A pair of REDs were lost in the trenches.
Scout wished they could have been lost a little longer. As soon as he had the bright idea to 'just go up' and started making real progress away from the Administrator's room—static-y, sparking, bloodstained room—the fresh air was so unbelievable it almost made him dizzy. It felt appropriate that they'd be trapped down there forever, endlessly going about in the same circles until time was just a thing that used to happen to other people. When sunlight touched his face again, he collapsed against the mouth of the tunnel in relief.
He pretended it was to catch his breath. Soldier was with him after all. There was still a war on. There was still Demo's blood splattered all over his chest. The Soldier caught up to him, he too leaning against the cave mouth, palm pressed flat against the cool earth, blood dripping from his arm into little puddles in the dirt.
"Finally," Scout said. His voice didn't sound quite real to him. Hoarse. Like he was just saying what he was supposed to be saying without really there being more. "Christ you're slow. If you hadn't just taken a bullet for me I woulda ditched you."
"Negatory! I did not take a bullet for you, shortstop."
"Oh." His mind felt like molasses, but he was still reasonably sure he wasn't imagining the blood dripping out of Soldier's sleeve. "Really?"
"Correct. I took two bullets for you." Soldier reached down and tugged aside where his uniform was ripped and fraying.
"Christ!" Scout leapt back.
If the arm was a drizzle then the Soldier's gut wound was a torrent, blood sticking fabric to skin in a splotch the size of a basketball. He couldn't even see the bullet hole itself through all the misshapen shapes of stiffened uniform.
"Is that-?" Scout began. "Shit, of course it's bad. Why the hell didn't you say anything Soldier!"
"We were running," Soldier replied simply.
"Man, don't give me that crap."
"I will give you all the crap I like, maggot." Soldier's expression darkened. "You killed Demoman."
"I didn't kill- He ain't dead." Said with no conviction, not confidence but his own mind when he'd seen Demo's face blank out. One shot couldn't have killed him. Right?
Soldier remained infuriatingly silent.
"You heard him," Scout insisted. "He was the- the insider or whatever Spy was saying."
"I did not hear Spy say anything about insides."
"He said it to me, alright. It was a private conversation. Like a…a m-mission."
God it sounded so stupid when he said it. Soldier's glare didn't help.
So. Scout had killed Demo. It'd felt right in the stock in his hands because the people who'd killed Engie were right there and Demo was telling him to stand down? To go back to having their lives only at someone else's whims? But with the adrenaline wearing off Scout couldn't keep a spike of regret from jabbing him in the throat. Demo was an ass but he'd been a competent ass; now Scout really was alone without a team. Just some half-brained Soldier who'd probably find some way to get them both killed before the day was out.
"Come on," Scout grumbled. "We better find some way to deal with. That." He started to walk.
"How?"
God, Scout wasn't ready to be the thinker of the team. When it came to being RED's last hope, that just didn't fit.
"I don't know." He kept walking. "We could loot around some place, get some medical supplies…"
"Where?"
He whipped around, facing the large, bleeding man who'd been following him like a dog. "I don't know Soldier. I don't know! But if we don't do something there'll be an infection or…fuck man. We'll figure something out."
Soldier stared at him, expectantly.
Scout had never thought much of him, had found him annoying but mostly empty of genuine malice. There was something hard to hate about the Soldier, especially when he's standing in front of you, glancing down past his helmet, looking at you like you're the one understandable thing in his world.
Scout rubbed his face. "We could…we could go try the base again. There might be some medical supplies in the infirmary or…" His mind began to churn. "The mediguns would still be there. It's not like he had them on him…"
"We didn't find any mediguns last time we were at the base," Soldier frowned.
"We barely had any time! Those BLUs showed up before we got a real chance to poke around." Scout was growing more confident in the idea. "If we had just one a' those, nobody in this whole canyon could mess with us."
The lines around Soldier's mouth deepened. "I do not know how to work the medigun."
"Can't be too hard right? Flip that little switch and vvvvvvvv." Scout made the appropriate noise. He was walking again.
"But-"
"Do you wanna get healed or not?"
If fate was going to put Scout in charge, then fine. He'd freaking take charge.
The exit from the trenches could have dropped them anywhere, but at the very least it had the decency to put them on RED's half of the map. The hike back was quicker than the hike to the Administrator's control room, and Scout was grateful his patience wouldn't have to suffer another mind-numbing trek. Within the hour, he was clambering over the corpse of the satellite dish.
"Don't follow me," he waved away as Soldier tried to climb up after him. "You lost like, a bucket of blood on the walk over here. Just sit down, Scout's got this handled."
The sun was well past its zenith, sweating a sticky line into Scout's back as he clambered over what used to be RED's best-defended base. They'd found Engie and Medic near the final capture, which meant the infirmary couldn't be too far away. All he had to do was climb down, get the gun and they'd be golden. Forget about a plan for after. Forget they were still in a hole in the ground in the middle of the desert miles from civilization, surrounded on all sides by various groups that wanted them dead. This, at least, was something he could get some control over.
The good light was fading. It was still a decent blush in the sky, but on the ground everything was grey and starting to blend together. His palms dampened as he hurried his pace.
"Remember to lift with your back, son!" Soldier called over the rubble.
"You ain't supposed to- uhg."
The press of time almost had its jaws around Scout's neck when he finally spied it between the protruding pieces of rebar: the dark grey cylinder, reticulated like a bendy straw, about two floors down from where Scout hung from ground level. All he had to do was lower himself to the next floor, and take them one at a time.
He did. And immediately fell as the entire base gave way under him.
"Scout!"
But Soldier's voice withdrew in seconds, the distance increasing as Scout crashed through one layer, then two. He was so surprised he didn't have time to shout. His lungs merely gave a pathetic little guh as he tumbled through two layers of broken concrete.
Halfway down, his back cracked against a piece of rebar with the pounds-per-square-inch of a gunshot.
Even before he hit the ground he knew how bad it was. He landed in a sprawl, the back of his head in a puddle of muddy water on the tile of the former infirmary. Above him was a hole all the way to the surface, that deceptive grey-light streaming through, enough to show him it had all been for nothing. Because as Scout lay on the ground and realized he couldn't move his toes anymore, he glanced over and saw what had looked like the barrel of a medigun from above was in reality a pipe. Just a pipe. A dribble of water leaked out and landed on Scout's nose.
The laugh turned into a sob halfway through.
"Scout? Private? You down there son?" The sound of Soldier moving over rubble stopped as his helmet appeared over the side of the hole.
"Soldier I think- I c-can't feel anything below my neck."
The momentary bout of hysteria was melting away to panic.
"Then use the area above your neck to feel!" Soldier suggested.
"No I mean I." The words caught in Scout's throat. "I think something's broken. Like, real bad."
There was silence. To his horror, Scout couldn't even turn his head to stop looking at the jagged chunk of sky above him; he had to flick his eyes away to keep the light from bringing out the tears.
"It ain't down here," he said, the truth finally sinking in. "It was never going to be down here. We ain't getting out of this mess. Y-you just gotta leave me Soldier, I'm not…" He swallowed. "I brought us here."
He saw when Soldier's silhouette disappeared from the gap. Idiot. Scout had told him not to come and put extra weight on the structure, and being mad at him was easier than being in pain. Scout closed his eyes, trying not to feel as the horror from the fall finally caught up with him. His face scrunched, every failure compounding, and he stayed like that until he heard the sound of pebbles cascading from the floor above.
He opened his eyes. "Wh- Soldier! It told you to get lost!"
"I don't take orders from you, maggot."
Soldier was painstakingly descending the edge of the pit. It was slow going. Each time he found his footing elicited a sharp grunt, the indrawn breath of contained pain as he maneuvered around his injured side. Scout's heart nearly gave out when Soldier's foot slipped—his own fall replaying out like a repeat horror show across his vision—but the Soldier regained his balance, lowering himself the last few feet as a torrent of dust and rock heralded his arrival.
"What are you doing?" Scout asked as Soldier hobbled closer to him. No way was Soldier going to be able to lift him out. Not when he'd barely made it down himself.
"You are lying down to die. When a fellow Soldier decides to lay down and die, he should not have to do it alone."
With a grunt, Soldier knelt, then laid on his back parallel to the Scout.
"C'mon pally. You don't gotta do that. You can still make it out of here."
Soldier said nothing. God, now the hole in his side looked even worse than before. The scent of blood was sharp and iron, washing out any of the other horrible scents at the bottom of that death pit. Scout waited, and waited, but the pain soon began to get the better of him. It was prodding him to unconsciousness.
"…Alright," he said quietly.
The pair lay on their backs, and watched the stars creep into the pink sky.
"And the Pyro?" Medic asked.
Sniper shook his head. "Not a trace."
Medic pinched the bridge of his nose.
The four remaining BLUs gathered in the kitchen. It was far too homey to be called a mess hall, even though there was an attempt to block off the actual cooking area with a counter-window. It was the one area on base with a decent table, one where a quartet of mercs could lounge in various states of despair. Sniper had spun his chair around backwards, resting his chin on the back and sinking into folded arms. Demo had tucked his knees so close to the table that they were pinned there, one arm wrapping around them and the other clutching his scrumpy bottle so close it might have been his first born. Heavy had his elbows on the table, fingers knitted together, staring into the middle distance at something none of the others could see. Only Medic stood, fingers splayed on the table, looking around as his teammates seriously.
"I suppose we've all considered there is a Spy at play here," he said.
"No bodies," Sniper replied. "Not even a bit of blood, or signs of a struggle."
"He does have that one knife." Demo lifted his head. "That one that…disintegrates people."
They all shared a grim look.
"It lets him disguise near instantly…" Sniper trailed off.
"Before we began with the accusations," Medic said. "Heavy and I were in the lab all night. We know it is neither of us."
"Yeah, and me 'n Demo were up on the roof the whole time. Never left each other's sight. Can't be us either."
"Aye, that's right," Demo corroborated, but then frowned. "Well, there was that time I got up to take a leak…"
"I know you didn't get stabbed and replaced, I was watching."
"Ye were watching me pish off the building?"
"Only from the back. Wasn't weird or anything."
"Says you!"
"So I know Demo's not the Spy at least," Sniper concluded, rubbing his chin. "Though, I guess he can't say I'm not the Spy…"
"Enough," Heavy said. "Does not matter anyway. Is not Spy."
Silence, waiting on Heavy, who narrowed his eyes at his teammates' shortsightedness.
"If was Spy," he pointed out, "would not kill and disappear. Would have come in, weakened us, and signaled for RED team. If was Spy, we would not be discussing disappearances in first place."
"So you suggest that it was voluntary?" Medic demanded. "That four of our teammates left in the middle of the night of their own free will?"
Nearly half their number gone in a few short hours. No, not nearly, they were eight mercenaries now, not nine. And if Heavy was right, then they'd been abandoned by the only security they had left: their strength in numbers.
Heavy only offered him a cool look. The other men exchanged glances.
Medic sighed, defeated. "I had hoped to propose this to the team, but it appears our selection of choices is narrowing. We must attempt to go over the top of the gorge again."
"Over the top?" Demo said, aghast. "The same place that got Scout poked full of holes?"
"And what is the alternative? We are no match for RED now, and with all exits blocked, their choices are few as well. Eventually they'll make an attempt on the base and it is in our best interests to not be here when they do."
"So we're just leavin' the others?" Sniper demanded. "Truckie, Spook, the rest?"
"Listen to me . Either they left us—for dead , need I remind you—or something has befallen them. In the latter case, there is nothing we can do for them, and we should do our best to make sure at least some of us make it out alive."
"The making out alive part is still a wee bit of a problem, don't you think?" Demo said dourly, starting at the chalkboard on the far wall as with its squares of red and blue. "What's going to stop us all ending up like Scout?"
"Aheh." Medic cleared his throat to hide his budding grin. He was aware that scientific excitement was not welcome when speaking to the loved ones of the recently deceased, so he mitigated it by turning down the corners of his mouth. "About that…the reason Heavy and I were in the lab all night was that after the autopsy I began to examine the bullets. Spy was right, they do have some sort of tracer material in them, meant to disrupt cloaks and ÜberCharge. However, after many hours, I was able to reverse engineer their purpose, and now we should be immune to them entirely for as long as it lasts."
Demo and Sniper fell silent. They turned a questioning look at Heavy.
Medic waited, pleading silently with his friend, hoping his reservations wouldn't keep them from victory at this one crucial moment.
Heavy relented, sighing as he uncrossed his arms. "Is true. Doktor and I try new Charge many times against these green bullets, and all goes well." On the last word, his eyes flicked up to meet Medic's to make sure he at least knew there were things left unsaid.
"So. What?" Sniper asked. "We've got a working Über. What do we do with it?"
"Reach the cars," Medic answered. "There are at least three vehicles on the surface lot from our journey to Hydro; we make it to them, we make our escape."
A simple plan, yet effective.
Sniper's mouth was a line. "Fine. But while you 'n Heavy are all blue and shiny, what are Demo and I supposed to be doing?"
"We'll arrange ourselves like this." Medic had brought several of his small ceramic dove figurines to model. "Heavy and I will stand on either side, so we are closest to where they've positioned the snipers."
The shots that had taken out Scout had come from the elevated area on either side of the deadzone. Without an Über they would be like fish in a barrel, but they had an Über so that didn't matter.
"Me and Sniper just run between the two of you like a couple of toddlers holding their parent's hands?" Demo had dropped his knees in order to get closer to the figurines, but now he leaned back and rubbed his face. "Ach, fine. It's the only plan we got, I suppose. Wasn't looking forward to getting turned into minced meat by REDs anyway."
Sniper glanced away from the kitchen to the hall, the direction of barracks. He mumbled something under his breath. "Alright."
Medic clapped his hand together. "We are in agreement then!"
It took surprisingly little time to gather everything together for the run of their lives. Medic, operating at forty-five minutes of sleep, didn't even feel the looming specter of doom as they gathered their car keys and strapped on their weapons, only the thrill of trying out a new prototype in the field. They all were ready to do what was necessary—even Heavy did not make a word of protest at leaving Sasha behind. There was only one thing that mattered now, and that was speed.
The lift rattled as they ascended. Only yesterday when it had carried all of BLU, now it rose no faster despite its lightened load.
Privately, Heavy said, "Are you sure about this Doktor?"
Medic offered him a wry smile. Best to keep one's thoughts to himself, occasionally.
Their captors did not open fire when the lift jangled to a stop. They did not fire as the four men lined up in a row, weapons in hand. Spy had been right about another thing: whatever the reason for their termination, the cameras wanted a show. An indulgent flair for the dramatic kept them from being riddled as soon as boots touched down.
"Now!" Medic said, and flipped the switch.
Dramatic flair didn't hold out for long. Heavy bellowed a charge, the others breaking into a sprint in order to keep pace as he and Medic flared to an invulnerable gleam. The enhanced heart in Medic's chest—he would never think of it as his, not truly, not when his was hidden safely away in cold storage under one of the few places he called home—ached painfully, like it was trying to escape him all together. Perhaps it knew that it had been born somewhere else, and the jolt of blue energy was all it needed to remember.
Bullets pinged off Medic's skin. He didn't even feel them, just heard, his feet pounding on packed earth as he tried to neither pull ahead of nor fall behind the Heavy.
"Shit ," Sniper swore as a bullet bounced off Medic's shoulder and made a neat hole in his hat.
"Raus, raus!"
They needed to pick up the pace. The Über would last, they had plenty of time, but the more time they spent in the open the more chances their enemy had to slip their defenses.
Such as a stray bullet finding its way into Demo's calf.
"No time!" Medic warned as the other mercenary cried out and stumbled. "Keep moving!"
Sniper quickly slipped an arm under Demo's to help the man hobble along, cursing through his teeth, though that barely made a difference to their overall speed. Even without Sasha, and storming down the narrow area as fast his body would let him, Heavy's pace was dragging them down. Medic found himself slipping ahead again and again, the Über-filled heart skipping a beat whenever he thought he might have let in an opening.
But it didn't matter. They'd covered over the majority of the distance, and now they only had to turn this corner and see-
The parking lot, a smoking ruin.
The charred husks of Engineer's truck, Medic's ambulance, Sniper's van—all black and misshapen, so twisted that it was impossible to tell which one had been which. And in front of it was something Medic had trouble comprehending, even though it was evident in every bolt along its hide.
"The bloody hell is that thing?!" Sniper hollered. Medic was apparently not alone in his lack of comprehension.
The thing, the metal thing with a block for a jawline and a smooth domed skull, began to whirl its minigun.
"…Back. Everyone back now! " Heavy roared.
Medic was too shocked to do anything but obey. It wasn't until they were back around the corner, the sound of a minigun near its peak, when his mind started to catch up from where he'd left it in front of the smoking cars. They did not have enough charge to get all the way back. They were well over halfway through their time, and it was running out even now.
"Faster!" he yelled.
He was barely thinking of formation now, Sniper and Demoman limping along out of sync with him, Heavy trailing along the furthest. Heavy had turned to face the monstrosity, the machine that looked like him, to unload his shotgun as he went backwards. Medic could feel his heartbeat slowing, could count how many seconds they had left by its tempo.
They were halfway through no man's land when it began to flicker. Sniper yelped when another shot found its mark, but they had bigger concerns now. The metal monstrosity had wound up, and a storm of bullets crashed over them, the only thing giving them the slimmest bit of protection was Heavy's broad invulnerability shading them in cover. But that was winding down. They were at twenty meters away now. Fifteen.
Medic felt the Charge leave his skin as the medigun gave a dying wheeze.
"Go!" Heavy cried over the roar of gunfire.
There was still time. Medic was backpedaling now, using all his concentration to keep the beam pinned on Heavy even as sniper shots whizzed past his ears. There was still the overheal. Still the added benefits as Heavy soaked up bullets, the medigun healing the wounds even as they appeared. Ten meters.
But they were coming in too fast. Heavy was moving slower, the distance between him and Medic increasing as he absorbed more damage than the medigun could heal.
Five meters. The beam snapped.
Medic didn't see when Heavy finally fell. He knew he was shouting—his mouth was open, his vocal cords stung, but he could hear nothing but the enemy minigun as even in his final moments Heavy shielded his teammates. He didn't see Heavy fall, because Demo had grabbed him by the back of the collar, forcing him into the lift, and slamming the button down.
They lay there, panting, back against the metal grate of the lift floor, staring up over the lip of the gorge and waiting for the machine to lean down and look upon them. It never did. Maybe pursuit was against one of the inscrutable rules of this place.
Over the sound of three men struggling for breath: "A reminder that attempting to leave the mission area is prohibited. BLU has received a penalty."
Medic closed his eyes.