New chapter. Let's go!
Thanks to Gonturan, Junuve, and Teeth for beta-reading.
"...and then I told her, I was happy to be tortured in the name of AMERICA!"
Spy dragged a hand down his face. Part of him wanted to tell the Solider that they had not been fighting for America, but for Mann Co. The other part of him wanted to shoot himself.
Sadly, Soldier was the only merc capable of coherent speech who had experienced torture at the hands of the enemy pyro. (Zhanna had as well, but when Spy had asked Heavy about it, the look Heavy had given him was enough to put him off from trying to speak to her. Or going near her ever again.)
"I have always dreamed of the day when I would be tortured—"
"What did she do," Spy said for what felt like the dozenth time.
"She had me strapped—no, chained to a chair!"
Finally they were getting somewhere. Spy jotted that detail down. "Yes. And then?"
"She took my helmet!"
"A tragedy." Sighing, Spy begrudgingly wrote that down as well. "And?"
"She beat the crap out of me!"
Well, that was something, but Spy couldn't imagine a mere beating was enough to cause Pyro to behave the way it did. "I see. What did she ask you?"
"She asked me where the Administrator was, but I didn't know that one."
"Of course. Is that all?"
"Yep."
Spy raised an eyebrow in surprise. "She… let you go after that?"
"What? No. She tried to jab my eyes out with her thumb and drilled holes into my teeth!" Soldier bared his teeth and pointed at them for emphasis. When Spy gave him an unimpressed look, he sat back. "Er, the medi gun took care of that, but if it hadn't, you'd be looking into a mouth that looked like—"
"Yes, I understand." Frowning, Spy looked over the notes he'd written. Certainly painful, but he wasn't entirely sure Pyro had eyes or teeth to begin with. Perhaps something to ask the Medic later. "What else?"
"That's the best part—Zhanna cut her own hand off to escape, and blew up the enemy pyro! It was great!" He paused. "Well, not Zhanna chopping off her own hand, but—"
"And the enemy pyro did nothing else?"
Soldier rubbed his chin. "Well, she did turn into a smoldering pile of ash."
"Before she died." Spy rubbed his forehead. "She did nothing else to you or your fiancée? She said nothing about what she planned to do or bragged about what she did to Pyro?"
"She said she planned to kill me slowly. Hah! So much for that!" Soldier grinned. "Zhanna showed her! As for talking about Pyro, she did start bragging about what she did to it at one point."
Spy lifted his head. "Yes? And what did she say?"
"I cut her off. Pyro'd already had its turn, and I was tired of waiting."
Had it not been for the fact that the pen Spy was using had cost him over two hundred dollars, he would have snapped it in half. "...I see," he said through clenched teeth. "Thank you, Soldier."
"Always happy to discuss my service to my country!"
"This has been an excellent use of my time."
"Glad to hear it!"
After pocketing the pen and notepad, Spy retrieved a cigarette and excused himself from the room. He should have known he wouldn't get anywhere with Soldier.
"Too bad you can't ask Pyro about its story," Soldier grumbled behind him.
If only it were that easy. Spy bit back the urge to inform him that even if he could, some people aren't so eager to share their traumatic experiences as others.
He ran through a mental list of the other mercs. Heavy and Scout had arrived with Saxton Hale, which was after the enemy pyro had died, so they wouldn't have much information. That left...
"Aye, it was awful!" Demo cried, tossing his hand out dramatically. "They gave me a baked potato, and a steak!"
Spy leaned his chin onto his hand. "Yes. How terrible."
"It tasted incredible!" He grinned for a moment, only to shudder. "But they didn't give me no scrumpy to wash it down with!"
"Truly the worst torture."
"They gave me water to wash it down with! What sorta sick lad does that?"
Sighing, Spy leaned back. "Is that all they did?"
"Aye. They thought they could get information outta' me after that, but my body was in agony." But Demo grinned, patting his chest and looking down at himself. "But we took care a' that now, didn't we?"
"I suppose I can't be too upset at your... impressive biology, given it saved our lives," Spy mused. "Thank you for your time, though that was not the information I was hoping to learn."
Demo grunted. "Sorry that my tales of torture are boring you." He reached for the bottle that was sitting across the table.
Spy looked over his notes, frowning. "It's not that," he said. "If you must know, I'm trying to figure out what's happened to the Pyro." Noting Demo's look of confusion, he heaved a sigh. "It was taken for interrogation slightly after you were."
"Poor lad." Demo sat back and took a swig from his bottle. "Have ya tried asking Soldier? He was tellin' me a lot about his misadventure with that pyro character."
"Yes. He had no information about Pyro's situation." Spy twirled the pen in his hand, glaring at it.
"That's rough." Demo tapped his fingers against the glass of the bottle. "I'm sure it'll come around, though. Don't think I've ever seen anything shook that creature."
"Yes, you'd think that. But it's been strangely quiet on the battlefield, and keeping to itself otherwise."
"I dinnae what to tell you," Demo admitted, then took another swig. "I can only say I'm a bit surprised ya haven't tried sneakin' around that thing yourself."
Spy said nothing as the corner of his mouth twitched. After a moment of watching the Demo take another deep drink of scrumpy, he rose from the table. "Enjoy your cheap liquor," he muttered as he strode toward the door.
"Y'know," Demo said, his voice growing distant, "I keep havin' th' same dream."
Spy stopped in the doorway, but did not turn around.
"I c'n feel th' water risin' up past me waist... an' I'm holdin' somethin'... heavy..."
A deep shudder ran down Spy's spine, and before the Demo could say anything more, Spy hurried out of the room.
As much as he resented Demo's comment about "sneaking around" the Pyro—he had some standards—he hadn't been entirely wrong. Spy had hoped it wouldn't have to come to this, but he'd exhausted every other option, and so he made his way to the barracks.
Though each mercenary had a room, most were not permanent residents. Sometimes if a match ran late, or if they were partying at the base and someone was too drunk to drive home, or if they had business here to attend to, or for other reasons, they might stay overnight. The base had basic amenities for everyone—not to mention specialized spaces like Engineer's workshop, Medic's lab, and Spy's own smoking room—but most mercs preferred their own residences.
With two exceptions.
Heavy and Pyro were the base's sole permanent residents. While Heavy had of course lived with his family, Spy had no idea where the Pyro had lived before being hired here, or where it had lived during the six month gap. All he knew was that so long as it was employed by Mann Co, it lived in the base.
Spy rarely stepped foot in the other mercs' rooms; he had little reason to. They were their own spaces, and Spy would not invade their privacy unless absolutely necessary. (Not to mention, he wasn't keen to explore the horrors people like Soldier or Medic kept in their rooms.)
But as he silently stalked up the stairs, seeking an equally silent coworker, he told himself that this was necessary. That he had no other option.
With a couple taps to his Cloak and Dagger, he disappeared from view, and cautiously approached a particular door. He tested the handle, readying a lock pick should he need to, but the handle provided no resistance as he turned it. Well, that made his job slightly easier.
Before opening the door, he put his ear up to it, listening for any movement, any sound. Nothing.
Spy drew in a breath, and carefully opened the door, slipping inside before he could stop himself.
The first thing he noticed was the smoky smell, like a fire long put out. The second thing he noticed was the sound of heavy, filtered breathing, coming from the darkest corner of the room. Pyro was asleep, then. Spy willed himself to relax, just a little.
It was darker than he'd expected. If the room had any lights, they were off, and though it was still light outside, the curtains—scorched as they were—were closed. Even so, the curtains did not block out all of the light, and Spy waited for his eyes to adjust.
The room was very, very dirty. The floor was scattered with miscellaneous pieces of scrap metal and welding tools, which briefly made him wonder how the place hadn't caught on fire until he noticed the scorch marks. They were scattered across the walls and floor and metal and even the cheap desk that had been shoved into one corner. But... no, not all of them were scorch marks.
Spy crept closer, his eye occasionally flicking to the meter on his watch. While some parts of the floor were uneven and had clearly been burned, others were merely covered in... ash? No, soot. There were streaks of soot across the desk, on the walls, and even on—Spy grimaced—the stuffed unicorns that lined a shelf. The only things that weren't covered in soot were the array of flamethrowers and axes that had been meticulously hung on the far wall.
Click.
Heart leaping into his throat, Spy whipped around to find that the dark corner where the bed sat was no longer dark.
Pyro sat upright on the edge of its bed, staring into the flame of a lighter. It hadn't been asleep at all, and for a heart-pounding moment Spy wondered if it had turned the lighter on because it had noticed him.
When Pyro did not look away from the tiny flame, Spy swallowed and allowed himself to breathe.
And then he noticed its hands.
He'd never seen it without its gloves before, and he could only stare at the dark talons that gingerly held the comparatively small lighter. At first he thought the tiny flame was casting a warm glow over the Pyro's hands, but then he crept closer.
It was the hands that were glowing.
They were mostly blackish-gray, but in certain parts, mostly around the joints of the knuckles, they emitted a faint, warm, red glow, like the embers of a dying fire.
Something the Medic had said the other day struck him, and he cast another glance around the room. The soot marks... Pyro's hands were covered in soot.
After a moment, Spy shook his head. This was certainly interesting, but not what he'd come here for. He turned his attention to Pyro again, watching its body language. Though its claws gripped the lighter carefully, the rest of its body was rigid, and with every breath it exhaled from its filter, its whole body shivered.
Spy wasn't entirely sure what Pyro did in its free time, outside of what the Engineer had said. But Engineer had confirmed that he hadn't seen it outside of battle since they returned, so it wasn't collaborating with him, and no one else had mentioned seeing it outside of its room. So... had it just been keeping to itself in here? Flicking a little flame off and on?
Disturbing, to be sure, but it still didn't answer his question of what had happened to it, and he didn't feel like lurking in here for hours on end to see what the Pyro did next. Sighing, Spy turned toward the door.
His foot knocked against a stray piece of scrap metal.
The brief clatter was deafening in the silent bedroom, and Spy's heart pounded even louder as he froze up completely. His cloak, however, was still working, and the lighting in the room did not change—the lighter had not moved. Slowly Spy turned his head to see if the Pyro had noticed anything.
A pair of empty glass lenses stared directly at him, and the lighter snapped shut.
Merde.
The next few seconds felt like minutes as Spy bolted for the door and Pyro leaped from its bed, charging after him. Spy expected to hear an enraged snarl tear through whatever passed for that monster's throat, but the fact that it remained completely silent was somehow worse.
Spy managed to slip through the door and slam it shut, and his cloak ran out just as he reached the stairs, not that it mattered at that point. He glanced over his shoulder as he scrambled down, only to run smack into what felt like a soft wall.
"What is hurry?" a rough voice grunted, and the Heavy grabbed him by his collar, pulling him back.
"Let me go, you oaf!" Spy hissed, wrenching himself around. "Can't you see—"
There was nothing there. No enraged pyromaniac was chasing him down the stairs, threatening to burn him to a crisp or rend him limb from limb with those inhuman claws. The second floor was silent.
"See what?" Heavy asked, brow furrowing.
"...Nothing," Spy said, his shoulders drooping. "Now put me down."
The Heavy complied, but gave him a look as Spy adjusted his suit and walked off. Even so, Spy gave the stairway another wary glance.
This was going to complicate things.
