A/N: Ditto. Shoutout to Bayoboo, MisterDoctorSir, and eclipseddarksoul for following, and to Bayoboo for faving the story!
Engi was woken from his sleep to the sound of an acoustic guitar. "Hm, must've left the radio on when I went to sleep," he thought before he started to fall back asleep. But before he did he realized something. "Wait a second, I don't even own a darn radio! Someone's touching my guitar," Engi hated when the other mercs tried to play his guitar, they would wind up messing up the carefully tuned thing he would spend hours on.
But this was different.
Whoever was playing his guitar, KNEW how to play it. And the only person who knew how to play his guitar was Engi himself. "Why does that song sound familiar?" he thought. "Oh right, it's that same song I played for that Director guy, but I've never played it before in front of the others before then who…" he stopped himself mid-thought as he got up.
As he did he saw the perpetrator: a female with a bright white Stetson. She was seated at Engi's workbench on the chair, and was quietly strumming away.
Engi quickly did a double take before dragging a hand across his face. After asserting that the female was actually THERE. He coughed to get her attention.
The female stopped playing and swiveled around to face the Texan, her brown eyes connecting with his. She was the first to speak, "I always wanted to play your guitar, pretty thing isn't it?"
"Do I know you?" Engi asked hesitantly while arching an eyebrow.
She chuckled. "Of course you do Dell Conagher, after you did create us,"
Engi responded with a jaw that hit the floor. The female was confused with his reaction before a thought came to her. "Ah, that had more than one meaning, did it?"
That snapped Engi out of the trance. "Er, no…ah, what do you mean, "create us"? And what do you mean us?"
"For a man with eleven science PhDs, you are so clueless sometimes," she said with a sigh as she placed the guitar on the desk. "What I mean by "us" is your four buildings: the Sentry, the Dispenser, and the two Teleporters,"
"Wait so you're saying…you are a Sentry?"
She nodded as she got up. "C'mon, my sisters are waiting for you in the garage," she said as she headed over to the door. "Oh and by the way," she said before leaving. "Name's Stella,"
When she left, Engi slapped himself multiple times to make sure he was awake and not dreaming. "I really need to cut down on the drinking," he mumbled as he got up and followed Stella.
When he caught up with Stella, he made multiple thoughts running through his head. "How, in the name of Mike, is this possible?" he thought as he glanced over to the now-human Sentry. He noticed that she was taller than the Texan, about Soldier's height, as well as slightly muscular. "Hm, figures, after all she is like a bodyguard for me. I wonder what the other three would look like,"
As both of them entered the garage, Engi saw two female twins sitting on the workbench with their headphones on, whom he assumed were the Teleporters, but didn't see the third.
Stella walked over to the twin with the black bandana and tapped her on the shoulder. The twin took off her headphone. "Where's Debby?" Stella asked.
"Working on Engi's truck, why?" the twin responded before catching a glimpse of Engi. She nudged her twin who looked up and also took notice of the Engineer.
Stella walked over to the truck before knocking on the side of the truck, "Deb, you under there?"
"Yeah, why?" asked a voice under the truck.
"He's here,"
Debby rolled out from under the truck and got up, wiping the grease on her forehead with her arm. Engi saw how similar she looked to him. "Howdy," she said with an outstretched hand. "Suppose you know who I am, right?"
Engi nodded.
"Stella probably told you my name already, Debby, and for the twins…" she stopped when the twins were nowhere to be found. "Dammit! Where in Sam Hill are those two?"
"Right here," the three turned to find the twins back where they were originally sitting.
"What? Where did you come from?" asked a confused Engi.
"They're Teleporters, what do you expect?" Debby whispered to him.
"Tia," said the one with the bandana before pointing to the one with the vest who waved back. "And that's Tai,"
Inside, Engi was spinning. "I'm dreaming, I must be," he thought before asking a question. "So how did you four become this?"
"I'm not sure yet, but I think it has something to do with this," said Debbie as she reaching into a tool pouch and pulling out a scorched PDA.
"How did my PDA get to be like that?" Engi asked as he grabbed it from Debbie. "It was fine yesterday…" he then remembered the storm that started last night. "Is it possible…" he mumbled. His thoughts were interrupted by a shout.
"Yo, hardhat!" yelled Scout. "It's your turn for breakfast, where are yah?"
"Shoot! How am I going to explain this to the team?" said Engi panicking. "If I do, I'll be seen just as crazy as Soldier,"
"Doubt that," said Stella. "Aren't you considered one of the few sane and intelligent people on this team?"
"Well, guess it doesn't hurt to try…"
"There you are hardhat!"
Engi froze. "Aw hell," he thought.
"The entire base's been looking for you egghead," said Scout as he walked over to Engi. "And who are these lovely ladies?"
The women sweat dropped at the Bostonian's lame attempt to flirt.
"Scout, why?" Engi asked.
"Cause I can," he said before winking at Tai, who mouthed "ew", to Tia.
"You know Scout, these "ladies" are just not any old "ladies","
"So what are they then? Superheroes?"
"Nope, mah buildings,"
"Wait a second, did I hear you right?" said Scout. "You're telling me that those people are your buildings?"
Engi nodded.
"You gotta get your eyes checked hardhat, cause those four are not buildings,"
"We are, at least, we used to be," said Debbie. "And I can prove it,"
"Oh yeah, bring it,"
"Aren't you the one that keeps annoying the crap outta Engi by saying, "Need a dispenser here!" even though there is one right next to him?"
"As well as the same guy that keeps smacking his Sentry with a fucking frying pan?" added Stella.
"Don't forget about the time he takes the Teleporter before Heavy does and makes him wait," added Tia.
"Uh…" Scout was a loss at words. Only Engi was around whenever he did this, and none of the other mercs really cared when Engi complained to them about Scout's behavior. So then the only other things that could see him do this were the buildings themselves. "Wait…how do you four remember these things?"
"Hmm…I don't exactly know," said Debbie. "But that is one of the many things I saw before I was a human,"
"Ok I'm convinced," said Scout. "So you four are human versions of Engi's buildings?"
The four nodded.
Scout turned to Engi. "What kind of wizardry have you been doing?"
Engi chuckled before patting Scout on the shoulder. "For one, this wasn't my doing," he showed him the scorched PDA. "A bolt hit mah PDA during the night creating them, I don't know why or how, but that's what happened,"
"It's official, I'm weirded out for the day,"
"So that's one down, now how are we going to show ourselves to the others?" asked Stella.
"I don't think we need to," said Tai.
"Why?" asked Engi.
Tai pointed behind them, and the other five looked behind to find the rest of the team staring at them with their mouths open.
"How long were they standing there?"
"I don't know I only saw them right now,"
Engi facepalmed and sighed, "Why can't we be this sneaky while we are at work?"
Time Skip
Engi had the suggestion of having the women join the other mercs in battle, but Soldier had some objections to it, or rather a lot.
"YOU WILL NOT BRING A WOMAN ONTO MY BATTLEFIELD!" shouted Soldier. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?"
"This guy is starting to get on my nerves," Stella mumbled. "No wonder why Engi hates him,"
"THE BATTLEFIELD IS NO PLACE FOR WOMEN! THE ONLY PLACE FOR THEM IS BACK AT HOME, IN THE HOUSE!"
"Soldier this could be the deus ex machina that would help us win against the BLUs," said Engi. "Besides what other choice do we have?"
"WE ALL HAVE TO WORK EVEN HARDER THEN WE EVER DID BEFORE, WE MU-," before he could say more Stella picked up Soldier by the neck and rammed his head into the nearest wall, imbedding the American in the drywall.
"Is everyone happy he's silent now?" she asked.
"Good lord," said Spy. "If I listened to one more of that screaming, I would've gutted him, but thank you anyways laborer,"
Everyone else was slightly more relaxed after the loudest merc was silenced.
"If you sheilas are going to join us in battle, you gotta be good at something," said Sniper. "What do you four have that will benefit us?"
"I'm assuming that we have the same abilities that we had when we were buildings," said Debbie. "And I think Stella is demonstrating it quite well,"
The group turned to find the girl looking over two machineguns with a small rocket launcher attached to the bottom of the stock near the front of the gun.
"Where did you get that?" asked Scout.
"I dunno," replied Stella. "They just appeared in my hands, but I guess they will do the job," When she looked back at the mercs they noticed one of her eyes was glowing red. "When do we start shooting stuff?" she asked with a devious grin.
A/N: OK this was supposed to be out like a day or so ago, but I got stuck on how the mercs were supposed to "meet" the now-human buildings, also I had work to do. I also made A LOT of TF2 references in this chapter, try and find them. Anyways, who's your favorite building so far?
Till next time,
-D.W