. . .
Scout, Pyro, and Bubo stopped at a gas station in Santa Fe to load up on fuel and grab a few snacks. The runner scampered out of the mini mart, carrying three cokes, three hotdogs, some bags of peanuts, and an assortment of candy.
The arsonist was pumping gas, mindful not to light any matches like Scout and the others were always warning them. Not a problem. While BLU Pyro wasn't as obsessed with ogling over scenery or objects going up in flames as their RED counterpart was, they were willing to show a bit more restraint.
Bubo was on the gas kiosk, stretching out his wings. Scout walked up to him, thrusting a soda and some pork rinds in his face.
"Here! Thought you'd be a little thirsty."
The owl tilted his head, confused over the food.
"Snipes never introduced ya to Coke? Take a sip, it's freakin' awesome! Well, Bonk is way better than this, but I'm savin' them for when we really need'em."
"Mphhg mphggh?" Pyro asked.
"Of course, it should be safe for him," Scout replied. "Who doesn't like soda? I even give some to Gear to Gears, Siegfried and Jerkwad."
He was referring to the base's three guard dogs. Engineer named the first one, Medic the second and Scout the third, since the dog was the most annoying of the trio. Pyro just uttered a disagreement, suggesting that he give the raptor some water.
Just then, Bubo picked up Cyril's presence – he was here a few days earlier. Eager to let the mercenaries know, he chirped loudly and frantically flapped his wings.
"What? Ya gotta go bathroom or somethin'?"
The little raptor hopped down on the ground, and glanced up at Scout, now emitting more urgent chirps.
"Mphgh mphhg," Pyro pointed out while screwing the gas cap shut.
"Really? How do you know?"
The arsonist circled around the Firebird's bumper and signaled to Bubo that they understood somewhat. "Mohg rohgh mphhggs?"
Bubo tried nodding his head like he saw Cyril do when acknowledging a 'yes' to his teammates. Pyro clapped their hands, pointing in different directions. Wasting not another minute, the owl flew over across the highway and towards the desert.
Pyro ran after him, taking out their flashlight with a slightly bewildered Scout following behind. Bubo soon arrived in a dark area of bushes with a cluster of Acacia trees overhead. He strongly discerned that Cyril had been here – it was like a residual, "spirit-like" scent left behind. Landing on a large garden rock, the owl desperately glanced around, waiting for his psyche to give him another clue.
He flew to the ground, suddenly feeling a strange sensation under his feet. It certainly didn't feel like regular dirt. No, there was a firm, coarse lining, crisscrossing with gaps in between. The other two humans finally caught up to him.
"Yo Brownie, ya think Snipes might be hidin' out here-AAHH!"
Without warning, all three were scooped up into a net trap. Bubo let out an alarmed cry, as he found himself squished between Pyro and the net. With the darkness, they had all missed the rope lining along the ground.
They dangled four feet off the ground, being held firmly in place by a strong, thick branch from one of the Acacias.
"Ugh, great! Didn't count on being snagged in a huge-ass hairnet," Scout groaned. "Everyone okay?"
"Mphgh!" Pyro replied while wiggling around to give Bubo enough room to breathe.
The runner tried squirming to get to his pocketknife, determined on slicing through the rope binds.
Bubo suddenly heard footsteps from afar, scurrying in the direction towards them. His hearing was ten times more sensitive than a human's, so he could also detect its rapid heartbeat. Hopefully, it was a friendly person coming to see what the commotion was all about.
A steady flash of light appeared from the outline of the figure, seemingly from the top of its head. Now the two mercenaries noticed the silhouette in the distance, treading opposite from where the gas station was by the road.
"HELP!" Scout called out. "WE'RE STUCK!"
There came rumbling, familiar laughter, tinged with a gruffness to it. The person was now running towards them. "Waiting three days out here paid off for a big, fat catch!"
Scout and Pyro realized who it was. "S-Soldier?"
His newfound relief went from 100 to 0 when he noticed the color of the uniform. It was Soldier alright – but the enemy one. He strode up to them, welding his shotgun, the flash beam from his helmet shining in their faces. He let out a triumphant chuckle when he recognized who he caught.
"Oh, this ain't good," Scout uttered nervously.
"Well, well, looks like some BLU vermin fell right into my trap!" RED Soldier drawled with delight.
Although Bubo recognized him, he didn't know that this was the original Soldier aka Jane Doe, and not the clone he was familiar with; leaving him wondering why the military man wasn't immediately helping them down from the trap enclosure.
"Haha! Two prisoners in my grasp! You are going back to base with me where you will be interrogated about your secret operations!" RED Soldier announced.
Scout was annoyed. "Ohmigod, really? Our next battle don't start 'til Thursday!"
"A soldier never lets his guard down, even during ceasefires! You are the enemy and I will treat you as such."
"Jeez, lame brain! We're on a mission right now! Can't we put this off 'til next week?"
"Trying to talk your way out of this will do you no good, slacker," Soldier shot back. "You will not escape my grasp."
"Mphggsg phshehrh," Pyro snidely remarked.
"Yeah," Scout agreed. "I forgot what a crazy-ass dingbat he is. Even more so than our Soldier."
Saying that earned him a hard jab to the hip by the enemy's gun.
"Ow!" Scout yelped irritably.
"DO NOT COMPARE ME TO THAT WEAK, BASTARDIZED COPY-CAT WHO MOCKS MY EXISTENCE!" RED Soldier roared.
Scout wished he had covered his ears at the sudden outburst – he forgot how loud the man could be. Poor Bubo though – his keen ears caught the whole brunt of the outburst, and he squeezed his eyes shut, head pounding in pain. He was surprised that his eardrums hadn't busted out right then and there.
"Unlike him, I would never betray my team by fraternizing with the enemy!" Soldier continued ranting. "He is not even a real, hot-blooded patriot! He does not wave the almighty, God-given flag out on the battlefield like I do! He is a FAKE! Just like you lab freak scum are!"
The insult struck a delicate chord in the BLU mercenaries, particularly for Scout. While it was true they were lab babies, this just reinforced his deep insecurity that he wasn't a real mercenary. Just a bundle of genetic material taken from the RED Scout and concocted into some pale imitation of a more genuine and, ironically, worthy person.
But the runner refused to let it show how it adversely affected him.
"Soldier, if you don't get us down from here, then I'm gonna—" Scout paused, thinking. "I'm gonna…uh…"
"Mohghs hwphegh mphhh!" Pyro threw in. "Mphghggg mrhphhh!"
"Uhh, yeah! I'm gonna let out a fart so big and devastatin' that it'll be like a second Hiroshima!" Scout paused, mortified. "Wait, Pyro! That's a terrible suggestion! No way I'm gonna blow out a nasty one in front of this RED—"
But RED Soldier took it seriously. "What? You mean to say you are hiding a secret weapon up your ass? I knew it! You BLUs thought you could fool us! It did not work this time, city boy!"
"No, that's not it!" Scout denied, flustered.
"HA! Do not lie to me. I am going to take you back to base where Medic will cut you open and take it out!" He then pulled out his shovel. "Now, hold still while I knock you maggots out. Your pet chicken too! I just know he is spying for the Cubans."
"Wait, wait! Can't we just negotiate…uh, prisoner terms or somethin' like that?" Scout desperately inquired.
Soldier grinned. "Sure…when we get back to RED base!"
He raised the shovel over the terrified runner's head.
"No, no, no-!"
WHACK!
Eyes shut tight, Scout expected to meet a tremendous wave of pain and darkness. But it never came. Opening one eye, he realized that Soldier was still standing there.
He hadn't even made a move to strike. He then fell forward, barely missing Scout and crumpled to the ground. Felicia stood over Soldier, holding a frying pan in her hand. She gawked at the blue electricity emanating from it, with a glowing number sign '-110' popping up into the air.
"Huh," she remarked, bemused. "Didn't think it was strong enough to do that!"
"Felicia!" Genuine relief washed over Scout this time. He knew it was her and not Miss Pauling, judging by the side braid she wore. Placing the pan down, she pulled out a flashlight and switched it on.
"Hey guys! Fancy meeting you here."
"Oh, thank God! I thought for sure we were gonna end up being lab toys for the RED Medic! Seriously, I did not like that time he switched my head with Heavy's and was gonna give me boobs and a girlie hole! Good thing Spy snuck in and bailed us outta there!"
Felicia shuddered. "He sounds worse than Dr. Moreau."
"Yeah. Don't wanna think about what he'd do to a nice lady like you."
The assistant let out a nervous laugh. "Nooo comment. Anyhow, I just so happened to hear you guys and the RED Soldier. I knew he was up to no good."
"No kiddin.' Hey, think ya can get the knife out of my pocket and cut us down?"
"Oh, right." The diminutive woman reached over inside one of Scout's side pockets and felt the cold tip of the utility weapon. Pulling it out, she got to work on sawing through the sisal binds.
"So, I was out here putting some gas in and calling it a night. Then my car was gone when I came out of the mini mart." She had succeeded in cutting through three binds, but the gap was still too small for the others to squeeze out.
Scout let a low whistle. "That's the fastest auto theft I ever heard. I mean, did you report it the police?"
"No, not yet. I came out here because I needed to pee real bad."
"Uuh, couldn't you have used the restroom at the gas station?"
"They're all out of order, and the toilets were removed. So, I decided somewhere dark and secluded would do."
"Still, ya could've gone in the sink," Scout pointed out.
Felicia blinked, dumbfounded. "Yeah…why didn't I think of that? I guess when you gotta go sometimes, your mind is only focused on the task."
"You know that pan ya got? That's a powerful beast. A critical hit on the first strike. A normal pan wouldn't have knocked out the dumb brute easily."
"Hmm, wonder why it was electrifying and spewing out those numbers."
"It did 110 damage to the Soldier. His HP is usually 200. You must gotta mean right swing too."
Felicia blushed. "Thanks."
Scout turned his attention back to her weapon. "The pan looks like an upgrade. Wait'll the others hear about it."
"I found it lying around at a Mann Co. weapons depot," Felicia explained while starting on the fifth bind. "The manager gave it to me as a free souvenir."
It took about five more minutes to completely gouge a hole in the net for all three quarries to squeeze out of. In that time, Scout briefed her on looking for Cyril and bringing Bubo along to help out.
The owl now remembered what Cyril told him about their enemies wearing red. He figured this was one of them. Still, it was disconcerting to him because the unconscious military man looked exactly like BLU Soldier. That's when he also recalled Cyril mentioning that the REDs were the original templates used to create BLU. His thoughts were interrupted by another intuitive tug - this time, it was coming to the right, some twenty feet from the net trap.
He alerted the others with a series of staccato hoots.
"What's he doing?" Felicia wondered, focusing her light on the raptor.
"Brownie, I think ya missed the mark on this one," Scout replied, disappointed.
But Bubo hopped towards them, now loudly squawking. He needed to show them what he discovered...concrete evidence. He leaned over and started pulling on one of Scout's crew socks.
"Mpphhrrf." Pyro kneeled, again pointing in different directions so that Bubo would possibly interpret it as a gesture to lead the way.
The owl then flew off into the darkness. Pyro immediately followed him, beckoning for the others to come.
"This better not be another trap, like a bear one this time!" Scout chided, as he and Felicia trotted after them.
Bubo flew to what he persistently sensed but was now seeing it with his own eyes. He recognized the object lying on the ground. It was one of Cyril's blue bandanas he sometimes wore to ward off excessive dust or pollen; it also kept his face warm during a battle in a cold region. On one corner end was the Mann Co. trademark. He leaned over, gently nuzzling the fabric, and caught the marksman's distinct 'residue.'
Cyril!
Pyro was the first to arrive, focusing the light on the owl's discovery.
"Mpshhghg!" they exclaimed, picking up the piece of cloth.
The runner and assistant appeared, curious as to what the arsonist held in their hands.
"A bandana," Felicia observed, adjusting her glasses for a better view.
Pyro brought it to their gas mask and smelled it. There was the familiar scent of the cologne their missing comrade wore.
"Moghghmoghh."
"Yeah, Mumbles? How the hell did it get here?"
Bubo wanted so badly to communicate to them what he thought might have happened. He hoped the firebug would be able to relay to the others a similar speculation.
"What is it?" Felicia asked.
"Pyro says it's Snipe's bandana," Scout explained.
"Mdohgmohgh."
"And they even smell the cheap cologne on it. Windsong. Like, it doesn't even hold a candle to Max Factor."
Felicia then noticed a pair of tire tracks; one gravel path appeared to be heading back to the highway near the gas station.
"A car was out here..." she murmured.
"Hey, I recognize those tracks!" Scout bent down for a closer look. "They belong to his camper van. The tires have these funny, scraggly designs on them."
"That means that he was here. But...why?" Felicia looked around, perplexed.
Scout shrugged. "I'm just as in the dark about it as you are. No pun intended, since we're literally surrounded by night and all."
"Mohg mphrrh dhegr." Pyro was pointing at a cluster of shoe prints.
Peering closely, Felicia could make out several patterns that indicated they were from different shoes. Kneeling down, she ran the flashlight over them.
"More than one person was out here." She pointed at two separate groove imprints: one bore an array of straight lines while the other two were bent lines that broke up the pattern into odd geometric shapes.
"Could've been Snipes," Scouts guessed. "But who was the other?"
Pyro then pointed past the shoe marks, towards several empty snack bags, root beer bottles, and a…toupee?
Bubo waddled over to the discarded items, searching for his friends' essence. He definitely found it on the root beer bottles, but not the other objects.
Scout walked over, glancing distastefully at the hairpiece. "Ehh, where'd this come from? It looks like someone got scalped!"
Pyro picked up the toupee to examine it, while the bat slugger studied one of the empty soda bottles. "Yeah, this is Snipe's drinks, alright."
"Do you think he might have been with someone else?" Felicia inquired.
"If he was, why'd he come all the way out here and throw away his junk?" Scout couldn't wrap his mind around why the sharpshooter would take someone with him either.
Unless he went into another one of his mental breakdowns.
"He's not in his right mind…he could've kidnapped someone and…" Felicia gulped, fearing the worst.
"Yeah, at this point, anything's possible with him," Scout opined, not feeling any better about it. "Just hope he didn't dump a body out here."
After ten more minutes searching the area for additional clues, they all gathered whatever evidence they could. Bubo sensed that Cyril wasn't here; still, the psychic bond with his friend wasn't broken, so the owl closed his eyes to concentrate.
Cyril, please give me a sign…
Luckily, he received another telepathic 'ping.' It was coming from the northeast, past Santa Fe. The only way he could communicate with the others was when he squawked excitedly and flew over short distances to lead them to their next hot spot.
"Ooohh-iiii!" he whistled-called, earnestly flapping his wings. It was a cute and quirky sound, being he was a Spotted owl and didn't possess the deep-voiced, typical hoots of a Great-horned owl.
"What's the matter, little fella?" Felicia asked.
In response, Bubo scurried over and once again tugged on Scout's sock. He repeatedly emitted a tiny shriek, like owlets would do when they were hungry, and kept looking at the gas station.
"Mpghsh?" Pyro seemed to comprehend the owl's vague communication better than the others. So, the arsonist pointed in the direction of said gas station.
Bubo acknowledged this by flying towards their original pitstop; he only landed to turn around and see if they were following him.
Pyro scurried after the little raptor, while Scout merely shrugged. "I guess he wants us to follow him back."
Soon, all three were trailing behind Bubo towards the highway that separated the desert from the town.
"So, you think you can use an extra foot?" Felicia offered the trio.
"I thought it was it was 'an extra hand,' " Scout mused.
"Where I come from, we say 'foot.' It's just as important as the hand."
"Buuut we came from the same place," the runner replied, puzzled. "We're clones, after all."
Felicia chuckled a little. "I mean, where I work on the 3rd floor at TF Industries. It's got its little culture niche in each cubicle cluster."
"Never knew that. The more ya learn, I suppose. Well, I don't mind an extra foot. We came prepared. I got a bunch of Dead Ringers, health packs, and disguise kits in my bag. And Bonk drinks. Plenty of ammo as well."
"So, you think Bubo could lead us to Sniper?" Felicia asked.
"It's worth a shot," Scout reasoned. "I mean, look what we found. He's our little detective." Felicia smiled at that, while the runner added, "Let's just hope Snipes hasn't gone nuts again and sees RED colors on us."
The assistant was now a bit tense. "Yeah...it's not like we're within respawn's proximity if he blows us away."
"Ah, don't worry too much! I think Brownie here will calm him down and tell him not to slaughter us outright. Plus, we got the Dead Ringers in case he does."
Felicia felt bad for Cyril. "I just wish he can heal his mind. We might…lose him forever."
"Never say forever," Scout encouraged, breaking out into his signature cocky grin. "Where there's a will, there's...uhhh, greedy heirs! Yeah!"
Felicia and Pyro were confused over his misconstrued proverb.
Scout waved it off. "Ya know what I mean. C'mon, let's go hit the road and find Snipes!"
Awhile later, as they drove down the highway...
"Hold up! Do you think the RED Soldier had something to do with Sniper's disappearance?" Felicia blurted out. What a time to be thinking about this when it should have occurred to them back at the evidence scene.
Scout was a bit baffled. "I'm not sure. No kidnappings are allowed during ceasefire."
"Even though he tried to kidnap you guys?" Felicia reminded.
"He's a nutter who's always in war mode. He doesn't always follow rules to a tee. I heard even the other REDs have to keep him in line about it."
"Should we go back and interrogate him?"
The runner contemplated this for a moment. "I suppose we could. We'll just tie him up to a tree and beat it outta the chucklenut."
But when they returned back to the place where the net trap was located, RED Soldier was gone.
"Ah crap," Scout grumbled.
. . .
It was late at night when the Administrator was leaving one of her secret locations. A few of the messengers and rogue guards watched the premises as she made her way to an old Cadillac.
"Soon, I will have the recipe to the Australium prune shake," she cackled.
Darryl walked beside her. "I didn't know it could be used as some kind of condiment."
"It's just like vinegar, Mr. Simmons. It has many practical uses."
"I see…fascinating indeed."
The Administrator couldn't go one day without obsessing over the stuff. It might as well be heroin to her. Darryl decided to go over tomorrow's duties as he escorted her to the car. He was to pick up Miss Pauling at the airport first thing in the morning.
Unknown to them, three enemies dressed as TF Industries messengers watched them from behind a rock boulder.
"That's the old bitch?" the first one asked.
"Yes," the second one confirmed, readying his tranquilizer gun. "Kuno wasn't lying after all."
"Betraying her must be bittersweet for him," the third one remarked, his own weapon trained on the facility guards.
"Our benefactor just offers a better deal," the second one replied.
"Of course. Go which way the wind favorably blows."
They aimed their weapons toward their targets and began firing.
. . .
Notes:
Thanks for continuing to read 😊 👍
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