(Disclaimer for rights and ownership in chapter 1. Let me just say, I'm having a lot of fun writing this.)
Chapter 3: Assignment
During the last week, multiple citizens of the Unity Heights district in Pacific City have reported as of recent many sightings of mutated creatures dwelling in lowly populated areas, alleyways, sewers, other underground-based locations, and even roaming around during the night where nobody normally is. Those who reported this to the Agency have stated that the creatures have giant claws, acidic bloated areas on their body, sharpened teeth, and seem like that of a human who was heavily mutated by an evil force from hell itself. Mutilated bodies of the homeless have been found in alleyways and other locations, raising the possibility of these claims to be true, though the public speculates that they were killed by rabid dogs. Catalina Thorne, the most predominant speaker of these claims, said that "The Agency must send out more peacekeeper patrols during the night to deter this threat from existing. They are real, and they are killing our citizens every night! You would be fools not to heed my warnings, as this could get worse than any of us could prepare for." during a PCNN interview regarding the subject. The Agency is yet to comment or respond to this topic, with Catalina and her followers waiting and hoping for action. Page 4 for more.
"Rubbish, all of it. What bloke wrote this?"
Sniper turned the page of his newspaper, looking for a story of any interest as he heard yelling and banging in the next room. Seconds later, his door was kicked in by a man who appeared to be a military police member who had an assault rifle, helmet, and a bullet-proof vest, all of which were colored black and navy blue, followed by three more of the same uniform.
"Hands behind your head now! You are now under the obligation to comply with the law enforcement of the Agency's orders under the motion of arrest or face higher charges!" one of the men shouted to Sniper, who calmly sat his newspaper down.
"Slow it down mate, I know what's goin' on. Put the cuffs away I'll follow. I knew this was gonna happen, old lady never gives us a break." Sniper said to them, extending his arms sideways so they could check him for weapons. One of the men ran over and immediately began checking him, none of them understanding what he meant by the "old lady" in any way.
Sniper knew that something of this nature would go down, so he didn't resist. BLU would never send their mercenaries on a trip just for them to be arrested. He figured it must be some way of getting them to do a job of some sort, so the men of his possible new employer wouldn't send him and the other eight to jail or attack them to kill. Even if the men in his room planned to arrest or kill him, he knew that he was easily outgunned, and assumed that the others would do something to get themselves as a group away from capture.
"He clears. Escort him to the transport calmly but keep the guns pointed." the man searching him told the others, who nodded and walked outside waiting for him. Sniper grabbed his fancy drink with the umbrella and took a long, meaningful last sip from the bendy straw before rolling up his newspaper to take it with him then headed out of his room, and followed one of the men with two others behind him with their weapons drawn.
Stepping onto the deck, his mouth lay agape from what he saw, which was many men of similar uniform on the ship, along with silhouettes of military helicopters dotting the sunset sky. He was led to the starboard of the boat, seeing another ship that was smaller, colored a dull blue, and had defensive guns at certain points.
Before reaching the area where more of these men were waiting to help him aboard the other ship, he saw two men dragging a kicking and screaming Scout across the deck towards the other ship.
"Hey this ain't legal! I know my rights get the hell of me ya damn goons!" Scout yelled at the men, who paid no attention and transferred him to the men waiting by the railing, who then forcefully sat him in an open-air chair in the back, then attached his handcuffs to a mechanism in the small bit of walling behind his seat. Scout pulled and tried to break free, achieving nothing in his efforts.
Sniper shrugged and walked over, stepping over the railing with ease, then took a seat next to an angry Scout. He nonchalantly unrolled his newspaper and returned to reading the articles inside.
"Yo Snipes help me out here, they got me chained!" Scout half whispered to him, who kept reading.
"Calm yourself ya hooligan, we aren't arrested."
"Are you freakin' kidden' me? Do I not look under arrest to you?"
"Do I look like I am? They cuffed ya because ya probably hit one of 'em."
"They came in with guns in my face! What else should I have done!? Besides, why ain't you in cuffs!?"
"That's because we aren't under arrest, like I said. Our bloody bosses didn't give us a real vacation ya twitchy wank. This is probably just a setup for us to do a different job somewhere. I also wasn't cuffed 'cause I simply followed them since I figured out the situation beforehand like you should've."
"Oh... that makes sense now that you say it," Scout began, piecing together the facts and details, "can ya still help me outta the cuffs?"
"No."
"C'mon why?!"
"'Cause it would be in everyone's favor if ya sat still for once."
Scout was about to verbally retaliate before two men appeared with Spy who was unconscious, hauling the man onto the new ship then placed him into a seat, attaching him to the wall with handcuffs as well, followed by three more men with an also unconscious Demoman doing the exact same. On closer inspection, Spy had a bruised nose which looked broken.
"Holy crap you knocked him the hell out!" Scout said in surprise to the man attaching Demoman's handcuffs to the wall, "how hard did ya hit the two of 'em?"
"We only knocked out the masked guy. We found this guy passed out in a pool chair who had one too many drinks. Seriously there was a giant pile of beer next to him. He'll have an interesting time waking up," the man said, finally getting Demoman attached.
"That reminds me, can ya go to my room and grab the fancy little drink on the table in there? It tasted really good and I wanna finish it." Scout asked, hoping for the man to comply.
"Do I look like a delivery service to you? We're your kidnappers, not your stewardess." the man responded.
"Please?"
"No."
"Pretty please?"
"I said no."
Scout sighed in defeat as the man left to help his fellow men fetch the other mercenaries. Moments later, a group of eight men were pulling a sleeping Heavy across the deck of the ship onto the new ship, working as a team to get the bulky giant into his seat. Heavy had three large tranquilizers in his arm, entailing that he put up a fight.
"A bit much don't ya think?" Sniper asked one of the men seating Heavy into place.
"We needed more than that. One guy tried to take away the gun he was cuddling for some reason, then it all went downhill. We shot him three times with the tranquilizers and it still took him five minutes to go down. He knocked out like ten of our guys too." the exhausted man replied, barely catching his breath.
After they had finished dealing with Heavy, the eight men turned around and froze with terror for a moment, then immediately rushed to the side to get out of the way. Very slowly stepping onto the boat, Pyro's hands were handcuffed in from of him/her, and was drenched in blood all over the flame-resistant suit. The eight men pulled their guns out and pointed, obviously scared of what went on in the pyromaniac's room. Pyro slowly walked to the seat next to heavy, sitting down without anyone bothering to attach the handcuffs to the wall. After Pyro sat down, the eight men quickly stepped off the ship to find the other mercenaries, scared of what had happened to the first squad that attempted to detain Pyro.
"Um, hey Pyro." Scout nervously said.
"Mmf mfffp."
"Um, how was your uh, day?"
"Mff mfff mfmm mppff mffp."
"That's cool."
After another moment, two men with a handcuffed medic began stepping onto the ship with the other handcuffed mercenaries. "Dummkopfs, you must let me get my medical equipment!" the doctor yelled at the men, not resisting but obviously infuriated.
"Sir, we have men retrieving your equipment and luggage for you, calm down." one of the men stated.
"None of you know how important it is! Do any of you know zhe cost and time it took for me to make it all! I'll switch out your fingers and toes with each other if even a single thing is damaged!"
"Sir, we're being as careful as we can, rest assured."
"You have better!"
The medic sat down, letting the man attach the handcuffs to the wall on the wall side opposite of the six seated mercenaries, obviously angry that he wasn't allowed to retrieve his items himself. While the nine mercenaries were at their base, if the Medic wanted something done, it was done. What made Medic even angrier was that they hadn't handcuffed Sniper, when he himself didn't even resist, rather they detained him because he was yelling angrily, though Medic didn't say anything to Sniper.
Suddenly, Heavy awoke from his slumber, easily breaking the handcuffs by just moving his arms, though he didn't get up to attempt escape. "Where is Sasha?" he asked in a serious tone.
"Finding 'er a comfy seat on the new boat." Sniper responded, hoping that Heavy would not go on an unnecessary rampage of murder.
"I do not see her."
"She's grabbing 'er luggage mate, she'll be on soon."
Heavy sat quietly in his seat, noticing Spy wake up in the next seat over. Upon awakening, the first thing Spy did was move his hands around in a complex way that Heavy couldn't figure out, and within a minute Spy was free from his handcuffs. He brought his hand to his face over is nose, feeling his injury.
"Gentlemen, explain what happened while I was unconscious..." he said, feeling around his face with his eyes closed, obviously tired.
"We were brought onto the ship, we look like we're arrested be we aren't, you got hit or something, everyone else had their own situation, I came willingly so I wasn't cuffed, I'm pretty sure the theory of being taken to do someone else's work is true, and now were waiting for them to find the others." Sniper explained, imagining the woman from earlier punching Spy so hard it broke his nose, making him laugh to himself.
"Just excellent..." Spy both sarcastically and tiredly responded, pushing his nose with force back into place, causing a cracking noise.
"We are missing Soldier and Engineer, I believe." Medic stated, calming himself down.
"Yeah where are those two helmeted dopes?" Scout asked, fidgeting around in his seat.
"We'll see soon enough." Sniper said, leaning back in his chair to proceed with reading the articles on the newspaper.
Engineer sprinted through the ships lower deck hallway, being chased by a squad of the suited men. He exhaustedly huffed, barely avoiding the gunfire following him, as he had smacked one of the men across the face with a wrench, turning him into a threat. He ran into the large cargo room, shutting the door behind him. He then locked the door and barricaded it with miscellaneous crates. He paused for a moment to catch his breath before he heard banging on the door, causing him to quickly run over to a pile of crates in the corner of the room.
Grabbing some of the wooden and metal boxes then moving them aside, he finally found a pile of grey crates of varying sizes. Sifting through them, he found a medium sized box, causing him to crack a smile. Pulling it out, he removed the top to find a few toolboxes and some of his weapons inside. He took out three of the toolboxes, all of which were labeled mini sentry in small yellow writing. Picking up each one, he placed each toolbox in a strategic location atop of crates inside of the room. He was planning a surprise attack.
"Okay, so here's what I'll do. When they bust in, I'll let them walk on inside, and when they least expect it, I'll push a button then BOOM! Three mini sentries blow them to hell!" he mentally planned, adorning a devious grin. After setting them up so that it was a "fish in a barrel" situation, he hid behind a large crate, waiting for the men to run in.
Seconds later, a very audible BOOM was heard, the door having been blown open as a squad of the militarized police ran in with weapons raised.
"Find him! He can't be anywhere else!" the obvious leader of the squad ordered as the men began searching.
He had a slight maniac laugh under his breath as he pressed a button on a remote, causing the toolboxes to spring open. The squad looked upwards in fear as within seconds, automated miniature sentry guns began literally building themselves, until they were complete and aimed at the men. Engineer used this moment to his advantage, taking his shotgun out and placing the front of the barrel at the back of one of the men's head. The man turned around to meet the black abyss of the barrel of a shotgun aimed at his nose. The squad was at his mercy.
"You boys jus' don't get it," Engineer began, "y'all 'r a bunch of idiots who were dumb enough to chase a man smarter than all of you combined. Though you are all wearing the color blue like me, you aren't really blue unless you're BLU!" he finished with a shout, pulling the trigger of his shotgun aimed at one of the men's head.
Click.
The devilish smile on Engineers face immediately faded as he realized that his weapon had no ammunition inside. He smacked his fist on the weapon, hoping it was just jammed, followed by him aiming and pulling the trigger many times again when he realized the mini sentries were not shooting. Each of the small turrets were making audible clicking noises, entailing that they were trying to shoot, but had no shells inside.
"Well don't that beat all-" Engineer said before taking in fifty-thousand volts of electricity from a handheld stun gun by the squad leader of the men. Shortly after, he was taken to the new ship and attached to the wall in a seat like most of his fellow mercenaries. Sitting back in his chair, his body was still twitching somewhat.
"Alright... who're these guys..?" he asked, feeling his stomach where the prongs of the stun gun had pierced his skin.
"Mate I'm done explainin', someone else's turn."
"Vell, most of us believe zhat ve are being taken to do a job somevhere. You should have been smarter and have came here more easily." Medic explained to Engineer, disappointed that the second smartest of the group didn't figure out the situation beforehand.
"Well with that answer out of the way, I got another question," Engineer began, "when I ran down to the cargo room to get my guns, I blocked the door and set up a few sentries for a surprise attack. I also grabbed my shotgun, and when I pulled the trigger, nothin' came out. Same for the sentries. Someone took the ammo out of our guns, like they knew we had the fallback plan to get them if anything went wrong. But the question is, who did it?"
"It is obviously our employers," Spy responded, "since this trip was more than certainly a setup for us, they most likely had undercover operatives to watch over everything we do, just like Belle Femme." He finished, still with his hand over the bridge of his nose.
"Makes enough sense. I guess all we can do now is to just wait until we reach wherever we're goin'."
Suddenly, Soldier's voice could be heard from afar.
"You maggots call this detaining me!? I've seen better detaining done by a mouse! You are all worthless!" The maniac shouted.
"Yeah!" Said a female voice as well, puzzling the men on the ship.
After a moment of hearing obscene insults, threats, and patriotic statements, the eight mercenaries in blue watched as Soldier was dragged onto the new ship and placed into a seat, just like them.
"Men, I warned you! The Illuminati Communist Nazi socialist party has arrived to take us away! I told you to listen!"
Seconds after, a thinner figure wearing a uniform exactly like Soldier's was pulled onto the boat and sat in a seat next to him. The two men who put this new 'Soldier' onto the ship began a conversation.
"Hey wait, the list said there were nine mercs, I see ten."
"Screw the list. They all fit the description. Let the higher ups deal with 'em."
After that, the men left to retrieve equipment.
"Men, I would like you to meet our new recruit," Soldier began as the helmet of the clone of him was lifted, revealing the face of a woman with long curly blonde hair, "Private Veronica Dare!"
"Hello my fellow maggots! Let's get to work to begin killing Nazis!" She said, giving a smile filled with sparkly white teeth, though one of them was missing.
"Soldier, who da hell is this..?" Scout questioned, almost attracted to her, but she seemed like a female form of soldier, which was weird.
"Like I said, Private Veronica Dare!" Soldier responded loudly.
"Wait, but I thought my name was Marilyn?" The woman questioned quietly.
"Well, your new name is Veronica Dare, in honor of the first girl born in the United States!"
"Okay! Hudda!"
Everyone but Soldier and Veronica sighed, now having two overly patriotic psychopaths to deal with. A few minutes later, it could be seen that the men who had taken them had retrieved all of their personal belongings and weapons, then boarded the new ship. A squad of them stayed with the mercenaries in their seats for security, and the boat began moving away from the cruise ship, causing the nine BLU members to whisper a goodbye to the luxurious boat of pure happiness.
"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE UNCUFF ME!?" Scout suddenly blurted out, gaining no response, only hearing his fellow mercenaries chuckle, amused by his unhappiness. Even the security guards laughed at the discontented Scout.
Night approached as the ship sailed through the ocean, with everyone in their seats bored out of their mind. They were allowed to have their handcuffs removed, so long as they stayed in the area around their chairs, and with that there was a much higher security detail, so escape wouldn't be a very viable option. Spy and Engineer remained in their seats, still feeling the effects of the earlier events they were a part of, not having received proper attention. Heavy, Pyro, Demoman, Sniper, Soldier, and Veronica lay back in their seats, deeply asleep and snoring. Medic stood next to the railing, watching the moon rise in the far distance as Scout sat in his seat utterly bored, with too much energy to get any sleep.
"Hey guy in da uniform," Scout said, addressing one of the military police guards watching them.
"Yeah?"
"Who are ya anyway? Why'd your boss let ya be so hard on us?"
"Well to start, we're peacekeepers, the main body of police for Pacific City working for the Agency. And second off, once we got the call that there were nine highly dangerous mercenaries entering our waters, we immediately set out to arrest, since your line of work is illegal."
"Wait what? Isn't your boss gonna set us up on a job or somethin'?"
"Not that I know of. So as of right now, consider yourself under arrest."
"Uh oh..."
"Don't think of bailing now. Remember we have mounted turrets all over this thing, so you'd get mown down as soon as you hit the water."
"Hehehe," Scout nervously began laughing, "so uh, don't ya think that every one of ya having a rifle like that is a bit much? Aren't'cha just normal police?"
"Let's just say that our city has a huge amount of crime, like gangs, mobs, and terrorists, so we have to walk around looking this dangerous so we can at least win when we fight back."
"Right..." Scout mumbled, realizing that he and his fellows may have been overthinking and really were under arrest, and he had a small panic attack. At the other end of the open air room, Medic stood, looking away while listening to any useful information that brought itself up.
Nearly an hour later, silhouettes of land and buildings could been seen in the distance of the moonlit water. As the ship neared what looked like an archipelago filled with city buildings, Scout proceeded to wake up the rest of the group, all watching as they passed under a large bridge towards a smaller central island with an astoundingly large tower in the middle.
"Alright all of you, for security purposes we'll need to restrain you again. Hands behind your back, and this can be easy," said one of the "peacekeepers" as he displayed a few handcuffs. Luckily for him, the group complied and did as he said, and he began putting on their handcuffs.
During this, Scout leaned over next to Spy as they all stood in a line, each getting their hands handcuffed in turn. "Yo Spy, we're actually under arrest." he whispered to him.
"Hm?"
"We're actually gettin' arrested, a guy said so himself!"
"You're an idiot."
"I'm bein' serious, I asked one of the guys about their boss, and he said that once they got the call in that there's mercs on a boat, they're comin' to arrest us!"
"Oh no..."
"Don't worry, I read a couple lawya' books, I can get us outta this. These guys sound American, and I know the laws, it's all good."
Spy gave thought to what Scout just said, both thinking that maybe their vacation was ambushed, or that the boy was a complete idiot attempting a poorly timed prank. Before Spy could come up with a clever plan of escape, the ship halted next to the central island, docking on a small patch of land on the side with a path leading up to a metal door. The island itself was barely land, and more of a giant facility, with the huge tower surrounded by smaller structures and protective walls, with a plentiful amount of guards patrolling.
"Good luck to anyone escaping or attacking that..." Spy thought, feeling his hands become restrained once again by a peacekeeper. Soon after, they were led off the boat and onto the patch of land, instructed to walk to the door to be escorted appropriately. After entering the door, they continued to be escorted through different hallways, buildings, rooms, and eventually found themselves inside of what looked like a large interrogation room.
Taking a seat in the dark room with peacekeepers standing guard, the nine mercenaries, plus Veronica, all looked forward towards the other end of the room at where a figure could be seen, but not easily acknowledged, as if the room was specifically set up so that the person sitting there could not be distinguished with any detail.
"So, you must all be the nine men I have heard so much about." the figure said in a voice that sounded like the essence of authority.
"Hey! You forgot about me!" Veronica shouted, making her voice echo throughout the room.
"Oh? I wasn't aware that there were ten of you."
"Hey wait this ain't legal!" Scout blurted out abruptly, "we need a jury, judge, bailiff, and witnesses! We are guaranteed a trial in a court a' law, plus you cannot arrest without a proper warrant!"
The man laughed for a moment before stopping completely.
"This isn't the United States, boy."