Chapter 12: Clones And Water
Notes: Criticism is allowed!
There was something wrong with Sniper. No one besides Heavy had noticed.
The change in his personality was subtle. He wasn't as rude or uncooperative when the Medic asked to heal him. He didn't come up to him after the battle and say scornful words towards the other team, nor did he leave them alone afterwards to stay in his nest, a routine he had even before they were all cloned.
Sniper was usually alone, and while it wasn't a good thing with his social skills, he talked little anyway if he was with someone, preferring to stay in his tower or van most of the time listening to the garbled radio.
Which is why his mind was filled with concern; Sniper hadn't left their side since he returned from his tower after the battle.
With Sniper's normal poker face, it was impossible to know what he was thinking or feeling, if not comparable or more so than Medic's regular expression. Asking him why he hadn't left their side would only garner a false narrative from him, and demanding an answer would only scare him off.
He was finicky like that, but Heavy had enough patience to wait for him to talk on his own.
Though he wished Spy were here. It would've been more smooth sailing if he was.
Unlike Mikhail, who was a sort of leader for the RED team, BLU Spy was, in a way, their de facto leader, someone they could rely on when they needed to.
Heavy was a sort of leader to them originally until he became closed off after he lost his family he never had in the first place. He didn't want to be a leader, didn't want to care for them the way he did his sisters, and when everything had spiralled out of control for the BLU team, Spy stepped in.
He was the person they went to for an answer or if they needed something done. Heavy could barely call it fatherly instincts—it'd be odd to refer to him as a 'father' at all with how strained the original Scout and Spy's relationship was. Nevertheless, how similar half the team were to Spy's age.
But he cared for them, even if his way of caring was dubious at best.
If Spy were here, he could coax an answer from Sniper. How he could, Heavy didn't know. There was a possibility he might even make things worse, although that was a stretch since, for the most part, he could calm any person in any given situation. Spy had a way with words that charmed anyone into doing what he wanted. He was a man with a forked tongue and sugary words.
Even so, it was an impossible task getting Sniper to speak about anything. Regardless if he had a bullet stuck inside him, bleeding profusely from an internal puncture, or both, getting him to ask for help or even talk was like pulling teeth.
But Spy wasn't here, and Heavy never had the right words when it came to Sniper, despite Mikhail's memories of soothing his sisters whenever they became depressed.
So, he said nothing to Sniper, nor did he confront him; he simply observed what he would do.
Sniper was silently watching the team in the common room, listening to the radio while cleaning his rifle out. None of the team paid much mind to him besides Engineer trying to make small talk with him every once in a while, and after Medic and Scout left, the team fell into a comfortable silence.
Sniper's presence was an uncommon one, but it was welcomed nonetheless. He was still their teammate, even if he preferred otherwise. Though Heavy couldn't get the thought of something being wrong with him being here, with them in the common room, out of his mind. He wanted to know just as much as he needed to know why he was here.
There was a reason Sniper was here in the living room with them instead of in his nest, and he could tell from Soldier and Engineer's shared glances they found that something was wrong, too.
A few minutes after Medic and Scout left, Sniper approached Heavy discreetly in the kitchen while he was preparing their dinner. With his hands stuffed in his pockets, he crept to one side and watched as Heavy prepared basic side dishes like salad.
He stared for a few minutes, grabbing one of the cleaner cups from the sink while pouring himself water simultaneously. They were quiet, Heavy letting him speak up when he was ready, and eyeing him every so often as he sipped the water slowly.
He then gagged slightly, coughing on the water and dumping it out in the sink. "This tastes like shit." He muttered in a rasp, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
"Tap water is bad."
Sniper hummed, swiftly changing the topic and asking in a reserved tone. "What's going on with your Pelmeni?"
"They are boiling; I am making appetizer right now." Heavy replied.
His hum was throaty, his gaze fixed unblinkingly on the salad dish.
They remained in a shared silence for a moment longer.
Then Sniper frowned, an uneasy tension in his shoulders. "Something's wrong."
Heavy paused. "What is?" He enquired.
The Aussie shook his head. "Don't know, but something is wrong."
Heavy placed down the bowl and looked over the room. Demo, Engineer, and Soldier were playing poker, as Pyro watched the late night cartoons on the television. When they looked unbothered, he then peered towards the two entrances that led into two differing hallways.
Nothing was out of place that he could spot.
"Is it Spy?" He queried.
It wasn't uncommon for RED Spy to be lurking around in their base, and as finicky as it was, it became a sort of whack-a-mole game with the Frenchmen. There wasn't much to do when alone in the middle of nowhere, after all.
"Nah, doubt it is." With one hand fumbling in his pocket and the other reaching out to scratch his beard, he responded. "The spook looked out of it all day. Doubt he's in the mood to break into our base right now."
Heavy looked thoughtful. "Out of it?"
"Paranoid."
He set the utensil he was holding beside the salad dish and used the rag haphazardly left on top of the counter to clean his hands. "Want Heavy to bring Scout and Medic back?"
They had been gone for longer than he would've liked, and he was becoming incredibly antsy at them being gone from his sight. He was especially worried if Sniper had a bad feeling about something.
Sniper nodded again, then became silent. He agreed with a hum a second later. "Yeah, get 'em. I don't like this."
"Watch the food, then." Heavy said after a grunt of confirmation.
Sniper nodded, and Heavy stalked towards the door, which caught the three men, and Pyro's, attention. Engineer leaned back in the stool he was seated in to look over Demo's shoulder, frowning curiously.
"Where you goin', big guy?" He asked.
Followed by his question, Demo peered over his own shoulder to look at him curiously, Soldier leaning back to look at him. Pyro lowered the tv's volume to hear his answer more clearly, and Heavy felt a creeping uncomfortability from the sudden attention.
"To get Medic and Scout."
"Aye, ya do that. They've been gone too long," Demo said in reply.
"Y'need someone to come with you?" Engineer asked.
"No."
Engineer leaned back into the table, and Pyro had followed with his motion, turning back to the tv that was flickering out every so often. Soldier turned back to the table as he shuffled the card deck he was holding.
"Alrighty then, give a holler 'case you get locked out."
Heavy grunted, and the door behind him shut with a soft click. He then began his descent down the too grey halls.
The hallways were barren, nothing in them besides cement walls and grounds, with blue tape lining the ground to indicate where to walk.
Despite Scout saying it took an hour to forty minutes to travel through the base, if he were to go through the entire base himself, it would take up to two hours with his walking speed. It was large, claustrophobic, and gave a sense of vertigo if someone were to be inside it for too long.
Which is why he always wondered why it was built this way. Why was it constructed like a maze, while the RED team had a simple, smaller base? There weren't many reasons to give the BLU's a larger base that were more inconvenient to keep, and would only be abandoned in under a year.
He doubts that Blutarch had a sudden change of heart and decided to gift them a larger base out of courtesy and gratitude.
Although it wouldn't be much of a far-fetched answer, since Blutarch didn't know they were clones of the RED team, only acting accordingly and treating them like cannon fodder since they were mercenaries.
His previous employers always seemed to act with a shrewd sense of authority from what he sees from Mikhail's memories, thinking that they can speak and act however they want towards him because he was only a mercenary.
It was a wonder how he would act if he found out they, the BLU team, were clones and not actual humans. That's most likely why Miss Pauling or the Administrator never said anything about them being clones.
It still felt deprecating not to be seen as human, though. But there wasn't much he could do about that. He wasn't human, at least in a physical sense. In the mental sense, he was human. He had desires, dreams, passions, emotions. That was what made a human a human.
Heavy was never a positive man; he never looked on the bright side of things, but he never deluded himself into thinking negatively.
But it seemed like most of the team didn't understand that way of thinking. It was easier to either accept being a clone and be either angry about it, despondent, in denial, or all of the above. For them, not acknowledging it was better. Easier. He didn't blame them; for him, it was easier too.
But not acknowledging things wasn't something that Heavy could and should do. He was always forced to acknowledge his problems, having to be the wall for everyone, the person who brought people back to reality. That was the role he gave himself.
So that was who he admittedly remained to be, even after everything. That was all he had left of himself after losing Mikhail's identity.
Losing those first memories of Mikhail was one of the worst things he went through.
The anguish of not remembering his mother's face hurt more than words could describe.
Losing the memory of his sister's faces felt like he was mourning.
Still, he couldn't crumble; he couldn't let himself fall, or else the delicate emotions he had left would crumble. He had to be realistic. He knew this would happen, knew that he would lose memories of his—Mikhail's—family, and he forced himself to push past those emotions. He couldn't let himself be weak.
Heavy swallowed those memories and trudged down the halls. Look at him; he was only fetching Medic and Scout, and he was becoming emotional over silly things again.
The too grey walls suffocated him.
It couldn't have been a few minutes since he left when he heard a cry of pain echo down the hall that interrupted the silence, turning back puzzledly to listen for more sounds.
There were small noises such as banging and what he assumed to be yelling, but he couldn't discern what it was, either due to the noises being muffled by the walls or the distance between him and the sounds. He remained stationary and waited.
There were a few seconds in between when he heard another shout, more rough than the last.
"What's happenin'?!" It was pointedly obvious the voice belonged to Engineer, his voice distressed and in anguish.
Heavy felt his heart drop, and he began pacing back down the hall. Was the team in danger?
"Engineer!" He called.
He was strolling down the halls as he listened to the noises that increased in volume, its noises reverberating in the hallway. But unlike what he thought, they didn't belong to his team.
There were cries and screams that overlapped one another, muffled voices yelling in anguish, the other half babbling nonsense.
They cried for help, laughed for someone to join them, sobbing about themselves being trapped, and some coughing on their cries as they tried begging fruitlessly for whatever it was holding them captive to let them go.
The volume increased.
It got ever so louder.
Then there was the ever-familiar voice of Sniper.
"HEAVY!"
Heavy went around the corner.
It was large.
Shifting and forming its body like a morbid kaleidoscope.
Unfamiliar faces came in and out of the body like a wave, a clear cry from an older man, before it became muffled as the flesh engulfed him. The more twisted humans were laughing and babbling, but still unrecognisable in the skinned mass.
Heavy knew who they were, though.
He didn't need their uniforms to know who those voices belonged to, didn't need their voices or faces to know what that fleshed mass was.
He didn't need their faces to know which teammate was which. To know what happened to his family.
The ringing increased in his ears, and he instinctively took a step back. One word echoed in the hallway, a crowd speaking the words, his team uttering a warning to him:
"Run!"
It was like a chant.
But he didn't listen.
Heavy ran to his teammates' side immediately, ignoring the cries, sobs, laughter, mutters, and yelling, trying to muffle them out with his own heartbeat.
Worry pinched his face as he pushed through the thick mud, before he immediately pulled out when he felt the sludge tighten its grip around his finger. He looked at his swelling finger that was engulfed by the mass, looking back at the conglomerate mess and his eyes widening further.
Each of his teammates' faces looked distraught, trying and failing to get Heavy to run away.
It was then that a hand caught his ankle, and he was violently ripped down, falling to the ground with a harsh thump that left him winded.
He gasped, and the ringing only increased.
Further and farther up, the mass of his teammates went, looming over him as they cried for him to run and laughed for him to join them. He didn't know which voice belonged to who after a while of listening to their mixed cries, only that his teammates were no longer recognisable.
"What happened…?" He questioned, but it was more to himself than his teammates at this point. He wasn't sure if his family could even hear him over their incoherent words.
They observed his sprawled form on the cement ground, and Heavy attempted to run but couldn't move an inch because of the hands holding his leg down.
"RUN!" A familiar, garbled voice yelled.
"There's something… white." Another voice uttered, before their voice rose in desperate hysteria, their voice being repeated by a crowd of other voices. "They lied! They lied! They lied! They lied! They lied! They all lied to us! He lied! He lied to us! They all lied to us!"
"Maybe this was for the best?" Heavy couldn't recognise this voice; it was as if one of his teammates were trying to impersonate someone else. Sniper, he believed, sounded like he was trying to impersonate a distraught voice. "Because then we can go after those bastards! That's right! Those bastards!"
As the mass dragged him further into itself, Heavy grunted and bit back sounds of pain, feeling each bone in his leg breaking under the pressure.
He didn't fear death much; that was never something he feared, and he was about to let himself be taken by the conglomerate mess when he heard Engineer's voice. It was faint and quiet, and he wouldn't have heard it had it not been for the fact that Engineer's face was in front of his.
He wouldn't have been able to tell the face belonged to Engineer had it not been for his goggles.
It was then that he realised this monster was arching over him, about to overtake him like a wave.
"Get Medic." That was all he could hear over the sudden, vibrant chorus of the voices that cut off the Texan.
All the voices mixed together and yelled in his ears as the mass weight overtook him, crushing him like it was a thick wall.
Heavy's scream couldn't be heard over the monster-esque kaleidoscope.
He wasn't sure if he was even screaming in the first place.
Was he screaming? No, he couldn't have been. Heavy didn't scream. Especially not in pain. So whose voice was it? Sniper? No, he wasn't much of a yeller. Engineer? Maybe, though, that didn't explain the unbearable anguish in its voice. It could've been Soldier, Pyro, or Demoman's, but they weren't much to scream in pain either.
All of the mercs had an unnaturally high pain tolerance. Unless all their bones were being shattered and reformed to mesh with a monster, that is.
"Misha…?"
Everything fell silent.
His family's cries, screams, and shouts vanished.
The constant ringing in his ears was now replaced by the hum of the lights overhead.
All that remained was his laboured breathing, his eyes being assaulted by the sudden fluorescent lamps above him. He looked around the hallway in shock and terror, seeing nothing but more grey cement walls and streaks of blue that led him to various parts of the base.
Whatever had happened to his family, whatever that thing was, it was gone.
For a brief respite, he believed he was hallucinating whatever had just occurred, that he had eaten something wrong, or that there was lead in the water supply. Because it didn't seem real. Only the wheeze of his punctured lungs, the rattling of his bones, and his battered body solidified reality for him.
He gathered his thoughts as he lay sprawled on the cement floor, catching the few breaths he could with both of his lungs punctured.
His mind was slowly blanking, but he came to the realisation that his teammates respawned.
Which was good. That was a good thing.
He was never one to be scared of anything, or at least show what he was feeling internally.
He hoped his fear for whatever had just occurred wasn't translated in his expression, and if it was, he hoped that his teammates wouldn't remember.
What happened, anyhow? It couldn't have been five minutes since he left.
A minute couldn't have passed with him breathing thickly, trying to think through the thumping in his brain about what had just transpired, when he heard a voice that broke him from his trance.
"Heavy!"
He didn't realise he had passed out.
Heavy cracked his eyes open to see Soldier standing over him, peering through his helmet with shadows casting over his eyes.
"You aren't dead!" He stated.
He wanted to tell him to be quiet, though he was in too much pain to even muster a word, his body too battered to utter a single grunt.
"Do not speak! Just be glad that thing did not catch you! You would've become one of them if you had been!"
Would've become one of them? What did he mean? He was blearily staring at him, trying to a quirk a brow in question towards him. Though the Soldier didn't seem to interpret his deepening frown that way.
"Just lay there and die, and we will meet in respawn so that I can explain everything." Soldier said.
Heavy eyed him with a quickly paling face, slowly blinking as his vision splotched. He suddenly felt exhaustion overtake him. Once he respawned, his teammates would be waiting. He needed to know if they remembered their experience, what happened to them, and not for the first time, he couldn't help but feel like death was taking too long to come.
Soldier had already taken off down the hall, and he let himself fade off into sleep.
Heavy tapered off with a staggered sigh afterwards, thickly swallowing his tension.
"Thing took Soldier after we turned off lights. Got too…" he tried finding the words. "It was too dark in the halls. We were with each other for an hour or so. He was…"
He made a motion towards himself to emulate absorption, waving his arms slowly to his stomach to physically mimic the word.
Scout pinched his lips and looked ill when he was explaining, with Sniper and Demo staring unsurely at him. Medic, as always, never expressed how he was feeling at hearing their little family be absorbed by those monsters.
"Absorbed…?" Sniper clarified hesitantly.
Heavy gruffly hums, adding a nod simultaneously, and looking down at his hands as he fidgets with his fingers.
"Absorbed. We did not realise we could respawn as monsters because of machines glitch."
"Bloody hell…" Demo muttered, grasping his hat with a tight clasp. "Five minutes?"
There was no response.
"It ain't the big one that got 'em?" Demo asked after a second.
He shook his head. "Big one was somewhere. Nowhere near here."
"If this happened mere minutes after me and Scout left, you were fighting it at that time," Medic replied.
Demo made an 'o' with his mouth. "Yeah, that's right, so it ain't that one."
"What's that mean, then?" Scout inquired desperately. Iris's darting between them while chewing his nail thumb, scrunching his nose in a way too similar to BLU Scout. "They just became monsters, just like that, for absolutely no reason?! It don't make no sense! It only took, what, five minutes for all of them to get taken? I mean... unless BLU is just weaker, how the hell did this even happen?!"
"Unless there was a monster hiding among them." Sniper suggested.
"No," Medic firmly stated.
"How do you know?"
"I don't, but I doubt there was a sleeper agent among us. If there was, it would've activated during the battle where it could get us all at once rather than at night where we are all separated." He answered.
"Then how? Big one wasn't around 'em since we were fightin' it, and a sleeper agent couldn't've snuck in."
"You said Sniper found that the water tasted odd?" Medic noted distantly.
Heavy grunts.
"Unless Sniper's blood had seeped into the water tank and it travelled that quick to the pipes, something was already in the water supply."
The silence was terse.
"What do you mean?" Scout questioned, straightening and pushing himself off the wall he was leaning on. "You're kiddin', right? Like, this is just some bad joke? 'Cause how—why would that—it doesn't make any sense!"
"But why the hell would the hot water be turned off? Why just the hot water? Unless they tried shutting both off but failed, then that begs the question of if someone knew the water was poisoned or something." Sniper's eyes were wide, mouth twitching as he spoke, as if to say more words but unable to find them.
"But that doesn't make sense. Unless the water supply is connected to the town, why would the big one be… y'know, the big one?" Demo questions.
Sniper shifted his weight from one leg to the other, eyeing them uncomfortably. "We never asked if the water supply was connected to the town."
"…I mean, did it matter if we did know?" Scout enquired reluctantly.
"Nae, but I 'spose we shoulda asked."
Heavy sighed and felt his shoulder involuntarily drop, seeing the unease pile in the four other men's expressions. They never did ask if the water supply was connected, did they? Miss Pauling never said anything about it either, and if she did, they must've forgotten.
Heavy sighed through his nose once more, and glanced at Medic, who was looking down at his feet in thought.
"Doktor?" He asked mutedly.
The doctor relaxed his face and turned to face him. His lips twitched, as if he was trying to form words, but he quickly silenced himself. Heavy waited for him to speak, knowing Medic was never one to be at a loss for words.
"Give me a moment." He mumbled.
Heavy grunted, and the five of them sat in silence.
He wondered what Sniper would've said in this scenario, BLU Sniper. He was always quick to accuse people and quick to be scornful if given the opportunity. Sniper wasn't sadistic, but he was cruel in a way.
Sniper and Medic were similar in that regard. Both of them never spoke unless they were confident in what they were saying, and they were always pettily vindictive towards things they hate.
Now that he thought about it, they were similar in many ways.
Both of them were extremists, always acting drastically before thinking and endangering themselves just to get an upper hand. If the respawn machines weren't active, they'd be called suicidal and would've likely died in ten different ways just to land a single punch.
Though the only difference between them is that Medic despised the RED team, having a sadistic side to him, while Sniper avoided them like a plague and only acted cruelly if he was pushed enough.
Everyone in the BLU team hated the REDs for one reason or another, and Scout was definitely not shy when voicing that hate, but Medic had a more secretive hate, a venomous loathing for them that showed through his actions rather than his words.
Medic never spoke about it, Heavy doubts he ever even acknowledged or thought about his hatred for them. With everyone caught up in their own issues, no one ever thought to pay attention to the finer details, how Medic was more rough when in battle, how his tongue was a bit more acidic when the RED team came up, especially towards RED Medic.
But it was none of his business how Medic thought about the other team. Just as Medic had his own problems to sort through, Heavy did as well. But with how Medic tried to attack and take down both himself and RED Scout, and how Demo and him got into a fight earlier, he was slowly coming to realise just how truly angry and denial he was in.
Heavy eyed the doctor, his brows furrowed in contemplation. Without Scout or Spy to keep him in line, eventually, Medic will crack worse than he already has, and he wasn't sure if any of them would be safe when—not if—that happened.
He blinked out of his thoughts in time to hear Medic coolly say. "I used water on Scout and Demo's wounds."
Silence reigned.
Time seemed to slow, the realisation slowly withering into each of the men's expressions, one after the other.
It took Heavy a moment too long to realise what Medic meant, what that meant for the two men beside them.
"You used the water on our wounds?" Scout's voice was low, utterly terrified by the prospect.
The words were simplistic. It was similar to a question a kid would ask about the scary monster under the bed.
He spoke methodically, like he was scared that if he said the words out loud, they'd instantly become true. And more horrifically, that was the case, because this wasn't a bad dream, a story from a novel, or a plot line from a horror flick.
This was real.
And it was enough that the realisation settled in for everyone.
This wasn't death.
This was endless torture.
Everything Heavy had thought about from earlier was forgotten, and he watched as Demo bowed his head and promptly threw up.
Sniper's eyes were blown wide as he looked between the two men, mouth agape, while Scout spouted every word he could think of for any sort of logical conclusion.
"We gotta be okay, right? We can't become monsters! I mean, seriously, what if whatever-it-is in the water supply is gone, huh?! You're just the BLU Doc, and I know ya haven't got no damn special badge or whatever. Ain't no way we'll turn into those things! We haven't turned yet! We're safe! We haven't turned yet, and—and—"
Medic held his hand out and looked exasperated, rolling his eyes.
"I'm not saying you will turn into a monster—Herr Demo, clean yourself up." He interrupted himself to push a towel into the Scot's hands before continuing with what he was saying. "—I am merely clarifying because there is a chance you'll become one. Although I doubt you will seeing as… der Junge took a shower and hasn't become one. Let me finish before you all overthink yourselves into a circle."
Heavy knew that Medic would've let them overthink themselves into a doom spiral if he wasn't in the room. Even if he vehemently denied it, he was just as sadistic as the RED Medic.
"You're a friggin' asshole, fuck you." Scout said, raising his middle finger.
"Ye couldn't say that before?" Demo argued, looking rightfully pissed at him as he wiped his mouth.
"I didn't know you had a weak stomach." Medic said instead.
"Aye, probably do 'cause I haven't had a drop of bevvy in me since yesterday." He grumbled in response. "Yer still a daft bastard, though."
Sniper frowned and gruffly sighed. "This doesn't change the fact that there's a chance they'll become monsters—"
"A low one." Heavy added.
"—There might still be a chance. The water's been tainted, and the rest of the BLUs have been turned. It all happened in just 5 minutes, so unless you've got someone to say goodbye to, we need a plan now."
"It would be helpful if you could remember what happened before me and Scout found you at the water tank." Medic said.
"Yeah, sure, lemme recover my memories from yesterday." Snarked Sniper.
"We can get outside help?" Scout suggested. "My brother's pretty much a right hand to someone with a lotta connections, so I can give him a call and have some people help with this."
"Nae, it won't work unless ya want Miss Pauling up yer ass."
"Well, we can't just fight that thing! Ya seen what it did to our team, and the BLUs were taken out in just 5 minutes! Maybe we can fight the single monsters, but there ain't no way we can go against that big one!" Exclaimed Scout, who was biting his thumb nervously. "We can't just run either. Miss P'll get after our asses and fire us! My ma'll kill me if I'm fired!"
"Aye, same here."
Sniper hummed in agreement, while the two BLUs remained silent.
If he and Medic were fired, they wouldn't have anywhere to go. Their entire lives were based around fighting in this useless war, and if they were fired, they would either be killed or be forced to wander through the New Mexico desert.
Not to mention their entire team was gone, their entire family, and if they couldn't fix this issue…
Heavy severely despised funerals.
Scout groaned, unaware of Heavy's thoughts. "Then what the hell do we do?"
They stayed silent, and Heavy glanced at the door in thought. Fighting was out of the question, but so was asking outsiders for assistance, especially without permission.
There wasn't much they could do against those monsters, Soldier had tried and it only resulted in him being absorbed by those things. Heavy would've been absorbed as well had it not been for the respawn machine and Soldier.
So, in Scout's words, what the hell should they do? There was practically no winning chance against that thing.
Heavy clenched his hands, his crossed arms practically hugging himself. They would either be caught by that thing, or be fired by Miss Pauling, in which case they'll either be killed or forgotten. There was no winning for the BLU team, and there was even less of a chance for the RED team, seeing as two out of three of the surviving members might become monsters.
"We'll concentrate on findin' the other Medi-gun to fix us up first." Demoman instructed, surprising everyone in the room with his sudden leadership. "After that, we'll try findin' Medic and Engineer. Uh, RED Medic and Engineer. We don't know if they're still alive. If BLU Scout doesn't find us yet, we'll look for 'im too. Got it?"
"We still need our Spy too." Medic said.
"We'll get him, eventually. Safer to let him stay in the fridge for now."
"And what if we get caught?" Sniper inquired. "We can't exactly respawn because of that glitch."
Medic studied the floor thoughtfully. "…We could destroy the respawn machines."
Heavy turned to face him in alarm, and Demo cut everyone off before Scout and Sniper could respond with their own objections. "Don't try that shit again, bastard, whaddya mean?" He interrogated, assertedly.
"In the event that all of us have been caught." Clarified Medic, a lilt in his tone that only Heavy noticed. He continued as if he hadn't planned on terrifying them again. "It's better for us to die rather than be turned into a monster, ja?"
Scout groaned, hanging his head. "I hate to agree, but yeah, I'd rather die than become one of those things."
"So what are we doing now?" The Australian said in a questioning tone, leaning against the wall as he crossed his arms.
"We still need the Medi-gun and Spy's head, and currently, I want to find der Junge right now. If what you say is true and that the monsters still can use their skill sets, we can't let him be caught."
"Y'sure it ain't yer favouritism?" Demo muttered, although he looked shocked at his own words after, eyes widening as he pinched his lips. "I, uh, didn't mean to say that out loud."
"Favourite or not, we still need to find him." Heavy states. "It is big concern if he is caught."
Scout placed his hand on his hip as he clicked his tongue. "Yeah, don't tell anyone I said this, but he kind of runs as fast as me. If he's caught, we're screwed. Like, we're all fucked if he's caught. Sure ya can beat his ass, but we can't do that if he's, y'know, a monster."
"So Medi-gun, BLU Spy, BLU Scout, and just see what happens after that. Do I got everything?" Demo asked.
"Sounds about right." Said Sniper.
"How do we go about this, then?" Heavy enquired, looking between the four of them curiously. "We can not go all together in case monster catches us."
"Normally in horror chick flicks, separating is a bad idea. Can't believe it's actually a good idea now." Scout muttered as he looked baffled at the idea.
"Not much we can do about that, eh?" Sniper muttered to him.
"Yeah, you're telling me."
"Then let's do this, Sniper and… Heavy can go to the RED base; try to find Medic's Medi-gun while retrieving BLU Spy's head. Scout, me and the bastard here will find Scout… BLU Scout-" Demo turned to look at Scout with a slightly apologetic expression. "Sorry, kid. Ya mind if I just call you... What's yer real name, again? Jeremy, innit?"
Scout huffed in annoyance, oddly looking back at Medic with a sneer before slacking his head in defeat. "Yeah, whatever man."
"Thanks, lad," Demoman said as he nodded his head, looking back at the rest of the group. "Jeremy—wow, that's weird—me, and Medic'll find Scout. Got any questions? Speak up if you do."
"Nah, yeah, when the hell did you get smart?" Sniper questioned.
The Scot gave him a weird look, shrugging languidly. "Uh… yeah, dunno. Anyway, good plan?"
Heavy had no disagreements. He was never the type to make plans and was usually content to do as others did. However, he was taken aback to see Demo in charge, as he was typically drunk in the field. He wasn't sure if he should be voicing his concerns or if he should sit back and let him lead them.
Then again, none of the people present were the strategizers, maybe somewhat Scout, but none of them truly knew what to do if they had a map placed in front of them. Medic and Sniper were only supporters, and Heavy and Scout only knew what to do when put on the spot, so none of them were exactly in the position to argue about what happened.
Though they wouldn't, anyway. It was a good plan, not sound, but good enough to work in the short term.
When no one answered, Demo gave two awkward thumbs up. "Perfect. Glad we're on the same page."
"How'll I get to the base, then? My only weapon is in Heavy right now, so I can't just respawn, and even if I did, it'll take some time for Heavy to meet up with me." Sniper asked.
"I've got my gun. You don't need to worry about what will kill you," Medic stated. "As for Heavy meeting back with you, Heavy will retrieve Spy's head while you search for the Medi-gun. It was in the exam room's fridge, you said?"
"Yep." Scout popped the 'p' as he said so.
"Your base isn't as big as ours, so I have no doubt none of you will have an issue." The German clone said confidently. "Once we find Scout, we will circle back to the bridge and wait for each other there."
"What happens after?" Heavy asked.
"We'll get there, eventually." Demo replied.
"So…" Sniper shifted his weight from one foot to the other, abruptly looking uncomfortable. "When do we get started?"
The five of them looked at each other, waiting for some form of motivating speech. Spy was typically in charge of those, and he was admittedly good at them. They never felt discomfort with missions because they had full confidence in themselves to carry it out. Without Spy's speech, it felt somewhat like a death mission. A death sentence.
Scout frowned and screwed his eyes shut. "Ah, shit… okay, uh, I ain't good at this sort of thing, so bear with me."
They turned to look at him, seeing him fidget with the bandages that covered his arm as he narrowed his gaze in contemplation.
"We're a bunch of goddamn fuckups."
That took a wildly different turn from what Heavy had expected.
"Mate-"
"I ain't finished." Scout cut him off, staring firmly at the ground while building his confidence. "Yeah, we're total screw-ups. We fuck everything up, and let's face it, we're probably gonna bite the dust. There ain't a damn thing we can do to take on that monster, either. All things considered, we're screwed ten ways over."
"Lad, that's good-"
"I said I ain't finished!" He barked, stopping anyone from cutting off his "speech."
Scout tapped his foot anxiously while staring hard at the ground, everyone remaining quiet to let him continue.
"So we're screw-ups, big deal. But here's the truth, we're the absolute best! The top dogs, even if everyone else thinks we're nothing but a bunch of fuckups! We've faced those monsters a couple times on average, and hell, even if Heavy there's just a clone, he's outrun them like it's no one's business! Demo even hurt one of those things! And that bastard BLU Doc? He's gonna figure out how to turn this whole crap situation around!"
'He'll probably figure it out,' though Heavy didn't say that. He wanted to have confidence in the doctor that he could figure this out. He needed to figure out how to reverse whatever happened to their teammates. But there was still that lingering doubt in the back of his mind.
"We still got dreams and shit to achieve or whatever, and being a monster for eternity doesn't sound great, so… let's not get ourselves killed, 'kay? I ain't gonna fight two of youse more than we already have to."
Silence hung in the air, and Sniper nodded with a smirk, pressing Scout's head down like an older brother would to a younger brother.
"That was a good speech." He acknowledged.
And admittedly—shockingly—Heavy felt better than he had before. It wasn't as precise or motivating as the speeches Spy gave, but it was better than what any of them could give, and that was better than nothing.
Medic looked more focused, Demo, Sniper, and Scout looking as if tension had been relieved, while Heavy felt a little lighter than before. Not so much that the dread that still surrounded the situation had dissipated, but enough that he didn't feel as hopeless.
Medic called, "Sniper," as the Australian turned to face him. He presented his gun with a wave. "Do you want to get a head start?"
Sniper paused, as did everyone else, waiting for his response.
The Aussie glanced at the clock and then back at the gun, clearly lost in thought.
A moment passed, and then he nodded slowly. "There isn't much I can do just sitting around here. Since those monsters are still on the loose, I'm assumin' we're already on a time limit. I'll go on ahead for a head start."
Medic hummed. "Tell me when you're ready."
"Yeah, you got it. Demo," Sniper turned to him, as the Scot quirked a brow puzzledly. "I just want to revise the plan."
"Ya got it."
"Heavy," Medic called after Demo, Sniper, and Scout went to stand in the corner of the room, amicably speaking to one another with the occasional jab to the other.
Heavy stared at them distantly, feeling a sort of envy. He wasn't sure how they could bounce back immediately after Scout's speech. It wasn't a terrible speech, but it didn't erase the dread that threatened to creep back. Yes, he didn't feel as hopeless, though he couldn't help but think about the what-ifs. About what could go wrong.
He found himself glancing back at the door. Those monsters were ruthless. They were smart. No matter how much he hid and ran, they always found him. It was a miracle they hadn't found him yet. Hadn't found all of them yet.
The door was too flimsy for his liking; the walls were too thick, and the hallways were always too grey.
Scout was right, this base was suffocating despite it being as large as a mall.
Medic's words snapped him back to the present. "—done, take that knife out of yourself, and I'll heal you before you leave." He said, clicking a piece that Heavy couldn't tell what it was into a small space.
"Doktor will also rest once he finds Scout." Heavy demanded, leaving no room for argument.
Medic peered over his shoulder to give him a frown, but returned to his work. He didn't answer, but he didn't need to. If he doesn't rest, then Scout or Spy—once Heavy and-or Sniper retrieves him—will only scold him for not caring for himself.
It was ironic that the doctor couldn't care for himself. Heavy should've been concerned for his own wellbeing, since if their doctor can't take care of himself, then how can he care for the rest of the team? But he said nothing regarding his health because both RED Medic and BLU Medic were already insane scientists. They'd experiment with their bodies if given the chance and were downright sadistic. He wouldn't say that comparison out loud, though, not in Medic's presence unless he was ready to be left behind for dead.
"Just sit on that bed and stay quiet." Medic ordered.
And Heavy did as he said, ignoring the lingering terror that swamped his mind.
Notes:
I'm sorry if this chapter kind of trailed off near the end, my motivation's been sucky as of late, idk if it's writer's block, if I'm just way too exhausted as of late, if the fact that there's way too much going on in my private life, or all of the above. But I'm pushing myself to write this and finish an animation I've been planning for way too long. So bear with me!
Anyway, I was going to use this chapter to introduce THE monster, which I unfortunately couldn't because then I would've created a plot hole, so I decided it'd be better to use it to explain what was up with the water system.
Also: AHHHH I got some amazing fanart ( /works/57081085/chapters/152456548)! It was made by lizarrgh on Instagram and I can't thank them enough! The artist said it was monster Spy's pov and just. YES. I love it so much. The colours are so pretty it's like a mixture of old horror games and a painting! I always want to gush over everyone's art but there isn't enough space to gush so I just use my private account to gush haha!
Tumblr: blog/boredgrace23-gracepotts