Chapter 7: Man vs Mann
Engineer put his arm up to indicate "hello" to Soldier, but, somewhat forgetting how big he was now, accidentally ended up backhanding him as he came out of the portal, so hard in fact, that Soldier flew into a thick wall and came down hard onto the ground, knocking him out. As Engineer, in his large mech suit, stepped aside for the rest of the team, the team, in their shiny new armor, filed in to this brand new world. As Heavy, being the slowest, stepped through last, he glanced to the right, where Soldier was on the ground, knocked out. He turned a raised eyebrow towards Dell.
"I tried to wave", Dell chuckled, "but I interrupted his brainwaves instead."
No one laughed.
Heavy sighed, saying, "Is probablybest, for now. The way Soldier was acting when he left us..."
"Ay", Demoman shouted, getting everyone's attention. "We've got one of our boys back! Let's go find the other two!"
"Demo is right", Heavy said with a nod. "Engineer, Sniper, you stay here, keep watch over Soldier. Demo, Pyro, and Medic, come with me. We must find the rest of our team."
"Hold on there, partner", Dell said, with a bit of ice in his voice. "Who put you in charge?"
"Demo and Pyro must stay close to us", Heavy explained, ignoring Dell's question, "so that when we find Spy, he can tell us where all of the reinforcement points close to the castle are, and they can cut them off and destroy them. Doctor stays with me for obvious reasons."
Heavy looked up at Dell in his mech, giving a stare that could freeze the heart of even the heartiest winter-born man.
"If you have problem with strategy, we can hash out later", he told Dell. "Now is not time to play 'Who is the Leader'."
Heavy didn't wait for Dell to retort, bringing up Sasha and revving her once.
"Come", he said sternly to the three other mercs, and charged out the open double doors.
The remaining mercs looked at each other, shrugged, and quickly did as Heavy said.
The four mercs charged down the hall, their equipment clanking as they moved quickly. In the future, if they wanted to move silently with all of this armor, Engineer would most likely have to make some tweaks to his design, especially Heavy's, which relied heavily on segmented pieces. As they rounded a corner where near they hoped was an exit, they passed by the decapitated body of a tall man in sackcloth. There wasn't time to ask questions or think deeply, so instead of commenting, they all ran past the corpse.
A musket shot nearby told Heavy that they were likely on the right path. They trudged onward, even as a samurai rounded the corner from a hallway nearby them, staring at them in disbelief. Heavy stuck his left arm out, clothslining the armored samurai, likely knocking him unconscious. They continued onward, searching for a way towards that musket fire.
They finally came to a large wooden door that had been shut. Heavy, not one to waste precious time, braced his shoulder and charged through, splintering part of the huge door on his armored left arm. The rest of the crew followed out behind him, only to be greeted by a grisly sight.
What appeared to have been a fierce battle which raged on for some time outside of the castle was finally at its end. Bodies were strewn about everywhere in the hundreds, with neither side having retreated for a near total casualty rate. Retainers and samurai bled out on the ground from stabs, explosions, and gunshot wounds, the blood flowing so thick from their bodies that the grass all around that wasn't newly blackened or currently burning appeared auburn in color. Breastworks were strewn with broken bodies, and swords, spears, and arquebus muskets were scattered in various array around the battlefield.
Already, people were coming up from the nearby town to scavenge from the dead, even though a few small fights, mostly with sword, and mostly one on one still occurred. Guardsmen, denoted by the seal of the castle on their belts, wondered about the battlefield with muskets, shooting anyone who was still moving. Somewhere within this mess, Heavy was sure, they would find Spy.
"We could cover more ground if we split up", Medic suggested.
Under normal circumstances, Heavy didn't like splitting up. But here, he could see Medic's point. The resistance they could run into would be scattered at best, and with their skills, would be of little issue. Plus, there was a good possibility, with all this carnage about, that Spy had been injured, or worse. On top of that, with this battle wrapping up, reinforcements would undoubtedly be on the way to patch up the holes in the castle's defenses. Seconds truly mattered out in this field, but there was still one issue that Heavy had with Medic's idea.
He glanced over at Pyro, asking, "Do you have extra flare guns? Maybe one for each of us?"
Pyro cocked its head, and then, with a joyous chuckle, nodded its head, bouncing up and down as it searched its pockets. Within a short time, it had produced three other flare guns, each with a shot in the chamber. It passed them out gleefully, and the mercs all took one.
"If one of you finds Spy", Heavy told them all, "shoot one of these into the air. Then we all come to you."
"Soundsgood to me", Tavish said with a grin. "Let's go find that bleedin' idiot!"
...
Spy's suit was absolutely soaked in blood. His whole body felt cold. Scout had to help him move everywhere. Every part of him felt stiff and heavy.
They had missed their opportunity to run for the castle. Now they were trying to limp their way away from it. For Spy, it truly was over.
He was such a fool. He should have made a sacrifice play for Scout to make it to the castle. Yet, here he was, having missed his chance.
"Put me down", Spy told Scout, pointing to a small, gnarled tree. "Put me down for just a second."
Scout obediently laid him down gently, and knelt down next to him, panic and confusion evident on his face. Spy looked at that face, suddenly regretting many of his life choices up until that point. Nevertheless, he forced himself to smile.
"Jeremy", Spy said weakly.
"I'm here, man, I'm here", Jeremy said in a tone on the verge of panic.
"I hereby release you as my retainer", Spy told him with as much authority as he could muster.
"No, man, no", Jeremy said with that panic rising in his voice.
"I don't have much to leave you", Spy admitted. "I've always been something of a ramblin' man..."
Jeremy was trying not to cry while Spy talked. He didn't know why this was hitting him so hard. Maybe it was just a bad situation all around crashing down on him all at once.
"But", Spy said, loosening his belt, "I do have this cool sword that Yamamoto gave me."
Jeremy chuckled a little, and took the sword from Spy, saying, "I'm gonna get us some help, ok?"
Spy smiled again, shaking his head, telling him, "I want you here with me... while I... uh..."
Tears began falling down Jeremy's eyes, as he attempted to center himself. He took a shaky breath, and nodded his head. Spy was so proud of him.
"You're also gonna need", Spy began, then simply stopped talking, and pulled his revolver out of his suit jacket.
Jeremy began shaking his head, mumbling "no" over and over.
"Take it, boy", Spy urged with a groan.
Hesitantly, Scout reached out his arm, and gently took the revolver from Spy. Spy's arm quickly retreated to his side. He lifted his head, giving Scout a clear view of his skin, which was pale, and dark circles were forming around his eyes... well, darker circles.
Spy began to open his mouth, when a clattering noise to their left brought his attention around. He brought up the revolver, thumbing down the hammer, preparing to fight whoever was coming. Spy grabbed his arm, shaking his head.
"I'm staying until you're spent", Scout told him, shaking his arm off.
"Go, you fool", Spy ordered him sternly. "You're wasting your life for a corpse."
"I'm wasting my life for a smelly frog", Scout corrected.
Spy couldn't help but grin. That grin melted from his face when he saw five guardsmen, armed with arquebuses come over the hill near their tree. Scout took a steadying breath, and squeezed off a shot. On the rightmost guardsman, a puff of steam came up from his left shoulder, close to the armpit. Almost immediately after, blood began spurting out of him like a geyser.
Scout took another shot at him, and hit his right leg, finally tumbling him over. Spy was quite impressed with how Scout was handling himself. Scout was normally very spray and pray, and for him to slow down and take his time was a step in the right direction for using his revolver.
Scout fired another round at another guardsman, and hit him in the right arm. He fired again, and hit him in the stomach. The guardsman continued to come, and Scout fired another round, missing him entirely. Scout took a deep breath, and thumbed back the hammer again, and fired one last time, striking him in the head, killing him instantly.
That left three more guardsmen, and now Scout was out of ammo. He popped the cylinder open, and tried to push out all of the spent cartridges, fumbling slightly, but recovering quickly. He turned to Spy for ammo, but Spy shook his head, pointing towards the guardsmen. Scout looked back to see that all of them had set up their rifles, and were taking aim towards them.
"Run", Spy wheezed.
Jeremy shook his head.
Spy grudgingly offered up a hand, which Jeremy tentatively took. With a sudden surge of strength, Spy pulled Jeremy to the ground, blocking his body with his own as the guardsmen fired. One shot whizzed overhead, and two struck true in Spy's back, one through his guts, and another through a lung.
Jeremy looked on in horror as Spy rolled off of him, a death rattle beginning in his chest. In his hand, he held six .41 magnum rounds, which Scout swiped off of him, and immediately began loading them into the revolver. He tried to do it as fast as possible, and fatfingered two rounds, fumbling them to the ground. He cursed, and instead of grabbing the dropped rounds, simply closed the cylinder and fired what he had.
Two shots fired at the rightmost guardsman ended with one miss and one hit to the iron chestplate, causing him to jump. It was most likely a piercing shot with the way he had reacted, one that had punctured his gut. He continued to ram shot down the barrel of his gun, as did the other guardsmen around him.
Scout breathed, took better aim, and fired on the exhale. The guardsman exploded into human confetti and shards of metal and bamboo as a massive explosion occurred, seemingly having emanated from his body. Scout glanced down at the revolver, then shot a confused look at Spy. Spy grinned widely as he watched Tavish DeGroot, clad in shiny maroon armor, crest the hill.
Tavish fired his grenade launcher again, making a distinctive thunk sound as it did, screaming something in Gaelic that Spy couldn't quite hear, as his second grenade slammed down in between the two remaining guardsmen, blowing them off their feet and seemingly killing them. One of them had his powder horn touch off, and it exploded on his body, catching his uniform on fire. Tavish scanned the horizon, seemingly looking for what they were shooting at, and Scout raised Spy's revolver into the sky, firing off his last round.
Tavish whipped his head around, and a massive grin stretched across his face. He took a flare gun from his backpack, and fired it skyward, a large streak of red tearing across the open sky, and then bursting in a loud explosion, a searing beacon as the smoldering remains floated lazily above them. Tavish put the flare gun back in his backpack, and began lightly jogging towards the two mercs.
...
Heavy's head swiveled towards the boom in the sky, seeing a flare floating lazily back towards the earth. A grin stretched across Heavy's face, but he didn't allow himself to feel relieved, at least not yet. He turned to Medic, who oddly enough seemed somewhat bored with the whole situation, thumbing the blade of the bonesaw on his hip.
Heavy jerked his head towards the area the flare came from, and Medic nodded, hefting his medigun as if to say, "lead the way". Heavy turned towards the flare, when a sound suddenly began scraping against his eardrums. He grabbed Medic's shoulder, stopping him in his tracks, listening closer. The more he heard, the more it sounded like mechanical whirring, an engine coughing, and stomping.
Heavy turned towards the noise, and bore witness to one of the Iron Samurai that Spy had told him about, flanked by numerous guardsmen, most armed with arquebuses. The Iron Samurai looked sort of like an old steampunk Gundam, or so Heavy thought. It stood easily two heads taller than the men around him, though Heavy couldn't tell if that was his natural height or if the suit was enhancing it. From his back, a metal backpack belched thick black smoke, and made guttural noises near constantly. The Iron Samurai called for a halt, stopping himself, and the guttural noises and black smoke ceased after a second.
Heavy definitely didn't have time for this. He revved Sasha, and unleashed a torrent of lead. The guardsmen surrounding the Iron Samurai were shredded, but when Sasha's barrels swept over the mechanized suit, the heavy-caliber rounds ricocheted off the heavy armor. The guardsmen, torn to shreds, fell around the tall warrior.
Heavy scowled, and gently set Sasha down beside him as the Iron Samurai drew an odd-looking sword. If Heavy were forced to describe it, he would say that it looked as if a katana and a chainsaw had been forced to have a bastard child. The samurai squeezed a lever on the handle, and the chain began spinning quickly around the sword, disappearing into a chainshield on the back of the sword. Heavy guessed that a mechanism in the tang or hilt drove the chain.
"Medic", Heavy said urgently, "go where flare is. I'll hold him off."
"We can take him together", Medic countered, pulling his bonesaw off of his belt.
"Spy and Scout may need help", Heavy explained. "If we both go, he will pick us off. He wants a fight, he will get it. I fight, you help."
Medic sighed, and turned on his heel towards where the flare was disappearing over the hill. The samurai clearly scoffed at Medic, then pointed his blade at Heavy. Heavy cracked his knuckles, and moved towards the samurai at a casual but menacing march.
The Iron Samurai picked up its feet, slower and more laborious than when he had first marched in, and the black smoke began belching from the smokestack on its back once more. Heavy immediately understood that once the samurai stopped moving its legs, it needed an inciting action to start up again. It was a perpetual motion parasite machine; once the samurai was in motion, it would power the engine, which in turn would power the samurai. If he stopped again, his leg movements would be slower on the uptake.
The chainsword had come off the samurai's hip, but under its huge scabbard was another sword, one that looked like just a regular katana, but Heavy was no sword expert and couldn't be sure. He made sure to make a mental note of it anyway.
A unit like this had to be, in Heavy's mind, purely ceremonial. On the battlefield, this hulking monstrosity would be a logistical nightmare, and its primary weapon would be highly impractical, or so it appeared. Constant maintenance on the blade and engine mechanism would have to occurnear hourly during an actual battle, as humans tended to gunk up your equipment when you mulched them, and if it suffered a catastrophic failure during a battle, it was as likely to wound your own troops with its flying bladed suddenly now projectiles.
The suit itself looked expensive to make for a people still using matchlock muskets, or their Japanese equivalent, and God help any engineer who had to do upkeep on this ungainly thing. Not to mention, everywhere it went, it produced thick, black, more than likely somewhat toxic smoke, and it would only ever look good leading formations, meaning that any poor sap following this clanker into battle would be puking his guts out after a forced march. Andif it went into battle and was damaged, God only knew what it would take to get back into action.
He had little doubt in his mind that, if Dell were feeling particularly nice, he would classify such a thing as a very early prototype. Therefore, this thing would not be battle-tested, save undoubtedly for the pilot or wearer or whatever Dell would classify them as inside. He highly doubted, however, that whoever was inside the machine would have any combat hours within the machine itself. Heavy quite liked his odds, especially if he could make it to Medic quickly after the battle.
He came within ten paces of the samurai, and waited for him to make the first move.
He didn't have to wait long. The samurai had guessed, correctly, that if he targeted Heavy's right arm, he could end the fight with a quick amputation. Heavy, figuring this would be the samurai's opening move, batted the samurai's chainsword away with his right hand, being sure to smack the flat side, and threw a hard jab into the samurai's armored face. His mask, shaped like an Oni, held under Heavy's crushing blow, but the samurai didn't fair so well, his teeth rattling in his skull, and stumbling backwards.
The samurai, Heavy guessed, thought that his armor would absorb that blow, and he wasn't entirely wrong. The samurai had barely caught his balance by the time Heavy was on top of him. For his trouble, Heavy had broken his left hand with that punch, but he was so used to that particular pain that he hardly even felt it. He was a bit surprised that he hadn't given himself a spiral fracture down his wrist, being that he could still feel it. His armor must have soaked up the reverb instead of transferring it back to him. He was beginning to like this new armor.
Heavy attempted to tackle the samurai, as he was certain that if he did, the fight would basically be over. The samurai recovered quicker than he had expected, however, and revved his chainsword, slashing up at the underside of Heavy's exposed right arm. Heavy didn't wait to feel the bite of the sword, closing down his arm and quickly twisting his whole body, shattering the support boom of the chainsword. The rest of the chain that hadn't come off with the end of the boom flew from the broken sword at high speeds, sailing over Heavy's shoulder.
The samurai immediately backed up, looking from his broken sword to Heavy with obvious shock in his eyes. Heavy lifted his arm, letting the boom fall from his grip. Alongside it, a stream of blood began coating the ground. Heavy examined his wound, noting that the chain was still stuck in his arm, and that furthermore, the wound was far worse than he had expected. He could easily see exposed muscle and even bone, and he had clearly severed an artery, judging by how much blood was evacuating the wound. It certainly didn't contribute to the smell of burnt hair all around him.
As the samurai wordlessly and slowly sheathed his broken sword, Heavy casually pulled his belt off of his pants, and wrapped it around his arm about six inches from the wound, cinching it as tightly as he could. Seeing that that didn't stop the bleeding, Heavy reached down and picked up a solid piece of boom, crushing it with his bare hands to make it thicker and longer. Then he tied the slack of his belt around it, and began twisting until the wound no longer bled.
Heavy looked back at the samurai, who was watching him dress his wound with subdued awe, and held up his wounded arm so the samurai could clearly see it. Then he grabbed the excess chain still stuck in his body, and ripped it out. He casually tossed the blood-coated metal to the ground at the samurai's feet.
The samurai nodded his head, and unsheathed his regular katana, much smaller than his chainsword, but definitely still sharp by the looks of it. He took up a traditional Kendo battle stance, and nodded to Heavy. Heavy lifted his left arm, and motioned for the samurai to bring it on.
The samurai began to engage his motion machine, only to be pounced on by Heavy, who quickly tackled him to the ground, kicked his katana away, and wrenched his helmet off, which struggled to stay, and only came with a grinding protest. Heavy brought the helmet up, and was about to bring it down on the samurai's head, when he stopped and examined him. To Heavy's shock, he was met with a youthful face.
This kid, this boy, had to have only been a little older than Heavy had been when he reported his own father to the authorities, mistakenly believing that he was doing what was right. This boy was at the time in his life where he had some real credit to the idea that he had authority, but still young enough to not fully understand what that authority meant or how to properly wield it. Just a few years younger than this boy, Heavy had doomed his own family to a life of servitude, and sealed his fate as not only a Libertarian Monarchist like his father had been, but as the one and only protectorate of the flame that was his family's legacy.
Instead of killing this boy, Heavy flipped him over, and examined the engine on his back. There were air intakes, radiator foils and the smokestack, but any other obvious weak points had been armored. So, Heavy dug in to the air intake, and pulled, pulling off a grill and feeling air blowing in. Heavy reached around to the samurai's front, pulling off what was left of the chainsword, and rammed it in the hole. A grinding sound, a whining sound, and then the engine coughed, sputtered, and died.
Heavy stood, and began marching towards where the flare was floating behind the crest of a hill. Behind him, he could hear the samurai screaming in rage. He chanced a glance at him, and his heart shattered. He saw that face again, that same face he had made in the darkest parts of that gulag, when he had sworn vengeance on his father's killers, his family's tormentors, and swore for himself a penitent crusade to keep everyone he had so deeply wronged safe from the harm he had brought down on them.
Heavy knew that the boy didn't understand the gift Heavy had given him, and he had no doubt that the gift was a double-edged sword. But Heavy had lost all of his honor, and come back stronger than he had ever been. If the fire in this child's eyes was anything to tell by, he would come back even stronger. Heavy turned, and made his way towards Medic.
...
The first to arrive on scene, somehow mere seconds after Demoman, was Pyro. Pyro looked around wildly for a moment, then laid its eyes on Scout. Scout didn't even notice as Pyro charged towards him, breathing heavily. It was the absolute last second when Scout looked up to see the red blur that was Pyro, and felt fear overcome him as a very unmanly scream leapt from his chest.
Pyro tackled Scout. Scout's body ached as the hard metal plates rammed into him at speed, a blinding flash of pain enveloping his body. Scout waited for the inevitable end that the demon in rubber skin would bring to him, and closed his eyes so that it couldn't feed off of his fear. Then the creature started giggling, and Scout chanced a single open eye. As soon as the creature saw pupil, it delightedly began a chorus of muffled laughter, clapping its gloved hands together in delight.
Demoman shared a look with Spy, a mixture of confusion, and barely contained relief. Both of them shared a knowing chuckle, despite knowing very little between them, and shook their heads. Demoman returned his attention to Spy's wounds, applying pressure with the bandage in his hand onto the one near his kidney.
Spy was heaving heavily, and losing blood fast, but he didn't have to pull himself together, he just had to not fall apart until Medic arrived. Spy watched as Scout managed to coax Pyro off of him, and willed himself to live, if only so he could keep this moment burned into his mind forever.
The team had only been together for a few months at this point, minus Soldier and Scout working alongside each other for several years at the same McDonalds (which either spoke to Soldier's competence, or Ronald's incompetence), and those few months had been a deathmatch between whether they were the best, or worst moments of his life. He was vaguely aware that there was a possibility that he had more kids of various ethnicities around the world, but his petit chou-fleur was the first time he had ever truly tried to stick around. But, but, but... work came up.
Or, in male terms, he weighed the options, and decided that fighting communists in a blistering tundra was a far saner option than raising another... him.
Now, after seeing all of that wasted time in his son's mannerisms, his character, the way he carried himself...
He was glad to be back, and he was going to be damned if he was going to be separated again. That wasn't going to stop him from bleeding out, though, and when he asked Tavish, quietly, how bad the two other wounds were, he was not happy to hear, "like a waterfall". He sighed internally as he made a decision.
"There are two garrisons of reserve troops to the east of here", he wheezed. "If you disrupt them now, they won't be able to send reinforcements for another hour at least. Take Pyro, split up. Scout stays with me."
Tavish shook his head, saying, "Doc should be here soon-"
"It's the difference between being overrun in fifteen minutes", Spy rasped, "or an hour. Go."
Tavish looked at him for a hard second, weighing the options. With a sigh, he concluded that Spy was right. He stood from his kneeling position, flicking open a lighter to get Pyro's attention. Pyro watched him attentively as he shut it.
"We've got buildings to burn, you and I", he told the mumbling creature.
Delighted, Pyro began jumping up and down, clapping its hands and shouting its joy.
"Wait", Scout began to interject, but Tavish cut him off.
"You stay here with the old snake", Tavish told him sternly. From his backpack, he produced a Browning Hi Power, passing it to him with a few magazines, saying, "We wait here too long, it won't matter if the Doc shows up. I got this little piece at a gunshow with Jane, and I quite like it, so I'll be taking it back when we come back this way."
Tavish laid a heavy hand on Scout's shoulder, saying earnestly, "Take care, lad. And take care of him. Doc won't be long coming."
Demo nodded to Pyro, and produced a beer bottle from his backpack, chugging half of it in a few silent seconds. Then he twisted the cap back on, made a "follow me" gesture to the retardant enigma, and took off in the direction Spy had told him. He disappeared over the crest of a hill, with Pyro following close behind, and Scout was alone again with Spy.
...
A runner from the castle had come by, saying that the rebels had been crushed, but that the guard had basically been wiped out. The reserves needed to be called forth, all of them. Jinto-abe was pulling on his armor, piece by piece, and meticulously making sure that every inch of it was perfect; every piece of metal oiled, every stitch tight, every crease smoothed.
When he was satisfied with his uniform, he reached for his helmet, ready to don his family's legacy. The helmet, and the sword, had been used in the rebellions against the Emperor's predecessor. Of course, it was used in defense of the Emperor, and Jinto had nearly wept in his bunk when he had heard that it had just barely missed getting used again.
An explosion so massive and so close rocked Jinto off of his feet, and knocked the old helmet off its dais. Jinto snapped back up, and swiped his helmet off of the floor, noting with some disdain that the ornate horns on top had been severely bent, pulling it onto his head. He quickly marched outside, and saw, to his horror, a mushroom cloud rising from the area where the secondary garrison was stationed.
Some of the lesser army components began rushing out of the garrison buildings around Jinto, and he turned towards a few of them, ready to bark the order to go immediately towards the Castle. Suddenly, three of the buildings went up into flames entirely, and the screams of the men inside were sickening to hear. Before he could say anything to the men around him, two more buildings went up, leaving only his barracks untouched.
He felt the sudden urge to rush inside his barracks, and do what he could to save it. He sprinted for the open door, and got his head inside just in time to watch a red can, with a spritz of flame coming out of a nozzle on top, fly through a window, striking the opposite wall and coming to rest in the center of the wood floor. The guardsmen inside paused for only a moment, them still being in various states of dress, and then all of them began sprinting for the door to escape. Jinto tried to power through the human wall, but the wave pushed him towards the exit. Then the can exploded, and he was blown out of the front door by a wave of burning flesh.
Jinto scrambled to push the unconscious, burning men off of him, and stumbled his way up to his feet. His head was spinning and pounding, and he swung his head around wildly, looking for an enemy to fight. There must have been an entire bandit warband, using these dishonorable tactics, and now he only had a handful of men left to rally.
Movement in the smoke caught his eye, and he turned to see a single silhouette in the smoke, using the wispy darkness as cover. A few of the guardsmen who were still alive charged at the figure in the smoke. The silhouette became a blur of motion, and blood flew as the guardsmen coming for it had limbs removed and wounds administered. The silhouette appeared to be using... an axe? But it was swinging it faster and more efficiently than any swordsman he had ever seen.
It became clear to him, as the last of the courageous guardsmen fell at the silhouette's feet, that this was not only a single figure, but that it probably wasn't even human. What Yokai could this thing possibly be? He tried to remember all of the stories that his mother had told him before bed.
Seeing that no one else rose to challenge it, the creature stepped through the smoke, the head of its axe dragging across the ground, it sparking against the stones. When it was past the thickest of it, it appeared to be... a normal human, with a weird suit. Jinto almost couldn't believe it, and in a moment of weakness, he actually let out a chuckle. This "man" wasn't some monster, wasn't some ancient sword master. It was just a clever man, using the smoke to his advantage.
But now he had lost his cover.
Jinto drew his sword. He shouted to the remaining guardsmen, telling them to stop being cowards and to rush this man. None of them responded, but none of them ran. Jinto gave an exasperated sigh, and marched forward.
"I am Jinto-abe the Beheader", Jinto shouted to the figure as it drew closer.
"I earned my name by beheading seventeen of the-"
The figure swiftly moved into range, faster than Jinto had anticipated, swinging its axe one-handed upwards. Jinto blocked heavy, quitting his speech midway through out of sheer shock. Even with his heavy block, the axe head landed in his armor, sticking in the bottom of the breast plate, and folding it into himself, but not piercing his armor. Jinto moved to counter attack, but the figure closed the distance, making it impossible to maneuver. The figure rammed its mask into Jinto's helmeted head, and snapped Jinto's head back. As Jinto stumbled, the figure kicked the axe head, forcing it past his second layer and into his gut.
Jinto raised his sword, ignoring the pain, but somehow, the creature managed to pull the axe head out of him, and swing it up and over his shoulder, pinning his sword to his chest, and digging the axe edge in his back, using it to pull him in close, and kneeing him right in his wound. Jinto screamed, and the figure ripped the axe out of his back. Jinto pulled his sword all of the way back, ready to hit this creature full power, when the creature plunged the axe into Jinto's shoulder, where the neck met.
Jinto's grip on his sword immediately loosened, and his empty hands bounced harmlessly off of the creature's side. The creature ripped the axe out of his shoulder, and slammed it in again. Men shouting in fear, and the pounding of feet in the direction away from him was the last thing Jinto heard before the axe slammed into his neck.
...
Spy wheezed, trying his absolute hardest to pull air in. His chest felt so tight, and his breathing was wet and ragged. Now, on top of a blacked kidney, he had a punctured lung. He was focusing really hard on staying alive as Scout panicked.
"Stay with me man", Scout kept chanting over and over, as if willing Spy to better health.
Spy had to admit, having... a comforting voice to focus on was better than focusing on how much his whole body hurt. Scout's panic wasn't exactly inspiring confidence in him, however, and if he passed out or, heaven forbid, died, he was worried that Scout might overreact instead of getting his shit together. He was going to need a level head to survive without him. At least he had the Team.
Speaking of which, the crunching of grass brought his attention to his right, which introduced him to Medic's new uniform. It had to be Medic, since it was a maroon plague doctor. It looked just ominous and menacing enough to make Spy wonder if it was Death himself coming to take his soul.
The plague doctor gave a very German chuckle, and that was confirmation enough for Spy. Now the one person who could save him was close enough to do it relatively quickly. Spy relaxed, and slipped away into blackness.
...
"Holy shit", Scout said in a panic, "holy shit, Spy come back!"
"Well, well, well", Medic said, his voice distorted by the beak of his helmet.
In a flash, Scout whipped out the Hi Power that Demoman had given him, and fired off a round, which sparked off of Medic's armor. Medic glanced down at his chest plate, and then back up at Scout. He gave off a sigh, popping off the mask, and letting it hang around his neck.
"Really", Medic asked the frightened boy, with a look opposite of amusement.
Scout hung his head in shame, mumbling, "Sorry."
Medic shook his head, walking towards the near-corpse. He withdrew a syringe from under his coat, and jabbed it into Spy's arm. From the other side of his coat, he produced a PDA, and linked a cable to a bulb on the syringe.
"Hmm", Medic hummed, as he read the readout on the small device. "Multiple gunshot wounds, multiple organ failure, several superficial wounds, two parasites, one venereal disease... Bingo! No new modifications suggestive of implants or upgrades."
Medic chuckled, looking Spy's broken body up and down. A wide grin broached his face, that one that he got whenever he was about to do something bad. Or whenever he was happy.
"You've been busy, Subject 09."
Medic reached behind his back, withdrawing the strange fire nozzle that he kept attached to that weird backpack, and said in a tone that was very patronizing, "Let's see if we can't fix a few of those boo-boo's."
Medic pushed the handle on his nozzle, and that familiar sound that always put a pit in Scout's stomach, yet simultaneously elated him, emanated from the nozzle. A beam of energy flew in a nonlinear pattern towards Spy, and almost instantly, his wounds began to close, his skin began returning to its normal color, and his breathing steadied. Spy's eyes shot open, and he hauled in a heap of fresh battlefield air. Then he turned a serious gaze onto Medic.
"You almost let me go", Spy said in a harsh tone.
"'Thanks for saving me, Ludwig", Medic said in a sarcastic tone, as he turned to walk away from the scene. "Why, I'm so happy to be alive that I could just kiss you."
"Thank you, Medic", Spy said, in a flat, but serious tone, "I'm so happy to be alive that I could pay you to kiss me."
Medic turned his head back towards Spy, a look of genuine surprise on his face. He held that look for a moment more, and then turned back towards the wider battlefield, clasping his hands behind his back.
"I'll wire you my routing number", he said flatly. "I charge by the hour."
That finally got a chuckle out of Spy.
Scout immediately went in to hug Spy as soon as he thought Medic wasn't looking. Spy didn't stop him, simply letting the boy get his for once. When Scout finally let go, it was to wipe tears off his cheeks.
"Uh", Scout said, then paused for a moment. "Good to have you back, I guess."
Spy reached out his arm, and Scout took it, hauling him up to his feet.
"Good to be back", Spy told him with a smirk.
The sound of grass crunching brought their attention around to Heavy, who was trailing blood from his tourniqueted arm. Medic didn't even walk up to him, just pointed his nozzle at him, and Heavy's wounds immediately began disappearing. Heavy took his belt off of his arm, and put it back onto his pants.
"Looks like we are just waiting for Demo and Pyro now", Heavy said.
He turned towards Spy, and, seeing him in good shape, gave him a nod. Spy nodded back. Spy cleared his throat.
"I sent them to go blow up the garrisons closest to here", Spy explained, "cut off their reinforcements. They should be getting started any-"
A rumble from behind them brought their attention around. From the direction of the garrisons, a large mushroom cloud was forming. Spy turned back to Heavy.
"Well, that's Demo done. Now we wait for them to get back."
"And then", Heavy said, picking Sasha back up, "we get out of here."