[A rather short chapter. Sorry...I have major writer's block at the moment!]

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry about whatever I said! Don't leave us now! Don't leave me!" The girl's voice cried out, desperate.

"Grow stronger..."

"I can't! Not without you! I-I..." The rest of her sentence sounded muffled over the screams and yells of horror and panic. He could see a blur of color, mostly red. He couldn't tell if it was the color of his blood, or his teammate's uniform.

"No...no please..." No matter how much he wanted to soothe her pain, tell her to stop crying, he couldn't. He could only slowly drift into his eventual and eternal sleep.

"ALEXANDER!"

The sniper sat up quickly with his eyelids shooting up, his forehead drenched in cold sweat. What was that dream all about? Could it be about what happened that made him lose his memories? He looked around blankly at the interior of his bedroom back at the red base. Burying his face in the palm of his hands, he closed his eyes, trying to retain as much of the dream as he could, still dazed and confused.

However, before he could properly process anything, there was a rude series of knocks at his door.

"Alexander! Get your lazy ass outta bed!" The voice of the female sniper yelled.

Sighing heavily, he slid his legs off the edge of his red bed. Quickly getting dressed, he opened the door to find himself staring down at the feisty female member of the red team.

"Didn't I tell you that we have practice today?! What the hell are you doing? Do you think you're some sleeping beauty?" The short, long haired girl nagged.

"I had this nightmar-"

"I don't care what nightmares you have! Are you five? What! Dreamt about being eaten by a monster?!" Andrea yelled, and Alex had to resist covering his ears from the shrill screaming.

"Bloody hell..." he muttered under his breath," fine. Sorry. So practice was it?"

The female sniper crossed her arms and scowled deeply, glaring daggers at her male counterpart.

"Alright.. gotta get me rifle first."

"We're not practicing with the sniper rifles today. Get your kukri."

"What?"

The two snipers made their way out of the red base towards the training area for the reds at dustbowl. It wasn't easy getting past the pyro, who had been cranky about how he died more than five times during the battle of the briefcases the previous day, but they managed to calm him down.

Andrea walked towards a control point and stood at the center of it, holding up her own Kukri.

"Let's say we've ran out of ammo and we can only use our melee weapon. I want you to take this control point." The girl said, with confidence in her voice. Alexander couldn't help but wonder where she got her courage and experience from. She seemed to have some kind of motivation. And as David would say," look buddy. Lil' ol' andrea here ain't got her strength from the air. No...she got it from you"

Just what did he do for her that made her become the crazy, angry person she was now?

"Aren't ya gonna teach me the ropes first?"

"You can't learn anything new without trying. You know that."

Right, that was exactly how she first taught him how to properly snipe. She'd ask him to aim at something and shoot it, without even telling him what to do beforehand. Then she'd correct him from there.

Alexander heaved a sigh, before making his stance. Wielding his kukri, he carefully watched Andrea as the smirk on her face grew wider. Arrogant was what she was.

The Aussie sniper lunged at Andrea with his knife, swinging his trusty kukri to the side in an attempt to make a clean slash. Somehow, it felt as though he's used it before. Well of course he has. Alexander knew that he had been the star sniper last time. And from what the other reds had been saying, Andrea looked up to him. But it wasn't the same feeling he had when he first held his sniper rifle. Sure, it felt like a stranger nostalgia. The kind of nostalgia that seems so familiar, yet at the same time you have no idea what it is anymore. The meaning is lost behind his stubborn brain, how it refuses to remember the past. However, slashing the kukri at andrea made his heart throb for a split second. It seems important. Who had he last used the Kukri against? Again, there were no answers and only more questions.

The female was nimble and quick, back-stepping so she could easily dodge and counter-attacked. Caught by surprise, Alexander side-stepped and was nearly cut by the girl's blade. Had he been a split second late, his face would have gotten a horrible gash.

"Is that all you can do? Honestly...your posture was good... but you're too damn slow."

Tch, stop being such a nag. Alexander thought to himself, re-positioning himself for another attack, he kicked out his right leg and aimed it at her stomach. However, Andrea used the opportunity to hook her left leg behind his and make him fall backwards.

"Hah! NEVER go for that kind of kick! If this weren't a practice, my kukri would have long been able to split your throat!" The female sniper said proudly with a huff. Fuming with anger and also irritation at the girl's pridefulness, Alexander kicked his legs around the girl's, forcing her knees to bend as she yelped, falling forward.

What the sniper hadn't count on was for the girl to have fallen right on top of him. Straddling his hips and her face pressed painfully close to the his neck. The sharp pain of the impact on his chest was quickly replaced by Alexander's embarrassment.

"O-ouch..." Andrea groaned as she lifted her weight off his body just a little. "H-hey you! What wa-" she was about to start yelling at him again when she looked up, her face a mere inch away from his. She could see all his facial details. His short stubble, his long nose. She could see his eyes from behind of his glasses. A cloud of pink dust slowly settled on her cheeks as she widened her eyes in shock. Alexander himself, had been admiring the girl's features. She wasn't the most beautiful girl of all, but she was pretty. And her blush made her look somewhat adorable.

"Idiot!" Andrea pushed herself off of the sniper as she got up and looked away from embarrassment.

"I didn't mean to." He quickly said, picking up his kukri and holding his left hand up to his cheeks which were slowly heating up. If Alexander said he had never considered Andrea as his partner or even potential love interest, it was a lie. He had thought about it once for a few minutes, how the girl seemed to be quite cute, overlooking her anger-management issues. She seemed close to the rest of the red team, but none of the other reds has ever showed an interest in her before, except for the spy of course.

Both of them looked the opposite way from each other, waiting for the other to finally break the awkward silence. But the silence was broken by neither of the two.

"What are the two of you doing?" the heavy french accent said. Turning their heads to the source of the deep voice, they see their masked red gentleman walk towards them, a lighted cigar hanging from his lips.

"What are you doing here, Laurance?" Andrea asked, somehow without any hint of annoyance.

"The drunk fellow has been causing a ruckus in the base. I simply couldn't stand the noise." The man in the suit sighed, breathing out a puff of grey smoke along with his exasperation.

"Murdock..." Andrea groaned as she forced a smile," Would you like to help us in our practice?"

Damn, no. Alexander felt himself screaming inside, half wanting to ask Andrea why she would even ask the crafty spy to train him when he hasn't even gotten the basics down yet.

"Are you sure about that? It would seem that he hasn't yet..." The french man paused to choose his next phrase carefully,"mastered...his current given abilities as a sniper."

"Right. But the next match is tomorrow and it's the payload... The BLU spy is definitely going to be looking out for Alexander and I. If we're gonna have any chance at stopping the cart, we can't let him die to a backstab." The female sniper reasoned.

Laurance turned his gaze towards his sniper rival as he whipped out his butterfly knife, elegantly opening it up to expose the small, but very intimidating blade.

The feeling of this burning rivalry is back. Yet again, Alexander found himself asking more and more questions. And none of them were being answered. Just what happened and why is the red spy's gaze so cold and distant. Could it be that he saw the male sniper as a rival in not just their nature, but love? Impossible, Alexander hasn't yet shown any interest in Andrea. Atleast, not after he lost his memories.