I would like to take a moment to gratefully thank all those who followed, favourited (is that a word?) and reviewed. To me, it's a personal record-breaking achievement. And I'd like to say sorry about this awful chapter for being filled with unnecessary details. It's alright, the complication's coming.

Awakening

"We have taken the enemy intelligence!"

"Alert! The enemy has taken our intelligence!"

The juxtaposing calls seemed to exist for the sole purpose of mocking everyone out in the heat-BLUs suddenly retreated from the battlements or moved into more defensive positions around their base while Spy and Medic whisper-screamed into the intercom.

"Go straight into part zwei of zhat plan! Demo! Make sure zhat you have secured every exit vith bombs!"

"Pyro, 'eavy, Soldier, look for and take down ze carrier if 'e escapes. Protect Scout."

"Very flatterin', but we all know this. Who made you guys the leaders anyway?" Scout remarked.

Hearing enough, he hoisted up his Bubbleblower, beckoned for Balloonicorn, then froze as he realised that, for one, there was no responding whinny, and for two, his instrument on hand wasn't the Bubbleblower; instead it was a red, bell-shaped signal gun.

Hearing a familiar stream of laughter, he forced himself to look up from the strange gun in his hand. Scout had managed to somehow tear through the BLU battlements and was now swooping over to the bridge rooftop with the Intelligence parcel, grinning, shoe wings fully extended. "Look at ya chuck-"

From the corner of his eye, something stirred in the same battlements Scout just escaped from. "WATCH OUT!"

"What was tha-" Helplessly, he watched as a large projectile struck the boy and exploded into a thousand bloodied pieces, the Intel tumbling over the roof and into the moat.

"We have dropped the enemy intelligence," the Administrator noted dryly.

He recoiled in sheer horror, numbly looking over the side of the bridge as Heavy, Medic and Soldier rushed back over to RED's side of land. Sure, there was respawn, but how could the Administrator not notice the seriousness of what actually just happened? How could the BLUs do something so violent and grotesque in this wonderland like blowing up a boy? He was going to have to give the latter some rainbows later.

On the other hand, even though he was a bad runner and there was no Balloonicorn to guide him, he had to make sure that Scout wouldn't have much to do upon respawning.

For the second time that day, he dropped under the bridge, though this time not with stealth but in a huge splash, ignoring the voices that shouted after him. Spotting a flash of navy jumping in after him, he quickly felt for the Intel, backed into RED's sewer and ran for it.

He skidded by the mid-sewer room, slammed into the defining rails and stumbled towards the entrance to the RED base. Just a little more to go…

There was a ringing thud as the BLU behind him also slammed straight into the rails. Hopefully that pursuer would be knocked out… nope, scratch that.

There was a vibrating hum as he approached the stairs, followed by an unconcerned "The enemy has dropped our intelligence." Good for the team.

But as he scrambled up the staircase, his foot skidded over something. Before he could stretch out a hand to stop himself, he felt a stair clang thickly against his cheekbone. It was by sheer luck that he managed to roll onto his back while half-stunned before searing heat blasted him in the stomach.

The attacker paused for a second, head cocked, as he tried to struggle painfully to his feet.

He did not need to look at the wicked, mangled instrument with a flicker of deceiving rainbow light pointed straight at him, did not need to see the harsh cruelty reflecting off the twin blank lenses of the otherwise practically identical black gas mask to realise that it was his literal shadow, the deceiving monster that would undo all his work.

For the better or worse, both of them knew that he wouldn't back from a head-on challenge, even if he was hopelessly outmatched, even if he had something as important as an Intel to carry.

As he switched for the Rainblower, another continuous blast of blackness seared through his chest, forcing him to crumble backwards onto the stairs.

The Backburner was strong, but his suit was heatproof, and therefore would only be strong enough to kill him by the time Scout comes if it scorched his back. On the other hand, continuous exposure would mean certain doom anyway.

He managed to activate an airblast from the Rainblower that propelled the opponent into the water, then instinctively charged forwards with rainbows on at full blast. Meeting with the same force, he gritted his teeth and held his ground.

He was holding a gleaming, sooty weapon, erupting orange flames countering the enemy's bright yellow flames.

No, he was not going to fall for the hallucinations, not now. Especially if it concerned fire.

He stepped forwards into putrid water that shone with an oily sheen. The grey sewer walls were patched with algae that looked like green boils.

His strength was already fading, his body consumed by heat. Hopefully, Scout or some other RED would already be on the way, and his counterpart would be too weak to fight back.

The enemy suddenly exploded into blood-spattering pieces, a growling voice from further inside the sewer following the chaotic blast of noise.

"MOVE, PRIVATE!" Soldier roared in a workday wake-up voice.

Hardly believing his luck, he gave a quick, stiff thumbs-up and hurried towards RED's Intelligence Room, trying to speed up his forgetting process on the sickening images that haunted his vision just a while ago.

Then stopped when he saw Demoman's limp yet clean body lying awkwardly in the 'courtyard'.

Respawn takes a little time to process, so the proclaimed cyclops must have been killed very recently.

The RED Intel was lying nearby, slightly diamond-dusted from an activated sticky trap.

Something was up. He struggled to put the pieces together. Something about deception. Something about…

"Spy?"

"Zat is right, fool." A sharp, white-hot pain forced its way into the crook of his neck; the floor once again impacted with his head.

Spy's voice was fading, the whole world was fading, yet the accented sentence that came next unmistakably sounded crueller, deeper.

"Zis is for exposing moi."

"We have secured the enemy intelligence."

He was greeted with the dreamy colour of Respawn's walls, muffled chatter over the intercom about the plan laced with Scout's bragging, and Balloonicorn's anxious whinnies.

He stroked the toy absentmindedly, suddenly becoming overly cheerful.

There were now just his usual tactics to perform, and did he take delight in that. Bounding from the battlements with a gleeful whoop, he charged straight into the midst of the few BLUs, giving them the delight of their life.

There was no restrictions, no bindings to his giving-

BLUs screamed as flames smothered their clothes, trying in vain to stay calm and make sure that the available extinguishers would be directed towards them.

Medic had apparently lost Heavy, because next moment the throbbing, powerful craze of an Ubercharge overwhelmed him, and he finished what he started, a ring of rainbows causing the opponents left to faint with delight-

The opponents tried to utter a final breath as their beings crumbled into ashes, still glimmering with dying embers that twinkled like distant stars.

The Uber wore off.

He was-

He was-

For the first time in an eternity, Pyro lowered the so-called 'Rainblower' that he treasured and loved for so long and glanced around at the dusty surroundings of New Mexico, his mind as clear as the relentless weather, more conscious than it had been for months.

"How… did this happen?"

And the pronoun game is over! Yay!