For this chapter, I reread the comics and I must say, that despite everyone loving the character of Medic, including me, the man is a fucking psycho. The creepy things he says with a cheerful smile in his face... "Nah... I didn't implant three uteruses onto a grown-up man, only one... Three would have been preposterous."
Anyway, I hope I got the spirit of the character right.
Medic and Heavy are still best friends in this story but it will be justified in the future why in this occasion, we have Vegemite Sandvich couple instead of the usual Red Oktoberfest.
CHAPTER 9 - The hypothermia
With a concern expression spread all over his face, Heavy watched the hands of the clock advance relentlessly. The match was going to start in less than 8 minutes and Sniper hadn't appeared yet. Scout, Engineer and Medic weren't in the Respawn room either, but the Russian had seen them before. They were either finishing breakfast or in the bathroom.
"Is everything alright, Heavy?" Spy, who was sitting next to him on the bench, addressed him with that particular tone he had gotten to know very well.
It was the tone Spy employed to inquiry about a topic he already knew the answer to but he wanted to test if that teammate would share his thoughts with him or not. Since the Russian had started suspecting his true intentions, it had become slightly annoying to play along.
In this case, he was pretty convinced that there was no way for the master of espionage to have missed Sniper's punctuality pattern. The gentle giant had only started paying attention since their hunting weekend and for a month in a row, the Australian had always arrived at the same exact minute. This unusual delay combined with the apparent sickness Heavy had seen him developed during the past days and the strong snowstorm from yesterday night made him feel unsure of what to fear. His teammate's van had to be amazingly equipped if the man still continued to live outdoors.
"Sniper is late."
Spy took a drag of his cigarette, lazily turned his gaze at the clock and without any rush, blew up the smoke he had just inhaled. Heavy could sense that it was an act to exacerbate his nerves but nevertheless an exceptional one because it was working fabulously.
"There are still 7 minutes left." The Frenchman pointed out with that same exasperating tone.
Heavy stopped frowning at the clock to frown at him with a little irritation. The conceited rogue really wanted him to say it. He wanted him to reveal that he had been keeping an eye on his hunter partner.
Fine.
"Sniper is always in Respawn room 10 minutes before match. I think something bad happened." The mountain of a man finally voiced it out for his intentionally obtuse teammate.
Spy tapped the fingers of his gloved hand against the bench as if that information had come as new for him and was seriously considering the implications. He spoke again, this time, with his regular formal tone.
"It has accumulated a lot of snow during this night, Heavy. The bushman might have just gotten delayed in his way to the base. You know he's utterly out of his element in this weather. If you go to check on him now, you will also be late. If it turns out to be nothing of importance, you will be penalized too." Spy explained as if he actually cared about his fate but Heavy knew better than to fall for it.
It was regular for the Frenchman to offer this kind of analysis to the most rational members in the team and in particular, to him. In the beginning of the contract, Heavy had believed that Spy was treating him like this because he thought him stupid too due to his poor English. However, with time he had come to realize that it was just another of his intricate tests. The sly rogue had been judging his true intelligence through the decisions taken after these forthrightly presented explanations. If Heavy hadn't seen another side to the masked man thanks to their conversations in Russian, he would have stopped putting up with this devious attitude long ago.
Tired of losing more time to this apparently meaningless game, the human bear rose to his feet.
"I am going to search for Sniper." He announced with a resolute expression and threw him an accusatory glare.
"Very well." Spy instantly stood up too and flung his cigarette to the floor, gracefully extinguishing it with the tip of his shoe. "After you." He added with a mischievous grin and gestured at the door.
True to his words, he followed him outside.
Spy could be a prick sometimes but he was their prick.
When Heavy and Spy reached the van and didn't see any footprints around, both men looked at each other knowing what that meant. Sniper hadn't even tried leaving the vehicle. Or he was still inside or he hadn't spent the night there in the first place. In any case, neither of the two options foreshadowed a positive reason.
Wishing for a banal explanation, like an out-of-batteries alarm or something of the sort, Heavy softly knocked on the door. They waited for a couple of seconds, trying to sense any kind of activity coming from inside the camper but an awful silence was the only reply they obtained.
"Sniper! It is time for battle!" The gentle giant knocked harder this time, yelling loudly. He was starting to become a little worried about not getting any response.
In the meanwhile, Spy circled around the vehicle, peeking inside through the slits of the curtains. He narrowed his eye, discerning a figure. The rogue wasn't just helping for the appearances. He was also concerned in his own self-interested way.
"/He is still on the bed./" The Frenchman said in Russian to him. There was an almost imperceptible furrow between his brows. It seemed like finding the Australian still sleeping was the last thing he had expected because it didn't correlate with any of his always-on-point predictions.
At that piece of information, Heavy's expression paled a dozen shades.
Spy had to be wrong. He must have mistaken a bundle of blankets for the real teammate because the gentle giant perfectly remembered how, during the night they had spent together in the woods, Sniper had instantly awoken at the minimal sound or movement. Perhaps, the sharpshooter slept differently on the safety of his usual bed but that still didn't justify his deeply dormant behaviour. In any normal circumstances, the man should have reacted to his screams by now. There was something definitely wrong with his teammate and the Russian was becoming apprehensively certain of it.
Trying for the sake of trying, Heavy turned the knob of the main entrance and the door easily opened without giving the slightest opposition. This serendipitous discovery made his fear ramp up. It didn't matter how much he could rack his big brain. There wasn't a possible good explanation for such a caution man like the Australian to have left his home unlocked. This wasn't right. This wasn't right at all.
With a deep breath, Heavy hesitantly entered the van. He felt like he was violating his teammate's privacy by doing so but all these incongruous signs were pointing towards a possible emergency. He couldn't just forget about the issue now, he had to make sure that this had been all a misunderstanding.
"Sniper?" The Russian uttered timorously while he carefully advanced to the back of the van. The corridor was relatively narrow for his broad shoulders and he had to put special care to not accidentally knock over anything in his progression. As he approached the bed, his dread grew with each one of his steps. The shape of the blanket resembled too closely the Australian's physique to be a coincidence. The gentle giant couldn't see his face because the man was facing the wall but it had to be him.
"/It almost feels colder inside than outside./" Spy observantly pointed out when he also stepped into vehicle but Heavy didn't really listen to him. He was too preoccupied staring at the unresponsive man in front of him to pay attention to the Frenchman's comment.
Why hadn't Sniper even moved an inch at two people barging into his home? Not honestly wanting to find out but drove by the duty to, Heavy placed an unsteady hand of what he could guess was the Australian's shoulder and shook him gently while calling his class name. Sniper seemed to give him a drowsy groan so the Russian pulled him softly to turn him around and his body rolled upon his back as lifeless as a ragdoll, revealing his face.
Sniper's eyes were half opened, lost in the nothingness, and his skin was unnaturally pale. In addition, he was mumbling something unintelligible at the edge of consciousness.
At that sight, a terrible realization came crashing down on Heavy and all the odd hints suddenly made sense. During the past days, the Australian hadn't been dealing with a mild flu or a cold. The apathy, the absent-mindedness, the lethargy. They were all indications of the first stage of hypothermia. The Russian should have recognized the symptoms earlier. He had seen them more times than he could count them. He had experienced them too back home.
The problem Sniper had mentioned regarding his van must have been related to the heating system and the snowstorm of the previous night must have struck the final blow on the already precondition his teammate had been stubbornly bearing alone.
It was painfully obvious in retrospect.
"/Sniper is hypothermic! Get Doktor to the infirmary! We'll meet there!/" He shouted at Spy with panic rising in his voice.
The Frenchman didn't need to be told twice. Already suspecting this kind of outcome, he spun on his heels and made a run for the base. Out of context, it would have been very amusing to watch the pompous rogue breaking a sweat through the snow, lifting his feet ungainly and cursing in several languages, but with his teammate in need at the touch of his fingertips, Heavy had other priorities.
"It's alright, Sniper. We found you just in time. You'll be okay." The gentle giant muttered in an attempt to comfort them both, forgetting that he was still speaking Russian, and removed his own jacket. He untangled the blanket, wrapped his warm cloth around the frozen man and bundled him again into a cocoon that only partially showed his face. With a contained rush, Heavy carried him bride-style out of the van and then, ran to the infirmary with a speed that nobody would have conceived possible for a man as massive as him.
Around an hour after sunset, Sniper began regaining full consciousness. He had been drifting on and off several times already but he hadn't been making much sense during those brief minutes he had been awoken. He had been simply looking around with bleary eyes, mumbling incoherently or weakly struggling against the heating blanket he was covered with. Medic had taken care of soothing him into sleep again without using anaesthetics or any pioneering technique like Heavy had made him promised before being forced to leave for battle.
When Sniper finally, yet languidly, took in his new surroundings, his attention ended up being absorbed by the strange conversation two familiar voices were having in the background.
"You kill my last tower turns ago. This is meaningless, Heavy. Just finish off the game." Medic requested very impatiently, shifting on his chair.
"Niet. You killed Heavy's horse in sixth turn. You know Heavy cares about horses. Now, Doktor pays in little men." The human bear refused implacably and took another of his pieces out of the board.
"I'm not the one to blame for that, Heavy. You sacrifice it the moment you place it in my runphant's way. That was a sloppy move from your side." The German admonished him, not accepting any part of the responsibility.
Heavy childishly grunted in reply. He knew Medic was right but he didn't want to admit it out loud. Spending a whole day in the battlefield without their doctor while worrying, at the same time, for the survival of one of his other teammates had mentally and physically paid its toll on the big guy. He had gotten to know Medic very well during their time spent together, at work and outside of it, and he wasn't very sure the man would be able to understand how he felt after this draining experience. The Russian admired his friend's insatiable curiosity, cheerful spirit and brilliant mind but empathy wasn't one of his fortes.
Still a little drowsy, Sniper could correctly guess that he was in the infirmary of the base, pleasingly laying in a delightful warm bed. In a better mental state, reasonable logical questions regarding his well-being and situation should have been his top concern. Instead, he tried to recall any game that shared the same pieces his teammates were arguing over. Towers, horses, little men, runphants? What bizarre board game were they playing?
The Australian tilted his head so he could actually see them and cleared out the enigma.
Medic and Heavy were playing chess. Regular normal chess.
"Hey! Look who's awake again!" The German cheered joyfully and jumped to his feet, not driven by sympathy for his patient but eagerness for any excuse that could spare him from enduring Heavy's unyielding pawn slaughter.
"Wot am doin' 'ere?" Sniper slurred with his motor skills not completely recovered and moved to prop himself up but Medic placed a hand on his chest, preventing him from doing so.
"And he can talk too now!" Excited at the new development, Medic forcibly examined his pupils, completely ignoring his question.
The Australian groaned in complain and futilely squirmed to fend him off but he had no leverage as immobilized as he was by the tightly wrapped blanket. At least, the piece of cloth was heavenly comfortable. It almost made him want to close his eyes and take another nap.
When Medic let go of his face, Sniper turned his head at the other man in the room, searching for the explanation that had been so unprofessionally omitted. The sight of Heavy's figure sparked some vague fragments of those colossal arms carrying him in a hurry through the snow. Words he hadn't recognized had also been murmured between breaths in a hasty distressed tone.
Were those memories real? What had happened to him?
The stern expression that he was currently receiving from that mountain of a man also didn't help his conscience feel tranquil.
Why was Heavy giving him such a serious look? Why was he on an infirmary bed? Was there something medically wrong with him?
"You almost died, Sniper." The Russian said soberly.
The simple sentence echoed in the sharpshooter's mind, unlocking snippets of the previous night. The extreme coldness he had experienced inside of his van and the scuffle against the faulty thermostat were slowly coming back to him.
Craving for the denial of that sombre allegation, he switched his gaze to the eccentric doctor.
"Oh?" Medic hooted at noticing the pair of eyes set on him. "Nah... Exaggerations." He waved in dismissal with his usual jubilant mood. "You only suffered from an early stage 3 of hypothermia. Heavy and Spy found you before the condition could advance to the point where it truly gets interesting. Bringing back to life a body with no pulse would've been more challenging. It's a real pity. I would've loved to see some genuine necrotic tissue too before amputating some of your fingers but it was nevertheless a fun morning."
If the Australian had been expecting any kind of reassurance from the insane man in a lab coat, he had been utterly wrong. It cast the absolutely reverse effect when he processed a very specific part of his no-so medical interpretation of the events.
"Before amputating some of your fingers..."
"Amputating..."
"AM-PU-TA-TING!"
Sniper suddenly felt very, very awake. He rolled to the opposite of the bed, purposely dropping to the floor, and in a full panic mode, grappled to get rid of the blanket so he could check out his hands.
NO, NO, NO! His fingers! He needed his fingers! His job, whose Sniper's life and identity were mainly based on, relied on the ability to shoot a rifle with perfect accuracy. He could relearn how to hold his gun without his little fingers and if stretched out, perhaps, half of his ring fingers but he needed the rest of them intact. His whole world would crumble down otherwise! What would become of him if he couldn't be a sniper? If he couldn't practise the only profession he had ever loved?
"Calm down, Sniper. Sniper!" Heavy shouted at him to snap him out of his hysteria. The big guy had been quick to restrain him with a hug so Sniper couldn't run away or hurt himself. He knew mental confusion was usual in this stage of the recovery and Medic had just dropped a bomb at him with no qualms or tactfulness.
"My hands! I need to see my hands!" He pleaded desperately and headbutted him to free himself but instead, unsuccessfully hit the giant's shoulder who didn't budge or complain at the attempt.
"Your hands are okay. See?" The Russian held them out in front of him, grabbing him from the forearms so he could still not escape. "Doktor grew back fingers and toes with Medigun. Everything is okay." He comforted with a poised tone.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten." Sniper hastily counted his fingers and closed and opened his hands relieved at finding them without a scratch. He was in one piece! Thank God, he was in one piece! What a marvellous machine the Medigun was. Due to being so seldom at the receiving end of that magical device, he had forgotten that it even existed.
Sniper chuckled ecstatically and relaxed on Heavy's embrace, not fearing for his immediate or long-term future anymore. He still felt tired, cold and a little unfocused but his main fear had been satisfactorily cleared up. Without resisting, he let himself be guided to sit on the bed and accepted the blanket that was placed over his shoulders. The Russian's hand remained on his back, as a form of comfort and supervision, and silence was allowed to set on the room, awarding the sharpshooter some seconds of respectful quietness to put himself together.
While regaining an appeased breathing, Sniper made use of that interlude to examine himself. Someone, most probably Medic, had changed him out of his pyjamas and he was wearing now some of the winter clothes he owned and a pair of thick socks that he didn't recognize. On top of that, it didn't take long for him to notice something else.
His groin was unusually warm and it wasn't because of natural biological causes.
"What the bloody...?" Sniper grumbled and palpated the area between his legs, discovering a considerable lump there.
"Uh! I forgot to remove that." Medic chuckled impishly and with no regards, he slipped his hand inside of the Australian's pants to retrieve a hot water bottle. He held it out with two fingers and threw it next to the two others that were sitting in a corner of the lab counter. "You won't need it anymore."
The Australian stared at him bewildered at the impudence but he lacked the energy and rage to spit back some furious retort. For moments like these, he preferred to suffer alone through any disease than to ask the crazy German for his medical advice.
He sighed forcefully and let Medic's brazenness slide. The sham of a doctor had restored him from the critical condition his negligence had gotten him into so in exchange, he made an effort to condone his attitude. Moreover, he was quite sure that if he had reacted violently, Heavy would have restrained him again and he had already made a fool of himself for the current time being.
Sniper slowly lowered his head, fixing his gaze on the floor. His memories were starting to arrange into a coherent timeline and he didn't like in the slightest their blurriness. His mental cognition must have been considerably impaired. His physical condition must have been even worse.
"Was-was it that bad that my fingers had to be amputated?" He inquired, imagining the shape he must have been found in if such extreme measure had been necessary. He still didn't want to believe that he had almost died. His teammates had to be exaggerating his encounter with death to teach him a lesson.
"Well... I wouldn't say 'had to'..." Medic began excusing himself. "Cutting out the frostbite and regrowing the affected parts was way faster than treating them through traditional means. Besides, who can resist amputating limbs when the perfect occasion presents itself? Am I right?" He said with a thrilled smile that sent the Australian into shivers. Or maybe they were just normal shivers. It was hard to tell in his state.
"Couldn't ya have just healed me with the Medigun? Or sent me through Respawn?" Sniper continued, trying to establish how of an emergency his case had really been.
"The Medigun can only heal trauma and hypothermia is a more complex condition than that. It healed all your tissue damage but it didn't alter the low body temperature. I spent all day rewarming you with conventional techniques because someone didn't let me test out my experimental ones." Medic narrowed his eyes at the bigger man with a miffed expression. "Just letting you know, Heavy. I'm heartbroken. A revolutionary breakthrough was lost today because of you." He reproached him.
"I know, Doktor. You said many times this evening and Heavy said that he will repay." The Russian responded and then, turned at the shivering man to continue with the rest of the narration. "First idea team thought was to send Sniper through Respawn. But Engineer said it will not work. When I brought you into base, match had already started. He said that killing you will not heal you, that you will respawn sick."
"Instead of letting me treat you, Engineer suggested rewriting your Respawn log with a reading from the previous week. He can be such a killjoy when it comes to the team's health..." Medic rolled his eyes and huffed. "Anyway, to carry out that modification the match should have been cancelled and the Administrator hopefully didn't allow it. You hadn't dropped by my operating table since the ÜberCharge surgery so I volunteered to stay behind while the rest of the team went back to fight. It was a great opportunity to catch up with some of the pending projects I had been planning for you." He explained like he wasn't openly confessing to have violated the basic rules of patient consent.
"Doktor, you promised Heavy that you will not experiment on Sniper." The Russian crossed his arms over his chest and gave the doctor a scolding look but it wasn't a harsh one. It resembled more the kind of expression given to a cute puppy after it made a mess when nobody was paying attention. It was obviously not fine but it was hard to blame the puppy for behaving according to its nature.
"If I recall accurately... I didn't promise that I wouldn't experiment on him. I promised that I wouldn't use experimental procedures on him which it's not the same." Medic pointed out.
Sniper purposely buried deep down the last fragment of the conversation. He already had enough assimilating the seriousness of the events he had gone through to on top of that, fear what Medic might have done to him while he was unconscious. Right now, he couldn't tell if anything was wrong with his body or not so he postponed making the quack pay for his transgression for another moment.
After this expanded explanation, it became absolutely clear the relevance his teammates had played on his rescue and recovery. As far as Sniper knew, Respawn was only functional during working hours and only covered the battlefield's area. Dread, regret and anguish began poisoning his thoughts with alternative scenarios where he might have not made it out unscathed or made it out alive at all.
What if his teammates had assumed that he was simply late and went into battle without him? Would they have noticed his absence during the match? Would any of them have come looking for him after it? Would Engineer have visited his van after clearing out the garage the next day? Would he have found him or would he have turned away after knocking on the door and not getting any response? Would he have even been alive by then? What if the snowstorm had reached the base on the weekend? Or the thermostat had failed on Friday instead of Thursday? What if he had actually left the van during the night and gotten lost in the snow?
Would he have survived until Monday?
Or would have he died alone without being missed?
He had been revived so many times by the Respawn system since the beginning of his contract that it was extremely terrifying to be reminded of the fragility of his mortality. After all he had overcome it would have been very pitiful to lose his life to cold temperatures. How would his parents have taken his death? In particular, this kind of foolish preventable death.
He really didn't want to think about it.
However, nothing of that mattered now. The danger was over and he had to be practical instead of dwelling about it. He swallowed hard and compelled himself to move on. Or at least, try to.
"You found me in my van, right? How did ya get in?" Sniper inquired, fearing that Spy had picked the lock or Heavy had knocked down the door.
"You left van unlocked. Door was open." Heavy clarified for him but it didn't bring any relief for the Australian.
Bloody hell... He hadn't absolutely been in his right mind the previous night if he had forgotten to lock the van after attempting to get out. That security measure was the most elemental one but at least, that lapse had facilitated his rescue. Fixing a broken door would have been another inconvenience to add to the list.
"Is the van still where I left her?" Nor that Sniper imagined anyone stealing his dear camper but the enemy Spy might use the opportunity to snoop around again. It wasn't the first time the BLU spook had broken into his van. He had never caught him inside but the filthy snake had left enough hints behind to make him suspect of it.
"No. After match finished, team helped cleaning garage. Engineer parked van inside after." Heavy told him with a frown in his face. He seemed disappointed with the man being so preoccupied about his vehicle of all sorts of other topics to be discussed. He understood that it was also his home, where he kept all his possessions, but the gentle giant had expected him to be more worried about his personal well-being.
At hearing the Russian's reply, it didn't even cross Sniper's mind to ask about the result of the match. It wasn't worth it. Without two of their members, especially their Medic, his team must have been doubtlessly overrun by the BLUs. His teammates had to be furious with him for letting them down. He would have been it in their shoes which surprised him a little why they had given a hand clearing out the garage. He only hoped Engineer hadn't touched his van again.
Sniper was going to inquire if, by any chance, they knew if the amicable Texan had taken a look at his vehicle or made any kind of alteration while he had been asleep but the strident sound of an alarm cut him short before the question could leave his lips. He shut his eyes closed at the annoying noise.
Jogging at his usual cheerful pace, Medic approached the table where the pair had been previously playing chess and silence the clock.
"It looks like it's time for dinner." He showed the clock to the rest of the men.
Finally seeing what hour was with his own eyes made Sniper interiorize that he had truly been knocked out cold for most of the Friday. Because... Was it still Friday, right? He should have made sure to verify that too.
"I will bring dinner for all. I will be quick." Heavy suggested, awaiting his teammate's agreement.
"Perfect." Medic clapped his gloved hands together. "In the meanwhile, I can share with Sniper some of the results I got from today's tests. For example, how I injected him with the venom of the Tunisian vipers, Cerastes cerastes and Macrovipera lebetina, to kill the cancerous tissue I-"
"Ya know wot?" Sniper interrupted him anxiously. He didn't want to hear anything related with the German's play-to-be-God macabre experiments. "You both can go ta have dinner with the rest of the team. I can wait a little longer."
"Is Sniper sure?" Heavy lifted his eyebrows in reluctance. The big guy didn't really want to leave his ill teammate by himself but he could easily see that the prospective of Medic staying with him, even just for a couple of minutes, could perfectly turn out to be worse. The doctor was usually completely oblivious to his patients' reactions and allowing him free reign of speech wasn't going to be favourable for the already debilitated mental stability of the Australian.
Perhaps, it was better to give the man some space to put in perspective the poor decisions that had brought him to require medical care.
"But-" The German pouted in discontent but Sniper didn't let him sell them on that one.
"Yes, I'm very sure. I also need some time alone. I won't move from the bed. I swear it." He said to appease his concern and wrapped the blanket around himself as proof of his commitment.
Heavy nodded in satisfaction and turned his head at Medic.
"Okay. Let's go to eat, Doktor." He added a continuation for Sniper. "We will be back in half hour."
"But I'm not hungry right now." The quirky German tried his last attempt to remain in the lab.
The gentle giant sighed patiently and gave him one of his inflexible looks.
"Doktor always says he is not hungry and then, Heavy founds him eating bread and cheese at 3 in the morning. Let's go to eat, Doktor. Now." The Russian emphasized the last word, not accepting a 'No' for an answer. When it came to a showdown of wills between the two mercenaries, Heavy was always the most stubborn one regarding basic necessities like regular eating schedules.
Medic stared at the mountain of the man, debating if he could get away with it or not on this occasion, but in the end, he accepted his defeat.
"Alright, alright..." He dragged his feet behind the bigger man. He had been so excited to expound to his test subject all the modifications he had performed on the unique canvas the Australian had for a body...
Just when they were about to leave, a puzzling subject remerged on Sniper's mind.
"One last question."
"Ja, Sniper?" Medic peeped his head through the almost closed door.
"What's a runphant?"
"A runner elephant." He answered as those three words provided the entire context he needed and left with no further explanation.
After a couple of disconcerting seconds, Sniper grumbled at the empty room.
"'Cause that makes more bloody sense..."
One of the ways to treat moderate hypothermia (stage 2) is to place hot bottles of water under the armpits and against the groin. When Sniper wakes up, he is already in a mild hypothermia phase (stage 1) so despite helping the process, he doesn't really need them anymore. I couldn't exactly find how long it takes to recover from hypothermia so please allow me some writing creativity. Medic could have also shortened or extended the period of recovery for his own personal interest. However, all the science mentioned by Medic in this story is completely real. A compound found on the venom of those two snakes is used as an anticancer therapy in real life.
Alright, for all the native speakers who got a little lost in this chapter with Heavy and Medic's inside joke, I'll give you a little bit of context. In Russian and German, the rook from chess is called tower and the knight, horse. (Same in Spanish). The bishop is called elephant in Russian and can be literally translated to runner in German. Runner elephant = runphant. As a person living in an international environment, I don't see a reason why Heavy and Medic will call the chess pieces by their proper names in English when they share the same name in their own mother languages. Specially with the knight. The figure is a damn horse!
Anyway, I was going to include some kind of joke like "Why don't you just call the 'runphant' 'bishop'?" and Medic replying "Please, we are men of science." But I decided to let it go because it didn't properly fit the ending.
On other topics, because this story has a more serious tone, I opted not to write the accents for Medic and Spy. If you really like me to do it, please let me know in the comments. I've done it for my other story, Brave New Update, so it's not really a problem. Tell me your preferences and I will adapt the dialogues.
Btw, after this long chapter, I might take a break next week and draw a little so perhaps, you won't have a new chapter next weekend. INSERT PUBLICITY MODE. If you want to entertain yourself in the meanwhile, you can read Brave New Update or any of my other short stories. I hope you like them as much as this one.