And it's me again, with a new chapter! This one is much longer than I expected it to be, but I think I just mixed two chapters together because I wanted to be done with setting the context and dynamics of the group. Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Chapter 3: Welcome to the team.

"HOLY SHIT THAT WAS CLOSE."

"Stop your yelling and get back to your position."

Scout had to duck to avoid a rocket before he could snap back at Spy, and before he knew it, that sneaky bastard had vanished from sight. Cursing out loud, he waved his baseball bat in the air, smashing a Soldier-bot to pieces before drawing his handgun and firing three times at the Sniper-bot aiming at their Sniper. Just about enough to warn his colleague, who spotted the bot and finished it off before lightly waving at Scout, acknowledging the service. Scout grinned but a mere second later his expression turned to a painful frown as he raised his hand to his shoulder. Fuck it. He'd been hit. Knowing that this couldn't be good, he quickly made his way back to the base, miraculously making it through the rain of bullets and other dangerous explosives hammering on the battlefield. Reaching the gates of the base he nearly saw his head viciously separated from his darling body by a Demoman-bot yielding a copy of the Highlander. Luckily, Pyro had just one out of respawn, and roasted the stupid thing before he died for the third time that day.

"Thanks, knucklehead!" he exclaimed with a smile, and dashed off to the control room. He almost tripped as he reached for the locker containing medical supplies and their precious healing kits, but finally he was able to take care of that bullet while Medic was probably out there trying to über-charge the other fat-ass. He never understood why it was always stupid Heavy who got (almost) all the über-charges: he was (nearly) just as strong and (nearly) just as brutal as he was. And he was faster. And more clever. And so much funnier and…

"SCOUT." Scout jumped in surprise and shot the Hacker (what he thought was) a very intimidating and angry look.

"What? Cantcha see I'm busy over here?" he barked, but she didn't seem to be listening. Sitting at her control desk, she was typing at the speed of light on the various computers that constituted the team's control panel – but since she arrived, what was previously used to monitor surveillance cameras was turned into the Teufort equivalent of Bletchley Park (or whatever name they gave to that place full of computers and codes and incomprehensible gibberish Scout had heard of). This was their first battle together, and while all the others were out on the battlefield, she was there, keeping a close eye on the monitors and observing the bots through the cameras, working on God-knew-what to take them down, as promised. And when Scout saw the look on her face, he understood that she probably had come up with something.

"I've got a job for you." Hacker stood up and picked a bag from the floor, opened it, and picked up one of the objects she had put in there. Scout raised an eyebrow.

"Da hell is that supposed to be?"

"Something to drive the bots crazy. Remember when I said I mess up with machines? Well, this is the first step towards messing with these ones."

"Sweet, but what have I gotta do with it? I smash robots! Imma force of nature, rememb-"

"Scout." Hacker interrupted, grabbing him by the shoulders, looking at him straight into the eyes. He gulped and, for once, shut up.

"Scout. Do you ever feel like the rest of the team underestimates you?" she asked, very seriously. Scout almost choked.

"What? No way, I'm awesome, and they know they can't deny…"

"Are not you tired of seeing the good Doctor rushing to heal Heavy or Pyro because they have more fire power than you do? Of merely being seen as an annoyance for the other team? Don't you dream of something bigger?"

Scout stood still, his jaw hanging as he was wondering how she could have read in his mind. Did she read his diary? No, she couldn't possibly have done that – first of all because it was extremely well hidden in his bedroom, and second, because his handwriting was so terrible, even he couldn't re-read what he'd written. But wait, she was an expert in codes and deciphering stuff, wasn't she? What if she had read his diary? Oh God. That would be so embarrassing. He snapped back to reality as she was shaking him like an apple tree.

"Wowowowowoh STOP shaking me, woman!" he exclaimed, grabbing her ridiculously thin arms (thinner than his, if such a thing was conceivable). "Okay, yeah, MAYBE I DO want to do something real big someday and show 'em they shouldn't underestimate me. So what?"

"So. This is your day, buddy." She said with a malicious smile as she put an electronic device in his hand. He looked at it, puzzled. It was the size of an insect, small as a fly. What the hell were these? "These things are electromagnetic controllers. They're based on Spy's sappers, but they're much smaller and more… elaborate in their effects. Namely, they can affect the robots, and they can affect their behavior."

"Right. And what exactly am I supposed to do with'em ?"

"I need you to go back on the battlefield and pin these little things down on the robots. They are magnetic, so as long as you place them somewhere near the robot's head they will stick and be able to work their magic. I'll take it from there, but it is vital that you stick as many of them on as any robots as you can. You're the fastest on the team and your job is to distract the enemy, only you can do that and go undetected."

Scout's chest inflated with misplaced pride, and a spark of joy briefly illuminated his eyes.

"I'm in!" he exclaimed, then grabbed the bag and dashed away before she could add anything. Too bad for him, she had made a point about getting wired on all their communication devices, so it took only a couple of seconds before he heard her quiet voice in his headphones.

"Give a handful of them to Sniper. Tell him to use them like he would use a bullet, that will do the trick."

"Heck no! Imma be the hero of the day! WATCH OUT FOR THE AMAZING SCOUT, YOU BUNCH OF JERKS."

Hacker sighed and shook her head, but couldn't repress a smile. A smile that quickly disappeared when an all-too-familiar accent resonated across the room.

"Well done. I see your diplomatic abilities have not changed over the past few months."

"Do you need anything, Spy, or can I go back to what I'm doing?" she replied, coldly, without even looking at him. She wasn't good at being angry. She never yelled on people, never got furious, never broke anything – but when she felt resentment towards another human being, she closed up like an oyster. She didn't want to talk to him – she didn't even want to look at him. Because she knew that if she did, she would have to confront him.

"You do know that we will have to talk about it. If not for the sake of our past collaboration, at least to ensure nothing will interfere in our work here." He said, his monotonous, detached tone preventing her from detecting any sort of emotion in his voice. She hated it when he did that – she liked to know what the people around her were thinking, and she was really good at that. Facial expression, body language, and of course voices – she knew the clues by heart, but Spy knew her tricks and used them against her. There was a time when she found that amusing, as she thoroughly enjoyed riddles and Spy was one in the flesh, but now, with what had happened between them, she found it plain annoying. She wasn't in the mood for guessing games, and she certainly wasn't in the mood for talking.

"I know. But now is not the time. I need to…"

"OHMAGAD WHAT'S HAPPENING?"

Scout's high-pitched voice in her headphone snapped her attention back at her screens. Spy immediately saw the unusually ferocious smile on her face. That was the smile of triumph. Quickly, she started typing on her keyboards and lines of codes appeared on the three screens that constituted her console.

"Hey Hacker! What the hell is going on?!"

"That, my dear Scout, is the sound of victory. Did you manage to put the chips on the bots?"

"Yeah, not all of them, but a good chunk! What do I do now?"

"Now, you sit back and enjoy your triumph."

She pressed the Enter button. Spy looked at the surveillance screens, on which he could see the action on the battlefield.

He saw a dozen of robots stop moving, interrupted in their movement. They seemed to quiver, before their lifeless, lightbulb eyes shone again, as if they just rebooted.

Then the Demoman-bot that almost cut Scout into two turned to the Medic-bot standing next to him and kicked it so hard the Medic-bot miserably fell on its back. Further away, a Sniper-bot and a Scout-bot were dancing a waltz together, while a Pyro-bot and a Solider-bot started running repeatedly into a wall together. The whole team watched in complete astonishment.

Sniper was the first to let out a "Bloody hell." in his mic. Then Hacker and Spy perceived Heavy's really loud laugh and Pyro's happy mumbling, while Engie said "Well, I'll be damned" with a smile in his voice. "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeha! Nat so CLEVER now arr ye, ye bunch of eejit?!" was Demo's contribution to the group commentary, to which Soldier solemnly added "THIS IS THE WORK OF SWEET AMERICAN JUSTICE. LESSON LEARNT, DISGUSTING ROBOT NAZI MAGGOTS."

On her screens, she could see Medic and Shield looking at the robots running in the wall, while Scout was trying to smash another one that had decided to imitate a horse (as much as a robot could, of course) and was galloping everywhere. When they all got tired from the spectacle, they resumed the fight with the remaining bots.

"Very impressive, I have to admit it." Spy conceded. "Can I make myself useful, or are you going to make all the robots look like childish imbeciles and watch them destroy themselves by running off the cliff?"

"I don't have enough chips for all the robots, and it would be impossible for Scout to chip them all anyway. Go push the rest of them away with some backstabbing – isn't that what you do?"

Spy almost replied, but held the words back and walked out of the room. The battle was over, and won. For now.

"Yeah I did that! Ran through their lines of defense, chippin' them so fast they didn't even notice! One tried to blow me up but man, I promise you, I wasn't the one who got blown off!"

Pyro merrily clapped while Scout was telling him about his exploit of the day for the 41st time. The jukebox ad been turned on and was playing in the background, giving the common room a festive atmosphere that had not been felt in a while at the RED base. Demo had gone back from alcohol-shopping and was handing out bottles of beer to everyone and everyone seemed in the mood for partying and celebrating their first victory against the Mann robots in a long time. Engie was especially pleased with the way everything turned out, and when Shield and Hacker came back from their briefing with Miss Pauling, he walked towards them and opened his arms wide enough to put a hand on one shoulder each – the height difference between the three of them was kind of comical, especially since he was one of the shortest men of the team, but he didn't mind.

"Ladies, I owe you an apology for my doubts about you earlier. Especially you, Shield." The Scandinavian woman smiled and shook her head.

"No offense taken, Engineer. I know it must have been difficult for you to adjust." She replied while Hacker was sneaking off, trying to disappear in a corner, but her exploit of the day had attracted attention to her and Pyro ran at her and gave her such a hug, she thought her lungs were going to explode.

"Well, I'll admit I was worried about you getting' in my way while I was doing my job, but you didn't at all. Always at the right spot at the exact right time. Took a huge weight off my shoulders, not having to look out for robots all the time. Good to work with you, partner."

Shield smiled even more, giving her usually dignified and austere expression an air of kindness that weirdly suited her. They shook hands, sealing their newfound friendship.

Engie was really relieved to see how well things were going. The first few days with the new girls had been a bit awkward, but they had quickly managed to adapt and somehow fit it. Ten days had passed since they arrived, before the attack, and they had made themselves they own little hole in this strange place and team. Shield was very much appreciated by her peers: behind her Northern-war-goddess looks she was a woman of great generosity, with an incredible strength both of body and mind, enough patience to listen to Scout's babbling for hours without showing any sign of lassitude, and she was protective with the whole team without being maternal. She was more of a guardian, ensuring her team's wellbeing and security, and her knight-like sense of loyalty and integrity had quickly earned her everybody's trust and esteem. She was a hero, in the true sense of the term, a female version of those wandering knights who defend the weak and right the wrong in the old tales. On the battlefield, she somehow managed to have everybody's back, jumping in to protect them from bullets with her armor and the actual shield she used both for protection and as a weapon. She, contrary to Scout, was a real force of nature, to be reckoned with, and her teammates had developed a great respect for her.

She really was something, and Engie was extremely curious to get to know her better. And especially how she got to pair up with such a peculiar character as Hacker.

"Everyone, let's raise a toast. To our new recruits, and to Mann's defeat. May it be the first of a long series." Engie said, raising his bottle of beer. Everyone imitated him and cheered.

"Hey, Hacker!" Scout slid on the bench and bumped into her, causing her to nearly drop her own bottle. He passed an arm around her shoulder and made his beer cling against her. "We did it, pal! That was FREAKING AWESOME."

"Yes. Tiny woman did good work." Heavy approved, sitting on a chair across the table.

"We make a good team you an'I! Hey, d'ya like to play baseball? I usually play on my own since the rest of them suck at it, but now that we're basically buddies, I thought I'd make an exception for ya!"

"I am… honoured, Scout, but you're basically breaking my neck right now." Hacker pointed out, her throat compressed by her new friend's arm. Between him and Pyro, that was definitely a lot of hugging in one night. Not that she didn't like it (except when it put her life in danger, which seemed to be normal in this team) but it was exhausting, all this human contact. She didn't even get to breathe when Scout finally let go of her – both he and Pyro grabbed her arm and pulled her after them as they were going to fetch the boardgames they had all agreed to play for the night.

Christina smiled. She had been worried that Charlie wouldn't fit it, or wouldn't even bother trying, but it had turned out she had found her own place too. She was usually too shy, too rebellious, too insolent too, to bond with other people. She had always been too clever for her own good and had been seriously damaged by past emotional disasters with other people. Her acute mind was paired up with an acute sensitivity and Shield knew her partner had trouble dealing with the never-ending flow of thoughts and strong impressions and emotions in her messy head, which had led her to cut herself off from others as much as possible, like a wild cat avoiding other cats in order to not get more scratches than it already has. But the team had somehow accepted her just that way. Christina knew she was particularly fond of Pyro's genuine and disinterested kindness, and she was the only one who'd spend time drawing with him and inventing stories for his fluffy toys. Scout's incredible energy seemed to be contagious, and Christina could see that she had been won over by his cheerfulness and assurance, and he was bringing out her own mischievous and youthful side. Medic particularly appreciated her intelligence and her love for puzzles and chess, and when they were not playing against each other, she could be spotted watching Medic and Heavy playing, and giving Heavy a few tips that made the game much more interesting and less frustrating for the good doctor – and Heavy appreciated her patient advice. Even Sniper seemed to have taken her under his wing, as he enjoyed her quiet company. And sometimes, she, being English, would have passionate debates about politics with the ever-so-Scottish Demoman.

Things were going really well, Christina thought.

"So, how did the two of you meet?" Engie finally asked, unable to hold back his curiosity. "If you don't mind askin', of course."

"It's a rather long story." Shield replied. "I do not want to tell you anything about her without her agreement, but I can tell you a bit about how I got there."

"I'd like that very much."

"Well, I was born in Stockholm, in Sweden. I was not really destined to be a mercenary, but life is full of surprises, I guess. I have a very good voice, and I became an Opera singer when I was just eighteen."

"An Opera singer? That's unusual for a merc."

"I warned you." She smiled. "I had a good career. Toured across Europe, had many first roles. I met my husband when I was twenty-four. We got married a few months later, and we were very happy… Until I found out he was involved with the local mafia and had a bounty on his head."

"Darn. What did ya do? Left him?"

"No. Shot him, collected the bounty, and fled the country before his 'colleagues' could get to me. I went to China and trained in martial arts for ten years. Then I went to Russia, then to the United States. Worked here and there as bodyguard for a lot of people. And seven years ago, I met Charlie, and we decided to team up. We've never left each other ever since."

"Wow." Engie's face expressed astonishment. "That's a very impressive resume you've got there. Without getting into details, is hers as packed up with adventures as yours?"

"Charlie? Her story is shorter, as she was only twenty-seven when we met, but she has had her fair share too. She will tell you herself when she feels like it."

Engie nodded, looking at Scout, Pyro and Hacker coming back, their arms stacked with boxes of boardgames and cardgames.

"You got any kids, Shield?"

"No. Never had the opportunity, never really wanted to either. I am not the maternal type. You?"

"Yeah, one kid. A thirteen year-old girl. Her name's Annie. Having you gals with us sort of reminds me of her more often than usual."

"You miss her?"

"Sure." Engie smiled, and Shield spotted a hint of melancholy in that smile. "But I'm starting to tell myself, I'm gonna learn from you both, and I'm gonna make sure that when she grows up, she becomes as intelligent and strong a woman as you both. She lives with my sister back in Texas, but when I get back there I always tell her stories. For once I'll have a real story to tell her 'bout my job that does not involve drunk Scotsmen or Australians who pee in jars and throw them at their enemies."

"Sniper does that?"

"The hell he does."

They both laughed. Then Shield patted Engie on the shoulder, and walked towards the table where everybody was starting to gather while Scout and Hacker were arguing about the rules of Cluedo. Engie smiled, detached himself from the wall, and joined the rest of the gang for their first lighthearted night of games in months.