A/N: Ditto. Thanks to Bayaboo and VivianShadowGirl for following and favoriting!
Confusion.
That is what most of the RED team mercs were when they saw the letter.
Why?
It is because that letter was addressed to the most unlikely member of the team:
Pyro.
Now most of the time, friends and family sent letters to mercs. Such letters were sent to mercs like Sniper, Scout, Medic, Heavy, and Engineer.
But Pyro?
The RED pyrotechnic was considered one of the mysterious and complex members of RED, even more than Spy, heck, even Ms. Pauling and the Administrator, who are supposed to know everything about the mercs, hardly have anything about the Pyro. So it came to a surprise to the mercs when they saw the letter.
The letter itself was nothing out of ordinary, a normal white envelope with "Pyro" written in perfect cursive in the center of the envelope.
"So where do you think it's from?" asked Scout.
"Europe?" suggested Sniper.
"Asia?" said Demo.
"IT'S FROM AMERICA YOU MAGGOTS!" Soldier shouted. "PYRO IS AMERICAN AND I KNOW IT!"
"Well, right now we can't be sure," said Engi as he turned the envelope around to look at it. "There's no return address whatsoever on the letter, surprised it still got mailed,"
The team stopped what they were doing as they heard a muffed whistling. All of them except Engi, pretended to do something else as Pyro walked up to Engi and snatched the letter from the Texan's hand. Pyro then turned around and walked away.
"So much for finding what's inside there," said Scout as he tossed his baseball up and down, everyone else at this point soon forgot about the letter.
Engi looked at the direction where Pyro walked off. Something inside him wanted to know what was inside that letter, but then he restrained himself from investigating further. Others respected his privacy so he should as well.
Pyro slammed the door to his/her/its room before tossing the letter on his/her/its bed. Pyro then removed the mask that covered the pyrotechnics' face and tossed it on a messy desk.
Under that mask was a woman slightly older than Scout, her brown hair in a simple ponytail that disappeared into the bulky suit. She had orange eyes that seemed to flicker, just like the flames of her flamethrower. She also had a slight tan, despite being covered head to toe with the suit.
"Idiots need to learn to keep to themselves," Pyro said as she picked up the letter. None of the mercs, except the Medic, knew of Pyro's identity, and she wasn't too keen on reveling her gender to the men.
She opened the envelope and took out the piece of paper that was inside. She started to read what it was.
Dear Tina,
I know you said to not write to you, but this is important and urgent matter. We've noticed we have been getting a large amount of paranormal and cryptic calls in the past month. Monster and other paranormal sightings and attacks are getting bolder and some started to happen during the day.
I ask that you bring your team to our base of operations.
I know that you would want to keep our family business a secret, as well as your identity, but right now your mercenary team is the only people we know who've dealt with the supernatural, and we need the manpower to keep up with our quota.
From, your sis,
-Vanessa
Pyro let the letter flutter onto the bed as she rubbed a gloved hand over her face.
"Vanessa, as much as you are smart, this is the dumbest move you've ever made," she said. She knew the mercs had faced against magical oddities like Merasmus, Headless Horseless Horseman, and Monoculus, but they paled at what kind of creatures she and her sisters faced.
Pyro, whose real name is Tina, and her three sisters are decedents of the famous monster hunting family, the Luars. The Luars had been known for dispatching not only your average monster, like vampires and werewolves, but also dangerous ones like demons, and warlocks. But that wasn't all, some of the Luars had been known for possessing some unusual powers, allowing them to even the playing field.
Now you may be wondering why the hell is a monster hunter doing here fighting one of the most pointless wars in the history of mankind? Well, the answer is quite simple: money.
Monster hunting nowadays is about on the same level as being a janitor, and money was hard to come by, though the sisters were financed by some questionably rich family friends, a little extra money wouldn't hurt would it?
Pyro stared at the letter and racked her brain for ideas on how to get the nine mercenaries to come with her; sure most of them were not the sharpest knives in the knife drawer, but they were not stupid. She knew that where they were going was out of range of Respawn, but then again, when did she or her sisters needed a Respawn?
Meanwhile
On the outskirts of RED HQ, several demon-like creatures spawned out of nowhere. They were bipedal, and about the height of a normal human, but there was one that was taller than the rest and also more muscular then the others. It wore nothing but a metal forearm and shoulder guard on its left arm and shoulder.
"So this is where you have been hiding," the demon leader said. "Now it is time to avenge the generations that have been slaughtered in cold blood,"
The smaller demons roared in applause to their leader and the group started to make their way to the unsuspecting REDs.
Scout wandered around the outside of RED HQ, tossing his baseball up and down. Today was one of those days that practically nothing was going on and the Bostonian was bored out of his mind.
"Jeezus, can this day get any more boring?" he mumbled.
Scout rounded a corner and saw a weird red colored creature peering into a window. Scout dropped his baseball in shock, the noise getting the creature's attention.
"What the hell are you?" Scout said. "For starters, you are one ugly-" he never got to finish as the creature hissed and tackled him. "GET OFF OF ME!" Scout yelled as the creature brought a clawed hand up.
BANG!
The creature was blasted off Scout and screamed in pain. Scout scurried away as fast as he could and right into Engi, who held a smoking shotgun.
"Engi, oh man, I am so gl-," Scout was silenced as a small fireball soared past them. He looked back to find the creature conjuring a fireball in the palm of its hand.
"Not so fast," the Texan said as he blasted the creature in the arm, interrupting the creation of the fireball. Engi let out a couple of more shots into the creature as it fell to the ground and let out a dying screech. He walked over and tapped the thing to make sure it wouldn't get up.
"Engi, what is that?" asked Scout as he bent over to look at it.
"I wish I knew Scout," said Engi. "I too was attacked in the garage, luckily these things go down pretty easily if you have the bullets,"
The sound of hissing caught the two's attention as three more creatures appeared not far from the two.
"We should run," said Engi as he grabbed Scout by the collar and took off in the opposite direction.
Meanwhile
Pyro's train of thought was interrupted when she sensed the presence of the creatures. She heard the sound of a fireball crashing through her window and caught it in her hand. She brought the ball of fire around so she could see it.
"Imps…" she muttered as she closed her hand, putting out the fireball.
She reached under her bed and brought out a medium sized cardboard box.
"I really hoped I wouldn't had to bring my night job to my day job," she said as she started to take off her suit.
The entire RED team was now trying to hold off whatever these creatures were. The smaller creatures were easy to deal with, as bullets, rockets, and explosives stopped them dead in their tracks. The only problem was with the large creature, which seemed invincible to everything that the mercs threw at it.
"I was expecting more of a fight than this humans!" the leader said as it destroyed a sentry with its fists.
Engi ducked behind cover as Heavy and Medic distracted the beast with an uber. Spy appeared next to the Texan.
"Got a plan Engineer?" the Frenchman asked.
"Yeah, shoot it," Engi replied as Demo flew past them and into some crates.
"Oh that smarts," Demo said as he crawled over to the two. "What the bloody hell is happening?"
"I hoped you would know, considering you've dealt with things like this before," said Spy.
"Ach no, nothing like this," Demo said as he reloaded. "This is something new for me, lad,"
"AAAAAAAAH!" yelled Medic as he was thrown into a window of RED HQ by the creature, Heavy shortly followed suit into another window.
"Any ideas how to get the big guy?" asked Engi.
The other two stayed quiet, unsure how to answer.
"Flying no!" said Soldier as he flew into the boxes the three where hiding behind, scattering the hiding mercs.
Engi groaned as he slowly got up from the collision. "Everyone all right?" he asked.
Groans from the other four confirmed that they were ok.
Suddenly, Engi was swept up from under his feet and found himself staring face to face, upside down, at the large creature. Engi paled as the creature tossed him into the air and readied a punch. But before the punch came, something grabbed Engi out of the air and the punch only hit air.
The creature blinked as it looked around for its target, which had mysteriously vanished. It roared in frustration and was about to attack the other mercs when something hit its face and sent it crashing into the ground.
Engi found himself on the ground and not hurt. He looked up to find a female figure standing before him facing away from him. She had brown hair in a ponytail. She wore a tan colored long sleeve shirt under a zipped up black vest, and had brown pants tucked into black combat boots.
"Stay out of trouble, will you?" she said as she glanced over to Engi. He swore he saw that her eyes were colored orange. Before Engi could speak, she then took off at an incredible rate of speed and jumped at the large creature. She delivered a devastating kick to its face and sending it to the ground.
The mercs looked in awe at this newcomer. Maybe they did have a chance against this thing.
"My god…" said Spy as his cigarette fell to the ground.
"She's beautiful," said Scout.
The creature groaned as it got up, as it did, it looked for whoever dared to attack it. Its gaze soon fell to the woman standing a few feet away. Its eyes widened as it saw who it was.
"Luars…" it said. "Don't think I will go down so easily," he slammed a fist down, sending a shockwave towards the woman.
The woman easily jumped over the fast-moving wave and sprinted towards the creature.
"STOP HER!" it bellowed as the creature quickly got up. Multiple smaller creatures appeared out of nowhere and charged forward to intercept the woman.
The woman balled her hands into fists, as she did, her fists burst into flames. She leapt towards the first creature and slammed a flaming fist into its face; her fist went through the creature's face and incinerated the creature. She repeated this on all the others, never breaking a sweat, until all the creatures were reduced to piles of ash.
The leader roared and charged the woman and hurled a fist at her. She met his fist with hers and the resulting collision sent a shockwave that shattered all the windows of the RED HQ that wasn't broken already.
"I WILL NOT DIE TO THE HOUSE OF LUARS!" he bellowed as he swung fist after fist at her.
She dodged every punch the creature threw before launching at the RED HQ. She landed on the side of the building, feet cracking into the concrete before launching herself back at the creature. As she did a ball of fire soon engulfed her, when it disappeared a large, orange fire-dragon took her place.
The creature could only brace for impact as the two collided, there was a bright flash of light that blinded everyone in a two-mile radius. When everyone's vision cleared, they saw the horrifying carnage that ensued. The entire creature was gone, save for its legs, which had a pile of ash between it.
The fire-dragon turned around and poked around where the creature once stood. It then was engulfed by the same ball of fire and turned back into the woman. She walked over to the wide-eyed mercs and wiped the sweat off her face.
"Not bad you guys," she said. "For having little to no experience with demons, you handled an imp hoard and a berserker demon pretty well,"
"Do we know you?" asked Scout. "I mean like- uh- I'm the Scout how are you?"
"Tina Luars," she said. "But you know me more better as the RED Pyro,"
A/N: Ta-Da! And there we go chapter 1. Likewise, as with other stories, don't expect chapters to be pumped out this fast, why? Because life that's why.
Review Question: Any thoughts on the story so far.
Till next time,
-D.W