So first a quick note on the structure of this story. I'm planning on doing it in a cycle, so one scout chapter, then one soldier chapter, then one pyro chapter, etc., etc. While I like this structure because it keeps each character in some sort of focus (and it suits my writing style of writing for whichever character I come up with an idea for), it also means that cliffhangers like the one I left Scout on are gonna last for a while, which I realize might be annoying, but I hope each character's chapter is funny or interesting enough to keep you reading.

Alright, note over. Let's continue this thing.

The Soldier, or Jane Doe to whoever'd read his damn file, was dreaming. "No, Lieutenant, I didn't clean the dishes with swamp water. It was bog water! Much better for you. Toughens up your insides so they're as strong as your outsides," he mumbled. "Don't give me that Private! Parasites are good for you! Well go run back to mommy then, you cowards! When I've single-handedly taken this jungle compound because their bullets couldn't penetrate my organs, you'll be sorry you didn't join in! Lousy recruits today can't even take a few parasites!"

A hand shook his shoulder, "Mister?"

"And another thing! Just because it's hot doesn't mean you can all go take off your combat fatigues! Civilian attire is not tolerated in my unit! What? I don't care if Marlow is currently on fire, you will remain in your fatigues until this war is over, understand?"

"Mister, you should probably get up," the voice said.

"Get up? When there's probably snipers in every tree? You must be mad! What do you mean they're just birds? Birds don't speak English, Private. They only speak Spanish!"

"Mister, your leg's on fire," the voice said.

"Nonsense! I think I would know if my leg was on fire! It's simply being dipped into sulfiric-aaaagh it burns!" The Soldier woke up and flailed around attempting to pat his leg out, since it was, as the voice had said, on fire. "Fire, fire, fire! Medic!" He felt a large gust of wind, and the fire on his pants went out. "Phew. Thanks for the save wind. I always liked you," he said, turning towards the direction the gust of wind had come from. There, he saw a young woman with a green bow in her long black hair, dressed in a green skirt and a white blouse, with an odd gem in the middle of her chest. But perhaps the most striking thing about her was the black and white wings coming out of her back, which she was currently using to hover.

"Did it work? Are you not on fire anymore," the woman asked, as she gently came down to land. "Orin told me to try that if anyone caught fire again."

The Soldier was busy trying to regain what little sanity he had left, and as such simply said "Yuh."

The woman tilted her head to the side and said "Unyu?"

"Yes! I am not on fire," the Soldier shouted back. Glancing at the woman's wings, he asked, "Are you an eagle? Are you the personification of America come to help me send Merasmus' ass back to hell? Because the help would be appreciated! Though I would expect the personification of America to look more like Mr. Washington."

"Washington? Merasmus? America? What're those?" the woman asked, her head still tilted to the side.

The Soldier gasped in shock. "You aren't American?" he asked, attempting to pull his rocket launcher off his back.

"I'm a hell raven," she said happily. "What's a 'Merican?' Is it like a pelican?"

"Damn that Merasmus," the Soldier yelled, trying to get his rocket launcher untangled from the straps on his back. "He's sent me somewhere inhabited by savages who don't know the," a tear dripped from his eye, "GLORIOUSNESS that is America! His capacity for torture knows no limit!"

The woman looked distracted. "Wait, are they 'Mericans' or 'Mericas?' Because now you've said both."

The Soldier wasn't paying attention, as he had finally managed to extract his rocket launcher, and shot a rocket towards the woman. Or that's what he was planning to have happen, at least. Instead of firing a rocket, he seemed to fire a strange, glowing, slow-moving orb. It approached the woman, who dodged past it. "Wait, are we having a danmaku fight? Is that what's happening?" she asked. The Soldier didn't really know how to answer that. He looked into the barrel of his rocket launcher, trying to see if he'd accidentally picked up and loaded strange glowing orbs instead of rockets, or if he was using the Cow Mangler and had forgotten about it. As he thought, however, it was his regular old rocket launcher, but it didn't look loaded when he looked down the barrel, he could see the spot he normally loaded the rockets in to, and it was completely empty.

"Merasmus," he screamed. "What did you do to my rocket launcher!" As he yelled, the projectile exploded, sending twenty tinier orbs zipping about in all directions. One managed to clip the woman, and she let out a yip in surprise and looked behind her to see the smaller projectiles zipping around, bouncing off walls.

"That's a clever trick," she said. "But now it's my turn!" A lot of small orbs, similar to the ones the Soldier's rockets had turned into began flying in every direction. The Soldier could barely move fast enough to dodge the first few that came his way, and ended up getting hit by a couple that moved into his path seemingly at random. To his surprise, they simply stung a bit. He gritted his teeth and turned to face the woman, firing his rocket launcher as fast as he could at her.

"You'll never beat the might of this Mann-made rocket launcher, you barbarian…ess! It has only exploded in my hands once today!" The woman continued to dodge the projectiles as best she could, but since she couldn't see behind her she was hit by a few of the smaller ones that the larger one exploded into. Soldier, being unable to fly, was having a bit of trouble dodging the now near constant stream of orbs coming from the woman, as whenever he tried to dodge one of the shots he seemed to find himself in the path of two more. Luckily they weren't hurting too badly yet, but he could tell it was only going to get worse. However, he managed to get off a lucky shot and hit the woman right in the chest, causing her to grunt in pain and stop sending out orbs for a bit.

"You asked for it," she yelled, and the Soldier saw the strange wooden object covering one of her arms begin to glow. His eyes widened as he saw a giant glowing ball begin to form at the end of her arm, one that was even larger than him. Before he could react, she fired it at him, and the hail of small orbs began even faster than it had been before. Though the soldier tried to dodge the giant ball of energy, he knew he wouldn't be fast enough. Even though it shrunk slightly, it was still the size of his chest when it hit him. It burned. His skin felt like the Pyro'd been aiming their flamethrower at it for hours. He bit back a scream, not willing to give this woman the satisfaction of knowing how much that'd hurt. He knew he probably wouldn't be able to last through another one, so he smiled grimly and aimed his rocket launcher at the ground.

"Mister, you're supposed to aim that thing at me! You're not going to hit me with it if you aim down."

He barked out a laugh and shook his head. Then he jumped towards her, and fired at the ground. His feet felt burned, as they always did when he rocket jumped, but he was used to it by now. He strapped his rocket launcher to his back and reached for a grenade on his bandolier, screaming his defiance in the most eloquent way he could muster: "Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!"

The woman's eyes widened in surprise, and she began to grin. "Oh wow! That's really cool mister! But didn't it hurt?"

"It is a small price to pay to defeat yo-" the Soldier began, before getting hit by another large energy ball, "-oooaaaarrrgh!" He nearly dropped the grenade, but held onto it, managing to pull the pin and release the safety lever at the same time. "My only regret is that this is probably going to kill me," he yelled, as he neared the peak of his jump, and was face to face with the woman.

"Kill you? But danmaku can't kill people. That's the whole point," she said, tilting her head to the side. The soldier looked at her, puzzled.

Then the grenade exploded, and the soldier blacked out again.

Orin was on her way to the Hell of Blazing Fires core, having collected a few bodies Okuu could use to regulate the temperature, when she heard Okuu and someone else shouting at each other. When she heard the telltale sounds of Okuu's third leg activating, she rushed as fast as she could towards the core. She wondered why anyone would ever get into a danmaku battle with Okuu. Most people knew how powerful she was, and if someone was attacking her they were either incredibly stupid, like that ice fairy, or incredibly powerful, like that gap youkai. As she began to reach the long hallway to the core, she heard a man's voice yell out something about regrets, and Okuu's response. Then there was a loud bang, and the sound of two bodies hitting the floor. She rushed into the core chamber to see Okuu collapsed on her back, seemingly unconscious, and a man collapsed face first on the ground nearby, a strange device on his back. She quickly ran over to Okuu and made sure she was still breathing, which she was thankfully, and then walked over to the man.

It was someone she'd never seen before, she was sure of that. He didn't appear to have any horns or animal ears or a tail, so he seemed to be human. She knew he was still alive by his very, very loud breathing, and was sorely tempted to just toss him into the fires if he'd done this to Okuu. But Lady Satori would probably want to interrogate him first and find out why he'd attacked her, so she dumped her wheelbarrow out into the fires and flung the two of them into it, the strange man first of course, so Okuu wasn't the one getting crushed. Once they were both loaded, she began to wheel them back to the Palace of the Earth Spirits. Hopefully the fires wouldn't need too much regulation while Okuu was recovering.