That's a different thing. Where are they?"
"No idea, Spy's the one who handles that." Soldier replied.
Spy glared at him. Thanks to him, he was inviting them to give him a bad time.
"Ah, so you're the one who takes care of the intel? Good to know. Engineer." BLU Soldier said.
His partner grabbed Spy and took him to another room. The team saw him come back to the room to get pliers and a battery.
In spite of the situation, Pyro giggled.
"What's so damn funny about this? This is all your fault." Sniper frowned.
Oh, he just wouldn't get it! To Pyro, they were still playing a funny game with ropes and disimulation.
But Soldier understood, in a way, and agreed with her enough to start chuckling too.
"That's the spirit, private! We're gonna get out of here soon and kill all of you maggots."
"Wishful thinking..." BLU Soldier said.
Oh, he would see...They would all see...