A/N: And here is the next chapter. Here we go!

Chapter 2: Meet the Conaghers

(Jackie's POV)

This is not good. Not good at all. Why the heck is RED base in shambles? I mean sure it's been long since we've last seen them (Wheel and I checked the mercs out before hand, shortly after the Gang returned), but jeez, what happened?

"Is the building supposed to be like that?" Skyla asked.

"No...c'mon, let's look inside," I said.

"B-b-but it looks scary,"

"Aww, don't worry" I bent down to her. "I'll make sure nothing happens to us, ok? Just stay close,"

We slowly made our way into the building, checking our backs every few seconds just so nothing was sneaking up on us. The HQ was slowly being reclaimed by nature and the outside world; a occasional critter scurried past us on the ground, dust and sand were in small piles next to the walls and covered almost everything, windows were broken, walls were defaced by spray paint and holes.

"I hope nothing bad happened to them," I thought.

Just then I heard voices.

"CV, stop being a lazy ass and help me with these boxes!" one said.

"Yeah, yeah, don't need to lose your marbles over it," another said.

I motioned to Skyla to quietly follow me as I headed to the source of the voices.

Earlier

(Unknown POV)

'BEEP! BEEP BEEP!'

"Crap..." I said as I furiously tried to slap my alarm clock. I have no idea why, but for some reason I set my alarm clock on a SATURDAY. "Ugh, why?" I moaned.

I glared at the offending device and read the time.

7:40

Wait what? My alarm usually goes off at 6 or 6:30.

As I pondered a possible solution, I heard a snicker. I turned over and found someone standing near the doorway chuckling to his or her self.

CV.

"Oh you gotta be kidding me," I thought as I hardened my gaze at the robot.

I should introduce myself. My name's Heather, and that sonabitch over there is my "brother" CV. And yes he is a robot.

He was built by my dad about three years ago (he's an inventor), to be some kind of war robot/soldier. He had a computer monitor for a head and wore a red sweater and black pants. And he also had a very lackadaisical attitude as well. But there was one slight problem: a month or so after he was built, he was infected by some kind of computer virus.

How'd we figure it out? Well, my dad kinda found out first hand when a locked on rocket suddenly headed straight for him for no apparent reason. (He's fine) Turns out his weapons systems, which included lots of guns and explosives, can glitch out and either misfire or not work at all.

Luckily that was the only thing that affected CV, so yay?

"Dammit CV!" I yelled at him. "Not cool!"

"So?" he said as he flashed a question mark on his monitor, before returning to his purple eyes.

"This is the few days of the week I get sleep in!"

"Whatever," he said and walked out of my room.

I sighed as he left. Welp, I'm up now. No use going back to sleep. I tossed the covers off and changed out of my sleep clothes to what I usually wear (brown tanktop under an unbuttoned red flannel shirt, dark green jean shorts, and brown shoes). I took a look in my mirror so I could put my black hair in a ponytail. I'm bit on the heavier side, like 150-160 lbs. Some of it is muscle, some of it is fat. Also I'm a slightly taller than girls my age, about a couple of inches or so. But something that stands out is my eyes are colored red, like blood red. My parent and I have no idea why it is like that, but I didn't complain.

I picked up a red and black cap that was on my dresser and I left for the kitchen.

(Third-Person POV)

Dell wiped his forehead as he rolled out from under his truck. He was making sure the ten year old vehicle was still up and running.

"Dad? You out here?"

He looked up to find his fifteen year old daughter walk into the garage. He smiled.

"Morning sweetie," he said.

"Morning," she replied as she saw him. "Whattya doing?"

"Oh nothing, just making sure the truck still works,"

She sat next to him. "So where's mom?"

Dell wiped his head again with a towel. "She went into town to buy more groceries, she left about thirty minutes ago,"

"Oh,"

"Why? Need something Heather?"

"No I was just wondering,"

They sat in silence.

"Hey, why you're up this early?" Dell asked. "I thought you wanted to sleep in,"

"Well I did, but a certain robot made my alarm go off," she replied with a huff.

"Heh, that thing does have a sense of humor,"

"Not helping dad,"

Dell coughed. "Sorry... want to help me with something?"

"Sure, what is it?"

"I need to get some things back at RED HQ, get CV will yah?"

Heather nodded and walked off to get the robot.

As she walked away, Dell let out a sigh. He never liked going back to there, it brought back too many bad memories of that fateful day. But many of his tools and gadgets were stored there, as the house had no place to store them. He picked up the hardhat that was on the workbench and plopped it on his head.

Present

"Stop being lazy and make yourself useful!" Heather yelled as she threw a dusty couch cushion at CV. The cushion hit CV in his "face" and a plume of dust covered the robot.

"Ok! You don't have to get so worked up about it," he replied as he rolled his "eyes" and dusted himself off.

Heather pushed a box of parts to the robot before picking up a box of her own. The two walked out of the room to her dad's truck.

Jackie watched the two leave from the shadows. She didn't know who the two were or what they were doing here. Then she saw someone that she did recognize:

The RED Engineer.

The Texan placed a box down before wiping his face with a rag he kept in his pocket. Instead of his normal work attire, he wore a red colored collared shirt and brown pants. He still had his hardhat, but was missing his trademark goggles.

Jackie wanted to just go out there and greet him, but she was unsure of doing so. She had no idea how'd he would react when he saw her, much less Skyla.

"Um, Jackie," Skyla said, tugging on her cape.

"Not now, I'm trying to think," Jackie replied.

"But Jackie,"

"Be quiet! Do you want us to be caught?"

"Well who do we have here?" a voice behind her silencing her. She whipped around to find the robot suddenly behind her. "I don't think you two supposed to be here,"

'CRASH!'

Engi looked up at the sound. Instinctively he took out his shotgun from the book and went to investigate the noise. He only took a few steps before he found CV tumbling head over heels out of the darkness. He lowered the gun.

"CV, what are you doing?" he said with a sigh.

"Oh nothing, just getting kicked around like a can by some hooded figure," he said to the ground.

"What?"

"Someone attacked me,"

"More like you attacked me," Engi turned his attention to the new person walking out of the darkness. He figured it was a girl because of her voice. She was around the same height as Heather, and wore a green hood, which obscured her face, and a matching green cloak. "This is not how I wanted to met you Mr. Conagher,"

"Who are you?" he growled as he raised his shotgun at the figure. "And how'd you know my name?"

"Name's Jackie," she replied, totally ignoring the fact that Engi was pointing a gun at her as she walked up towards him. "And to answer your second question, well... let's just say it was from a little "incident" we had like, um, I dunno, fifteen years ago?"

Engi blinked in response.

"Hm, I guess I should make it a little easier for you. Does the name Wolfshire ring a bell?"

Engi lowered the shotgun, but still had it aimed at her. "How'd you know him?"

"That's easy! I'm the second in command of the Allies," she replied. "He works and lives with us,"

"How can I be sure your not-"

"-someone from the D.E.T or the Federation?" Jackie finished for him. "Look buddy, if I was from there I wold kick your ass right now like how I did with your little stalker bot there,"

"Oh feisty," CV said.

"So what brings you here? Is anyone with you?" Engi asked.

"Yes, she's-"

"Hey dad!" Everyone looked up to find Heather run into the room with a blue colored girl on her shoulders. "You wouldn't believe what I found," she took her off and showed her to him. "Isn't she adorable,"

"Hi!" the girl said. "My name is Skyla!"

"My god that is cute as hell," CV said. "Now why is she blue?"

"Cause I'm a slime, silly!" she said giggling.

Heather turned slightly and noticed Jackie. "Hey, who's that?" she asked.

"Name's Jackie, yours?"

"Um..."

"Heather, she's an old friend," Engi whispered to her.

"Heather..."

"Ok, now who's over there?"

"Oh that's CV," Engi replied. "I built him some time ago,"

"Yo,"

"So, Jackie," Engi said. "Is this the person you came with you?" he said pointing to Skyla.

"Yes,"

"Is there anyone else?"

"No, just us,"

Engi nodded. "So what brings you here?"

Jackie shifted uncomfortably. "About that..."

"Bad people came and bad things happened," Skyla said. "It was scary,"

"That's putting it lightly Skyla,"

"Dad, can you come for a second?" Heather said.

"Hey! Don't leave me with her!" CV said to the two as they left.

Engi and Heather walked out of the dilapidated living room and into one of the darkened hallways. As soon as they were out of an earshot, Heather said,

"Who the heck are they?"

Engi thought for a moment, explaining this was complicated to someone outside of the merc group was hard. "You know the stories Mom told you when you were younger?"

"The ones with her imaginary friend, Mr. Balloonacorn?"

"No, the one with us and your uncles in them,"

Heather pursed her lips as she thought back. "Wait a sec, so everything that happened in the story, actually happened?"

Engi nodded. "Yes, that all happened, fifteen years ago,"

"And I thought Mom had an overactive imagination... wait so she ca-omigod that is so awesome!" she squealed.

"Hm, she took it better than I've expected," Engi thought.

"My parents are so cool! I can't wait to tell everyone els-" she stopped talking when Engi put a hand on her shoulder.

"I don't think you should tell them, hon,"

"Why not?"

"One, I highly doubt they will believe you, and two your mother isn't so, how should I say this, open to using her fire powers in front of strangers,"

"And I rather not have such rumors spreading around," Jackie said as she 'magically' appeared next to Heather, causing her to jump.

"How long where you listening to us?" Engi asked.

"Jeezus, don't do that," Heather added.

"About the entire thing, sorry, habit," Jackie replied. "Adding on what I said earlier, we kinda have a lot to worry about already, so let's not add more, can we?"

"Worry about? What do we have to worry about?"

"It's kinda a long story and I rather not repeat it...um Engi what happened to everyone else?"

Engi looked at the teen before looking down.

"Well, you see...RED moved on to other things, as you can see. For BLU... they're dead,"

"W-w-what happened? Were you guys attacked?"

"Two years ago..."

Flashback

It was just another day in the gravel pits, RED and BLU were fighting yet another battle without a reasonable cause. Today they were fighting at one of the oldest battle sites, 2Fort.

The battle started as usual, both Scouts made their way to the bridge that separated both bases in an effort to capture their respective briefcases before the Engineers could set up their defenses, while the power classes made their way to the bridge to duke it out. The Snipers took their usual positions in the battlements, and the Spies took the sewer route.

The only difference in this battle was the weapons the mercs were using. Ever since the "Rift Incident" that happened fifteen years ago, the mercs acquired some "interesting" weaponry that made for some equally interesting situations.

For example, during a battle at Hightower. Heavy shot BLU Scout at close range with a minigun that shoots small rockets, dubbed "The Rocker". The explosion sent the Russian high into the air. Everyone momentarily stopped fighting as they watched him soar through the air.

"What the..." Spy said.

"Heavy is flying!"

It looked almost beautiful, until he crashed landed on top of BLU Spy.

But what was the most different in this battle was the RED Pyro and her new "abilities". Initially, she wasn't allowed to participate due to the fact that she can burn to death anyone in the BLU team in an instant, but the Administrator reversed this decision with some adjustments.

Pyro wasn't allowed to use her abilities unless it's absolutely needed, and her Respawn timer was significantly increased.

Since the "Rift Incident", Pyro grew her hair to around shoulder length and now wore a partial gas mask (M17 gas mask for those wondering) that only covered her face. And wore a slightly less baggy fireproof suit. It was still baggy, but it was tight enough to tell that the wearer was female.

Now we return to the battle, right now RED just rolled the BLU team by killing all of them and Scout had no problem capping the intel.

"Yeah! Too easy!" Scout said as he dropped the briefcase onto the table.

"Nice job," Engi said as he leveled up his sentry to level three. "Just get two more and we're done for the day!"

"Yah, gotcha!" but before Scout could run off an explosion rocked the entire base. Both men fell to the ground.

"What the hell? Engi what was that?"

"I don't know Scout," Engi said as he got up.

Just then an alarm went off, red lights lit up the room.

"ALERT! Stop fighting! Ceasefire is in effect!" the Administrator shouted through the intercoms. "I repeat, ceasefire is in effect!"

Engi hurried to a callbox and grabbed the phone. The callbox was only used if the mercs needed to contact the Administrator directly and was used in extreme emergencies. "Helen, what's going on?" he asked as she picked up. The Engineers and Ms. Pauling were the only people that could call the Administrator by her first name.

"Mr. Conagher," she said. "Something happened in BLU's Respawn, I don't know what caused it but you must hurry, since your team wiped BLU..."

"My god," Engi slammed the phone back on the receiver and quickly packed up the dispenser. "C'mon Scout! We gotta go!"

"What's going on hardhat?"

"I'll tell you on our way there, if we don't hurry BLU's going to die...forever,"

The explosion was also heard and felt by the other members of the RED team.

"Oi! What just happened?" Demo asked as he helped Pyro up. The two were camping with Heavy and Medic in front of BLU's main spawn.

"I don't know Tavish, but that doesn't sound good," Pyro's voice was still muffled, but it wasn't to the point you couldn't understand her at all.

"I think something's wrong down there," Soldier said as he emerged from the spiral ramp on fire.

"You're on fire you know that right?" Pyro said as the others stared in disbelief.

"I am?" he looked down. "Oh...fire! Fire! FIRE!" he said as he started to panic.

Pyro waved a hand and the fire disappeared, putting out the flaming Soldier. Earlier on, she discovered that not only she can create fires, but also control them as well, which makes putting things that are not supposed to be on fire out.

"Incoming! Gotta move that gear up!" the group looked to find Engi followed by Scout and Sniper approach them. Engi put down the dispenser he was carrying.

"What's going on laborer?" Spy asked as he uncloaked.

"Are we being attacked by space invaders again?" Soldier added. "I'll beat the everlasting crap out of them once again!"

"No, something's wrong with BLU's Respawn, and by the looks of it, if we don't hurry..."

"...they'll die," Spy finished. Despite having a general disgust for each other, after the incident RED and BLU had gotten closer as friends, and only acted like enemies on the battlefield.

"The entrance to the Respawn machine is located in the intel room, we gotta hurry!" Engi said.

"But how are we going to get down there, the entire basement here is on fi- oh wait, never mind," Scout remembered that one of his teammates could control fire on a whim.

The RED team hurried their way down to BLU's Respawn room, but by the time they arrived it was too late.

"And after that we were dismissed from our jobs," Engi concluded. "Without someone to fight, what's the use of keeping us? Eventually, Pyro and I settled down in a house close by and, welp, the rest is history. Heavy, Medic, and Sniper left back to their home countries, Scout went back to Boston, Demo to his mother. The only two people I have no idea where they are is Soldier and Spy,"

"Great, this is just swell," Jackie thought. "Things couldn't get any better,"

"So what brings you here?" Engi asked.

She sighed before starting, "About a couple hours, Allied HQ was attacked by an unknown attacking force. We were completely surprised and overwhelmed by the ambush and in the resulting chaos both the Gang and Crew were captured,"

"C-c-captured? How?" Engi sputtered.

"Members of the Gang and Crew had been captured before, but everyone was captured all at once," Jackie explained. "This is highly unusual since, well, it never happened before,"

"But, why did you come here? Should you be helping?"

"Well, considering the Gang and Crew make up more than half of our forces, we were considering using RED and BLU as replacements until we can find them again, but now 'sigh' that plan is dead,"

"What makes you think we're capable replacements? I mean Arachne did take down the entire BLU team and Ms. Pauling all by herself,"

"So what? You guys defeated multiple supernatural and robotic enemies and successfully infiltrated the Federation camp without getting killed, that counts right?"

"Jackie, we're not mercs anymore, and besides, we don't have Respawn anymore," Engi said. "As much as I want to help, I'd rather not die forever,"

Jackie let out a sigh. "Well, I can't force you to come..." she suddenly trailed off. "Uh oh,"

"What now?"

"A rift opened up somewhere nearby, and, oh dear that's not good. Engi we have to leave NOW," she grabbed both him and Heather and sped off to where CV and Skyla was.

(Jackie's POV)

You know when I said things couldn't get any more worse? Remind me to slap myself in the face several more times than the usual amount because of me and my big mouth. I sensed a rift opening inside the RED HQ and also detected multiple, possible hostile, things coming out of it as well. I pondered what the things could be as I ran down the hallway.

"Halt!"

I skidded to a stop as I rounded a corner. It was those fucking knights again. A dozen or so lined the hallway with their weapons drawn and aimed right towards me and my two friends.

"Shit!" I said as I went back around the corner as bullets dotted the wall where I was once standing.

"Who are they?" Engi as he took a potshot from around the corner.

"You know the people/things that attacked our base? Yeah, that's them," I replied as I took out a knife and charged back into the fray.

"Wait! You'll die!"

I never heard Engi's command as I sprinted towards the knights. I effortlessly dodged or blocked gunfire coming my way as I slashed the air in front of me with my knife. I slowed as I neared the first knight and touched him. He fell into a heap of blood and metal. His friends ended up in a similar matter a few seconds later.

"Stop gawking and get your ass up," I said to Engi without looking at him.

We made our way to the now-war torn living room and found out that both CV and Skyla were handling themselves quite well. The robot returned fire with one of knights' gun, occasionally a retractable blade would find a way into a knight as he picked up another gun.

Skyla's, on the other hand, fighting was a bit more unique. Being a slime, she couldn't be hurt through any normal means, bullets and blades simply went through her. Her fighting style relied heavily on her shapeshifting ability. One moment she's morphed her arm into a sword and slicing off limbs, the next she's a giant man-eating venus flytrap gobbling up knights like potato chips.

"You know you're going to get a stomachache if you eat them that fast, right?" I said to the blue venus flytap.

She gave something equivalent to a shrug before picking up another knight in her mouth.

"Jackie! Is this it?" I looked around for Engi and found him engaging some knights that were guarding a large blue, circular rift that was in what used to be a kitchen.

"Yup,"

"How are we going to close it?"

"Like this," I snapped my fingers and the portal instantly closed.

"That...was easy,"

"LET GO OF ME YOU PIECE OF SCRAP!"

We wiped around to find Heather behind held up my a leg by a knight that looked similar to what I fought back at the HQ. She was frantically shooting the knight with a pistol.

"Heather!" Engi shouted as he rushed over to her. I ran as well, I wasn't going to let this trashcan walk over my friend like that.

We were about a foot away from the knight when a black and red hammer exploded out of its chest armor. The knight staggered before falling to the ground, dead, and dropping Heather in the process. The hammer continued to fly, hitting any other knights that it came across before returning to its owner.

The owner of the hammer was a woman around her late thirties. She was wearing a red, unzipped hoodie over a yellow bikini top with an unbuttoned, khaki colored shorts held up by a belt, and brown boots. Her was tied in a ponytail, and was alternating between a yellow-orange-and red color, giving it the appearance that it was on fire. And her eyes were a bright shade of red, similar to Heather's.

"Get your filthy hands off my daughter," she said.

(Heather's POV)

"Mom!" I shouted as I ran to her. Never before in my life I was so happy to see her. "Wow, you look stunning," I said as we embraced.

"Thanks honey, you're not hurt are you?" she said as she quickly looked me over.

"I'm ok mom,"

"Ana!" I heard Dad said as he hurried over to us. "You sure came in the nick of time, but how'd you know we needed help here?"

"Instincts, Dell,"

"Um, kinda hate to break up this tender moment but they're still coming!" CV yelled as a large blue portal opened up in the same place where it was before. More knights poured out of it.

"Behind you!" I heard Jackie yell. I turned to find a knight appeared from another portal that appeared behind us and was ready to shoot Mom. Without thinking, I ran at the knight and barreled right into it.

I realized too late that by doing this I inadvertently knocked both of us into the portal.

Well shit.

A/N: Bam! There's chapter two guys. See yah!

-D.W