Everyone rushed out of the room as the buzzer sounded. With a brisk nod to me, Alice ran out the door, the end of her red dress flowing out behind her like a Medic's coat. I quickly grabbed my weapons from the supply box and ran out of the room, not taking a second to look behind me.

"Heads up!" A jar with a mysterious yellow liquid, probably urine, flew over my head and hit a nearby BLU Heavy who was firing his minigun at a RED Sentry gun. The machine beeped and tried to defend itself with its rockets. I quickly looked behind me to see a Sniper pull out his sniper rifle and headshot the Heavy. The Heavy yelped and fell to the ground, bleeding through a hole in his head.

I looked at the dead body of the Heavy and my eyes widened. I had never seen someone die in front of me before. I squatted down in a haystack and hugged my knees shaking, completely scared for my own life. What if that same thing happened to me when I was out on the field fighting BLUs?

"Oi, mate, you alright there?" I heard footsteps approach me and the ruffle of clothes as the Sniper squatted down next to me. "Mate?" the Sniper tapped me on the shoulder and I screamed.

"It's alright, I'm not going ta hurt ya." the Sniper reassured me.

"B-but that Heavy... You killed that Heavy!" I finally managed to sputter out.

"It's fine, mate, he'll respawn in 12 seconds, besides he's not on our team." the Sniper stood up and held out his hand.

"How do you know that?" I asked, taking his hand and used it to help me up.

"Look at your watch." The Sniper held up his wrist where the number 12 was blinking in red. I looked at my own watch. It was also blinking red.

"Ya see, when someone dies, the timer counts down and when it reaches zero, we respawn and arrive back here." The Sniper pointed to the room that I had just left. "It's the Respawn Room and -ARG!" The Sniper was cut off by a yell as his back was pierced by a knife. He fell forward with the knife imbedded in his back, blood staining his vest. I yelped and looked around, but I didn't see anyone.

"Spy." The Sniper coughed out bits of blood. "He's re-cloaked himself, get out of here before he gets you!" He pointed to the side of the fort as his eyes closed.

"NO! Don't die, Mr. Snipes!" I yelled, tears coming to my eyes. I then felt something tear through the arm of my shirt. I looked on the floor to see a bullet attached to the sleeve. My eyes widened in panic as I turned around and ran towards the area that the Sniper had pointed to, leaving the Sniper's dead body behind me.

"SPY SAPPIN' MY SENTRY!" I heard an Engineer yell as I dropped down from the grate that separated the upper level of our fort from the bottom. I wheeled around and saw the sentry gun that had an electronic gadget on the top of it. Bits of electric sparks were coming off of the machine. The Engineer quickly ran over and whacked the odd machine on its side with his wrench. The machine flew off the sentry gun and hit the wall where it burst into pieces.

"Got rid of the sapper!" The Engineer laughed and slapped his knee. I smiled, but the smile quickly faded when I saw a blue blur appear behind the Engineer. There stood a BLU Spy, dressed in a blue suit, holding a knife to the Engineer's back.

The Spy smiled wickedly and was about to push the knife into the Engineer's back, and before I knew it, I rushed forward, with my Force of Nature scatter gun in my hands.

"Watch out!" I yelled, darting to the side of the Spy, pulling the trigger on my gun. There was a gunshot and a scream from the Spy as he fell sideways and lay dead, his blue suit's chest stained with the scarlet blood.

The Engineer turned to me. "Nice shot, pardner." He complimented and looked down at the corpse of the Spy. I blinked a few times, unable to shake the feeling that I had killed another person.

The Engineer saw my expression. "Don't worry pardner, he'll respawn."

I sighed with relief.

"Welp, you best be heading off to capture the BLU intel, we're losin' precious time." The Engineer gave me a gentle push.

"R-right See ya!" I giggled hysterically and ran off, stumbling slightly.

The Engineer watched me dart around the corner and smiled, "There's potential in that young un."

Now that I had that huge weight of guilt off my shoulders of killing that BLU Spy, I ran twice as fast, smiling, humming to myself. That is, until I ran out of the base doors.

My decapitated head was thrown back into the base, followed closely by my torso, blood staining the walls.

12 seconds later, I respawned. I hit the floor of the respawn room, gasping for air. I coughed out a bit of blood as the words "Sticky Bomb Death" flashed on my respawn watch. Is this what it felt like to die? Dying was painful. I got to my feet as a second person hit the floor next to me.

"Ow!" The Scout yelped in his Boston accent as his body collapsed under his weight.

I looked at the boy and gasped. "Niko?"

Niko got up onto his feet, his brown eyes were looking into my green eyes. "Adrian? Did the Sentry get you too?" He asked, running a hand over his head, apparently looking for his baseball cap.

I shook my head, "Sticky bombs got me as soon as I got out of the base." I looked away from his eyes, my face turning red.

This was the first time Niko and I had eye contact and the first time I had seen him without his baseball cap. His black hair was down to his back, but in the light, it would look almost a dark brown. It was if someone had poured dark chocolate over his head.

I felt my face grow hotter and took off my own baseball cap to fan my face. Niko looked at my neck length brown hair as I shook my head.

"Cute..." He muttered, not taking his eyes off of me as I put my cap back on my head.

"Hm? What is?" I had overheard Niko's muttering and straightened out my dog tags.

"Nothing really." Niko looked away, rubbing the back of his head, blushing.

We stood in silence for a few moments until it dawned on us that we were in the middle of a mission.

"Crap! The intel!" we both yelled in unison and sprinted out of the respawn room.

I had just about reached the front doors of the base when Niko pulled me aside, at the same time an arrow flew past my right ear and stuck into the wall.

"Woah... that was really close..." I gasped and put my hand over my heart trying to quiet it down.

"Almost lost you there for a second, Adrian." Niko peered out the left door and ducked back in as a second arrow flew right by him and stuck into the wall.

"Dammit, they know we're attempting to come out this way..." Niko bit his thumb.

"So what do we do?" I asked, trying not to panic.

"We go another way, c'mon." Niko grabbed my hand and pulled me along the edge of the wall until we reached a staircase that led down into the sewers of 2Fort.

Niko led the way down the stairs, still clutching my hand.

"We normally don't go this way to capture BLU's intelligence because their Engineers will usually build Sentry guns and Dispensers down here." Niko explained, but stopped abruptly, causing me to crash into him.

"What is it, Ni-" I was quickly silenced by a hand over my mouth.

Niko spun around instantly to see a hand covering my mouth. He pulled out his scatter gun and glared at the person hidden in the shadows.

"Show yourself and give up." He snarled, his scatter gun in position.

"Niko? Is that you? I thought you two were BLUs." a feminine voice with a bit of a Japanese accent spoke out from the shadows.

"Alice? Is that you?" Niko asked as a blond figure stepped out.

"Of course it is!" The blond girl rolled her eyes at Niko. "What, did ya think I was a Spy?" Both Niko and I nodded.

Alice laughed and changed the subject, "Well c'mon! The intel won't capture itself!" She smiled and adjusted her bag.

Niko and I looked at each other and nodded and the three of us ran through the RED base sewers.

We were dashing through the sewer when Alice poked my back.

"Hey, Adrian?"

"Yeah?" I answered, looking over my shoulder at Alice.

"I was wondering, do you like Niko or something?" The blond female Scout whispered to me.

"What? W-what makes you say that?" I stuttered, trying to act natural, but stumbled. So much for acting natural.

Alice looked at me and narrowed her eyes. "Don't play dumb with me, Adrian, there's something going on between you two, and I'm gonna find out what it is.

I laughed nervously, "You've been hanging out with Aya too much, haven't you?"

Alice rolled her eyes, "Adrian. I'm not joking. You two have a relationship."

"U-uh, no we don't." I laughed, causing Alice to sigh.

"If you don't, then why are you still holding Niko's hand?"

"What?" I looked at my hand that was clutching Niko's hand. I let go immediately and hit myself in the face.

Alice laughed, "That's karma for ya."

I didn't speak to her for the rest of our sewer journey.

When we finally reached the end of the sewer, Niko spoke up.

"Hey, have you two ever heard of the legend of the TentaSpy?" He asked us, wading into the pool of water that connected RED's sewer to BLU's.

"The TentaSpy legend?" Alice and I asked at the same time and followed Niko into the water.

"Yeah, somewhere in the sewers there lives a Spy-like creature with eight tentacles, like an octopus." Niko explained.

"TentaSpy, huh..." Alice walked forward and almost tripped over the corpse of a BLU Engineer. "Goddammit, watch where you're putting your... corpses."

"Was someone else down here before us?" I asked to myself, spotting the corpse and stepping over it.

Niko and Alice had a hard time catching up to me. Alice had the hardest time since she was attempting to wade into the water in her dress.

The three of us finally reached BLU's sewers.

"Remind me to dry this properly when we're done fighting." Alice said, wringing the bottom of her red dress out.

"We're all gonna need showers after this." Niko nodded and put his black hair up into a ponytail.

I started reminiscing about when I had long hair like Niko's and didn't notice the wall that I had just smacked into.

"Yo! 2Fort to Adrian, do ya read?" Alice yelled at me.

My attention returned to my surroundings. "Huh? What?" I asked, completely clueless.

"You walked into that wall and just stood there for a few moments." Niko looked at me and my face turned red from embarrassment.

"W-well! Where did that come from? Stupid wall." I laughed and rubbed the back of my head.

All three of us laughed, but stopped when we heard a gun shot and a feminine Boston accent.

"Fucking Bastard! Jus' wait 'till I respawn! You'll be sorry!"

Alice, Niko and I looked at each other and quickly ran up the stairs leading into BLU's base.

We arrived to witness a scene with a RED female Scout laying on the floor of the base, a hole through her chest, blood was splattered against the walls of the base. A pool of blood surrounded the red haired girl's body. Her baseball cap was several feet away from her. A BLU Scout was standing over her, leering.

"What, yer plannin' on respawnin'" The BLU Scout threw back his head and laughed.

"Of course I'm plannin' on respawnin'!" The RED Scout yelled at her BLU counterpart, but then quickly glanced at her wrist.

"The fuck? Where's my watch?" The female Scout's grey eyes instantly turned to a panicked expression.

The BLU Scout laughed again and held up a small watch. "Wha, you mean this thing?"

"YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!" The RED Scout yelled, clutching her chest where her wound was.

"I can't take this..." Alice whispered to me, "I have to do something..." She tried to step forward, but Niko held her back.

"We can't afford to lose you, Alice."

Alice glared at Niko. "Well, what the hell are we supposed to do? Stand here? Ryne will die permanently if we don't get her watch back! I'll respawn, no big deal!"

I looked back at Ryne, still bleeding on the floor of BLU's base, her eyes almost closing. I then saw it. A red blur came from the side of the base. A small object fell onto Ryne's chest. Ryne's eyes closed as a light surrounded her body.

"Thank you, Cody..." she whispered as her body disappeared from the floor.

The three of us blinked as Ryne's body transported away. Our attention returned to the fight between the BLU Scout and our RED Scout, Dakota.

"Why would ya do that? Throw your own watch to save that girl's life?" The BLU Scout yelled, dodging a flying baseball from Dakota's bat.

"That would be none of yer business." Dakota narrowed his eyes and pulled out his scatter gun.

"Fine, if tha's how ya wanna play." The BLU Scout pulled out his scatter gun as well.

The two Scouts ran towards each other, eyes blazing. I wanted to step in and help Dakota, but I had my own mission.

"C'mon, let's go get the intel." Alice turned to me and Niko.

"But what about Dakota?" I asked, looking at the Scout fight.

"Don't worry, he'll be fine." Niko replied as Dakota dashed off in the opposite direction as us. "He can't be killed that easily."

Alice and I followed Niko through the fort and into the courtyard. We stopped to take a breather and looked around.

"No sentries so far. .." Alice muttered as she came back from scouting the area.

"Meaning that they're by the intel," Niko decided.

"So what do we do?" I asked, wiping the sweat off my face with my shirt sleeve.

"Hmm. .." Niko drew a diagram in the dirt with the toe of his shoe. "If there are sentries by the intel, we'll have to approach with caution. You two still have your respawn watches, correct?"

Alice and I nodded.

"OK, so here's what we do. If there's a Sentry, there's bound to be an Engineer hanging around it." Niko drew a circle to indicate the sentry gun and Engineer.

"Now since there's three of us, we can have one of us distract the Engineer while another person takes out the Sentry." Niko drew three Rs. One by the supposed sentry gun, one by the supposed Engineer and one in the hall way.

"Once the Sentry's destroyed, one of us can go for the intel without being shot down." Niko finished, drawing an X through the sentry.

"Sounds good, but who has which job?" I asked, as Alice's eyes lit up.

"I want to distract the sentry gun!" she yelled, throwing her arm up into the air and causing me to jump.

"Alright, then I'll take care of the Engineer." Niko nodded and drew an Al over the sentry and a N by the Engineer.

"That leaves you with the intel, Adrian."

"Great." I muttered.

I really hated running. Why couldn't we fight in water or something? I was personally better at swimming.

"So, Operation A squared N, GO!" Niko yelled and we dashed into the intel room.