Back at it!
They burst out of the respawn, guns loaded and adrenaline pumping through their veins.
"Charge!"
"Get at em' lads!"
The Thief lagged behind, a jittery mess as she knew or at least had a very strong suspicion that there would be a RED Thief. She didn't know how to handle it. Who exactly could, knowing there was an exact clone of yourself that had to kill you?
She slowly walked out, and was surprised by the sight of the Pyro seemingly waiting for her. She hadn't really spoken to the Pyro, if you could call grunts and mumbles as a conversation. It was mostly made up of brief hellos and bumping into each other in the hall with a quick "excuse me."
Pyro cocked his... her... head. Tracy had no idea what gender Pyro was. There was never any signs, although she had noticed the rather girly purse in the cubby where they stored their weapons. Pyro was often picked on for it too, but most didn't really speak to the Pyro aside from the Engineer. From her past experience with the enemy Pyro, she was somewhat hesitant to even speak to them.
"Mmhrgh?" Pyro grunted out, the noise barely making it past the mask.
"Uhm..." She didn't know how to respond. "You wanna tag along?"
The Pyro nodded their head furiously, and Tracy was slightly relieved. At the very least she would have some sort of backup if she ran in with the enemy Thief. They made their way downstairs, peering through the door to the outside to see what was happening.
Unfortunately for her, at the very moment she had looked outside, an enemy rocket had blasted to pieces their Scout. Body parts and blood sprayed everywhere, coating the outside of their base. Tracy jerked back from the door, nearly having been sprayed in the face with giblets. Instantly, she turned and vomited, coughing and sputtering.
Pyro didn't seem fazed, stepping over to pat her on the back as she released the contents of her stomach. Once she was done, her throat burning with stomach acid, she grabbed a rag from a nearby crate and wiped the saliva and vomit that had been stringing from her mouth.
Before she could even react, the Pyro swept her up in a huge, rubbing her lower back and mumbling something into her ear. It had been the first friendly physical contact that she had gotten here, and she almost began to weep before returning back to the situation at hand. There was no time to break down in a position like this. She could deal with the trauma later. Who knew if an enemy Spy would come up behind them. She gently pulled away, giving the pyromaniac a small smile.
With a quick glance out the door, it appeared there was no enemy in sight. Scout had respawned and jumped over the canopy of the bridge, the crack of a sniper rifle being heard.
"Time to move." The Thief hissed as she ran out, the Pyro not far behind. They made their way across the bridge, moving and jumping around in order to avoid a shot from the Sniper above. She decided to go through the main doors, as she wasn't quite comfortable going down into the sewer again.
The ran across an enemy Pyro, which Tracy jumped away from, just narrowly avoiding a blast of flames. Her Pyro charged forward, blowing the other back with a burst of air from their flamethrower and quickly finished them off with a fireaxe they had on hand. Thief stepped around the bloody corpse, refusing to even give it a glance. Above them she could hear many footsteps, a particularly heavy set that had to be heading down the stairs. She took the Pyro's hand a ran around a corner, narrowly avoiding a run-in with an enemy Heavy and Medic.
Running down an empty hall, Tracy spotted a small bottle of medicine just sitting on the floor. Back at her base they had the same kind, the Scout having taken an excessive amount the day before yesterday. She snatched it up and slipped it into her pocket, leading the Pyro up a small set of creaky wooden stairs.
"OI!" From behind, the Sniper from before yelled at them with a submachine gun in hand. He must have kept track of where they had headed and decided to follow. Tracy and Pyro just made it through the door down to the Intelligence Room when he began to fire. Pyro muffled something incomprehensible as Tracy took out her pistol and began firing pot shots, managing to hit the enemy in the shoulder from the cry of pain.
Pyro ran back, and from the sounds of things, set the Australian on fire. His screams of agony were horrifying, and she couldn't help but feel pity for the man. True, he had attacked them first, but she knew personally how painful it was.
As soon as the Pyro returned, they ran down the stairs, trying to make as little noise as possible. Tracy knew that the Engineer was probably set up down there, and while they could probably try the distraction technique again, she had a feeling he wouldn't be fooled by the same trick twice.
"Ahem. Gentleman?"
They whipped around, both with fingers on the trigger as they caught sight of the BLU Spy. He adjusted his collar, raising an eyebrow. Before he could say anything, she slapped him across the face and was both relieved and embarrassed he hadn't turned into the RED.
"Ah, sorry." She gave him an apologetic grin, rubbing the hand she had slapped him with prior. He gave her a deadpan expression.
"Well yes, I suppose that was necessary." He said that, but she was sure he didn't mean it. "Let me handle this, oui?"
"Knock yourself out." She gestured towards the two entrances to the Intelligence, and right before her eyes she saw him shapeshift from the BLU Spy into the enemy Pyro in a puff of smoke. Their Pyro giggled at the sight, clapping their hands. "Holy shit. I mean, I heard you could do that but... wow."
"Why thank you." It wasn't muffled, unlike the Pyro beside them. He hunched down slightly, "Now, if you'll excuse me."
Spy ran off, charging into the other room down the hall. She could hear the Engineer give a greeting before a cry of pain was heard. A sentry beeped, but was quickly followed up by hissing and electric sparks. Spy returned, out of his disguise with the briefcase in hand. The alert played over the intercom. He looked smug, rather proud of himself, although Thief couldn't really blame him.
"Shall we?" Spy gestured towards the incline, and they began their way up. Right as they were about to breach into the next room, an enemy Soldier burst through and quickly cut down the Spy. He died gagging on his own blood, a clean red slice across his throat. Tracy stepped back as Pyro grappled with the enemy. On the floor was the intelligence, which she got on her knees and crawled over, snatching the briefcase. She ran in the opposite direction, back down to the intelligence room in hopes she could make a loop around the enemies.
What she hadn't expected was a red uniform to crash into her. She groaned as she fell onto the floor, the briefcase clattering to a halt just a few inches away from her outstretched hands.
Just as she had managed to get on her hands and knees, a foot came down onto her back and forced her back onto the ground.
"Well well well..." A petulant and familiar voice sent chills down her spine. "What do we have here?"
Tracy whipped her head around so fast she was almost sure she got whiplash. At first she saw a pair of cream trousers, shiny brown suede shoes... a red turtleneck sweater...
A pair of wide, unblinking eyes gazed back at her. A sardonic smirk on their lips as their eyes met.
"Hmph, to be honest, I was expecting better." Their voice was so like her own, but higher pitched and derisive. "I mean, really? Running away from a fight? That's pretty pathetic, even for you."
Tracy growled, attempting to get back on her knees despite the weight on her back. The foot dug the heel into her spine, causing pain to shoot down her body.
"I mean, I get it. You're new. But I've only been here for what, a day? And I've already eliminated your Demoman and Sniper. You haven't even killed one person!" The RED Thief gave a long, high laugh, "All you've done is shot the Sniper and pushed the Engineer! I mean, REALLY?"
Tracy had enough of this, rolling from her back and grabbing onto the other's leg, pulling her to the ground. They were face to face now. The other Thief looked just like her in exception for her eyes, which were much darker, with a slight reddish tint. They had the same hair cut, although parted in the opposite direction with the same birthmarks and scars. They were twins, almost.
"If you're so great, why didn't you take the opportunity to kill me when you had the chance?" Tracy hissed, drawing her screwdriver from her back pocket, slamming the handle into her face. There was a dull crack, blood shooting from her nose. They grappled for dominance, a sudden rush of rage filling Tracy's body.
"Pfft, and miss out on the opportunity to piss you off? Never." Her twin bared her teeth in an illusion of a smile before headbutting the BLU with all her might. Tracy's vision swam for a moment, a bruise forming already on her forehead.
Before Tracy's vision could come back into focus, there was a gunshot and she felt a force push her back to the ground. She cried out, grasping at the bullet wound in her side. Blood was gushing from the wound at an alarming rate, her hand unable to staunch the flow as a puddle began to seep around her.
"Mph, you got me good." Tracy looked up to see the RED Thief snapping her nose back into place with one hand, the other holding the pistol that had given her the wound. "Not good enough though. Better luck next time."
Before Tracy could spit out a response, the last thing she saw before everything went black was her clone aiming.
They had lost.
RED had managed to grab their intelligence after destroying their defenses and torturing a few of her comrades. For the most part, her team was okay in exception to their bruised egos. Demoman drank even more heavily than usual, mumbling incoherently about the enemy Pyro and Soldier while stumbling away.
They had a quaint meal. Pyro was in no mood to make anything extravagant, as the self appointed cook of their team. It was meatloaf tonight, with baked potatoes and cream corn. Tracy didn't feel like eating at all, even ignoring the Soldier's complaints about her meager size portions on her plate that she only picked at.
Even though she had respawned without a problem, she swore she could still feel the bruise on her forehead and the gunshot in her side. She decided to force herself to eat, ignoring the small chatter at the table before scraping and washing her plate and silverware.
She had been walking down to her room when she was stopped by someone she had never expected.
The Heavy was a large, intimidating man. He was much smarter than he looked, and much stronger as well. Sure, he ate alot, but he was mostly muscle. He didn't talk much to anyone aside from the Medic. So his greetings was startling to say the least.
"Little man won't talk. Why?" He leaned down to look her in the eye. He had a surprisingly soft expression, almost bordering on pity.
At first, Tracy didn't know what to say. She didn't really know him well enough to gauge his reaction. He could make fun of her for all she knew. She hesitated, rubbing her side as she shifted from foot to foot like a child.
"I just... I ran into the RED Thief." She grimaced with the confession. The larger man nodded in understanding, bringing a hand to his chin with a look of thoughtfulness on his face.
"Come with me." He said this abruptly, walking away without even looking back to see if she would follow. She had a feeling most people obeyed him without thought, due to the threat of repercussions otherwise.
Following him, he lead her to what she assumed was a break room. She had never saw it before, as she did little exploration during her time there. It was pretty large and looked disused, with dust coating a lot of the shelves. There were many books and even a fire place in the center of the far wall. A plush couch was right next to it, with two end tables and a coffee table in the middle.
He sat down heavily on the couch, compressing most of the air out of the cushions. She sat right next to him as he took a glass bottle from one of the tables and poured her a shot while taking the entire bottle to himself.
"Drink. Ease your mind." He raised his glass to her before taking a gulp, not even wincing. She assumed it was vodka, although she couldn't read the label. Great, more alcohol to consume.
She went along with it anyways, shooting it down fast and wincing at the burn that traveled down her throat to her stomach. He laughed at her expression before looking back towards the fire.
After another drink or two, she was feeling a bit better. Tipsy, definitely, but better. The Heavy got her mind off her clone, regaling her with stories from his home in Russia, where they would hunt bears in the unforgiving snowy wasteland.
She eventually drifted off, a small smile on her lips, carried away by the deep voice of the Russian beside her.
TBC!
