"Quit it jackrabbit," Sniper says without glancing away from the open window, his rifle resting on the ledge like it was carved there. "All that bloody pacing is giving me a headache."
Scout stops walking, though immediately his leg begins to bounce with the unspent energy. The sudden stillness makes him realize he's been chewing on the pad of his thumb as well, and he angrily takes it out of his mouth.
"How's it giving you a headache?" he asks. "You ain't even looking at me."
"You're a goddamn stampede 'a kangaroos on the floorboards."
"Do kangaroos even stampede? You know what, whatever, I don't care."
At this point he'd usually storm off and go find something useful to do, but he ran out of useful tasks an hour ago. They're all just sitting here, waiting for it to all go off, and he doesn't get how Sniper and Spy can stand all the sitting around. They're like a couple of wildcats waiting around in the brush while Scout wants to run straight at the horizon snapping his teeth. He wants to go out there and take some bot apart piece by piece because this is all their damn fault.
"We should look again," he says.
"Drop it jackrabbit." Sniper says it through teeth that leave pinpricks in his bottom lip, and by that Scout knows that he's holding something back that's more than the indifference he pretends. "He ditched us, alright? It happens."
"We don't know that," Scout defies. "He could've fallen in a trench somewhere, broken his leg."
No one had seen Demo leave. Not that they'd been looking; they'd been too focused on anything encroaching the tower to think that one drunken Demoman might wander off without anyone noticing. Scout chews the inside of his thumb again.
Sniper manages to shake his head without taking his eye from the scope. "People don't stay together after the end of the world, mate. You got to do what you can with what you have, but don't expect someone to put their skin on the line just because you shared a few beers."
"Yeah? People are dicks and nothing matters? That mean you're ditching too as soon as you got an opening?"
It's cheap and it's satisfying for approximately half a second. Before the guilt can weigh in, Spy calls from his spot on the deck, "enough, Scout. Forget him. He was half crazed anyway, no doubt we have a better chance without having to worry that the voices in his head will start telling him we're as bad as the robots."
"Sometimes you are as bad as the 'bots," Scout snaps.
Spy opens his mouth, to dismiss, maybe to even snarl something back because they're penned between the cliffs and the city and things have never been this bad, when Sniper pipes up.
"Someone's coming."
Scout is next to him in seconds, clambering over his back to look through the rifle's scope.
"Get off 'a me you bloody menace." Sniper's filthy nails tug back the scruff of Scout's shirt. "'Sides, I…I don't think it's even him."
It isn't. As the minutes wear and the silhouette grows closer—it's managed to get pretty close already, their attention focused in the direction of the city rather than the tree line where the stranger has come from—Scout's faint hope fizzles to trepidation. Whatever this is about, it can't mean anything good.
The man stomps up to their base, gun on his back and mud on his boots. Only on his boots. Armed, and well maintained enough that he's definitely not a scavenger just come from the wastes. Either his group is nearby, or he's here from a settlement.
"You should know," he says, barely phased as several weapons point out of the lookout's windows at his chest. "If you're waiting for the invasion, you're facing the wrong way."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Scout asks, trying not to sound like his pulse is in his throat.
The stranger jerks his thumb back the way he came. "The machines of the damned have mounted an attack against the basin, and are headed down the west side as we speak! I only barely avoided them due to the clever tactic of leaving slightly earlier."
"Downriver?" Spy asks. He's trying not to show weakness in front of a threat, but Scout can see how he's gripping his deck chair with one hand. "What in God's name are they doing there?"
"Makes sense in a mechanical sort of way," Sniper says, taking the news slower, stretching it out for examination. "If high ground: then attack. If they wanted to head this way and wanted a better target…"
"It's gunna be a slaughter," Scout realizes.
"Exactly!" the man barks. "As our Soldier, it is my duty to recruit you all to help defend the lower cliffs against this job-stealing robot invasion."
"They sent you up here to get our help?" Scout asks, doubtfully.
"Negatory! In fact, they actually just kicked me out and told me that they'd kill me if I ever showed my face again."
"Then why the bloody hell are you going back?" Sniper says. "And more importantly, why would we stick our necks out for you lot?"
"Three reasons!" Soldier holds up three fingers. "One: because I swore to defend those ungrateful maggots with my life, and I will do so on my honor as an American and a friend. Two: they're holding your Demoman captive."
Scout immediately looks at his two teammates with imploring eyes.
"And three," Soldier finishes, "there is a secret tunnel that leads from your base to ours, and I'm going to use it whether you try to stop me or not."
After seeing both the looks Sniper and Scout are giving him, Spy sighs. "Well. I suppose that decides that."
The sound of metal clangs against the barricaded door. Every reverberation magnifies tenfold when the walls are metal and the fists banging against them are too. There could be a hundred of them out there. A thousand. Pyro feels no matter what it's too many.
It's Heavy who did most of the work getting the metal shelving in front of the door, and it's Pyro who's rubbing their flamethrower nervously as the door begins to cave.
"There's too many…" they say.
"We fight," Heavy says, elbow deep in his gun. "We win."
Ammunition for Sasha isn't easy to find out here. There's only so many bullets in the crate at Heavy's feet.
"You'd probably have a better shot at winning with an extra pair of hands… " the prisoner interjects poignantly. He's currently sitting in the back of the dam room, secured to the turbine by some wire. He shakes his bound wrists for emphasis.
Heavy ignores him so Pyro does too, trying to focus on the positive. Engineer and Medic might have made it out; they got separated when the first robots started pouring in, heading a different way into the dam. With any luck, they made it free somehow. Free, and not super dead like Pyro and Heavy definitely are-
"It wasn't Soldier who broke the generator," they blurt.
Heavy lifts his head in surprise.
"It was an accident," they rush to explain. "I tripped over one of the vents and thought it was supposed to be closed and I didn't want anyone to know I messed up so I just put it back to what I thought-"
Heavy is speechless. The prisoner looks like he's just stumbled on the juiciest gossip.
"And I was the one who lost the medical supplies." Now that it's all coming out they can't stop it. "Medic had me do inventory and I put some bottles aside but then they were just gone and I didn't tell anyone because- because you were all so angry with Soldier and I didn't want you to kill me and I'm so sorry it wasn't his fault it was all me-"
Heavy takes a step toward them. They shudder to silence, their fear of the robots suddenly not so terrible as the fear of the man before them. But when he reaches out, it is to put a hand on Pyro's shoulder.
"Little Pyro," he starts, unsure of where each next word falls. "Is…Is not end of world. You are…sorry about this?"
Pyro isn't sure what he means. "Yes, yes I'm sorry. Of course."
"Okay. Is good." When Pyro stares perplexedly up at him, a flutter of regret tugs his expression. "Pyro…should not be scared of Heavy. Is not right. We are team."
"R-really?"
"Yes. Heavy is sorry too. To make you think this. And…should have not said things to Soldier either. Was…harsh." Heavy glances at the door and sighs. "Would be nice to have Soldier here now."
Pyro hums in agreement. "It's okay Heavy. We both made some mistakes."
And it's so nice to see Heavy's smile turned toward them again, to be like the old times before the cloud of guilt just kept growing and growing until every kind emotion was tainted with it. Pyro considers this for a moment. Then, with Heavy watching, they go over and loosen the ropes around the prisoner.
"About bloody time!" he says, rubbing his wrists. "Say, either of you seen a sword around h-"
The biggest BOOM so far echoes from outside.
Yet the door doesn't cave in. In fact, as more booms sound—Pyro begins to recognize them as explosions—the banging on the door ceases entirely. The three of them glance at each other. Heavy's the one who finally steps forward and opens it.
The barely know how to process the scene before them.
"Soldier?" Pyro yells over the cacophony that is the area between the dam and the farms. "He came back! And- where did he get a rocket launcher?"
Whatever the answer, Soldier's a little too preoccupied to answer. Rockets rain down from the silo, those robots nearest to Heavy and Pyro already cleared, and others trying to cross the river become like fish in a barrel. There are other humans fighting too, people Pyro doesn't recognize flitting in and out of the chaos. As they watch, six nearby robots all begin to spark at once.
"Told you it would work!" Engie's voice rings across the plain, making Pyro's heart jump in their chest.
"If it hadn't, I would have used my dying breath to shoot you in your smug head."
A man seems to simply materialize from the silo's shadow, having escaped both Pyro and the robot's notice. He straightens his suit, looking entirely displeased as Engie laughs distantly.
It's enough. It has to be enough. Pyro feels that sliver of a chance and goes charging into battle, the sound of Sasha revving behind them. They catch swaths of robots in their flamethrower's spread, forcing them into the river where they're easily picked off. Every time a robot gets too close, there is a sharp crack in the air and it drops dead, but when Pyro looks around they can't figure out who shot it.
One gets so close, its knives-for-fingers nearly scrape the back of Pyro's neck. They turn around, but a tremendous shotgun blast has already shoved the bot away, and Pyro hears a whoop from a blur they can't quite make out.
From inside the dam it had looked hopeless, but somehow with these strange reinforcements Soldier has brought have turned the tide and then some. By the time Sasha clicks empty, there is nothing but a field of sparking metal, and even the dumbest robot knows how to retreat. The last group, their heads shaped like featureless triangles, turn toward the path back to the city. Pyro shakes their flamethrower above their head and tells them to not come back.
They finally have a chance to look around. Not that they know what to make of all this.
"Ow," the kid Medic is patching up says. "Ow. What didn't you get about ow the first time?"
"Oh don't be such a baby."
Engineer is greeting Heavy with a warm pat on the back, introducing him to his new friend. It's congratulations and indulgent victory but Pyro is looking for one person in particular. There! He's finally hopped down from the silo, surveying the scene.
"Soldier!" they shout. Rushing forward, they slam into him, lifting him off the ground in a hug. They don't even set him down before babbling, "I'm sorry! I never should have let them kick you out, this was all my fault-"
"There there Smokey," he pats them on the head. "It'll be alright. Whatever it is you just said! Anyway. You didn't kill Demo, did you?"
"…Your friend? No, he's right over there-"
They point, but Soldier has already taken his cue, going over slinging a friendly arm around Demo's neck. His other arm drags Pyro along, an odd little group hug.
"There you are maggot!" Soldier says. "I have successfully done what you could not: brokered peace between our two great teams! Welcome to the riverlands, Scottie."
"Wait," Pyro asks. "These people are staying?"
"Looks that way…" Demo muses, glancing around at the various groups that have split off in their revels. "With that passage through the dam, we could have access to both the good scavenging grounds and the best place to grow food."
With that latest show of force, Pyro is in no mood to turn down safety in more numbers. Mentally, they begin calculating how many more plots they're going to have to plant next year.
Soldier pats Pyro on the shoulder. "See, I told you everything would work out."
"You never told me anything like that."
Soldier only grins.
"It does seem like the perfect solution," Demo muses. "Still, I can't help but think we're forgetting something…"
Soldier waves that away. "If you forgot it, it couldn't have been too important."
"Ach, you're probably right."
Deep within the bowels of the dam, a pair of melee weapons sit side-by-side in awful companionship.
DeGroot! DeGroot you bleeding fandan you get your arse back here this instant or the next time you pick me up I'm going to possess you so hard your brain is going to leak out your nose!
There is no reply to the ghostly indignation.
You can't leave me alone with this idiot. I can feel myself getting duller by the minute.
Demo does not return from the direction that was dragged away. Eyelander sighs, and resigns themself, hoping this isn't another six-hundred year wait until a worthy hand touches their blade. It glares eyelessly at the shovel.
Feh. Fat lot of good you are. Practically someone's farming tool.
Shovel says nothing.
I'm going to kill that bastard.
…
I mean, can you believe they just left us?
…
Mm. I guess.
…
So. How long you been working with the shouty one?
…
That long huh? Jesus.
…
Heh. Funny. That actually reminds of the time me and Tavish were fighting this giant mechanical santa…