Between the sodden, wooden slabs over his head, Scout watched a sliver of the moon fade in and out of existence as dark clouds passed it in the sky. Every now and then, a cold drop of rain would bypass the planks and splash on his cheek. It was freezing there in the old barn they'd found and snuck into along the way, but at the very least, they had a roof over their heads, and thankfully hadn't been forced to squash up together in the car to sleep.

The barn was fairly small, old, and rickety, though there was a slope leading to a ledge loaded with harvested rice plants. They'd let Miss Pauling have the relative privacy of that area and made a home on the dusty floor below, most of them using clothes and what other luggage they had brought along as pillows and blankets. The group had settled inside and Scout had hoped that an angry farmer with a gun wouldn't stumble across them in the morning – but then he remembered who he was with. Angry farmers had nothing on the RED mercs.

Being nestled inbetween Heavy and Sniper had led to the worst night's sleep he'd probably ever had, as both men had the most obnoxious snores in existence. Even so, he doubted he would have slept anyway. It was cold, and … yeah, he was still pretty shaken up following everything that had happened. He often caught himself struggling to believe that the other guys had actually left the US to come and find them, that Miss Pauling had apparently forsaken her devotion to the Administrator. Though, of course, while he was grateful for their presence, he still didn't know why they were there, and supposedly, neither did they. Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of it all was that even Miss Pauling didn't seem to know anything particularly useful – only that the Administrator was up to no good and it could affect all of them.

To his left, Sniper abruptly stopped snoring and shifted beneath Demoman's coat (which had been kindly lent to him by the Scotsman). His eyes flickered open and landed instantly on Scout, a somewhat glazed look to them, which was understandable enough. Scout had woken naturally from his time in the Machina, whereas Sniper had been roughly pulled from it, which likely wasn't how it was supposed to work. Still, it wasn't like there had been any other choice.

"You okay?" the boy whispered, leaning in. He detected alcohol on the assassin's breath and realised that Demoman must have shared a few drops of his whiskey as well as his coat and hat. Sniper pulled off the black wooly beanie and, with some effort, pushed himself into a seated position.

"Gon' throw up."

With considerable effort, Scout pulled the Australian upright and allowed him to rest his weight against him as they slowly ventured outside. He then made off on his own for a little bit to give his friend some privacy doing whatever he had to do, walking to the clumsily parked SUV and opening the boot to search through the supplies in the back. There were bags of clothes, bits of food and alcohol, but nothing much more than that, suggesting that the team had left their base in a hurry.

But why? The worst part of all that was happening was that he was so utterly clueless. He hated being left in the dark more than anything. He wasn't a kid anymore, and so it was frustrating to think that he was being treated like one, however unintentionally. He wanted to get mad because that was the only way he had ever gotten anything resembling answers, but right now, there were bigger things to worry about.

Anxiously walking back to where he had left Sniper, he found the assassin slumped back against the sodden wall of the barn, pale and shaking. Fortunately, the roof of the building protruded enough to shield him from the cold rain.

"What the hell happened?" Sniper grumbled once Scout reached him.

"Uh ..." The younger man lowered down onto his heels and ran a hand over his now moist face, struggling to remember the trouble they had found themselves in not long ago. It had all happened so quickly, and he'd been so embarrassingly scared. What he could remember made him feel sick to his stomach and all he wanted to do was just go home to his Ma. "We got smacked up somethin' good and dragged to China. I beat the guys up as best I could, then the back of the van exploded and RED and Miss Paulin' were there. Thought I was dreamin', dude. Dunno why they even put us in the Machina if the Administrator wants ya, uh, kinda dead."

"Would've served as a warning to you, wouldn't it? If ya'd, well, seen that happen while stuck in there." Sniper's voice drifted off, as it usually did when their conversations started venturing into dangerous territory. "Scout, obviously there's no use in keepin' secrets any more. This whole thing's blown up and the only people who can throw a wrench in her plans is you lot. There's some stuff I gotta tell ya."

"Things that could be shared with all of us, I am sure."

Spy's input came before Scout could reply. The man uncloaked, walking out of the air with a cool ferocity about his very being. Even now, five years after meeting him, he still had the ability to make Scout horribly nervous at times because, well, he was a Spy, and the boy had something of a vendetta against anybody who performed as that particular class, even if he knew it was pointless.

Sniper was apparently nervous, too. He raised his knees and leaned forwards to hug them, his shoulders taut as their team-mate approached.

"Come inside. Both of you. This entire wretched journey here, I've had them all questioning me, suspecting me of knowing more than I should and of being a traitor. All I have ever done is look out for you worthless rodents, is it not? And yet, you seemed quite content with shifting the blame when you left without so much as a goodbye, Mr Mundy. They would never suspect you."

"You do know more than ya should, ya bloody spook," Sniper growled defensively, though kept his gaze averted.

"Information of little consequence, surprisingly enough. The Administrator's interest shifted when she realised she had somebody idiotic enough to do her work without questioning it. Now, the others are in the process of waking, so if you are feeling quite up to it ..."

Spy leaned down and made to pull Sniper to his feet, but the Australian roughly shook him off and awkwardly stood to struggle his way back around the corner to the entrance of the barn.

The youngest of the three stood in numb silence. His stomach felt like it was flipping and he really wanted to puke but he managed to force himself to get a grip. There was no way Spy was actually telling the truth; the guy revelled in winding people up when he felt like it, and now really wasn't the time to be resorting to his usual antics. Scout angrily approached him and gave his shoulder a neat shove.

"The hell do ya think you're doin', pal? Can't ya see he don't need ya pissin' him off right now?"

"Please," Spy retorted dryly, ignoring the push. He took a cigarette from the case in his pocket and took his time in lighting it. "You are not the idiot you present yourself to be, boy, so do refrain from lingering in ignorance. You are a rabbit, and foxes come in all shapes and sizes."

Stunned, Scout stared at the other man as if wounded. Denial swiftly turned to anger.

"Hey, bud, you got no idea whatcha talkin' about. All of us are the good guys, here."

With that, he shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and quickly stalked away, not wanting to hear anything else that would challenge the way he had been perceiving things for the past five years. Mercenaries weren't bad guys. They were just caught in the middle and didn't really care about what they were fighting for, for the most part. Besides, what did he care? Good, bad, it made no difference to him, but if Spy was telling the truth, that would mean he had been lied to by someone he considered his closest friend. He really didn't like being lied to.

Trudging reluctantly back inside, he looked up to see that the rest of the team was awake and caught in rapt silence, watching as Sniper lowered himself onto a closed crate. Scout had never seen anything more terrifying – and had certainly never witnessed such a length of silence from certain members of RED. Even Soldier wasn't saying a word, instead keeping his head raised so that he could watch the Australian from beneath the rim of his oversized helmet.

Scout lingered back, not wanting to appear as intimidating as the others. He was joined by Miss Pauling and Spy. Pyro, on the other hand, was apparently not paying any attention at all, and was sat with their back to the others, flicking a lighter on and off as if thoroughly bored.

"Er," Sniper began, anxiously rubbing the back of his neck. "You're really gonna go for the Administrator, eh?"

"Yes," Heavy replied at once, his fierce eyes narrowing somewhat. "Spy says you have information. I knew you were shady man, Sniper, but this? You ran away like coward."

"No," Sniper snapped back hoarsely. "Look, none of ya are meant to know this. I don't know what the Administrator will do to ya when she finds out she's got a team rebelling against her. Just take one look at me – that's the kinda stunts she can pull. That's why I never warned ya before I left, but ..." he stopped mid-speech and shivered, his features betraying some kind of physical pain, but nobody moved to help just yet. "Awright, let's take it from the beginning …

"The Administrator was pissed by what happened with the Australium and all that. I guess it made her realise that she really is mortal, like any of us. With some help, she's created somethin' both better and worse than the life-extender machines. I don't know the science, but they built on the ideas of both the respawn machine and the Machina and they created, uh ..." Again, he rubbed the back of his neck, "... four monstrosities. Four machines. There's one here in China. None of them have been switched on yet because she's waiting to test it again."

Demoman scratched his head as if confused. "What the hell are they for, then, mate?"

"I think … Er, they strip a person of their biology. What makes 'em human. It essentially kills 'em and replaces them with a digital copy of themselves. The mind gets stored in the machine and put back into the digital copy. Does that make any sense? The only thing is, she doesn't have to put someone's mind back. She can build her own army of mindless drones that are stronger and faster than any normal bloke. You get it?"

The men began mumbling between themselves. As they tried to get their heads around it all, Scout picked up Demoman's coat from the floor and moved to drape it over Sniper's shoulders, still concious of his well-being despite it all. For some reason, the assassin didn't look at him, nor even acknowledge him, his head lowering like he was ashamed of something.

"She had some of us helpin' her out," Sniper continued, his voice becoming oddly strained. "Both Medics, Engies, and … another New Zealander, for their genius. Merasmus for his mumbo-jumbo. Spy and I were brought on to protect the project, but the spook wisely dropped out after a couple of missions."

"What were these missions?" Heavy asked gruffly, folding his massive arms across his chest. Sniper audibly sighed and leaned forwards, a sheen of cool sweat glistening on his brow.

"She's gotta have people to turn into these super-powered drones, right? These people are called Contenders. She thinks RED and BLU had a perfect system of classes, so these Contenders are assigned classes, too. Scout and I met one of them in Japan -"

"She's dead," Miss Pauling confirmed. "That's one less Spy to worry about." The woman cleared her throat and glanced downwards. "Er, sorry, Sniper. Carry on."

"Right. Well, some of these Contenders decided to bail. They were just kids, y'know? Didn't know what they were getting themselves into. I got sent to dispatch 'em 'cause they knew too much. They were just … yeah, just kids, no older than Scout. I went back and I told that witch that I wasn't gonna be shootin' these boys and girls any more. Nah, I demanded not to be given jobs like that. Y'know what she did then? She forced me to test her prototype 'cause I was one of the more expendable on the team. It didn't do what it was meant to, it just fiddled with my brain, made it feel, like ... I dunno. Like it wasn't mine any more."

Everyone fell into deathly silence again, staring at Sniper as he relayed his tale. The assassin paused and shook his head.

"I'd had enough. I'd lost my parents over this bullshit job. I'd lost myself. And … y'know, after a lifetime of getting shoved to the sidelines, I was pretty damn sick of bein' pushed aside when it came to us doin' those competitive matches. Just felt like I had to do somethin' to make myself useful again. Anyway, when I failed to renew me contract, yeah, she tried to kill me off but only succeeded in almost killin' Scout. That was when she realised ..." Slowly, the Australian turned his head to regard Scout, his eyes dark with regret. "She realised she had someone she could use as leverage against me."

A chill shot down Scout's spine. He took a step back, fingers anxiously fiddling at his stomach, staring at his friend fearfully.

"What the hell does that mean, Snipes?"

"What does it mean?" The Australian sighed again and rested his forehead in his hand, refusing to meet the eyes of anyone. "This illness wasn't meant to kill me. It was meant to be time limit. She wants to test the machines again, this time on someone younger and healthier. You outperformed the BLU Scout on average. She wants you, kid. When I took you outta there, it was to protect ya from that. I got a call when we were stopped in a gas station on the way out. I was meant to take ya to the first viable machine – which is here, in China. If I did, she'd put me back into the respawn system and reset my default. If I didn't, she'd send blokes to kill me and drag you back and she promised she wouldn't give ya your mind back once she was done. 'Cause the original mercs are meant do be her upper caste, so to speak, better than the drones, 'cause some of us have already proved we'd serve her without question. So you would've kept your mind originally, Scout, but I messed up, right? I just couldn't take ya there. You ain't meant to be repurposed into some fightin' machine."

He was right. That wasn't what Scout wanted. He had just wanted to go on a cool holiday with his friend and relax. He wanted to go home and have ten kids and maybe pick up a few mercenary jobs on the side. The idea of becoming some digitalised super-soldier sounded kind of awesome, admittedly, but the thought of having his life controlled at every moment by somebody who didn't give a damn certainly did not.

"You were workin' for her this whole time?" the boy asked weakly, struggling to comprehend what he had just heard.

"I guess. Up until the part, well, I failed to uphold my end of the bargain. I went about all this like a freakin' idiot; I know I should've told ya before, but I'm a traitor to the team, I just left 'cause I didn't want to deal with it any more. I didn't want ya to think badly of me. Scout, I'm sorry, awright? And everyone else … yeah, for just leavin' and not trusting any of you with the intel."

The boy didn't know what to say. Or what to think. Sure, a part of him felt betrayed by what he had learnt, because things could have been done a different way, but, hell, mistakes were what made them human, after all, and not the drones the Administrator wanted them to be. Before he could respond, the others cut in with their mixed reactions.

"Sniper, you are a traitor!" Soldier barked accusingly, jabbing a finger towards the assassin. However, Demoman quickly pushed his hand down and patted it.

"Nah, think about it, mates," the Scotsman offered, retrieving a bottle of whiskey from his back pocket and offering it to Sniper. "Him takin' Scoot away has prolonged all this nonsense, ain't it? Which is good, like, 'cause we'd all be bloody robots by now! He's gonna die! Ey, good job, mate!" Once Sniper had miserably taken the bottle, he ruffled the Australian's hair.

"Oh," Soldier said thoughtfully. He then placed his hand over his heart and straightened his back as if showing respect to one lost in war. "Sniper, you are a hero!"

"Oh, please." The words of derision came from the Spy, who idly flicked the end of his cigarette away and made to retrieve another one from his case. The Frenchman stepped forwards and eyed everybody present as if searching them, and making quite the show of it in the process, as could only be expected of him. "I see no heroes here. I see cowards, mad-men, and well-dressed rogues - the latter being myself, of course. But that is not all we are." Turning to Sniper, he extended a gloved hand towards him. "There is not one man here who has never made mistakes, and so we might look past yours. Consider, my friend, that you and I are here, and Medic and Engineer are not. Us, perhaps the least two trusted men here since RED formed! That alone should speak volumes."

Sniper stared at Spy's outstretched hand. After a moment, he reluctantly reached up and gave it a single, firm shake.

"A team is what we are," Spy continued, turning to the others. "A team is all we have. As of now, you bumbling halfwits will begin to think about how we are going to get out of this situation, not how we got into it."

Another silence – but this time, there was a new sense of determination that could be felt by everybody present. It became clear that they were all of the same mind: they were not going to allow the Administrator to control any of them. Not any more. If nobody put a stop to her plans then they would only find themselves in the same situation over and over again, fighting wars that weren't theirs and having their humanity taken away piece by piece.

Miss Pauling raised a hand and moved herself into the mens' focus, smiling sheepishly.

"This is great. Really. I mean, the person you probably shouldn't be trusting is me. I guess I still kind of work for her, as far as she knows. Like any of you, I don't want all this to go any further, so I hope we can all work together on this?"

Demoman gave her a thumbs up. "Aye! Nobody's forcin' me into any Matrix – I mean, Deus ex Machina! Oi, what are these four big ones gonna be called? Plot Devices? Hah."

As the rest of the team continued conversing, Scout shifted nervously beside Sniper and looked down at his friend. It was hard to hear what anybody else was saying because his mind felt somehow blank and like it was running rampant all at once.

The Australian's mission had been to deliver him to the very people they had been running away from. He had lied, withheld the truth, and had perhaps even spent time strengthening their relationship so that Scout would trust him. Scout had trusted him. He had trusted him, perhaps, more than he had ever trusted anyone.

A rare feeling of acceptance arose within the boy, extinguishing the threatening flames of anger licking the inside of his chest. It was rare that he could put his frustration to rest, but despite all that Sniper had done, he could see that the guy had been, for the entirety of their journey, completely torn up over what he had agreed to. When the push came to shove, he had given everything to try and put things right.

The Sniper, a self-trained and ruthless assassin, was more than capable of feeling guilt, remorse, and affection. As much as he had always tried to hide it, Scout could see it as plain as day. He had been in the guy's head, after all. Not one person that he had killed in the past was forgotten. Not one bad deed had failed to leave its mark.

It was then the Scout understood that people weren't like the people he read about in comics, or watched in the crappy sitcoms on TV. An asshole could be, no matter how reluctantly, a good person.

"Bet things were a lot simpler in the Outback, huh?" the boy croaked, kneeling down beside the crate his friend was perched on.

The Australian guffawed quietly. "Too right, mate."

"No 'ffence, pally, but ya've always been a dick. Don't gotta be sorry for some dick-soundin' thing. Us buncha bastards gotta work together to take down even bigger bastards. Hey, y'know what we're gonna do? There's gotta be a base 'round that thing they've built, like, to protect it. So there's gonna be Medibeam there, yeah? If we get there quick enough, we can heal your sorry ass."

"Probably," Sniper agreed, but he then shook his head. "Look, whatever you wanna do, I'm gonna be behind ya. If you're gonna lead these blokes into some battle, then yeah, I'll be right there, like always. That's all I'm concerned about. Doin' my job and keepin' you alive."

The younger man's hand crept to Sniper's shoulder, where it gave a slight but friendly squeeze.

"Everythin' in the past, yeah?" Scout asked – though it was more of an assertion, permission for his pal to try and forgive himself for the things he had done.

"If that's how you want it, kid."

Now that they had a faint idea of what they were up against, planning came easily.

The operation was simple. They were to infiltrate the new base, which according to Miss Pauling, was about forty miles east of the small town they stopped at along the way to pick up a map and a few supplies.

Well, they thought the operation would be simple. As they headed deeper into the mountainous wilds of China, it quickly became evident that not only was the base going to be hard to find, but the people occupying the small villages dotted about the forests were less than amicable – to the extent that the group was literally chased out of one of them.

"Helen's people have been here," Miss Pauling clarified afterwards as they all retreated back to the car, holding her side to try and ease the stitch she had gained from running. "Apparently, the base has been built inside of a mountain considered sacred in this place, and they believe it's causing all this bad weather. Their farms are getting flooded."

"Oi, it is causin' all this bad weather!" Demoman confirmed, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the rain as he stared down the length of the long, muddy road ahead of them. In the distance, a large range of mountains could be made out beneath the clouds and fog trailing miserably across the forests. "That creepy place over there is called Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. Read it on a sign as that old lady was pitchforkin' me arse. Buildin' a base in that place has gone and pissed off a flamin' great dragon, y'know! They guard the sky and rivers and it's bein' tainted by all the secret stuff goin' on over there."

Everybody was too wet and irritated to be surprised that Demoman held that kind of knowledge. Regardless, he turned and looked at them in affront.

"What? Back in the UK, dragons are considered pests. They swoop about like buzzards, pinchin' the sheep and the maidens, and they play knock-knock-ginger on unsuspectin' old ladies. Oh, aye, and not only would they burn yeh trousers and make you run home without, some of 'em are wizards, too! I had to take classes at school on how to scare 'em away! Bit o' soured milk, some garlic, that does the trick. Learnt a thing or two 'bout these Chinese dragons when I were a wee lad. Yeh don't wanna be a pain in the arse for these beasties."

"Looks like we're too late for that," Miss Pauling responded, pulling a sodden map from her purse and turning it this way and that to make sense of their location. "I speak some Naxi. They're calling this place cursed. I'm hoping that destroying the base will put things right for the people here. At this point, it's kind of our responsibility, right?"

She was regarded somewhat sullenly by the men. They really did have little to keep their hopes up. They were all traitors to their employer and all of them knew what would happen if they dared show their faces back in the US. They were on the run with nowhere to go. Once the machine was destroyed, what then? Would they have to find the other three and destroy them, too? Or would the Administrator catch them all before they could and turn them into weapons against their will?

She owed it to these guys to at least try. Her job was to clean up the mess that they left behind and to supervise them. This time, she'd be leading them on her own terms, not those of Helen.

"All right. We can't hang around any more, guys. We've got a time limit." She glanced towards Sniper, who was quietly leaning against the side of the car. "We've got Demo's stickybomb launcher, some shotguns, Spy's knife and cloak, and, er … the shovel Soldier stole from the farm. The base is probably being guarded. Any ideas on how we're breaking in?"

To her surprise, it was Scout who answered first.

"Uh – best thing would be a distraction, right? We just gotta think … think like we're BLU, not like we're defendin'. I can run in, lead the guys to you, then Spy can sneak in and shut down the defences."

Heavy growled. "If I had Sasha, we would not resort to such things."

"Yeah, well, we don't got a lot of stuff," Scout quickly retorted, clearly a bit flustered. "We don't got Medic or Engie, either, but we can't get 'em back without doin' what we gotta do. We can't get the Medibeam on time if we don't just get the hell in there and kick their freakin' butts back to the US. Let's go, guys."

He slouched off towards the car and climbed into the boot (being one of the few who could actually comfortably fit in there). Some of the other men looked at each other, shrugged, and wordlessly squashed themselves into the vehicle – all except for Pyro, who remained stood outside, fixated on the mountain range ahead. Miss Pauling had rarely seen the Pyro look so interested in anything other than flames, before.

"Shame about all the rain, huh?" she said, giving their arm a slightly reluctant pat.

Pyro didn't seem to agree. They pointed at the mountain and then clapped their hands together excitedly, mumbling something incoherent beneath their mask.

"Oh, you want to see the dragon?" Pauling surmised. "Uh – I don't think it'll be too happy to see us, Py."

Her warning fell on deaf ears. Pyro, in their excitement, pushed past her and sped to the car in order to clamber over poor Spy, joining Scout in the boot.

On they went again, travelling the lonely road until night began to fall. Eventually, the way forwards became increasingly bumpy as the tarmac was swiftly replaced by rocks and branches. By that point, the road was entirely makeshift and relatively recent by the looks of things, so at the very least, they were heading in the right direction.

The rain was only getting worse. It came to be that it was simply too dark and difficult to see past the torrents of water cascading down the windscreen. After a dangerous swerve, Heavy quickly pulled into the forest and found a fairly well-protected spot beneath the canopy of the trees. Though the rain wasn't half as bad between the thick, twisted trunks, nobody dared venture out of the vehicle, wary of wildlife, cold, and angry villagers.

Wild animals swiftly became an afterthought to Miss Pauling when she remembered just who she was trapped in a car with. Seven large, frazzled, and frustrated mercenaries, most of whom lacked the virtue of patience.

"Oi, are we just sittin' here all night?" Demoman bleated from the back, leaning forwards to shake Heavy's headrest.

The Russian didn't turn, but his massive hands squeezed against the steering wheel threateningly.

"Yes. Problem?"

"Aye, this ain't gonna be the second time this sorry excuse of a bloke snuffs it in me arms, as romantic as it was before!"

"Oh, wank off," Sniper retorted in Heavy's stead, abruptly shifting so that he was as far away from anyone as he could get (which proved difficult, considering their close confines). He made to drink from the bottle he had been keeping in his pocket, only to find it abruptly stolen by the Scotsman, whom he had apparently offended.

Miss Pauling ran a hand down her face and forced herself to mentally count backwards from five.

"Guys, just relax, okay?" she managed, turning to address them from her cosy spot in the passenger's seat. "We must be close to the base. We can find it properly early in the morning. There's no way we're getting anywhere when we can't see five feet in front of our faces." She looked at Scout, whose head was poking out from over the back seats. "Hey, what food have we got back there? And is there anything we can use to stay warm?"

Scout vanished for a few moments, then reappeared with a couple of coats and a bag of food. A short time later, the men in the back were struggling to cover as much of themselves with the coats as possible, squabbling and kicking each other in their haste to get warm and fill their bellies with the terrible food provided. Sniper, Spy, and Pyro all kept to themselves, doing their best to ignore the ruckus.

Any shouting and arguing ceased when Demoman accidentally knocked Soldier's helmet clean off his head. The Scotsman stopped and stared at the other man in alarm, immediately bracing himself for some sort of violence. Violence which, surprisingly, didn't come.

"Do you think me and my brothers in arms fought like a group of little girls over things as meaningless as warmth and food?" Soldier barked, somehow managing to stand enough that he could place one foot on the seat he had been occupying, as if about to give a rousing speech. "No! We endured the cold bunkers! The stale bread! Not one man complained! In fact, I developed a taste for stale bread! Hundreds of us crammed into tiny rooms and pits, which made as much sense as all of us somehow fitting in this car! For the sake of moving the plot from one point to another, we must make sacrifices!"

"I would rather be gouging out my own eyeballs with a chopstick than engaging in this hellish mission with all of you," Spy muttered.

"Shuddit, hippy!" The American bellowed. "I doubt that you would understand, but some of us gave up everything to fight the last time some ugly lunatic tried to take over the world! Most of us lost people we may have felt the tiniest beginnings of affection for! So, now that somebody is threatening the world with hostile takeover, do we continue to complain? Or do we fight like men? I mean – no offence, Miss Pauling. I wish these sacks of worthlessness were half the soldier that you are! And see, this menace has already taken one of our own from us! Will we not take our revenge, gentlemen?" Soldier finished, pointing aggressively at Sniper.

The assassin raised a hand. "Mate, I'm not de-"

"Nonsense! You died a true hero!"

Through the delusion of Soldier's words, Miss Pauling found herself oddly struck by what he had said. It was something that she had never considered, given that she was born after the war and had not suffered its consequences, but some of the men had truly seen it first hand, whether by fighting or simply being alive within its duration. She suddenly felt remarkably guilty for all the times she had called them idiots. They were idiots, but they were here and ready to fight despite the things they may have seen in the past, and perhaps they were due more of her respect. They were certainly due the respect of the Administrator, who had endlessly used them as mere weapons in her campaigns.

She reached back and patted Soldier's arm. "We've got it. Thanks, Soldier. Maybe it's hard to forget the reason we do things, because sometimes it isn't obvious. Sometimes I forget, too, but then you guys help me remember."

"Yeah, why're you really here, Miss Pauling?" Scout asked suddenly, genuine curiosity on his face as he peered at her from the back.

The woman rubbed the back of her neck and smiled. "You guys are hardly going to manage without me. Besides, even I can see that what the Administrator is planning is, well … beyond any of the evil she's been capable of before. Like Soldier said, I think the world's had enough of that kind of thing. I'm, uh … I'm glad that you're all here. Really."

She could see that the men were relaxing somewhat. Perhaps all it took was for them to see that they were, in Soldier's words, brothers in arms. Perhaps whatever reason the Universe threw them all together wasn't to fight the Administrator's battles, but to fight their own. To get something back that they had lost.

Even Sniper, who had lost everything because of the job, was still amongst them. Still, if he had had any doubt about his sense of worth within the group, Pauling hoped that the determination displayed by the rest of the men to help him would quell such thoughts.

"What are we going to do afterwards?" Heavy asked, breaking the short silence that had followed.

Miss Pauling smirked.

"I'll start my own business. And you guys are all hired."

Scout woke suddenly, either because of the loud noises occurring outside or because he was feeling stupidly hot.

Struggling to breathe because of the boot's hot confines, the boy struggled to find his way upwards in the darkness until he realised that the Pyro was trying to hold him down.

"What the hell are ya doin'?" Scout blurted, but Pyro raised a finger to their mask, as if trying to hush him. Scout did just that, pausing for long enough that he could begin to make sense of the thuds rocking the car on occasion, and the unintelligible shouting. "Did the Administrator's guys find us?!"

Pyro nodded once, taking up one of the shotguns stored in a duffle bag to one side. With a somewhat menacing stare, they turned off the safety and cocked it before beckoning for Scout to do the same. All of the guns were still present, save for the one Pyro had just taken, which meant the group had been ambushed suddenly in the night.

The boy briefly acknowledged to himself that, with all the frustration and fear he had been feeling as of late, it was probably natural for him to also be feeling sudden surges of bloodlust alongside it.

Reaching upwards, he discovered that it was dark because somebody had thrown a coat over the small gap behind the backseats that led into the spacious car boot. Whoever had done it had been trying to hide the two men inside. In vain, perhaps, because there was no way Scout was going to sit and cower and hope that he wasn't found. When a particularly harsh bang rocked the entire vehicle, he nodded at Pyro and forced himself up and out into the main body of it.

Almost immediately, a giant hand reached in and yanked him out into the moist, cold air of the forest. Enormous fingers tightened around his neck and lifted him until his feet left the ground. The crushing pain was immense and Scout gasped for air, scrabbling at whoever was doing their best to separate his head from his body.

A brief glance suggested that the person was male in appearance, but half of his face had been torn off at some point, revealing an oddly metallic and familiar skeleton beneath. It looked exactly like one of the Heavy-bots they'd all had to fight, once, but this one had been clumsily disguised as a human and dressed in a black and purple uniform. Across its forehead was branded: 'T-800'.

The hand loosened suddenly. Scout found himself flat on his ass on the ground seconds later. Glancing up, he saw a rock embedded in the Heavy-bot's head which was causing sparks of electricity and fire to erupt around it, eventually forcing the massive robot to shut down and topple heavily to the wet grass below.

Around him was a group of six or seven other people he could assume to also be robots, given the uniform, and the rest of the mercenaries making do without weapons to try and fight them off. Heavy, Soldier, and Demoman were using their fists. Pyro was now shooting maniacally at the bots with disturbing peals of laughter emitting from their mask. Sniper and Spy were nowhere to be seen, but Scout knew that they were there, because every so often, a robot would fall prey to a rock in the head or a sudden fatal wound to the back. Meanwhile, Miss Pauling was sat on the shoulders of another Heavy-bot and striking at its head with one of her shoes.

Between the yells and screeches and utter chaos around him, Scout tried to make sense of the situation. There was never any benefit to asking why an attack was happening. That sort of thing came later. All he had to do was remember what his job was and to do it to the best of his ability. It made him look cool.

With something of a smirk, he made an impossible jump to the upper edge of the SUV and pushed himself off of it with his feet to get some extra leverage. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as he took aim and fired at every robot he could see, somersaulting through the air like any good Scout should. What happened next as a result was a domino-like chain of disaster he hadn't entirely accounted for.

One of the robots slammed into a tree as it was shot – which just so happened to be the one Sniper was perched in at the time. The poor Australian was knocked clean out of the branches, barely managing to land painfully on his feet. Meanwhile, Miss Pauling was violently thrown from the shoulders of the beast she was clung to as it too fell victim to Scout's bullets. She landed perfectly into Sniper's arms, and there was a brief moment they stared at each other in shock before one of the afflicted bots swung a massive arm in the throes of death.

Sniper was struck in the gut hard enough that both he and Miss Pauling were sent flying into Soldier. Soldier then was thrown into Demoman, who crashed into the immovable Heavy. Pyro ran around like a madman, shooting at all of the remaining robots and even bashing their corpses with the butt of his shotgun.

Meanwhile, Spy was boredly lighting a cigarette in the background.

All this occurred before Scout even landed. When he had successfully dropped onto his feet, he looked around him, expecting triumph. He was met, instead, with a pile of tangled up mercenaries and their furious scowls thrown in his direction.

"Hey, who messed up?" he asked sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

"No one. You joined us just in time," Miss Pauling said as she struggled to unwind herself from Sniper's long legs. "This must have been a patrol unit. I can't believe she kept some of Grey Mann's robots! She hated that guy! This is so …!" She stopped and pounded the mud with her small fists, glasses becoming skew-whiff in her anger. "This is terrible. Well, it's daylight and it's not raining, so we should go in there right now! We need to destroy that machine!"

Scout nodded, reaching up to caress his now very sore neck. Moving forwards, he helped Miss Pauling to her feet and anybody else that he could stand the weight of. There was no chance, however, of Sniper getting to his feet again in the near future.

Demoman tried to pick up the limp assassin, with little success, then even shook him a little.

"Oi, not again! Wake up, ya bleedin' idiot! It was just a tonne of walkin' metal!"

Sniper flopped lifelessly onto the grass. Scout watched in dismay as the men used either their hats or hands to cover their chests out of respect to their supposedly fallen comrade. Quickly grabbing a coat from the SUV, he darted back over and knelt beside his friend, covering him with the thick garment before attempting to lift him enough that he could drag him back to the warmth and relative safety of the vehicle. Miss Pauling quickly helped, and the two managed to hoist the Australian into the back seat.

"Here lies Sniper," Soldier said, his rough voice laden with grief. "He was Australian. He threw jars. He was the greatest homeless man that I ever met."

Demoman's lips wobbled dangerously. "He always looks so peaceful when 'e's dead!"

"Guys, shut up! He ain't dead!" Scout shouted back from the innards of the vehicle. Grabbing another coat, he tucked it around the assassin's legs and tried to curl them up enough that he could fit comfortably on the seats. Struck by the sudden idea that this was his fault, he sniffed and retreated back into the gap between the seats, suddenly feeling sick with dread. He'd been putting everything out of his mind for so long, tried to force himself into believing that certain things had to be impossible, that this moment was coming as far too much of a shock. Thankfully, Sniper was indeed still alive, he had apparently just expended the last of his energy.

"Scout? It'll be okay. He's gone as far as he could," Miss Pauling offered, reaching out to briefly touch Scout's shoulder. "We'll have to leave him here and hope more patrol units don't come along. If we're quick enough, we'll get some Medibeam back."

The boy suddenly found himself not wanting to leave. Worriedly adjusting the coats around his friend's body to try and hide him some more, he swallowed thickly and fought to stop himself from thinking back to all the moments he and his friend had shared ever since they'd discovered they actually liked each other a couple of years back. Granted, Sniper had foolishly used their friendship as a means to an end, but still ...

"He saved my ass. I've gotta pay him back."

"Scout, I think you already did." Miss Pauling offered the young man her hand as she made to retreat out of the car. Scout reluctantly took it and allowed himself to be led back outside.

"He still thinks I'm mad," he objected. "I can't just … he's gonna get eaten or somethin'! Or she's gonna find him!"

Heavy's massive hand landed on his back, lending him a hard shove forwards.

"We go," the Russian muttered, slamming the car door shut. "We will find Medibeam. Besides, Scout … It is good you are mad. You will kill more little robot men, eh?"

"But I'm not!" Scout retorted. "I ain't even mad, man! That's the thing! I should be fuckin' mad at him but I ain't, I just want him to be the grumpy ass old man he usually is!"

Nobody answered, either because they didn't know how or they were simply ignoring him. Without looking at any of them, the boy held his gun fast to his chest and walked ahead, heading towards the mountains. Scout really didn't want to go any further. Truth be told, he was getting more and more scared, because it was becoming more obvious just what they were up against. What if there were hundreds of those robot guys in the base? What if him and the guys were all killed trying to destroy that stupid machine they knew next to nothing about? What if he never saw his Ma again?

He imagined himself telling Sniper about his concerns. He imagined the other guy trying to hide his own fear, but it was there. That dude got scared, too, but he never talked about it. He did, however, let Scout ramble at him for as long as he needed to, and extended his patience beyond its usual capacity. He always knew what to say to make things better. For Scout, no longer having that presence felt like somebody had just pulled the floor from underneath his feet. He had needed that floor for support, even if Sniper had made mistakes. Well, Scout had made mistakes, too.

The one mistake he would not make was leaving someone to die on their own. He would get the Medibeam and then everything would go back to normal. Whatever normal was, these days.

What felt like hours later, he jogged up a hill to find a rocky overhang. It offered a decent view of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain - the side that people didn't usually see. There, as plain as day, was a high-tech door guarding a tunnel within the mountain's rocky face. He quickly ducked down when he saw the uniformed guards surrounding it. There had to be at least twenty of them.

Worst of all, however, was not the guards or the impenetrable metal protecting the base from unwanted visitors. Nine men were down there and approaching the door.

Nine mercenaries clad in blue.