Aw guys, I'm really sorry about the huge wait! Motivation just crashed at some point and wouldn't come back, the meanie :(
Well, here's the chapter anyhow. It comes with many hats, please forgive me? :3
EDIT: Fixed an annoying typo :(
Chapter Four – Hat Hunting
~FINALLY ACROSS THE GORGE~
After much ado about climbing up a rope, the RED team assembled to stare at the mountain this fic is ideally about. Freakin' finally.
Subconsciously realising they were standing in height order, the REDs shuffled their ranks before heading off, filling the entire path as they moseyed uphill.
There they discovered the flaw (or one of the flaws) in their hiking trip plan; they got bored very, very easily. Observe;
"I'm bored."
YOU SEE? YOU SEE HOW EASY THAT WAS?
But right then, in the tense, horrifying second the mercs threatened to go mad with boredom, Heavy saw it.
It was… amazing, to type the least. Heavy stared in awe, so awestruck the very awe was awestruck. Awe yeah.
Downright oblivious to the puzzled glances from the team, Heavy tentatively made his way toward it with a speed akin to a glacier cruisin' along. He halted a few paces away, unsure if he was even worthy to approach further, when it made the move.
The team blinked uncomprehendingly as Heavy squealed happily when the little robin landed on his head. His largely unrealistic-sized jolly grin proved rather terrifying.
"Is tiny bird. Is adorable." Heavy rotated slowly on the spot to point at the other REDs. "TELL BIRD HE IS PRETTY."
The mercs however were spared having to do so, on account of someone starting to cry.
"For goodness sake, there aren't even any rainbows, Scout!" Spy said, all exasperated.
"It ain't me!" Scout yelled, punching him in the face. "AND THAT'S A MYTH! THAT'S A MYYYTH…" He knew very well it wasn't a myth.
At that awkward moment of all things a wee kid appeared. Like, literally out of nowhere we have no idea. Anyhow it was them crying. You probably deduced this. This paragraph is rambling something awful.
"WHAT IS WRONG?" Soldier demanded, wondering if the REDs somehow did something and he would need to be a lawyer again.
Now, the kid proceeded to say the most horrifying, truly terrifying thing known to man. Know that phrase 'worst case scenario'? Nah mate; this is the worst case scenario.
"I've lost my hat."
Oh my GOD.
The REDs instantaneously knew they had to find that hat. Pyro dug out a bunch of useful things from its rucksack like a compass, comical magnifying glass, cuddly penguin… all that stuff. At some point the kid just up and disappeared again but the mercs went ahead and-
Where's Sniper?
The RED team briefly halted the hat search to have an Australian search, except he casually walked back to them himself a few seconds later. Must've been a jarate break-
"Y'know what? No." Sniper abruptly levitated back to Heavy's head so he could glare down at everyone. "JUST because I pee in jars – which isn't THAT weird, people – I'm the only person to ever be written peein' in any story ever. NOT COOL, GUYS. SCREW ALL OF YOU. OKAY? SEE HOW OOC Y'VE MADE ME? SEE WHAT Y'VE DONE!?" He jumped down and ran in a big circle in order to threaten everyone with his kukri at least once. "HAPPY!? ARE YA HAPPY NOW!? WAS THIS YER PLAN? PEE MIND GAMES, THAT THE IDEA? ARE YA PROUD OF WHAT Y'VE DONE!?"
…
"Woah." Engy uttered. "Woah."
Sniper decided to have a quiet sit down in the middle of the clearing, making a small fire with his bed frame. Pyro used a stick to shove over a peace offering of marshmallows then rejoined the hat hunting party.
Using the seething Sniper as a midpoint, they took the term spiral search extra literally and followed each other like a row of baby ducks going for the land speed record. That's a truly marvellous concept someone should round up some ducklings and make that happen.
Ultimately that scheme failed because they were staring at the ground the entire time and soon ran skull-first into a tree.
"… I thought we were smarter than this," Spy sighed, seemingly oblivious to the tree toppling toward them, "Or at least me."
"OH CRAP!" Demo cried, the more appropriate term as they were being squished by the tree. Heavy simply did a pushup to lift it off them then a couple more for the Hell of it, likely showing off for his new birdie fwiend.
This backfired when another tree decided to get revenge and the story took a dark turn into one of those trippy forest-coming-to-life situations. Sadly that moment passed because the author was about to make several Okami references and needs to get on with the plot.
~APPROXIMATELY EIGHT HOURS LATER~
"Where. Is this. Freakin'. Hat?" the aggravated Soldier flailed around a bit, fed up. They'd scoured no less than ONE WHOLE MILE over the course of the day and hadn't seen so much as a whiff of hat. Smelled a whiff of hat…? It's four in the morning I have no idea.
"Maybe," Medic began dramatically, "it's time to turn to a power higher than ourselves."
Everyone crowded around, eyes wide; "God?"
"Vhat? No," Medic dismissed, "A montage. Obviously."
Sniper grumbled in disapproval from his fire-that-was-really-a-splinter-by-this-point but they went ahead and did that plan anyway.
Searchin' for a hat for some reason, the RED team be lookin' for a haaat! The defence classes randomly grabbed some rocks, checked under them and, unsuccessful, lobbed them haphazardly into the woods. Still don't really know why they be lookin' for a hat! The offense classes suddenly appeared on some awfully high tree branches and shrugged hugely when that proved pointless. Seriously guys you're meant to be hikin' what the Hell? Finally Medic and Spy popped out of various shrubs around the clearing then ran around in a panic because that was almost certainly poison ivy they just blundered into.
"END THE MONTAGE END THE MONTAGE!" Scout yelled, crashing into the forth wall and promptly shattering it. "… Heeey, readers."
~IMPROMTU INTERVENTION~
"… We've broken the forth wall too much."
"Yeah."
~BACK TO HAT HUNTING~
"Gentlemen!" Spy, halfway up-or-halfway-down a tree, flailed around for attention. "What if I disguised as the hat!? WOULDN'T THAT BE AWESOME!?"
"…Spy, are you drunk?" Soldier checked, using a rocket to get the Frenchman down from the tree.
"Pyro told me it was non-alcoholic."
"I'm so done with you all." Medic just walked away in no specific direction. In order to be annoying drunk-Spy followed him only to trip over a raccoon and vanish for a short while.
The team decided they probably needed backup. Magical backup.
Which meant, of course, Pyrovision goggles for all.
~PYROLAND~
What the mercs weren't expecting to see was what they did see. Which is to say they saw the unexpected. Or something. Like, the sight it was that they saw was not a sight they would have thought they would have seen at any point in the day, or the next day's sights either. Plus any subsequent things being seen thereafter.
…
So Balloonicorn, Reindoonicorn and baby Balloondoonicorn were all there, floating at head height. The unusual part was that the three of them were wearing detective hats whilst seated on a flying motorbike.
"Balloon animals… ON MOTORCYCLES!?" the REDs cried, wondering if they were making too obscure a reference that it wouldn't count as a forth wall break. Simultaneously the Balloon family gave one, slow nod and smoothly slid on some shades (which were too big for Balloondoonicorn and oh GOD did it look cute.)
Pyro chirped something that could have been anywhere between 'Can you help us find the hat?' to 'Scottish tablet makes me go really hyper'.
Whichever, the Pyrolandians held up the closest thing to a thumbs up they could manage and the assembled mercs, save still-grouchy Sniper, leapt onto the bike. It's not like they had past horrifying encounters with bikes in previous adventures or anything.
The eleven of them (twelve with Heavy's robin, Hell knows why he stuck around so long) shot off into the trees, zigzagging semi-neatly through the foliage.
"Quick question," Engy said politely, "Why are the unicorns without a driver's license or opposable thumbs driving?"
An awkward pause ensued.
"… Because," Demo said, after the heavily pregnant pause gave birth twice it was that lengthy, "Hats." He smiled creepily until Engy panicked and jumped to freedom, somehow landing on his face back beside Sniper.
"Maybe one day Ah'll be able to forget all this," he mumbled hopefully.
"Y'know she won't let ya," Sniper stated bluntly, pointing upward with the last fragment of his campfire.
Engy was spared from replying when the RED team suddenly pulled up next to them on a different bike than the one they left with. All wearing 'I Heart *various cities*' shirts they hoped to the ground and waved as the Balloons drove off into the spontaneous sunset. Engy and Sniper blinked uncomprehendingly but knew not to question it.
"Wellp." Scout basically summarised the trip with that simple phrase, then added, "We didn't find the hat."
Sniper started. "Y'were lookin' for a hat?"
"Yeees…?" Heavy suspiciously answered.
"Oh." Sniper blinked again. Glanced around the mercs. Uncomfortably shifted his feet a bit. "Er." He abruptly stood up and sprinted away, revealing the missing hat that had been acting as his chair.
The eight other REDs stared at the hat, about seven-eighths of them removing the Pyrovision goggles because this wasn't the time to be all smiley-smiley.
~REALITY~
"We should kill him," they announced at once, grabbing weapons from nowhere and moving to attack. Pyro calmly stood by as the rainbows started to fly, casually shrugging and picking up the hat. Lovely wee hat. Time to send it home.
The team halted in their fight when 'The Snowman' soundtrack began playing in the background and Pyro flew across the sky above them, taking the hat back to its owner.
Hm. That was unusual.
I don't own the Snowman. Unfortunately. I love that thing :D
Oh yeah, um, Simon guest person, hopefully you're still out there- it's either me being silly or my internet, but I couldn't find your Steam :/
So if you have other means of communication for that then... yeah. Um. Yeah.
Thanks for reading guys, I'll try update quicker :)