Notes of the Author persuasion:
Well, hello again. It's always such a pleasure.
Soon, I will have no more time to update so often. I am making the most of the little holiday time I have left. It's slipping away as you read.
(I try to vary the style depending on which class is being showcased – the Pyro is accompanied by many colourful descriptions, Medic is derpy with a serious side, the Demoman is ensconced in a dreamlike sort of surreal drunkenness, the Soldier is...non sequitur, and the Sniper is almost normal but gets interrupted by weirdness. I don't know if that's working.) Anyway, this time, let's meet the Engineer.
(Not all Texans are scientifically or otherwise illiterate. It's an unfair stereotype to be sure. No better is it presented than in the impressive credentials the Engineer sports. 11 PhDs? Very impressive.)
Engineer's Ingenuity
The Engineer was from Bee Hive, Texas, a fact immediately discernible from his birth certificate (and not his accent, which was actually kind of ambiguous). He was raised on gold ol' fashioned Southern values and a steady diet of research journals. If Wikipedia had existed in his time, he would one of the experts bemoaning the lack of competence on the site, adding DOIs and {{cleanup}} templates on each article about technology. But it didn't, so pfffbbbbt. They had to go to the LIBRARY! (cue gasps). Sucks for them.
The Engineer was a gentleman, and not just any gentleman, a Southern gentleman. A good ol' boy who held doors open and addressed "ma'am" and "miss" to the correct age demographics and knew how to use a napkin. He also wore a bright yellow hat. Not sure how that makes him better, but hat-based elitism was a staple of the time, so it's probably worth a mention.
The Engineer made good use of his education, making prototypes and testing and refining all sorts of geegaws and thingamabobs. They were revolutionary, centuries before their time: teleporters that nearly instantaneously transported matter from one node to another, requiring a grasp of quantum mechanics not available yet to humankind, machines that could extend a person's lifetime indefinitely, the first artificial immortality, and a self-icing cupcake. Of all of these, the last one was the only one he bothered to keep secret. It was obvious that that was too arcane, too special, too important to share with others. That's why no one's heard of it. Until now. You're welcome.
Some of those thingamabobs happened to kill people, though, and in almost comically unnecessary, over-the-top ways. People think Medic has ethical problems. Wait until you see Engie's rap sheet.
So, to avoid the potential legal backlash and ethical board hearings, he sold his designs to TF Industries. They were great at killing people and getting away with it.
But no worries. He was just another good ol' boy, that's all. And he was cordial and polite, and worn to the absolute bone by his new role as conflict resolutions guy for the new merger, the "Let's Make Purple" initiative.
"Pyro, don't pour kerosene onto former-BLU Spy's head, he doesn't like that."
"Mrrrph!"
"I don't care if you're "jus' bein' friendly", Pyro, he thinks you're gonna roast him and so do we." He picked up one of his well-worn chemistry books, and flipped to a section on torrefaction. "C'mere, Pyro, put down that match and come look at the pretty pitchers."
On the opposite side of the room, the former-BLU Engineer was having the same problems. "All I'm sayin', Solly, is that we've made a commitment, and a damn smart one too, if you want to live! If you don't cooperate, you have a snowball's chance in hell of gettin' away from these robots."
The response was about the same every time. Unprintable.
So after about two days of this, the two Engies decided they needed a break. So, at the crack of dawn, they both sneaked and snuck out of their beds, headed to their shared "Purple" laboratory/workshop to do some good, mind-cleansing work, and arrived at the entrance at the exact same moment.
Well. That was awkward.
"Heh. Good mornin'. I was jus' fixin' to go do some...fixin'."
"Me too."
They both tugged at their collars, hemmed and hawed for a bit, and cleared their throats, both looking rather ill at ease.
"Aw, this is ridiculous. We're one team now. We're mature enough to share a workshop."
"Yeah. We're not like the others, itchin' for a fight."
None of them made a move.
"What were you gonna tackle first?" said the former-BLU.
"I was thinkin' maybe the Dispenser over there."
"What's wrong with it?"
"Ah...nothing, actually." A tumbleweed rolled across a desert somewhere, and caught on fire, which made it approximately 100.64 times more exciting than what was going on in the workshop right this moment.
"It's slower than cream rising on buttermilk."
"What?"
"It's like molasses going uphill in winter."
"Pardon?"
"It's really slow."
"Oh."
A full minute passed. The clock, ticking insistently in the background, seemed to get louder with every passing second.
"I see. Well, mah name's Dell Conagher. You can call me Dell."
"Nice ta meet ya, pardner. The name's N.G."
"Come again?"
"Mah name's N.G."
"Well sure, but we're past that code-naming business, aren't we? Come on, tell me your name."
"My name is N.G."
"I know you're name's Engie! My nickname's Engie! What's your real name?"
"N.G. It's N.G.," insisted the former-BLU Engineer, a hint of exasperation in his voice.
"Quit messing with me and tell me your damn name!"
The amiable, soft-spoken Texan snapped with the suddenness of a crocodile performing its death roll and roared, "MY NAME IS NELL GONAGHER AND I GO BY N.G.!"
Engie blinked.
"Unusual name, Gonagher," he managed.
"Thank you, it was my grandfather's."
Somewhat shaken by the incident, Engineer decided not to pursue his line of inquiry into why his counterpart's name was so similar to his own.
"Which transdimensional [pseudoscientific gobbledygook] [nonsense I made up] do you use?"
"I use the polarizing negative-field [technobabble] [you can tell I've never opened a physics textbook] Allen wrench."
"Ha, so do I!" chuckled Dell. "I remember doing mah doctoral dissertation for applied physics. Wow, was that a doozy! I was visualizin' vectors and Planck constants in mah sleep."
"Same here. When I did mah dual Masters and doctorate, I was mixin' up my graphene and my graphemes at that point, if you know what I mean."
"Where did you go to school?"
"MIT," replied Nell, because no one has ever heard of any other famous technical institute, and thoroughly researching the history of higher education schools renowned for their engineering departments is for the birds.
"So did I!" Dell looked sideways at Nell. "Say, I never saw you around! You can't be much younger - or older'n me."
"Well, I went on a lot of exchanges and I kept mostly to myself," explained Nell. "I was busy with all my inventions. See, I had all these ideas." His eyes misted over and he sighed fondly. "Those were the days."
"Those were the days," echoed Dell. "Say, we really are two peas in a pod, aren't we? Sometimes I think ol' Redmond and Blutarch did this on purpose. Found doppelgangers so they could oppose each other to the last. They were twins, weren't they? Twins do think alike. Hired the exact same number of mercenaries even though hiring more people is certainly within their power and would tip things in their favour."
"I wondered that myself," replied Nell, fastening a wedge in place. "How I see it, I'm jus' glad they didn't try escalatin' the numbers. I mean, one day it's nine versus nine and the next it's two hundred even. Probably had a tacit agreement between them: you have nine and I have nine, let's keep it that way. Maybe ol' Blutarch and Redmond weren't quite as stupid as we're told."
They both burst out laughing.
"Who'm I kiddin'? They're dingbats. Were, sorry. God rest their souls or something like that."
As the hours wore on, they were still no closer to fixing whatever problem there was with the teleporter, because there was no problem with it. At this point, they were just dismantling it and putting it back together. Anything. Anything at all to escape being the blasted mediator for a group of nine psychopathic-tendency-exhibiting, grudge-and-not-hand-holding, blood-and-maybe-some-other-things-lusting mercenaries. This was a welcome break for the both of them: they rarely got to (forgive the pun) talk shop about their work with the others: Sniper and Spy had no interest, Soldier and Scout had no brains, Medic and Heavy had no patience, Demo was always drunk, and Pyro...
Well, Pyro was Pyro. Pyro guarded the Sentries. Pyro asked no questions.
Their conversation lasted long into the afternoon, comparing tools, specifications, and how long it took them to strangle a man with their Gunslingers. The more they spoke, the more they found that they had an astounding list of things in common - alma mater, alma pater, almond platters, and llama hatters - not to mention their album water, alum splatters and Allum key slatters (forget the latter, it doesn't matter). Talk began to turn to the nature of extraordinary coincidences, each trying to outdo the other in outlandishness.
"Two lotteries, a pig, and a diamond ring in one day? That's nothing. Statistically speaking, it has to happen once in a while. Did you hear about this one? So there are these identical twins, right, separated from their mother at birth. At birth. And after thirty-nine years, they meet each other, and they find out they like the same songs, eat the same cereal, drive the same car, smoke the same cigarettes, went to the same beaches, named their dog the same damn thing - it was like finding a clone of themselves, 'cept not as creepy. They couldn't even tell their own voices apart."
"All right. You beat me. That story was...surprisingly apt for this situation...almost as if we were living the very same thing."
"Ha! That's ridiculous...almost more ridiculous than thi- I mean my story..."
They both stared at each other.
"My favourite food is bacon!"
"I've always hated the colour yellow!"
"I had a dog named Sparky and we buried him under the apple tree in our backyard!"
Prolonged stares, becoming a bit panicked.
"We can't be identical twins separated at birth, can we?"
"No. Of course not. What's the chance of that?"
"That's almost as silly as us being clones of each other!"
They both laughed nervously, not taking their eyes off each other.
They decided to settle this matter right then and there, not left in the past and somewhere else, because that wouldn't make any sense. They both quickly shuffled around, gathering pens and paper to calculate the actual probability of how likely was it that they were identical twins. After all the deviations were squared and summed and sweated over, the graph was right in front of them:
VERY
"That just ain't right."
"Ha. This just shows a possibility, not the absolute, 100% truth. Oh look, you forgot t' carry the two."
They hefted the two to its proper place, and rewrote the calculations.
The new likelihood was:
EXTREMELY
"That still isn't right."
They fiddled around a bit more.
The result:
FACE IT YOU'RE TWINS
"Why are we even doing this?"
"I don't know, you started it."
"Should we do a DNA test?"
"No, how would that help us? It'll just say the same thing."
They looked at each other. Tears welled up behind their goggles. They ripped them and their helmets off, and they threw their arms around each other.
"I'm so sorry about all the times I've called you a no-good redneck son of a silly person!"
"I'm sorry for sending the Spy to sap your Dispenser and to telefrag you fifty times in a row!"
"I'm sorry about the time I stole your favourite socket wrench, modified one of Pyro's flamethrowers into an oversized oxyacetylene torch, melted it down, and poured it down your throat as you watched!"
They broke apart. "Maybe we should stop apologizing to each other."
Just then, the Scout burst into the room. "HELPENGIEYOUGOTTASTOPTHEM!"
"Wait, stop who from what? Slow down, boy!"
"THEY'REKILLINGEACHOTHERANDTHEYSAIDI'MNEXT!" Scout yelled, hyperventilating. "What have you been DOING?!"
The Engineers sighed, picked their helmets from off the ground and set them firmly on their heads. They gathered the spare parts of the teleporter with exaggerated movements. They purposefully placed their tools in their proper place. They hefted their toolboxes onto their shoulders in slow motion. Scout facepalmed.
Finally, the Engineers shared a knowing glance, and nodded authoritatively. Scout nearly wept in relief.
"Take us to them, son," they said in unison.
After what they had been through, they were ready.
~~~End :3~~~
I have complied to the blinkings of no and began the Purple story right quick. For clarification, this story will still address post-MVM madness, but it will focus more on blips of the featured class's life instead of actual robot fighting. So that's how these two stories differ. They're not actually going to be the same. I promise.