I want to thank you all for the support again. Thanks for all the comments, favs and follows. I am currently at a awesome review number to chapter ratio (over 6 per chapter, prior to chapter 8). I'm close to 50 comments and I have all of you lovely people to thank for it.

~Proofread by the lovely Shius.

~Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.

~Albert Einstein

The gun felt unnaturally heavy in my hands and the metal felt comfortingly cold in the mid-morning heat. My gloved fingers shook as they loaded the shells. I looked at the wooden targets standing fifteen feet ahead.

"Jus' point and fire, it's real hard to miss your target with a shotgun, but a fair bit of warnin' - it kicks." Engineer said as he leaned against the fence with the Heavy and the Soldier.

I fired at a blue wooden cutout of a Medic. A piece flew out of its shoulder.

"Again!"

I emptied the other five shots on the six targets set up. Each time my shoulder bruised a little more.

"I have five year old nieces that shoot better than you maggot!"

"Haven't ever shot a gun before, partner?"

I shook my head.

"Leetle fireman mustn't fear, shoot well soon."

Earlier that day I was shown the supply room and I picked out two weapons, a shotgun and a fire ax. I had also shown Heavy my flamethrower, something he had been wanting to see since I first arrived. I couldn't tell if he was disappointed or impressed.

Then Soldier insisted I shoot the gun for him.

It was embarrassing. It was already ridiculously hot and the suit was my own personal microwave. It was too hot too soon. To make matters worse, the three members of my team stood by the fence watching me shoot, already doubting my usefulness.

And like old times, the Greasy man with girly hands -who wasn't even fucking real anymore- stood a few paces behind, critiquing my every movement.

I just didn't look at him, no, I just didn't look at it, and ignored its words.

Awesome second day. Fucking fantastic. I loaded the shells into the chamber, handling them as if they were made of glass.

Soldier came over and ripped the shotgun from my hands before I could even point in the right direction to fire. With effortless precision he aimed the gun with one hand and walked in a straight line, hitting each one of the six targets in the head without looking.

My jaw dropped, Engie rolled his eyes, Heavy frowned, and the hallucination chuckled darkly.

He lifted his helmet to look me in the eye and I've never been so thankful that the lenses were tinted. "Manage to do THAT and you MIGHT get out of here by lunch time Cupcake." Soldier handed the shotgun back. I loaded and emptied it with slightly better results.

"You shoot better with your eyes open, Sweetheart. Now, would you like that gun in pink?" The Hallucination asked. I ignored it but ignoring it didn't seem to do as much as it used too.

I was directed to shoot from a farther distance and I emptied six shells into six new targets (Heavy replaced them so there would be more than woodchips to shoot at). Engineer came over and gave me a couple of pointers - he seemed to be a good sharpshooter. He took out his pistol and shot at the targets with it, but I believe that was just for show.

"Pyro will get better, takes time, I will help if you want." Heavy put a gigantic hand on my shoulder, showing me we were done for the day. We went inside but the building wasn't much cooler.

...

I skipped lunch, and I almost skipped my appointment with the doctor. Around two Heavy came and sniffed me out, demanding I go see Medic. Heavy is not a character I would want to argue or disobey.

I told myself I really needed to have a talk with the Medic, more for my mental health than anything else. Heavy, who really seemed like a nice-enough guy despite his poor English and bear like physical traits, led me to the medical office.

First, let me say that Medic's lab is a creepy place. The tiles are covered in a thick grime that won't wash off, and the equipment looks like something from Frankenstein. I was directed to a seat and the Medic closed the door, leaving the two of us in there, alone except for half a dozen white birds that seemed to have free rein over the room. 'How sanitary.' I shooed one off my shoulder and I'm pretty sure it hissed at me.

"Archimedes, zats not how ve treat our guests!" The little bird perched itself on the doorway and watched us.

Really fucking creepy.

Medic looked at me expectantly. "..."

"..."

"Well, off vith the suit Herr Pyro. The quicker ve are started the quicker ve are done."

How about no. Silence hung in the air like dead weight.

"How elze can I perform a physical?"

I shrugged. I really didn't need a physical.

"Can you at least take off zhat mask so you can anzwer zhe questions?"

God I hate doctors.

"Schweinehund." He said to one of the birds. The Medic, who had a kind fatherly face without smile lines and cold eyes, sighed to show his discontent. "Herr Pyro, please, it would make communication significantly easier, and nozhing has to leave zhis room."

After a few minutes of staring, I reached to take off the mask.

He didn't act surprised by my appearance. If anything he looked bored. In fact, during our entire conversation he didn't so much as bat an eye. He was the very image of professional.

He asked me some questions.

I answered some questions.

I didn't answer anything personal, just stuff like my age, weight, if I have a history of drug or alcohol abuse, if I had asthma or diabetes, if I was a smoker, yada yada. I suppose I looked androgynous enough that he had to ask me my sex as well, though I'm not sure if that was a good thing or not.

I wouldn't tell him my name, or how I got my facial scars, or where I was from, or why I joined RED. He honestly didn't need to know any of that. When he asked where I came from prior to being picked up by RED, I did tell him sparingly about the prison.

He nodded along, as though he expected me to elaborate. He wasn't surprised when I didn't.

The only bad part about the 'check up' was the fact that Medic had not once asked me of mental health. When I had seen other doctors in my childhood, that was the very first thing they ever asked.

The graying man filled out a file on the table and sent a warning look to a rather rambunctious bird who wanted to play with a needle on the far counter. "I've noticed zhat you favor one of your legs, shall I take a look at it?"

"It's fine."

"Is it?" He stood up from his chair, rising to his full height. He's pretty damn tall, though he's got nothing on the sniper and Heavy. A bird landed on his shoulder.

"I injured it when I was a teenager, it's a... psychological limp. It isn't a problem when I don't think about it." I stood up as well.

"I see, anyzing else I should know of?"

I should've confessed to my overbearing hallucinations, or my memory gaps, or my slightly psychotic behavior. I didn't. "The team doesn't need to know a thing about me," I stated, though I managed to make it sound like a threat.

"I agree. Now, Herr Pyro, get out of my office." He ushered me out the door coldly.

Don't need to tell me twice. I left the door clicked shut behind me.

"How'd it go?" A familiar voice asked me. I turned to see my friend, the only one I ever had, leaning against the wall in his fireman's uniform. He looked as good as he did the day he died (like shit yet at the same time charming).

"...Fine."

"Yeah?"

It seemed so real, yet it wasn't. Life was too fucking cruel. I didn't look at him - at it- and I walked away. It was always the worst when I hallucinated about him. I could deal with the greasy man, I almost enjoyed the little balloon creature I saw when I had a bit too much to drink, but I loathed when I saw the Firefighter. I always broke the 'no talking to hallucinations rule' and the 'no addressing them as he's or she's rule.' Whenever I saw it I always melted into a puddle of memories and guilt with an urge to burn things.

There wasn't anything to burn there.

I should've turned around and marched right into the Medic's mad infirmary, demanding help, but I didn't.

~In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason.

~Ernest Hemingway

The next eight days I was trained along with Scout (who had been there for only a week longer than me). Scout was young, only nineteen, and he was full of energy. He wasn't actually tall, taller than me sure but still not touching any skyscrapers. He was thin enough that without an object to scale you would think him above six foot. He gave the expression 'bouncing off the walls' a whole new meaning.

His mouth ran a mile a minute and his feet were never far behind.

"Hey Py, while we're waiting for Heavy to train us with our melee's, let me tell you my entire life story." "Fuck this shit, I ain't training." "Pyro, my man, watch this," or, when we were pinned against each other and about to get our (his) first taste of respawn, "Hey Chucklehead, you want to go? I'm a force of nature brotha'." It was annoying and I didn't know how to tell him to fuck off, and even if I knew how to I wouldn't because I really didn't want to be enemies with anyone on my team.

I was the team's first pyrotechnician and he was the team's second scout. The last one retired. BLU team had had a Pyro for a long time now, couple years or more, though I'd been told BLU Scout was new as well.

We were debriefed on nearly everything, and trained with all three of our weapons. I had a little extra training with the shotgun, which no longer seemed to kick like it use to. We were told our 'class duties.' I basically spycheck a lot and steal the intelligence when Scout's either dead, dying, or too occupied dicking around to do it. I was offensive but at the same time - the way Soldier phrased my job - it seemed like I was suppose to babysit Engie's sentries too.

I spent eight days with a complete crackpot of characters and I barely spoke to them. Why should I? I spent most of the time alone, or next to alone, in my room, the exceptions being when I was being trained, when I had to find food, or when it was at night and everyone was asleep.

At the prison, I didn't have any windows in or around my cell. Not one. I'd gone months at a time without seeing the sky, or the sun or any stars. I can recall three times I even broke out of my cell, where I'd just try to sneak outside to steal a peek at the sky.

At Teufort, I'd wait till everyone was asleep and go climb on top of the roof to look at the stars and I'd just breath it in. During the day the sky was always a grayish-blue, boring and cloudless, but at night it was amazing. There was no light pollution and no one around to ruin the sight. I could remember a time when I would die for a view like this.

It was by far the prettiest thing in my ugly life. Nights like that, when the temperature was only seventy degrees and the sky was stunning, and I could just sit out for hours and no one would bother me. Nights like that were beautiful.

I don't call anything beautiful. Around three in the morning I'd get tired and I'd walk back to my room, passing Engie's machine shed which always had lights on inside no matter what the hour was.

...

Eight days passed in the blink of an eye, and suddenly it was time to fight. We gathered in the supply room waiting for some announcer lady to tell us when it was time to start.

Sniper stood with Spy, both silently bickering. Soldier shouted the most obscure directions and Demo drained the last of his bottle before swearing he was "Almost sober." Medic warmed up his medigun on a battle-clad heavy, and Scout stood by me as if we had some sort of bond (he probably thought we would be friends because we were the newest) while I stood by Engineer because I wanted some sort of bond with him because I had literally no friends and everyone else seemed to be poor candidates.

The mad lady's voice boomed through the intercom. The team rushed out.

...

I spent most of the first day walking the hallways of my base, the first person I ran into was a scout, the BLU one. It was a she, which had me momentarily surprised, but she died like a dog all the same. When she saw me she pulled out a pistol and tried to shoot me down. When that didn't work she simply tried to run past me. I set her on fire and tagged her with the shotgun but in the end she ended up running in front of a sentry.

Speaking of sentries, I had decided never to get in front of a BLU one, ever. It really was a death machine that would take some precision to take out. I wondered briefly how many times a day Engie even died. He had a nice set up.

Engie looked at the girl who had sprinted past his sentry. She couldn't have been more than twenty, like our scout, and I could tell by the way he pulled on his hardhat and turned away with a stony face that Engie felt kinda bad about having to kill this young woman - almost a kid - on the field. I sent him a thumbs up to check if everything was okay. He sent one back and waved me off. He'd get over it. I already had.

She was picked up by respawn and running through our halls again fifteen minutes later.

...

Even though I was wandering around inside the base and out of the sun, it was still like an oven inside my suit. I could feel my head growing fuzzy as sweat dripped out of the filter of the mask. I only wore my underwear and a t-shirt under my uniform but it was still too hot.

"You look like you've been fried in a skillet, and insert my name, what happened to the gas mask I gave you?"

My blood ran cold. It was that voice. It was him. He wasn't fucking alive, why did my mind have to do this to me?How long had it been since I heard him (or anyone) say my name? I longed to answer him, but instead I spun around with the flamethrower shooting flames in a circle around me as if my hallucination would catch fire and go away. It didn't, though a spy shouted loudly and appeared out of thin air and tried to run away, while on fire.

I killed the spy and laughed while he burned. He wore simply the most flammable suits. I watched the pinstripes turn from blue to black to ashes and then looked around to make sure no one had been watching. I kicked at the corpse a bit before I decided to go check on Engie's nest and pick up some ammo from his dispensers.

I found him, climbed the stairs in the courtyard to go meet him, and the sentry announced my presence with a beep. I did NOT want to get shot down by that thing. Engineer pulled out his shotgun and pointed it at me as well; standard behavior when you think someone's a spy. He cocked it and waited. I froze and waited. And waited.

He greeted me with a "Howdy" and put away the gun before I slunk up to his dispenser and bathed in its healing qualities. I didn't even know I was hurt but suddenly I was better.

"How's it goin' out there?"

"It's fucking hot."

"Well, I'm doing fine too."

I don't think he heard me correctly.

"Been to respawn yet?"

"No."

He chuckled. "It's only a matter a time."

I shrugged.

"It's pretty calm today, between me an' Demo we got the defense jus' fine."

"Demo?" I hadn't seen him all day.

"He's been downstairs in th' basement all day. We have a schedule for which one o' us guards the intelligence. It's his turn." I nodded, he continued. "Why don't you go help outside of th' base?"

"Okay."

...

One thing you should know; Tuefort is built on the only pool of water in the entire fucking desert. RED and BLU built a sewer on top of it. Yep. We don't draw our drinking water from this pool, or water for cooking. RED and BLU made it into a sewer. Across this sewer, is a wooden bridge, on the other side of the bridge is BLU's base. The BLU base is just like ours, just a bit nicer and made of cement and brick. A fence encloses us.

Once I found the water I felt like marching right back into the base and being permanent defense. I would've done just that too, if Scout wasn't running across the bridge as if his ass was on fire, yelling like a character in a horror movie with a blue briefcase strapped to his back.

"Py! Soldier coming, cover me!" I ran across the bridge to him without thinking as the BLU soldier jumped of the sniper deck.

I said something like "I got you" or "GO GO GO YOU DUMBASS" to Scout as I took footing on the bridge, right over a large amount of water, and stood to protect his scrawny ass.

Then the Soldier fired a rocket and Scout exploded into a million tiny pieces.

And suddenly I was full of bullet holes, on my knees and then blown up as well.

I woke up in respawn.

Waking up after you think - or know - you just died is always an experience, it takes a long time to get used to. I ran my hands down my body just to make sure everything was there and then followed Scout out of the white respawn room and back to the front lines.

And I died. And he died. And I died again and again and again and he didn't do any better. I was killed by their heavy once, their Soldier twice, their Demo twice, and after that I just stopped keeping track.

Around every corner was a sticky bomb, or a bullet, or some rocket flying at your face. And it was hot. Neither Scout nor I got our hands on the intelligence again that day.

Our teammates coached Scout and me the best they could, but that would only work for a bit before someone blew up again, or got shot in the head, or found a knife in their back.

This war was hell. It was all sorts of fucking insane and dear god was it a meat grinder.

~You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.

~Jeanette Rankin

I limped back with Medic's arm slung over my shoulder and my flamethrower, my baby, dragging behind me in the dirt. At some point during the last ten minutes, before BLU team won and the battle was over, Medic was separated from the group and healed me while I attempted to beat a heavy to death with an ax. We were full of bullets but we were making it back alive.

"Thank you Herr Pyro." he looked paler than a ghost and he was wearing a lot more red than I remembered.

I waved Scout down and he ran forth to help us. Medic slung his other arm around Scout's shoulder. We walked him to the base and into the courtyard where we propped him up against a dispenser Engie hadn't had a chance to take down yet.

The team slowly gathered around, finally being able to relax. The sky was the dull boring grey it always was before the stars came out.

I leaned against the dispenser but didn't try to hog it because the Medic needed it more, and tried to take all the weight of my bad leg - it was hurting in a way it hadn't hurt in years, and the heat was to blame. I longed to rush to my room, take off the mask and sleep for decades.

Demo opened a bottle of scrumpy and Medic got up and brushed himself off. Engie silently put the dispenser away. Sniper appeared by the doorway and Spy literally appeared close by. Heavy came. Soldier came.

And we were all silent.

I watched the sky and waited for it to get pretty, for all the nice colors to come out. The team was still silent. I was good at silence, really, but it was one of those days when my thoughts were dark enough that hearing something else would've been helpful

"..."

"Well, If I need ta be th' one ta say it than 'ell. We just goot our asses whooped." Demo, the unsuspected drunk voice of reason.

"We might've WON if the two new MAGGOTS stayed alive long enough to AT LEAST cover me because it is clear they are incapable of getting the intelligence! I've seen potted plants fight better than you, all of you! Those BLU hippies beat us and it is only logical that-"

"Shush boy, no one needs to hear it."

"…"

My first day of fighting didn't go too well. I was shot at, blown up, shot at again, and decapitated, but at least I didn't need to take a swim, I didn't run into a enemy sentry, and I the only time I ran into the other Pyro was when he was carrying the Intel back to his base. He didn't stay to prove how much better than me he, or she, or it, was.

"We'll do better next time." Scout spoke up, most likely speaking for the two of us.

Spy lit a cigarette. I almost asked him for one.

"It was just your first time, it'll take awhile to get used to this kinda thing." Sniper said. My ears twitched.

"We blame loss on everybody. Everybody did bad, we do good tomorrow, but now, we go eat."

...

After the late dinner I went up on the roof. I didn't wait till everybody went to sleep, I couldn't wait that long. Stargazing had become my little pastime when I couldn't burn something when I really needed to. For a person with the job of lighting fuckers on fire you'd think I wouldn't feel the need to burn things anymore.

Wrong.

I especially did then, after my day's achievement. My performance had been a fucking disgrace. And I knew it. Everyone knew it. All of RED team and all of BLU team - I bet their pyro had been laughing his ass off at how bad I did compared to him.

I stayed on that roof and gazed at the stars for hours, thinking. Just thinking, I wasn't thinking pleasant thoughts. I rarely did anymore. I took off my mask figuring everyone was asleep by then and no one would bother coming up to the roof if they were awake.

I let it roll to the side. The sky was a little cloudy.

"Hey Campfire!" A voice sounded from the ground. "Ya going' ta spend all night up there all by your lonesome?"

"Yes!" I scrambled to put the mask back on.

"Get down 'ere son, that ain't no way to spend your evenin's."

I climbed down. Engie stood in his normal work attire minus the gloves, hat, goggles and knee pads. He had a handgun strapped to his waist, but I didn't think a damn thing about it this time, because everyone carries a gun around here. He gave me a pat on the back and invited me to keep him company in his workshop for a bit. I couldn't tell if he pitied me or genuinely wanted my company.

"No thanks, I have... Things to do." I said. "Why yes that'd be lovely, thank you." He heard.

He led me to his shed and my feet followed, a metal building with rust creeping up all sides and a light that was almost too bright. It was a decent sized place, yet so crowded all that the space did next to nothing. A tiny sentry sat in the corner, beeping occasionally. Wood shavings acted as a carpet and blueprints as wallpapers. It smelled of iron and grease.

I loved it. It reminded me of that shed I had when I was a teenager. I didn't know why I was in there however, and though I wanted to be friends with the Engineer I didn't like how we were alone and I was unarmed while he had a gun.

He won't use iton you, fuckface. I told myself.

I sat down on a crate and Engineer offered me a beer. I refused, seeing as though I was one of the people who got drunk too easily. He opened a beer for himself and sat down on a bar stool by his workbench. I fiddled with a cheap lighter. We could've been sitting there for twenty minutes before either of us said anything.

"I'd love to get ahold of your flamethrower, it really does look to be a marvel of ingenuity, I-"

I can sniff out pointless small talk from a mile away and could sense some upcoming bullshit. "What do you want?" My voice was likely the coldest thing in the desert.

For the first time in nine days he understood what I said. He put down the bottle of beer by a cup of screws and looked me in the eye as best he could. "I don't want anythang of you, I just noticed how you spend your nights and figured I could show some common courtesy and let you in 'ere for some company and what not. Is that going to be a problem?" Engineer's voice was probably the second coldest thing in the desert.

I was a bit taken back but no one could possibly tell. "No sir." I don't know why I called him sir, it just rolled off the tongue. He took a drink and I continued to play with a lighter.

"It gets a bit noisy 'round the base sometimes. I wouldn't mind if you use my workshop as a place to get away to every now an' then. It's a bit nicer than the roof." He remarked.

I agreed.

"Just don't move anythin' around, and don' get into nothing you ain't suppose too.."

I nodded.

A couple of minutes later I left without a word, but I already felt a little better about what went down earlier that day.

Yes. There is a femscout. She won't play any part in the story so if you don't like femscout don't worry. I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, but it is harder with such a larger cast of characters.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, please drop a review and go have yourself a fucking fantastic weekend.