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allstarsstorymode867 · 3 years

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ALL-STARS -STORY MODE- CHAPTER 19

Heya everyone!

Sorry for the absence of chapters, there are things good and bad in my life but that is not important right now.

The OC belongs to @mortal-kombattore-115

I like to thank @this-person-is-slowly-dying and her friend, AlphaKing and @sampoststuff for providing me artwork for this so give them credit guys. ^^

That being said, enjoy reading the chapter you are waiting for while I work on the 20th chapter.

-Chapter 19-

-Back to the All-Stars Group…-

“So there will be a great conflict in the future, eh?” Bruno had asked this while he fed the fire with the wood leftover after others had barricaded the house. “To hell and back it will be to your dimension eventually.” Dempsey said as he helped a captive Helghast making a grate to hang the skinned bear over the fire.

“Still, too much hell for what the Germans had done to us.”

“Can you explain what had happened in that war?” as the large Frenchman helps out Heavy with the creature over to the fire to tie it on a grate.

“To make a long ass story short,” Dempsey apperaded, as he and the Helghast managed to get the grate made from scrapped metal and pipes from the shed with the help of Ratchet who set it in the ground with rocks. “Blame the Germans.” with Ultimis Richtofen giving him a glare from the background with Primis Jin shaking her head.

Demoman walked over with a knife from a kitchen as the smell of sizzling meat and hearing bubbles erupting from the flames crisping on the skinned bear creature. Soldier had to pull the Scottish man back and whispered “You think you can prepare dinner for us?” with a little concern for him. “I mean, Engie and Pyro can cook good meals…”

“I can cook, Jane, I have cooked a lot of food for me ma, remember?” Tavlish smiled with his one good brown eye, looked at it, and the Soldier patted his back and said “Just remember to put spice on each piece if someone wants one.” and Demo nodded.

The meat was grilled by the fire on a grate, was curved and cut onto a plate and served to the people around the bonfire. Spice and salt was provided to several others who wanted it and they ate it with ease.

Some laughed and made jokes, others were keeping watch for any familiar or the unfamiliar threats as Demoman looked a little proud of himself, an friendly atmosphere with little laughter and he thought “All of this needs to have a piano music.” rather joking in his head with a chuckle.

Door opened slightly from beyond the group and they jumped a little as Bruno looked at the door better than anyone and said “Erron is awake.”

Frisk had led the patched up Erron to the bonfire and had him rested at a spot with Mugman looking at them, “Thanks, kiddo.” Erron muttered under his breath as Cuphead looked at Erron and said “Amazing that you had survived that-”

“A Panzer Soldat,” Erron interrupted, “That’s what I learned from an ugly ass octo-” he noticed Jin finally who was looking at him with an eyebrow, “...pus, hello.” he greeted, he seemingly… looked similar to a marine in the group but Jin simply shrugged it off as she then introduced herself “My name is Jin Huang, you’re Erron, if I am correct.”

“Erron Black, Jin.” Erron confirmed, holding his newly bandaged side, “I see you’re here in a tournament too?”

This confused everyone around him as Primis Dempsey asked “What tournament? What’s it about?”

“To think you would know about it by now,” Erron begins to explain, “from where I am from, there was a battle-to-the-death tournament event known as Mortal Kombat. The winner will be the last one standing to decide the fate of the earth realm. But in order to win, is to off the other.``

Others were confused but Frisk looked fairly worried and Primis Dempsey figured it out what it meant as he said “Do we have to…” to Erron who is dead serious about this.

“Yep.” he responded, as Jin was perplexed with a thought of the tournament, “Mortal Kombat…” as Erron looked at her with little interest. “I had heard from Frisk that you are a damned good fighter, right? In the earth- In my universe, we had those there in the other realm. But they are not the only ones, there are tough-ass fighters out there as well and I won’t be surprised that we are meeting one of them from the realms I belong to.”

“I am not but I have been taught to defend myself.” Jin said as she looked at him, “Yet, I can’t die without a fight if it does happen.”

“Oi reckon that and the reason our own had been kidnapped.” Sniper added with a nod, “Yet, so far, it worked for a while so far?”

“Fighting a giant flower, then extraterrisory soldiers, our teammates taken to another world and now this.” P!Dempsey recounted the events from before, “So that could be the theory for this shitshow happening.”

“Could be…” Radec had remained silent until this point, “A strange entity had somewhat cause us to be here, our leader had sent us here to investigate the power and to harness it-”

“Before the shitshow hits the fan with war following suit!” Soldier jabbed, pointing a finger at him as if he was the only one who has authority over their captives. “You pushed first and we pushed back!”

“Stand down, son.” Dempsey said loudly as the Soldier looked at him, grumbling something under his breath as he sat down. “Yet,” Erron broke the ice as he looked at him, “You guys are going to leave me to die here once you guys leave.” in an accusatory tone. Radec nodded and said “But it all went wrong and no hope of leaving this planet as the carrier was destroyed, we are all trapped here together all thanks to you.” as Everyone looked at him until Mugman piped up.

“Not entirely.” he said, Cuphead and Frisk looked at him and said “What do you mean, Mugs?” with an eyebrow.

“Rachet, Clank.” he called to them, “You had said you two came here by a ship of your own, right?”

“Of course, we did but why did you ask?” Clank asked as Ratchet simply tilted his head to this. “You must have a radio on it, you can contact anyone far away from here, does it still work?”

“It does,” Ratchet answered as he simply shrugged but had a disappointed look on his face, “But the galaxy we are from is too far away from here, this is a Milky Way Galaxy afterall, there's a bunch of other galaxies in the universe.” as he stretched his arms.

“Or the next,” Clank added as he stood up and then chuckled when Ratchet turned to glare at him, “Mr. Masaki and Erron had said that this realm is what we are currently living in right now.” he further explained. “As for our ship, we can overlook the city, be your eyes and ears for any zombie coming your way.” Ratchet offered as Clank sat back on three bricks stacked on top of another.

“I agree with the strange talking cat lion alien,” Ultimis Nikolai interjected with a little sober voice even as it was slurred, “On the bright side, they can find Nikolai more vodka in this sh!t hole!” He raised the bottle and then drank it as the scarf Mugman was holding to patch the crack glowed cyan softly as he looked at him before looking away.

*You had no idea why this scarf was connected to Ultimis Nikolai…

A text hangs below his head as he looked at it before he looked at Frisk, who patted his shoulder in comfort. The look they had as if they knew whatever the newer text will explain, they would tell them about it.

Demoman yawned as he looked up the nighttime skies, the stars could hardly be seen because of the city’s lights but in this one, electricity that powered the city was all but gone after something had happened to it and the beauty of the stars and dust sparkled and smudged to regin the skies once more.

The moon is glowing softly with a few stars around it, a night silver ring of rainbow around it as the nearly glassy clouds covering it. “Demo?” Scout asked as he looked at him who got up and said “We should all get sleep, we can talk more in the morning, Lads.”

“I will take the first shift, then Bendy soon Richtofen.” Bruno had stated as he raised the hammer and placed onto his shoulder, resting it in place. “That’s a good idea,” Bendy walked with him to the captive Helghasts, “in case they had any funny ideas.”

“Oh ja,” Ultimis Richtofen said this with rather a sinister venom as he looked at the Helshasts with a wicked smile, “I vill gut zhem if zhey tried to escape.”

As the moon slowly sails in the clouded skies, everyone has made the parts of the backyard and the house itself as their spots for them to live temporarily. Half of them had set up tents in the backyard while U!Richtofen already had the shed to call his ‘cottage’ of his own.

Rest are resting in each rooms of the house 1145, Ratchet and Clank has the couch, Erron and Scout has the room with a bunk bed at the end of the hall in the upstairs, corporal had the master bedroom, Frisk had the side room with two bunk beds as it seemingly possible and sharing it with Cuphead and Mugman and lastly, the rest of the RED Team had the downstairs family room with one room but not the rest of them at the least, Sniper is at on the roof with a lantern on watch duty.

“Do you think that we have to fight each other?” It was Mugman who asked Jin that with a worried look on his face while Jin helped him onto the top bunk, with a blanket he had caught and wrapped himself with.

“Erron had said that as a theory, we don’t know about it yet.” Jin said as she adjusted the blanket he had and tried to be careful not to press the cracks and make them worse. “We need to know the reasons why we are here for a tournament.”

“And if it was the way to-”

“Mugman,” Jin had insisted, looking at him as she had a bit of a parental tone in her voice. “I will not let it happen if it is the only way, I promise you that I will protect you.”

“Really?”

“Do I ever lie to you? I am a fighter afterall.” she softly smiled as she lifted his chin up to face her, “Please get some sleep, Mugman, tomorrow will be better.”

Mugman slightly nodded and then laid down to get comfortable as Jin exited the room to find something to lay down to rest when she noticed something from the master bedroom that caught her eye before she could.

It was Primis Dempsey, he wasn’t wearing his coat and the boiler as they rested on a folding table close to him, sitting on a chair and holding a colt revolver in his hand as he stared at it. He looked at the window and then he rested his forehead on the cylinder and the rear sight with his eyes closed.

Something about this scene had her worried for the marine. She watched him raise his head back up to the window and he appeared to notice something on the window. Then he looked at the doorway, raised an eyebrow at the fortune sight before him.

“Jin? What are you doing over there?”

“I…” She said shyly as she walked in, “I wanted to make sure that you are alright, Dempsey.” she excused as she made her way to the dirty yet faintly clean mattress with a few blankets on it. He sighed as he walked over to the bed to sit down beside him.

“Thanks for doing that,” he said as he looked at the colt in his hand, “But ya really don’t have too, Jin, I am fine.” it was a lie and he and Jin knew that just the way he was holding the weapon. She reached out and then held the hand holding the gun, making him look at her.

“Mind if I ask why are you holding a revolver?” she asked as she and him looked at each other.

Dempsey knew that he wanted to do it with a weapon such as a colt revolver, that one thought, an idea, just swimming in the back of his mind for quite a little while but he couldn't let that side of himself show, not by a long shot and too stubborn to admit it. He simply shrugged and said “Just wanted to make sure those Lickers don't eat us in our sleep,” he excused, “You could never be safer than being ripped to shreds.”

Jin looked at him a bit more now and then she said softly, “I’ll stay.”

“Run that by me again, Jin?”

“I’ll stay with you.” in repeated herself, letting go him hand, she intended to stay with him to make sure that he doesn’t do anything too stupid, possibly to his own life, “I will let you be on watch if you want, do wake me up if you do see something.”

Tank looked down to face the revolver from Jin, looking a bit confused yet vacated from the conversion they had before he looked at her and nodded “Yeah, sure.”

Jin nodded as Dempsey got up to let Jin get into bed, she stretched her arms to prepare for the night as she pulled the sheets over her with P!Dempsey sat down on the bed again as he looked at her. She does have a nice…

“Not now, Tank.” his subconscious told him as he shook his head, “No time for feelings, lover boy.”

Jin fell asleep quickly after finding comfort in the blankets as Dempsey watched, letting out a soft sigh as he looked at the revolver again. He wasn’t the one to admit it but she had stopped him, he’ll give her that but he is a little worried about the Lickers he encountered however so it is a reason for him to keep watch.

He looked at the window again as the fire in the backyard had dimmed and smoke rising from where the bear was cooked. He has watched the window like a hawk for anything with a long tongue and teeth for an hour or two when Jin woke up with a sketch and got out of bed.

“Sleep well?” he asked as she sat down beside him, “Yes I have.” she answered as she immediately prepared to take the night watch, “It’s now your turn to get some rest and me taking watch.”

Dempsey looked at her and then looked at the revolver in his hands, he then looked at her again and said “Do you know how to use it?”

Jin simply nodded as she took it from his hand gently before he had got up to lay down the bed with the blanket over her, she looked over to the corporal and responded nicely “Sleep well, Dempsey.”

Dempsey softly smiled with tired eyes and then started to fight his way to get some sleep. A few minutes of this, his eyelids closed tightly, soon softened and he fell asleep soon...

The sound of gunfire and chains flying through the air, his boots were dusted in dirt as his two feet crashed onto the ground as he ran away from whoever it was he was running from.

“Sh!t sh!t Sh!t SH!T….!” he cursed loudly under his breath as he was losing air from his lungs, the sounds of the gun firing and chains flying in the air are consent; whenever he had to stop to catch his breath, the sounds returned and making him turn tail and running through an old western town that seemed abandoned since the 1800’s or after that century.

He skidded on the ground to turn the corner and then made it inside an nearby building that seemed like a shack. He hid inside the shack, on the wall and remained silent and watched a figure walking by: the one with a cowboy hat, a trench coat and weiding what appears to be a gun of a strange kind.

The pursuer walked by the marine without even noticing him being inside, Tank had sighed in relief softly and he got off the wall. “Thank god…”

He then walked towards the way he came in but chains suddenly appeared and stretched across the doorless frame, wrapping and blocking off his exit as he yelled out a curse word.

He feared that the man chasing had heard it happened too so he had to find another way out of the building as he turned to notice something that he didn’t see in this shack before he entered. A staircase that leads down, he softly breathed in and out before looking at the blocked off exit, then he shook his head at this.

With no other choice on the matter, he descends downstairs with slow steps on the steps as the setting sunlight creeps through the walls made from wood boards. He then turned to see what was in the basement itself of the shack. He muttered “Oh no…” as he got a look of what was in the room.

It was a stake in the center of the basement and on it were four rusted hooks, but they looked like they were sharpened to a fine point and crusted with blood, like it was used countless times with an animal of kind that had been hoisted onto it.

He had stood there to take in what he was seeing until the chains upstairs had been taken down and someone walked in. He cursed under his breath and looked for a way to hide which he eventually did through a hole wide enough for him to fit inside.

Footsteps were descending down the stairs and came upon the landing as he could see through the cracks to see who it was: The man with the gun came inside the basement and began to look around, finding someone inside.

“Where are you…?” an old voice called out from the man, banging on the creaking walls and pounding, “I know you’re in here!” He said as he used the bunt of the rifle to bash through the wall on the right of the basement, the sound had revirabated to Tank as he flinched but didn’t make noise, he was not going to give away his location.

After a long time, the man seemed to give up as he said “Well said… Have it your way then.” as Dempsey sees him going back upstairs with the shadow stretching out on the wall where the sun was shining before it had settled over the entrance.

Dempsey carefully slid out of the hole and looked around as he saw the hole the man in the trench coat had made with his coat. The chips and splinters were on the inside of the wall and some of it was hanging off the craves.

He slowly had put his hand into the hole his purser had made, feeling another wall from within, feeling cobwebs and wood from inside. The bunt of the rifle had made a bend on the wooden plank wall when he had his fingers to feel the bump the man had made out of anger and frustration.

“Jesus…” he muttered as he placed his hand through it, “at least have an therapist…” he sarcastically jabbed as he pulled his hand out of the hole but then jumped when an one claw wrenched out of the hole the man had made, it was pitch black and it had a tinge of orange on the tip as it had a bit of fur of the same color when it came out and made him yell in shock.

The claw happened to try to slash at him but he missed it just in time just narrowingly avoiding its attack, then he witnessed its shell cracked and then crumbed away, transforming it into… Chains.

It was a flash as the chains behaved like snakes controlled by their master and it shot forward towards as he turned to try to run but these metal linked strings had latched onto his right arm and coiled around it in a tight grip. “What the hell…?!” He pulled at the chains as he tried to break it but then he spotted another same claw came out of the first hole he was hiding in and it, like the claw, changed into chains and lashed out.

His left arm was grabbed and coiled by the chains behaving like a predatory snake and the next thing he knew, they pulled and his arms were stretched about as he screamed. The footsteps returned and there was the cowboy on the landing. Dempsey pulled desperately to get them to let go his arms but their grip was death-like as they were rattled and clacked.

“So that’s where you were boy,” the man then lifted his head up to reveal the rest of his face, Caleb the Deathslinger, his white and black eyes locked onto his target as he had lifted his jawbone upward, reconnected it to his skull with a crack that made Tank cringed at the sound of it. “Nowhere to run this time.” he muttered as he stood where he was as he lifted his rifle upwards him as he gotten a good look at it:

[Digitally drawn by Meaghan “Icefir” Halter]

The rifle had a reel with chains attached to it, with a lever to pull it and lastly, it had a very defining feature to it as the chains are connected to it: Some type of harpoon or a spear and it was aimed at him.

The hammer was heard smashing onto the barrel and the next thing he felt was a spear piercing through his abdomen and out his back as the pain was unbearable-

He jumped out of his sleep with a yell, eyes wide open and panting as if he was seeing hell far beyond him. He quickly checked his abdomen with his eyes locked onto it as he placed his hand on where the spear surpassingly made its mark.

No blood, no sign of t-shirt torn or penetrated the skin, flesh and bone. “Dempsey?” a soft voice had questioned worryingly, he turned to face Jin, she was looking at him with an unsettled yet concerned look in her eyes.

He looked at her for a good minute before closing his eyes and placing his hand on his forehead as sweat trailed down. “Are you okay, Dempsey?”

“I’m alright, it’s just a nightmare… that’s gotten worse.” he muttered as he looked in the other direction, Jin was a bit puzzled of what she could understand him saying under his breath. “Nightmare?” she said as she lowered her hand as he looked at something else in the room, an old pile of junk that is drawers filled with beads, strings, scissors and paint brushes with painting of any kind and other things. Like he had never said that but he did say “What time is it?”

“It was only 3 o’clock in the morning, Dempsey.” Jin responded as she looked at him a bit more, studying his movements, “Damn…” he sighed, “Just when I was getting some good night sleep too.” as he rubbed his eyes with his shaking hand with a soft groan.

Jin was worried for his mental health as she continued to look at him for a bit longer and said “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m feeling fine, Jin.” he lied as he looked at her now with tired eyes as he let out a dry chuckle. But she refused to believe him as she saw through that sentence; a lie. A lie to keep his pride up.

“Are you sure about that?” she responded as she crawled onto Dempsey’s side, sitting next to him as he had his hands on the bed, planted onto the sheets as he was baffled by this. “I can see it in your eyes that you are… Distressed.”

Tank looked at the window to avoid but then in defeat, he let go of the breath from his mouth. “Like I had said, it’s a nightmare.” he confessed finally, Jin listened closely to what he had to say more. “It was me being chased and eventually being killed by a creepy-ass cowboy that looked like a zombie but smarter than that.” he then looked down from the window. “And he had a gun with a spear that killed me with…”

“If it’s connected to the war,” Jin rationalized as she had placed her hand on his cheek and had him turn to look at her, “If so, it could be understandable.”

His eyebrows furrowed upward and as he had his arm rested on one of his knees, “But something about it felt so real.” he mumbled softly to himself. Jin then said “There is no need to worry.” before wrapping her arms around the American. He was a little flustered when she did this but he found comfort in this and held her arm with one hand as he closed his eyes.

“Thanks.” he said, showing gratitude.

“No worries.” Jin replied with a gentle smile.

He was smiling softly himself but then they both flinched when they heard the door open, they were both ready to face whatever it was until they saw who it was: It was Erron who yawned as he rubbed his eyes.

“Hey Erron,” Dempsey sneered tiredly, “You almost scared us.”

“Evenin’, Tank,” Erron stopped to see Jin with him, he had dark circles around his eyes like he hadn't slept for a while but he had brushed it off and asked “Mind if I ask you two what you are talking about?”

“Nothing important, Erron.” Dempsey responded as he looked at him carefully, “Speaking of which, ya’ll looked like crap, Erron.”

“It was Scout’s fault for talking.” Erron complained as he had his thumb pointed at the closed door on his left as it left him and the Shaolin woman confused by what Erron meant by that. “But wasn’t Scout asleep on the top bunk above you?” Jin responded with a raised brow as Erron looked like he had run out of many cares to give anyway.

“Oh, don’t worry, he is asleep,” he answered as he grabbed the doorknob, opened it just a crack and what they were hearing was kinda humorous. “Heeeey, Pauling…. Do ya want to go on a date?” Scout murmured from the darkened bedroom with Erron holding the door open just a small wedge as he concluded “But he’s like a radio that can’t shut up.”

Jin giggled and face palmed as Dempsey smirked “Poor you” he joked as the Outworlder glared at them as he pulled the door close just as Scout mumbled out “Oh no, the dog has wings….!”

“Anyway, I was going to take a leak in the middle of the night anyway.” Erron explained as he let go of the knob and waved this off with his hand before he wrapped his arms together, trying to warm up as he walked into the darkened hallways.

“You should’ve got a blanket with you, dumba$$.” Dempsey sassily remarks as the man was fading into darkness as he replied “Yeah, whatever.” his response echoing in the halls.

The corporal smiled as he shook his head while Jin looked sighed and held her forehead, but then he looked solemn again as he looked down again as she noticed.

He looked aloof with himself, “Dempsey,” she responded as she placed her hand on her shoulder. He looked at her again then responded “It’s only a nightmare, I know-” but he was cut off.

“If you want more sleep then you would,” she offered, Dempsey’s mouth was aigbe a little bit upon hearing that, “if you had another nightmare, I’m here, understand?'' She sounded like a mother figure for someone that’s broken, broken nearly beyond repair but he had said nothing but nodded. “We have to do work at sunrise, try to get some sleep.” she said as Dempsey laid back down and fell asleep with Jin beside him, sitting upright on the bed.

Yet, Erron had lied about going to the restroom but instead had his hand over his mouth as his eyes locked onto the ground with furrowed brows. What he had overheard, he hardly ignored what Tank experienced in that nightmare.

He muttered “That can’t be Caleb…”

-In the morning light.-

Sun rose over the mountains that seemed to be close to the neighborhood in ruins and dominated by the forest trees as dawn bleeds anew with colors of purple, orange and sky blue dancing in the sky.

Primis Takeo placed the pieces of firewood into the dying campfire to warm up Heavy, and Sniper.

Bendy had to share a blanket with seemingly tired Bruno who was barely awake as they had been watching their prisoners, the Ink Demon looked concerned for the giant Frenchman as he had him wrapped in the blanket to get him warmth.

Scout was on look out of Ultimis Richtofen’s “Cottage” with Ultimis Nikolai was slubbed down, back on it and drunk as ever, vodka in hand as he hiccup. Ratchet and Clank are with Frank West, Raiden and Erron with the digitized map of Salt Lake City in ruins but it is now named Fallen City due to it’s population of the undead roaming in its streets.

“Hard to believe that they could do this much damage.” Erron muttered under his breath as he looked at the map, Raiden interjected “In most cases, an outbreak like this is common since the COVID-19 pandemic.” as he looked at him while pointing at where they were right now on the map.

“Actually, Raiden,” Clank intervened, “It’s only Utah that’s populated with the infected.” as the cyborg and kombatiant were confused by what the small robot had said. “How is that?” Raiden responds in confusion, “It should be an epidemic by now.”

“It could be but the place where I am from, something similar happened to Willamette is that the national guard had roped and blocked off every road leading into the town where the outbreak started.” Frank rationized, motioning Rachet to zoom out the city and they watched as the city was zoomed out to view the state.

It was Utah in nearly red color but it remained in its shape of that state, not once are any signs of the infection leaving it. “But this was unheard off, they said that it could stay in one city but not the whole state itself.”

“No sh!t, Frank.” Erron said as he looked closer at the map, small red dots were going close to the border of Utah but they disappeared upon reaching the line, “Whatever’s keeping the dead inside the state is not going to let them out.”

“Almost like a force field.” Raiden added. Clank nodded as Ratchet added “Still, it’s something to think about but keep in mind though…” as he pointed at a few blue dots leaving the state and a couple more dots entering it. “I am guessing those who are not infected are allowed to leave and go inside Utah as much as they want.”

“Almost like it was a strange type of spell quarantining the state.” Erron said as he watched the two different colored circles moving around in a few cities of the Beehive state. “With us survivors, it’s good that we don't have to worry about the dead coming out but if you’re a zombie, being trapped here will suck so much.”

“Frank,” Raiden said as he looked at him, “Do you remember how you got here?”

“Not too sure but I was outside the city before I met you guys, plus the way out of it was blocked off but there are other roads out of it if you’re asking.” he replied as he looked at the map once again. Having Ratchet zoom in again on the city.

[Map of Utah, from Google Search]

Raiden looked at the one lone black dot on Orem and pointed at it with a sharp metalized index finger, “That’s where we are right now but if we go along the line,” he said as he had his finger follow the line towards Cedar city. “It could have a road leading out of the state, then we could get out of this hellhole.”

Erron looked at Raiden and insisted “But to travel that far, we need supplies to last us about three days to get there. We need to find as much as we can carry on us.”

Frank West internally groans, again with the three day mark like the same scenes before. He face-plamed at this and said “Is there a train that can get us there?”

Erron looked at Frank West and said “There is one, but it’s in Provo and there’s all of them all over the place.” he then looked at Raiden, “Do you think you can clean that town up?”

Raiden remained silent for a moment but then he responded “You’ll leave them to me.” as he turned away and said “Find anyone that will scout the area, we’ll be leaving at sunset.”

“With pleasure, Raiden.” Erron nodded as he turned to walk away from the map as well with Raiden, leaving Frank West with the lombax and a small robot companion.

“Mr. West.”

“Hm?” he turned to face Clank as he was looking back at him. “You wanted to scout the area as well?” Clank offered as well, “You are a reporter-”

“As well as a freelance photojournalist and a teacher in a local college, Clank.” Frank added as he pointed at the camera, hanging around by an landrid around his neck and hasn’t been used in a while since he met the group of people from different worlds.

“Yeah, that, something like that is useful.” Ratchet said this as he crossed his arms, “Dempsey did say that there are mutations of those zombies like Lickers. If there are more, we need pictures of them.”

“Sounds like a scoop you wanted me to look into.” Frank smiled, liking this idea already but then he said “What if I accidentally ran into one of them if they heard me?”

“Hey Frank, that’s what our arteries are for.” Ratchet responded, “Most of us are armed to the teeth and neck deep in these infected people.”

“As for Lickers,” Clank added as he justered his finger upward, “Mr. Dempsey had said on the note he found that they will attack anything that makes noise so best to remain quiet when they are in an area with you.”

“Gotcha, Clank.” Frank said as he nodded, he then looked at the barbed-wire bat he had rested on an overgrown oak tree with vines draggling off the branches. He walked over to it and then picked it up and threw it over his shoulder and landed. “Right, I’m heading out first before anyone could scout out. Make sure they will bring back any stuff and food we could need.” Frank responded as he headed to the east gate that leads out of the backyard, opened it and then went out of it as it closed behind him.

Erron then turned to Ratchet and Clank then said “As for you guys, best to find the best scouts that can do this.”

They nodded as the map was turned off and then he helped Clank onto his back with a click before walking off as he placed his hands on his hips.

-Later on that morning-

There are a few willing volunteers willing to savage the area; Scout of course, Erron, Gordon Freeman, Soldier, Demoman, and Jin Huang. They are given a brief rundown on how they will be leaving soon but warn them about the mutations.

“So, we will have to find other resources for the journey ahead,” Erron explained to the group, Scout had swung his bat onto his shoulder and asked “And where are we going?”

“Cedar City is far from this city,” Erron answered, “Hopefully less zombies, the better.”

“Aren’t we going to wait for the others?” Soldier asked as he adjusted his helmet a little as Demoman looked at the Outworlder. “The Knight said that they are in another world,” as he places his hat back on and it is shadowed over his eyes, “Besides, he has an artifact that allows him to go from one realm to the next so they will be able to catch up to us.”

“Seems possible?” Jin commented as she raised a brow, “And I had to ask, what artifact is it?”

“I don’t know to be truthful,” Erron responded, “Most of us don't tell me about it but best have good faith that he still has it.”

“Plus, we are armed to the teeth,” Scout strugged, “we can take on those lickers.”

“I didn’t say there will just be Lickers, they could have other mutations.” Erron interjected that poke a hole in the young man’s bubble. “The science experts had said that zombies with parasites or viruses can mutate overtime, judging on how long this city had gone through over the years or so.”

Scout gulped with the thought, Erron then shook his hand to dismiss the conversion as he said “Very well, then, we haven’t got time to waste away. We gotta find something to survive on for the next few days or die stravin’.”

“Understood, Erron.” Jin nodded as Demoman looked at her but then nodded. Soldier then salutes this, “Remember before you're a$$es left; be careful out there.”

They nod to acknowledge before heading toward two different gates and going out back into the woodland neighbor and into the infested busy streets.

Jin, however, still struggled to comprehend how different characters could coexist with each other but she had to push aside her new questions and continued on forward. As they go on, she learns more about Gordon, Demoman and Soldier.

Gorden Freeman is truly a man with a few words, he had helped people in an accident as he had referred to as The Black Mesa Incident and led a rebellion against an enemy known as the Combine.

Demoman and Soldier are quite good friends and teammates actually, despite the American being obsessed with wars and bloodshed while the latter is working two jobs, one being a house cleaner and a flipping demolitions expert as a mercenary for hire.

They are quite smart to stay in groups as new breeds of infection are now more presentable, not just 115 zombies.

One infection had visible black veins, rarely ones without injuries but others are most bitemarks and scratches where the virus had spread. Another was riddled with worms, strange worms of alien origin and mutated into special types as their green vomiting counterparts had different yet same parts when it came to mutating.

The zombies, the non-eyes-glowing ones had eyes almost white yet they stumbled slowly, they will be resistant towards being shot in the head surprisingly but it will take 4 or more bullets or even stabs to bring it down.

They had gotten into stores and located non perishable items that strangely haven’t yet been perished yet despite how much time had passed by since what happened to this state in the U.S.

To cover more ground and to get more, they split up and told to keep an eye out for threats around the corners. Jin entered a community hospital and she had found modern medical equipment with an umbrella logo on each of them. The scene seemed to have a group of people researching brain samples before they were interrupted by something that she already knew what it was.

“We better need medicine for our journey ahead of us.” she whispered as she had a sack to stuff them in but when she’s all done doing so, Jin had found notes on a pharmacy desk, curious on what they would say, she picked them up and read them.

Umbrella Corps. Research Notes

The T-Virus had appeared when we had gotten here, it was thought to be destroyed yet we are trying to come up with the theory for its continued existence.

The virus that mutated white and red blood cells causing them to go black colored, the origin is unknown but it is referred to as The Black Plague Virus.

The parasitic worms, a neurological alien of unknown origin, can take over the host and control it. These “Devil Worms” as we call it and it is rather shocking they can merge together as they mutate.

The victims had similar symptoms to the rabies yet it appears that it had been weaponized, the virus of this type had been nicknamed the Green Flu due to it showing signs of a flu but soon they will become rapid overtime.

The unknown element had reanimated dead cells in the human body, making them, like the four other deadly pathogens, into literal zombies, finding documents of the same thing happening in the late 40’s as this element is referred to as 115 discovered by an organization called Group 935.

They were theories on how they are contained inside the state of Utah due to them unable to go outside as something is keeping them inside. It is unknown what is happening could be good or bad yet we could not know for now.

Further research is needed.

Jin was confused by the notes provided such similar information yet it is useful that it showed strange yet same symptoms of the zombification process. Violet behavior, headaches, sensitive to light and such more.

“This is strange…” she muttered as she folds the notes and placed them in her pocket for later, to show the others of her discovery. She was about to leave when she noticed something that caught her eye.

A mysterious hooded figure walked away from the mirror hanging above and walked out of the door calmly like it was a normal day. She turned to see the backdoor closing in time. “Wait…!” she said as she walked fastly towards it and then pushed it open and she found herself in an alley away that’s rotten away and nature crawling upward on the walls.

She looked on the left side, the end of the alley way leading towards the more heavily woods and on the right she saw the Ridden and Black Plague zombies, they were not looking in her direction but hissing and screeched at one another over a kill the other claimed. Similar to a pack of wolves when the alpha is defending its meal.

Jin covered her mouth to prevent the sound from coming out, deciding that she needs to leave and leave now. Moving slowly, she walked back to the door and tried pulling it open but it wouldn't bulge. She tried again but harder yet it still couldn't open from the second attempt. She was locked outside.

She turned to pay attention in the right direction, one of the Plagues seemed to sniff the air and then turned to the alley, its face was half-way ripped off, flesh and teeth showing as black veins sprawled across its features. It snurled upon seeing her as her thoughts were racing but she remained calm, not showing fear from what her masters taught her. “Looks like I am taking an alternate route…” she thought as she turned on her heels and then ran as she heard the screeches from the damned reined in the air. She ran into the forested area to lose them as both Ridden and Black Plague are flooding in the alley and making their way to the heavily wooded area but not without killing each other to get to it first.

They bite and scratch each other as some of them are overwhelming them and then devouring their flesh and organs that have been tainted with the virus or a parasite as the rest had managed to make it through the alley way and proceeded to chase her.

She was like a monkey on the loose upon release, she ran and avoided logs and used branches to swing over the terrain to outrun the dead. The sound of something else is hopping with her at the same pace as her but she was confused when she heard at least six pairs of feet on the ground or the branches.

Before she could turn her head to face whatever it was, that couplet had hopped into her vision, right in front of her. It was human but it lacked of hair on it’s head, it had four arms, two small as the other limbs are longer and it had a red pulsating organ on the bottom of its throat and collarbone as it has been missing a jaw to begin with and replaced with a lower part of the mouth with small sharp teeth.

Red eyes glowed as it snarled and crawled like an animal one side to the left then to the right a little. A worm with mandible spurts out of it’s one eye socket and into another as they bleed crimson tears down from its eyes as Jin cringed at that sight when she looked at the creature in the eye.

“Did the worms do that?” she thought as she pulled her hair ornament out, prepared to fight what this monstrosity is but it seems to know what it is doing. Getting on two feet and then doing something peculiar with it’s four hands as if it was a normal day of folding clothes but something was slimy and drooling in them then suddenly, it tossed the “ball” at her and it exploded.

She exclaimed as she tried to get away but her legs were caught in the mucky projectile and it climbed up to her stomach, pinning her in place while she stood. “What the hell…?!” she tried to pull at the clammy slime but it was like rubber and it stood on her while the screeching had reached her ears.

She looked up just in time to find the worm-ridden creature leaping at her, the two hands wrapped around her throat and neck as the other two are holding on her shoulders as she is doing the same with her own arms to push or try to push it away from her as she was choking, fighting for air.

It roared at her as worms fell out of it’s eye sockets and onto the ground, missing her face as she was losing consciousness but then, its side of its head had exploded with blood and brain matter spewed out. It stopped then fell with Jin in its arms as by now the slime had expired.

She gasped in for air as she heard a familiar voice calling out to her, “Jin!” and feet running over to her and then her arm was grabbed and being pulled up onto her feet. It was P!Dempsey.

“Are ya alright!?”

“Yeah, I am fine…” she rubbed her bruised neck as she looked at the creature, “It’s true what Erron has said about the mutations.”

The marine was looking at the corpse then shrugged a little, “A stinger like this one must be Licker’s second cousin, an ugly b@#$ too.” he sass-talked before the ‘Stinger” was slowly getting back up but was quickly shot down with another bullet with a gun.

Head was clearly devastated from the second bullet discharge, several worms crawled out and went into the ground as they groaned in disgust. “F*#$ing gross…”

Jin thought back about the notes she found and then worried that the others might catch up from the alley after their fight with each other. “Corporal,” she spoke up as he was going to leave, P!Dempsey looked at Jin with a raised eyebrow as she held up the papers and landed them on him. “I had found this from the hospital before I fled, I think there are not just two viruses here in this state.” she explained.

“Could be worth the trouble you’ve gotten yourself into.” he said softly but then he heard faint growls from the tree lines. He gestures with his hand to get her moving as he muttered “We have to get the f#$% out of here…”

They turned and fled the area where the Stinger had appeared as the Ridden and the Plague were coming in.

-Suncrest-

From a frying pan and into an oven, that is what Jin could hear him mutter under his breath as he read one page after another. Apparently the deadly pathogens that can create the dead walked this earth and had each section separately after research on them.

“What is the matter, Tank?” she asked softly as the corporal placed the notes in his pouch and said “First 115 and now four more?” sounded angry, “Talk about dinner for the worms after they can…” he then shook his head. He wasn’t sure if this was even more worse than the previous universe they belonged in.

“Dempsey,”

“Yeah, Jin?” he asked, annoyed as he looked at her now.

“That Stinger, it had..” she was interrupted with the marine’s hand placed onto her shoulder and said “I know…” softly, “It’s one hell of a way to die.” and Jin looked down with her brows furrowed. She then looked at him and nodded wordlessly. He smiled softly and then looked around.

Yet, she can’t let go of the feeling peculiarly on how he was at the wrong place yet the right time, so she needs to ask while they are now continuing to walk down the street that is now halfway covered by dirt forming a path.

“Dempsey?”

“What’s up?”

“I like to know, how did you find me in trouble?”

He was usually loud enough to verbally question Richtofen or someone else loudly but he was oddly quiet but then he answered “Don’t like to copy Tak but I had a stinking feeling when you left. " as he scratched the back of his head."

Jin cocked her head to the side with little confusion yet interested, “You had sensed that I’d be in danger.” she said as she and him continued walking down the path. “You could say that.” he nodded as he looked at the tall trees, pine trees and oak trees that grew to climb the skies upon the ground and dirt.

“I like to call it a “gut feeling” in situations like that one back at the house.”

“Well, I am glad you listened to that “gut” feeling.”

Dempsey chuckled softly as he closed his eyes and turned his head away from the trees, “Yeah, this tank sure did.”

Jin softly smiled at this man as she had a tint of pink on her cheeks as birds above them chirped above them. This is a peaceful walk in the woods that is once a town before the walking dead of all five kinds showed up.

Yet, the feeling hasn’t shown up until when they are deeper into the forest and the air has gotten… colder?

Jin had felt the familiar temperature and held her arms together as Dempsey looked around as soon as he felt the wind had gotten colder than usual, “What the hell?” he muttered as they walked along but more aware of their surroundings.

Their feet crunched onto something soft, they looked down and saw they had walked into a bed of snow. “Why is there snow in the middle of summer?”

“The hell I know,” Dempsey had spoken the thought out loud, those the only thoughts he could think to say as he was caught off guard with what appears to be the change of the session. “Whatever’s happening is not a part of mother nature’s to-do list.”

He continued onward into the slowly falling snowflakes before a blizzard hit them both, “Holy sh!t!”

“Tank!”

The snowstorm had come along and the environment had transformed into a winter hell, Dempsey calls out to Jin ``Jin! Are you there?!”

He felt a hand grabbing hold of his own, he flinched and was going to get a knife out, believing it was another zombie but then heard her voice “Wait, I have you!”

He felt himself relaxed a little when he heard Jin, they sheided their eyes from the shooting snowflakes as they continued forward, “It is almost like that winter from the 1900’s!” he bellowed out as he was trying to find a sight or a road for them to go on. “It was colder than Northern France!”

“And it still is!” Jin stated as she too was trying as the corporal marine, “Do you think what might cause this, Tank?!”

“How the hell should I know-” they then bumped into something that caused them to fell backwards from, they looked up and saw a buff towering figure over them, it was frozen but it’s features are still visible; it was missing a jawbone and a tongue dangling out, its fists are too big for the normal human fingers to curl into one.

They both yelled and Dempsey got out his revolver to fire but then noticed the big hulk-like zombie was indeed turned into an icy statue as it appeared it was about to smash onto something or someone it was targeted.

“Hold on…” he got up on his feet as Jin stumbled onto hers as well, and as they looked around the area, they were barely able to see what else was around them; a horde of zombies, frozen into light blue statues as they appeared to have green vomit leaking from their lips. They way they are posed as if they were after something or someone they were chasing.

More of them are several common yet some are special, one of them had a long tongue as it looked like a frog trying to catch a fly almost similar trait to the Lickers, the other had claws and bleeding from the eyes as the hood had covered its head but its face where it was features shown and it was even being hold up by the ice sickle attached to a nearby building as if it was jumping towards something.

The other looked like it had been crying for a long time judging by the trail of tears on a creature’s features with long nails, long blooded sharp claw-like nails up into the air, ready to strike and like others around her, it was also frozen solid.

“They are…” Jin is finding the courage to speak up in silence besides the noise of the snowstorm, “They are all frozen.”

“You said it, Jin.” Dempsey nodded, zombies frozen in places that reminded him of the time that Nikolai had tried out the Staff of Ice for the first time back in France and it had frozen one of the 115 zombies. “It’s like back in Northern France, Jin.”

“Shh… Something is coming.” footsteps crunching in the snow from the south direction, they turned and ready to confront whatever’s the one responsible. The crunching snow made by two pairs of feet came closer as the figure had formed a shadow from the blizzard. It was the shape of a man and this human had glowing icy blue eyes peering from the hail of snow before stopping in front of them.

Dempsey said “Whoever you are, f*#$er, show yourself.'' With a threatening tone in his voice, the figure responded by raising his hand and then in one smooth motion, his hand traveled to the right shoulder and then washed it back down.

As if on command, the storm driddled and hastily stopped as light from the sun shined through once more, revealing the figure that dwindled in the blizzard. As the snow settles around them, the sun reveals this stranger quickly, he is wearing a blue zukin mask, a hooded cowl with a hat and blue ribbon flowing in the wind yet soon slowly handing it as it dies down. The jacket he was wearing had no sleeves and both of his arms are ice colored unnaturally but they moved just fine with no issue as blue and silver arm guards are strapped to them as well with fingerless gloves, blue wrap around his torso and black boots buried in the snow.

Jin looked at this man as he was staring at them with one scar over one of the eyes, his breath breathed through the mask as it provided four retringle holes as it was seen in the frost.

She walked beside the tensed man before her and then gently rested her hand over the barrel of the revolver then lowered it slowly down as he looked at her in confusion. Jin was certain that the situation would continue negatively.

“We mean no harm, sir, we are not one of them.” She spoke in a calm yet professional manner as she looked him in the eye as they changed colors; from icy blue to normal brown as their glow was lost.

“State your business then.” a deep male voice responded from the man as he stood down as a sign of being less of a threat. “We are only salvagers, looking for supplies to get the hell out of this sh!t.” Dempsey responded with his eyebrow raised.

The man responded “Then we are in the same scerno.” as he had his hand reached his zukin mask and then with little work, he removed it, revealing a beard that is black as a raven’s feathers. “I am Sub-Zero.”

“Sub-Zero, huh?” Dempsey is a little intrigued by the name this man had, “Mind saying why they call ya that?” Yet before anyone could say anything, a loud screech was heard and the couple spotted one of the zombies frozen running towards Sub-Zero. It was one of those hooded special zombies as its teeth are sharped and bared like a rabid dog.

“Watch out!”

Sub-Zero said nothing as the screeching zombie acting like a wild animal was running towards him and ready to strike but they seemed aware of what was happening as he turned and then grabbed this “Hunter” by the head.

It attempted to scratch his arm to break free but very quickly, the frost and ice spread all over it as it stopped moving due to cryo-hibernation the Shinobi had performed upon it as P!Dempsey and P!Jin watched on with astonishment.

And then in one go, Sub-Zero threw it onto the snow-covered road, upon impact, its body, head, arms, legs, hands, and feet had exploded into pieces all over. The head rolled over to Dempsey’s feet as he said “Holy sh!t…!”

Jin was a little shocked to see this happen but they now know why he is called “Sub-Zero.”

“Is this why, Sub-Zero?”

The man only nodded before putting his mask back on, and saying “There are much more things than this.”

“Still freezing the crap out of that freakbag!” Dempsey finally laughed a little, “How did you do that?”

Sub-Zero looked at him and answered “I and my brother were born with these,” as he shook his head at the marine, but then took a moment to examine the duo. They are from a different realm, in a past somewhere from what he could think of.

“Do you two know where you are from?”

“From ours?”

Sub-Zero nodded as he crossed his arms as he looked at them both while the two were standing there, recovering from what had transpired.

“We are from…” P!Dempsey wanted to say what dimension they are from, “1918. We’re from the first world war.”

He looked a little surprised, “We are from different realms, whoever did this must have a purpose for us being here..” he stated, Jin looked at Sub-Zero as her eyes narrowed, “Do you believe this might be a Mortal Kombat tournament?”

“Yes, I do.” Sub-Zero nodded as he turned around then walked away, Dempsey then followed behind him with Jin doing the same. “Hey, we have theories about this bullsh!t too.” he said as their feet were crunching upon the snow passing by the horde of frozen statues with the Green Flu.

“And they might be?”

“It could be the octopus-things called Apothicons that Doc called them, or that some kind of an experiment gone wrong the worst way possible.”

“Or could be Shao Khan or Shang Tsung.” Sub-Zero poked the holes, as he looked down at the ground slowly changing from snow to the dirt ground. “The latter could have done this.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Time to count the suffering.”

“I am sorry, Sub-Zero.” Jin apologized as Dempsey looked ahead as he asked “So, you stated you are born like this, is there any training for that?”

Sub-Zero slowed down a minute and turned his head facing the corporal, “If you are ever born a cryomancer, the clan, Lin Kuei, will train you yet I train you how to use winter’s power, and to control and tame it.”

Jin nodded understandingly, as a shaolin monk, she understood the warrior.

Sub-Zero then stopped himself, which made others stop in their tracks, “Stay quiet.” Sub-Zero’s instincts were quite right, Jin took note and got her hairpin out as Dempsey looked at them in confusion but soon heard voices faintly as he muttered “What the hell is that?” as he held up the revolver once more.

Sub-Zero shushed him and they slowly stepped over to the source of the voices and then kneeled down into the tall grass with P!Dempsey and Jin behind him. The tall grass are yellowish green and the height of grass itself goes up to an average human’s wrist but it was tall enough for an animal to hide, the grass was parted halfway for them to see who was talking, much to Tank’s confusion, and Sub-Zero’s surprise, there were Hyenas standing on their hind legs, holding sharpen boomerangs, bows and arrows, and other weapons that the humans would use. They are dressed in tribal african clothing that seemed to be a mix of 1920’s and medieval age.

They are speaking in an unknown language, a mix of Zulu and strange gibberish pouring from their mouths as they surround carcasses with arrows in them, bleeding from the open wounds. Upon closer look, Dempsey and Jin had realized that those were the strange bears Takeo had slain, faces that looked like tigers but had bodies of normal bears with long tails. patterns of tiger stripes placed upon their dark brown and white fur they bore. Then the other spoke in english “Do you think she will approve of the fest of living Tears?”

“The queen will,” the other Hyena responded as he gently kicked the tiger-bear’s head that had been called Tear. “She had said this once and not twice, the Untotens’ flesh is far too rotten and unsafe to eat.”

“Due to the five plagues they had within.” the other one said with a female voice as she had taken a rag that was used too many times to the point it was just a dark crimson fabric. “Humans weren’t prepared for the All-Five Outbreak 500 years ago.”

“Neither the same with Monsters.” their leader added as gotten a knife out, the one that appears to be made from bone and wood, walking over to one of the Tears’ corpses, “Yet, all five Untoten Hordes were stopped by the Tree of Life.” He spoke as he kneeled down and then stabbed the carcass.

Tree of Life?

Primis Dempsey had heard them wrong or… he had recalled a myth that his mother had recalled when he was a boy, he showed a little interest in his Irish heritage and Celtic religion his mother had tried to force upon.

Crann Bethadn is referred to as the Tree of Life by the Celtics in Ancient Times as they believed that the trees on Earth had several powers and were sources of all life we breathed into our lungs.

The symbol is preserved well for so many centuries by our people of Ireland.

We carry our deep roots of our heritage.

Primis Dempsey had averted his eyes away from the Hyenas to focus fighting that memory in his mind, bad timing to recall the past, bad timing he thought.

“Still, do you remember what our elders had told us over and over?” as several other Hyenas looked at the female hunter in their group, “About the forbidden water that was left behind after Humans and Monsters ascended.”

“Ah yes, Femina, we remembered.” the pack leader answered as he pulled out meat and muscle from a Tear and put it into a sack as blood dripped from the bottom. “Gods of the Old World had accidentally let the forbidden water fall down from the skies, our past elders drank from it and soon, knowledge had changed them the way we are now.”

The trio listened to them as the story behind the ordeal was unfolding, yet it was sickening: an zombie outbreak had happened with all five dangerous biohazards and it had been 500 years later afterwards but what caused it to happen? Then a thought came in Dempsey’s head: Broken, the one that Knight had talked about, might have something to do with it.

Something had done something unforgiving and appealing towards humanity and monsters had made his blood boil but he can’t let it burst out of him, not here, not now.

“The day that world has fallen, the Incident, Humans, Monsters, fled into the stars to flee the terrors.” the other Hyena nodded to the conversion, “Yet, from the previous animal kingdom, Gods of The Old World had given birth to us, Furthers, to watch over the world to wait for their return.”

“Yet, the queen is here so we will have no fear if they will attack or not.”

“I agree now, help me skin them.”

They watched in silence as Hyena Furthers had gotten out similar knives and started skinning the Tears, taking organs and flesh covered in blood as they were placed in sacks as blood dripped and poured from the bottom of the sacks and onto the ground.

All that is left of the Tears now were skinless, fleshly yet bones exposing carcasses. They then got up on their hind legs again like they were human beings and then walked away from the bloody scene.

They waited until the voices and footsteps had vanished in the distance, “We are safe now.” Sub-Zero was the first one to speak up as he and others got up from the grass as Dempsey looked to where the hunter Furthers had gone.

“What the f#$% is a Further?” P!Dempsey asked as he is now the one questioning this reality as Jin seems hinged by this discovery. “Do you remember that I said I had woken up in a house with talking animals, Dempsey?” she asked as he placed her hand on his shoulder, making him look at her with doubt for his sanity and Jin knew it.

“Those talking animals were Furthers as well,” she responded, “They had the bare intelligence of a regular human being yet they had developed their own language and cultures. They had worshipped the ‘’Gods of the Old World'' as their religion.” she explained as P!Dempsey stared at her.

“Holy sh!t..” he said with disdain, “Richtofen wasn’t kidding about different realities, wasn’t he?”

“Who?” Sub-Zero was confused about who Dempsey was talking about.

Jin looked at Dempsey and then rubbed his shoulder a little, he loosened up a little when he felt it with comfort. “Thanks, Jin.” he sputtered nervously aas he looked at her with comfort in his eyes.

Jin smiled softly but then heard Sub-Zero calling out softly to them, “You two, come over here.” as they turned to notice that he was kneeling on the ground, picking something from it, something glowing faintly of soft blue.

The duo walked over to the Cryomancer as he stood back on his feet while looking at the object in his hand. Without a word, he showed them both of what he had found on the ground. They looked to see that it’s a gem, an ocean blue crystal that is about the size of a quarter.

“I had found this crystal on the ground.” Sub-Zero said as he was looking at the crystal with wariness in his voice. “It was glowing faintly, I am sensing strange energy coming out of it.”

“Do you think this is nuts, Sub-Zero?” Dempsey asked out of disbelief and ignorance at first but the look in Sub-Zero’s eyes had told the different answer. “Oh, right.” he responded under his breath as he looked back down at the crystal once again.

Jin was looking at the inscallfincent crystal, resting in Sub-Zero’s palm as she felt like she needed to take a closer look, as if it was holding a secret that none of them don’t know yet. “Sub-Zero,” she spoke softly as her hand had started to lift upwards and going towards a crystal slowly, “Can I see it please?”

Sub-Zero was weary of what she was doing and was trying to get his hand from hers but she had managed to get the crystal away from the palm of his hand and it was a bit fuzzy soon afterwards.

One moment, she was with the two men in a forest with a small crystal in her hands but the other minute later, she was somewhere else entirely and laying on the ground. The day was nighttime as a hand came into her line of sight yet this hand is not her own.

This hand was wearing a violet purple glove with metallic claw armor on it as it was placed onto her forehead, it took a moment to realize that what is happening is that she is in a memory of someone and she is watching this from their point of view.

Flashback of Blood

The person she was witnessing had then got onto their feet as she had gotten a look of their attire. The ninja yoroi was pink colored with slight cleavage showing as this person is a female.

“Hmmm…” a woman’s voice groaned as it sounded like it was an echo, and looked around “The earthrealm is different now, must to find a few souls…~” she purred that made Jin feel on edge just by hearing this from her as she walked ahead from where she has woken up.

As the moon floated over the bloodbath and nearing those hours of sunlight rising, this woman had performed onto the undead yet she often let out a groan or a moan of disdain when she sniffed or looked at them as if they were not the one that she was hoping to find. What was she trying to find?

“Most of these mortals are undead… I wonder if this realm has warriors left?” she purred in strange interest as she dropped the Black Plague zombie onto the ground as a dark red pool formed from its devastated head.

She then heard twig snapped and she turned to see a Hyena Further with an arrow pointed at her, the moment she saw him and the next thing she heard was a dark giggle coming from the woman, the type was feral but with ill-intent and sounded like her prayer had been answered.

“You dare to raise your weapon to your ruler of Outworld?”

The Hyena Further looked a bit shock at first but didn’t have time to react when the woman lunged out at the helpless hunter with her claws out and Jin haven’t seen what had happened next but she did heard the hunter screaming that soon heard a gurgle as well as with crunching of teeth and flesh tearing apart that made her recoiled.

Soon afterwards, she saw two more Hyena hunters with bows and arrows on their person. One of them is a man and a woman hyenas as the female hunter looked concerned.

“Juju?” she asked, “What is wrong, we heard screaming.”

[Two comic strips are drawn by SamPostStuff on Tumblr]

A crunch only answered them, Jin turned to see what it was as they stopped and the other readied the arrow, willing to fight but they both froze in horror. Jin cringed at the sight before her.

The same hand was holding the corpse of their comrade before dropping it onto the ground with blood on its palm as Jin had gotten a good look at the woman’s face; it looked like something that any child would scream in terror in their dreams.

Her face was drizzled in blood as sharp needle teeth were on the outside of her lips and cheeks, forming a mouth, her eyes a golden yellow with short black hair flowing freely.

“She really is real…” she heard a male hyena mumble to his friend in pure shock, “Our queen.” is the only thing that he finished the sentence with.

The woman- no, this creature smiled grisly, “Ah yes, I am your ruler.” she spoke with such atrocious tempting bliss, “Your Queen Mileena.” as Hyenas are trembling in fear.

“W-We…” the lady hyena began to explain themselves with a catch of breath, “We are so sorry, we… We have no idea it’s you.”

“Or even say that it’s-” the lady hyena immediately covered her friend’s mouth before he could finish.

“It is only a shock,” She said as she understood yet the look of her eyes can seem like they would hold potential, “I will let this mistake go for now.” Mileena responded as she lifted up what looked like a windpipe and with one chomb, she ate it, blood flowed through her mouth and dropped onto the ground.

“But for now, I have something for you to do.”

That was the last thing she heard before everything around her had gone into white.

“Jin? Jin!”

A familiar voice had ringed in her eyes, Jin was on the ground and being held by a man wearing a familiar jacket, it’s Dempsey.

She was being held in his arms as she, Primis Tank and Sub-Zero as the sun was over them and in noon time. “T-Tank?” she spoke up in pure confusion as she placed a hand on her forehead, “What happened?”

“After ya took that crystal,” Dempsey started to explain the situation, “you just collapsed when it glowed for a little bit.” as Sub-Zero had removed his mask once again and held the crystal yet he’s making sure that it's as far from her as possible this time.

Jin seemed lost for a moment when she looked at them both, but then remembered back the dream she had for a short time with the woman, Mileena, and Hyena Furthers worshipped her as their ruler- a goddess even. As if she was the one they were waiting for god only knows how long.

But she has to know how long she was out like a light, how long was she dreaming exactly before that first, she turned over to Sub-Zero and questioned him, “how long was I out?”

“Only nearly an hour, Jin,” he answered.

“Yeah, while you were asleep. We had to pray it out of your hand since you were holding onto it tight.” P!Dempsey added further.

“I see…” she muttered softly as she looked at the ground again, the two men looked concerned now for Jin as the birds were chirping sweetly in the green and yellow trees around them as the wind danced smooth as butter.

“Let me guess for you,” Dempsey responded a bit more gently than usual, “You had a hell of a dream when you passed out.”

Jin looked at him with a slight jump from her stupor yet nodded, “How did you see?” Sub-Zero questioned her, “From the start of it, how much did this crystal have foretold to you?”

Jin with what little strength she had in her gut, she told them about it in little detail of the dream regarding the comprehensiveness of itself to them but she had noticed that Sub-Zero looked troubled when she had mentioned Mileena’s name, in fact, he looked like he never wanted to hear this name from someone else, ever.

Dempsey took notice of them as well as Sub-Zero had stood up and then walked from them a bit, giving them some space between himself and the two. “Hey, ya alright there?”

“I am fine, marine.” was Sub-Zero’s response.

“Ya sure, you seemed like you know this Mileena chick.”

Sub-Zero turned to look at them with his eyes glowing again but calmed down right away when he drew in a breath and exhaled it. “She was the creation of Shang Tsung, who was an ally to the former Emperor of Outworld itself.”

“Outworld? The one where Erron was from?”

“Erron Black?” Sub-Zero was surprised to hear that, “He was here as well?”

“Of course.”

Sub-Zero looks down for a moment, thinking of what is happening and how much of this revelation has unraveled itself. “There is going to be another tournament,” he thought without doubt but he is quite skeptical of what Mileena’s intentions are. He doubts she could be capable of doing this; kidnapping people from their own realms and into this one, unknown as uncharted.

“...Does anyone but us here?”

“I dunno.” Dempsey said uncertianingly, “All we know, that there most of us are from our universes alone or in a group that’s brought in this hellhole, Sub-Zero.”

Sub-Zero then turned his body to them both and responded “Mileena will be my responsibility to take care of, you two need to get back to your camp right away.” he then started to travel to the direction where he believed the Hyenas had gone too.

“Hey, where the f$%^ are you going?” he yelled after the shinobi who doesn't stopped walking, “I’m going to find their queen.’” as his arms are covered in frost.

Primis Dempsey was watching him go when he noticed that Jin was trying to stand up, “Ya think you can still walk?” he asked while he stood up, helping her onto her feet. “I think so, Tank.” she simply answered from her dizziness from the crystal's influence, legs wobbling like jelly.

She stumbled but she was grabbed by Dempsey when she nearly fell over, “Hey,” he said, “Don’t push yourself too much.”

“I wasn’t trying too.” she replied, holding on her arm while she’s trying to adjust her balance. When she got hold of her footing, she let go of the marine and then tried walking again but this time, one step at a time.

Still, Dempsey is walking beside her in case of her falling again while she was walking as they went through the way they came in, they walked past the tree line and back to the frozen graveyard of the green flu zombies.

They kept an eye out for anything that moved as they carefully walked past them as Dempsey noticed something that made him realize; the sun was hot enough to melt the ice on a hot summer day and the ones that had been turned into frozen statues were dripping water.

“They’re melting…” he muttered, catching Jin’s attention. “What?”

“These freakbags.”

Jin looked around and saw the ice that jailed them was melting into slush, even the big one, a hulking muscle with normal human legs and big arms that nearly overgrown its fingers. They noticed it was moving a bit by the minute soon afterwards a second.

They walked fastly past the major zombie as the ice was cracking as its arms were vibrating, it was going to break away from the ice in a moment and they both knew it just by looking at it. The popping and snapping of the cryogenic ice getting louder, before they knew it, Tank had said “MOVE!”

He pushed Jin forward as the ice finally gave way, soon afterwards a roar from the creature as its hands, now freed, smashes onto the ground, making the ground rumble under them and they stumble from the impact.

P!Dempsey got out his assault rifle and then immediately opened fire on the giant thing but as blood sprayed off of it’s pale too-much built body, it had no effect and that seemed to enraged the creature.

[Drawn by This-Person-is-slowly-dying and AlphaKing]

“Dempsey, get away from that thing!” Jin yelled as the big fella began to charge at the two on it’s knuckles and feet, similar to an angry gorilla ready to destroy whatever had tried to kill its mate and his kid.

He let out a curse and then turned to run from the beast, while they heard it growling. Soon, they heard the ground rumble behind them, Tank turned to see what was going on but soon regretted doing so because this thing had pulled a rock from the ground, hanging it over its head.

“Jin, incoming!” He ran faster and tackled Jin to the ground just as the big boulder was thrown and went over them, smashing onto a nearby car, even though it had aged over 500 years but it is shocking part of this is that its siren had sounded as they looked up. As if it does it despite the age of time.

Soon afterwards, the screeching of the damned was heard from a distance faintly but grew louder as they got back up and soon after he aimed at the incoming horde infected by the Green Flu Virus as he asked Jin “Run or fight?”

She looked at him confused but soon she was brought back by the big creature’s roaring as it was powering through the horde to get to them first before they did.

Dempsey repeated himself loudly.

“Run or fight?”

Jin has already decided on the answer already; she responded “Both.”

He had no time to argue with her so he and she turned to run towards a road, heading towards a hospital while an army of Green Flu zombies closed in the gap as they ran while Tank turned to open fire on them, splitting their heads open, painting the ground in red before turning to keep running.

“F#%^ off, you maggot-asses! Along with that Tank too!” He taunted them, but he is mostly taunting towards the now nicknamed big beast that’s catching up to them more than the horde.

Jin shook her head with raised brow as they reached the hospital, the glass of the doors was long since broken down long ago so they are able to get through them with no trouble but with each answers, it has pros and cons to solve any problems; the con was that there is no barricade to keep the riff-raff out.

Jin had got out her hair ornament from her hair but then she felt a nudge on her arm, she turned to see Dempsey holding a revolver, “Take this!” he ordered her as Jin used her other hand to take it.

“Ever use that gun?”

“I had never used it on a person!”

He fired on a couple of zombies coming closer, he turned his head to her and responded “Well, the best thing to do is to aim for the head.” he then looked at them, he had often felt safe with barricades but he knew that this time it's the opposite, the doors without wood boards and he does not like it.

“Sh!t… What should we do now?”

“I am working on it…”

Just when the horde and the Tank are coming closer, the intercom had rung to life and a new voice came through, it was a different male Australian accent like Sniper’s.

“Oi!” the voice called out, making them look at the intercom with shock and confusion, “Ya two are not one of the Green Flu bastards, are ya?” Then they heard a ding, they turned to look at an elevator opening up with the dimmed light glowing from its ceiling. “Come in the elevator if ya want to live!”

They looked at each other, then they turned to look at the incoming horde and the Tank that is posing through it like a runaway bull attacking anything that has red all over a group of people.

The choices were: Either be killed by the rabid horde and eaten or get in the elevator to where this voice is in one of the five floors.

They looked at each other again and then at the horde before they decided the latter: they ran in the elevator and Dempsey slammed the filth floor button and they readied themselves as the common infected ran inside as the doors hastily closed in.

They are watching them heading towards them as the moving doors closed up and hearing them banging on the doors as they go upward. They ascended upwards as the arrow slowly moved towards and crossed each number as the little moment of relief washed over them, “Holy sh!t….” he muttered, “Never seen anything like that…”

“The horde of the undead or that big creature that could rival a Panzer Soldat?”

“The big guy.” he answered, placing the revolver back in his Back-Pit device and holding his head a little.

“Still, do ya see what it has been doing?”

Jin nodded as she looked down at the ground. “It had thrown the zombies out of the way to get to us,” she softly said, “I can not imagine what it will do if it got to us.”

“Properly literally crush us with those arms,” he halfry joked, crossing his arms as he looks at the arrow going over to the number five, indeciting they are getting closer to the floor he selected. “Besides, we’re gonna be alright now.” he said it too soon the moment the elevator dings upon their arrival on the filth floor.

The elevator doors opened up to reveal their “savor”; a cyborg Carcassian man with device over his right eye or at least acted as his eye, a beard, wore no shirt but a strap that form an X across his chest with the device with glowing red glass, army green cargo pants and boots as he appears to be holding something behind his back.

With a smug smirk, he said in the same accent “Ya made the right choice.” before they heard what sounded like a pin being pulled and then he threw a container at them in the elevator before he had put on a gas mask.

The container they were looking at had exploded and a pretuid smell came from before them as they were trying to get away. “Dempsey watch...ou…” Jin had started to say but the smell had gotten to her that caused her to slur her speech and she fell onto the floor.

“Jin!” He ran over to her but his body started to get heavy but his mind was ordering it to keep going as he stumbled towards her as he was trying not to inhale the stench before he too fell down just inches to her.

The world around him had begun to spin as hearing had started to rung in his ears as the man walked over to them then knelt down while Dempsey watched. He chuckled while he looked at the marine as his eyelids were getting more and more heavy and soon, the world had been drowned in darkness.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A soft moan left his lips as he suffered a suffocating headache, he felt like he had drunk too many beers while he had his hand stretched the back of his head as he muttered “Argh…. My head…”

He groggily turned his head over to look around as his mind wondered where he was right now and he saw Jin sleeping by his side, sleeping softly with her head on his shoulder. “J-Jin…?” he mumbled as his mind was swimming from whatever happened to him.

Inspecting her closer, her coat was missing as well with her hair pin and her hair was let down and flowed down her back.

As he tried to remember what had been transferred, he looked down to see that his coat and boiler were missing, as he was in his gray t-shirt.

The feeling had come back to him and came with it was metal and rust, at the base of his neck as he raised an eyebrow at this and had his hand reached to what it was and whatever it was it was around his neck.

He then had another hand on it as it dawned on him with distress; he had a collar around his neck. He turned his head at the wall and saw that he was chained to a wall before he looked at Jin and saw that she was collared as well.

He was on his knees and then grabbed her shoulders. “Jin! Jin! Wake up!” he said as he shook her by the shoulders as her sleep was disturbed, her head swayed as she groaned in strained breath as she opened her eyes and looked at Dempsey in confusion.

“Dempsey?” she groaned as her head was throbbing in pain as she held her head, “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” he said as he noticed that her coat was gone as well. “But it has something to do with that guy, I think we have been ambushed.”

“What?”

“We have been ambushed.” he repeated himself, “Have we been captured?” she asked to which he nodded.

They looked around the room they are in, it was dark but the light is peering through the bars above them and only them, but it did luminated what room it is; the ceiling, the walls and floor are made from stone, with reddish brown and moss on the wall but they hardly could see through the darkness.

“I believe we were in a cell.” Jin stated as she looked at Dempsey. He said nothing but then he sat down beside her again and looked down, “In all honesty,” he started to say, “I had gotten myself into worse sh!t like this.”

“You’d been captured?”

“That and many things that I wished could be a nightmare.”

Jin sighed lightly as she lowered her head, “So do I.” as she held her forehead. “I wished the same as you.” while Dempsey looked at her again. He said nothing but looked at her. He looked at the chains and by the look of them, they haven’t been properly clean for a good long while.

There is something moving from in front of them, the peek through hole opened up and the eyes are peering inside looking at them with a contented look in their eyes.

“They’re awake.” The voice echoed softly in the chamber, those familiar, different eyes of a hyena is no mistake for the two to recognize, they heard the clanking of boots is heard from outside the cell and a voice, a distorted woman’s voice speaking to the Further as he looked at whoever she was. “Open the door please.”

“Yes, your highness.” the hyena complied as he hopped down from the hole, letting a bit of light flowing in for a moment as they heard something unlatching on the other side of the door.

The metal door scraped across the stone floor as the rusted yellow light poured in the room as a figure entered and the cell door closed behind her. The clicking of heels returned once more but this time towards them.

Soon, Mileena came into the light of the barred off hole in the ceiling yet she was noticeably different with a zukin mask as Jin had noticed. The corporal sighed and said “Let me guess, you must be Mileena, right?”

“Of course, you had it right.” she confirmed as he and Jin had backed up to the wall a little bit, leaving space between them and her. “Do you know where you are now, kombatants?”

[Drawn by Meaghan “Icefir” Halter]

“Your boyfriend, Mileena?” he answered sarcastically, as the chains rattled a little bit behind him with his hand fumbling on the floor for a stone piece that he could use as a weapon in case things could get messy once she got closer.

“Not quite.”

“Hyenas are your army now?”

A giggle as two out of five of her fingers rested on her mask, it was not a good sign as she continued.

“Much so, fair lady.” Mileena responded, “In fact, I am really joyful that they made me their ruler yet honored to have you both here. Even though what I am going to do next may seem… horrible.” she sounded a bit sad when she said this, the marine could mentally roll his eyes at this.

“Must’ve been one hell of an honor to be here, mind telling us what are you about to do to us?”

“Kano had brought this up, I figured that I could at least try-” Mileena had stopped herself when she looked over to him, hesitancy in her eyes when she noticed quite prequitrity.

“Hold a minute,” she started to say, “You looked familiar to me.” She leaned closer to him as he tried to back up but he went into a wall so he was trapped between it and her. “Did I see you before?”

Jin looked over in confusion towards Dempsey as he muttered “I am just one of those faces that just don't like being in a sh!t hole situation like this…!”

Mileena didn't seem to believe but she pulled herself away from him as she shook that thought away, “It doesn’t matter,” she simply replied to his statement, even if it’s barely audible from a man.

“In the next few hours, one will be taken and the other to the tournament.” Mileena explained, “One out of two of you here.”

Dempsey spat out “Like hell that we are going to,” as he gritted his teeth, keeping his eyes trained on Mileena, “You’re stuck here the same as us in this world.”

Another giggle from the deranged woman before this, he had enough of this and he said loudly “What’s so god damned funny?”

“Not too familiar with Mortal Kombat, have you yet?” she asked as her hands reached the back of her head and then began to untie the straps that are holding the zukin mask itself.

“Yeah, someone had told us about it.”

“Oh.” she said as she managed to untie the straps and then took it off. Tank’s eyes grew in shock and disgust but his voice didn’t go out of his mouth as usual, only silence rained down on him as he looked at Mileena before himself and Jin.

“Then you knew how it would end, didn't you?~” she spoke coldly as a tongue slithered out similar to a snake’s as the door opened once again behind her.

-Back at the camp-

Erron glanced over his shoulder for the group of savagers as they are arriving back but yet, he was a little concerned that Jin isn’t with them.

“Where’s-”

“It was a nightmare!” Soldier cuts Erron off, “Gordon had scared off all of the strange-looking deer!” as Gordon had an annoyed expression on his face along with Demoman as the Outworlder can clearly see.

Erron lets out a sigh, “What exactly happened?” to the only two men of the hunting group that are sanerer than this man with low intelligence.

“Gordon was being a quiet boy the whole time when he was hunting the deer. That's clearly different from normal but Soldier is the one who scared them off.” Demoman explained briefly while Gordon Freeman nodded at the end of it.

Another sigh, “I thought so.”

“But cowboy, have you seen Jin anywhere?” Soldier asked as he looked around the front yard, Erron was going to ask them that question in all honesty before he was interrupted.

“I thought that she was with you boys.”

“The lass was with us but we couldn’t find her.”

“Do you know where you last saw her?” Erron asked more.

“We had split up to salvage more items,” Gordon once again said, “I think she went inside a local pharmacy.”

Erron crosses his arms as Ultimis Richtofen came out of the background with Frisk in tow and loudly asked “Have you all seen zhe marine anyvhere?!”

“Wasn’t he here?” he asked with his hand on his forehead once again.

“I had sent Frisk to go find him but zhey couldn’t find him.” he informed them.

“Two people had gone missing.” Erron groaned in frustration, “Last thing anyone wants.”

“Zhen ve have to find zhem!” Ultimis Richtofen announced with pride, sounded less concerned, “Ve can’t leave zhis city of zhe undead vithout zhem, I cannot imagine zhe fates zhey are going through.”

“And we are coming too!” Cuphead said this as he ran out but was stopped at the last minute by Demoman as he picked him up by the handle of his head and turned him around towards the house as he said “No more getting into troubles, and more staying put where it is safe.” as he points at the opened door as Cuphead moaned in disappointment and walked back while Demoman and others watched.

Soldier looked over to his friend and said “You are much more different than you usually are.”

Demoman only chuckled as he shook his head.

No one had failed to notice but the air had gotten cold all of suddenly as they felt it. “Hm?” U!Richtofen muttered as he looked around, “Zhe air is getting colder all of sudden?”

“Doc, it’s impossible,” Demoman stated, “This city was once a desert, ya know.”

“Oh blah blah blah, zhis place can have winters as vell.”

Erron somewhat remained quiet as he was staring something before them, “Frisk, get behind me and into the house.” he commanded, as he shushered them to go inside as others had begun to notice.

“Kuai Liang.” Erron said as he watched Sub-Zero walk over to the group as his eyes were trained on Erron Black. “Erron Black.”

They both stare at each other, Erron had his hand on the handle of his revolver, ready to pull it out of the hoister as frost is visible on the shinobi's hands. “You do understand that I didn’t come here to fight, Erron.”

“I do know that fact,” Erron said as he had his hand up to stop the others from advancing further, “And let me guess this, you don’t remember how you got here too?

“Yes.” Kuai bows as Frisk, Cuphead, Mugman and Bendy are watching the encounter from inside the house, looking worried and concerned of what’s to come.

“Hallo uh, Kuai Liang, is it?” Ultimis Richtofen had spoke up as he walked to stand by Erron for a moment as he looked at Sub-Zero, “You must’ve seen a man und woman by zhis point before you came here, am I right?” he questioned, “One vith brown hair und jacket, zhe other with black hair, fairly pretty skin?”

“You must be speaking of Dempsey and Jin.” Kuai Liang answered as he looked at the German, “I assume they are with you?”

“Oh ja!~” he happily said, “Zhose two teammates of ours, do you seen them?”

“I had left them behind in Suncrest when I had to follow a group of Further Hyenas to see if Mileena was truly here.”

“Mileena is here too?” Erron looked at Sub-Zero who had dropped that bombshell on him, hoping this was just a joke but it’s true as he nodded. “And she leads the what?”

“Further Hyenas.” Kuai answered, “And appearty, it's not just hyenas that are affected by this “Forbidden Water.” they spoke off. They became somewhat an intelligent animal humanoid species after something horrible befell onto the earthrealm or this earthrealm is what they had made their home now.”

“Do they know what caused this?”

“The Incident, involving all five different plagues that includes the one you are currently facing and an entity they called “The Broken.””

“Oh!” U!Richtofen chimed in, “A woman had told about zhis lady but not in full detail about her.” as Sub-Zero looked at him once again. “Has she said anything about the Broken.”

“If she had- Haha!” the Doctor triumphed with delight, “She had taken at least 12 of us avay into another plane of existence or in your vords, another “Earthrealm '' you called it. Und zhis Broken vould drive zhem into insanity or death if I had to put in more details.”

“I will share what I have learned later,” Sub-Zero looked at Erron once again “Are there other warriors here?”

“A bunch,” Erron shrugged, “All of them are different worlds and timelines but it could be enough to bring this bloodthirsty daughter of Shao Kahn down.”

“Und most of us were from our own universes ve called home,” Ultimis Richtofen as Erron raised the revolver a little threateningly but it does seem to silence the Doctor by this much.

“I see.” Kuai nodded, “we must need a plan before we could jump into battle.”

“Ya know, for once, you could be right.”

As being said, Kuai was led into the backyard as others were getting ready to leave the city as the kids were peeking outside to watch others meeting the newcomer. “So, you had met them after encountering a different infection type?”

“But of course,” Kuai answered Bruno’s question, “But I wanted them to be out of harm's way when I did find her.”

“Can you take us to the last spot you left them at, at least?” Scout said with chagrin, “We just lost enough already.”

Sub-Zero made an ickle in response and spoke in a threatening tone “We are getting to that point, young man. Show patience.”

“Are you saying that one of your- their own were captured?” Radec asked as he and his remaining men were being watched over by Takeo while he was keeping a close eye on them while he was cleaning his sword.

“I fear so.” Kuai responded as he crushed the ickle into small pieces, “And you must be Mael Radec from what I am told of.”

“Colonel Mael Radec,” Radec corrected, as he stood up and he was a little bit intrigued that this ninja could barely reached his height, “Our homeworld is Helghan and as off right now-”

“They are trapped here with us,” Takeo interrupted as he had a rag that seemed to be used multiple times to count as he cleaned off the blood crusted onto the blade. Sub-Zero looked at the samurai and he somewhat resembled Hanzo in a way but in World War I form.

Takeo continued “And yet, we had a solution to escape this hell together, uninfected and unharmed.”

“Tak’s right about that.” Frank added “Since for some reason, these zombies can’t literally get out of the state of Utah, as if something is keeping them inside.”

“A tree’s spell…” Sub-Zero muttered as he looked down at the ground and yet, it was audible barely for Frank West to hear.

“What’s that?”

“It is nothing.” he shook his head, as Ultimis Richtofen walked over to him, “I am zhe most curious of you, Mr. Liang,” he said as he looked at the man of ice as he looked at him with an raised brow.

“From vhat I see from you, zhe frost on your arms und hands vithout any trouble at all!” he exclaimed as he took a hold of his arm to get a better look as if he was inspecting a snore or something else that could be intriguing.

“How do your arms vere at normal temperatures instead of breaking apart?” Ultimis Richtofen squeezed his bicep a little to feel the difference, the muscle felt soft yet it is the normal type of soft when you could feel when you squeeze the skin and muscle on your forearm.

“It is only magic, Doctor Richtofen.” Sub-Zero only answered as he pulled his arm away, “I am a cryomancer as I had trained to control the ice magic.”

“I see.” Ultimis Richtofen placed a finger under his chin, he now looked more fascinated by this fact. “Und how do you train?”

“I was the student before I became the grandmaster of the Lin Kuei.” he replied as he turned away and then walked away from the German as he felt like he needed to get a healthy distance away from that man as far as possible.

Something about him was.. Unhinged, he thought.

Others had gathered, talking about something to do after they rescued their allies and escaping Fallen City as they are getting their weapons while Erron is discussing the plan as Kuai will lead them to where he had met Dempsey and Jin.

Sniper and Demoman are talking about what they should do with their prisoners if they make it out of the city infested with the walking dead, then something else that caught his attention however.

“Did ya notice that one of them was missing, laddie?”

“One was missing?” Sniper looked up to have his eyes facing Demo’s only one with stupefaction.

“There were seven of them last night when Bruno took over Bendy’s nightwatch.”

Sniper raised a brow and looked over the Demolimation’s Expert to look at the giant Frenchman and then looked back to Demoman.

“Did one of them escape while on his watch, Talvish?”

“I doubt that, Snipe.” Demoman answered, “Jin had said that she found him slowly regaining consciousness when she found this.”

“Regaining his nongs?” Sniper quizzed, as he tilted his hat a little to rub his fingers on his forehead, “Was his noggin hit by one of them?”

“Ah no,” Talvish shook his head no, “No bruise or a cut on his head whatsoever when she checked on him. Whatever happened to him must’ve been slippery like Spy was.”

“Mate, that is impossible,” the Australian refused to believe his teammate. “If he was knocked out, there could be a-”

“No no no, Sniper,” Demo shook his hand to halt him from speaking his thoughts out, “He had recalled he felt something plunging into his back before he blacked out.”

Kuai Liang didn’t hear the rest as he was already going to find Bruno as he is peculiar about it. He didn’t have to waste time to find him to see if it is true, he may not be with them on the night it happened but he needs to check on what he believed to be an injury. It didn't take him too long to find him when he checked at the withering apple tree and found him sharpening the knife.

“Bruno.” he got his attention as the large man looked at him, the carasian raised a brow and said “Oui, Kuai Liang?”

“Please understand that I am only curious but I heard you’re knocked out while on watch but you were not hit in the head.”

Bruno said nothing but he did nod that confirmed Sub-Zero’s suspicion, the cryomancer walked over to the giant with the understanding look on his face and went behind him as the Frenchman looked at him with further confusion.

“What are you doing-?”

“Do you remember what you felt before you passed out?”

Bruno only responded by looking down, “It felt like something had stabbed me in the back. Like a bee sting.”

“A bee sting, you say?” he said as he pulled the collar of his shirt down a bit as the Frenchman tried to look over his shoulder.

“I do not give you permission to search me.” Bruno interjects but Sub-Zero relents as he pulls it down a bit more and he sees something on the bottom of his neck, near the right shoulder on the tanned skin: It’s a small red dot. It was small enough as if a syringe had poked through and into the flesh.

“What are you looking at?”

“A sting dot,” Kauai answered as he looked at him, “A stab wound small enough to be an injection.”

“I was injected?” Bruno turned to look at him, “With what, exactly, Kauai Liang?”

“Possibly a drug enough to knock a person out yet only someone could be quiet and quick enough to plunge a syringe into you without ease.”

Kuai then had his fingers on his chin, the stable hair brushing against them gingerly, “It could be one of these ‘’Helghast” prisoners you captured.”

“It’s impossible, Kauai Liang.” Bruno denied, “All of them were asleep when I took a watch after the dinner last night.”

Kuai raised an eyebrow at this, looking at the giant before him and asked “If it is not one of them, then who?”

A raven cawed from behind them as they turned to see it flew over to a shed with the old wooden double doors as they were opened just a crack yet the raven was able to wedge between and go inside with no trouble.

Kuai signed Bruno into staying quiet as they unhurriedly walked over the shed on alert as each step drew them closer before they could know it but they stopped when a smell of death hit them both.

Bruno reinched from it, he knew what he was smelling, he was too familiar with the death before and after his time with a gang of thugs and this was a smell of the recently deceased, not the rotting decayed corpse of a zombie.

Kuai knew what Bruno believed to be too as he saw his hand stretched out and then grabbed one of the doors and then pulled it towards them, letting light flood inside the interior of the shed and the sight that greeted them was desolate and horrid.

It was one of the prisoners but what happened is just a grim death. Nothing to say but they noticed the man was stripped of the chest plate and cut open in the chest. Bruno gagged from the sight and turned from it as Kuai did the same with his eyes closed in uncanny disgust.

Bruno looked at him with hairs on the back of his neck raised and said “I think we now know what happened to him.”

Kuai nodded as he said nothing, something like this had the part of him believing it could be one of a Tarkatan or Mileena would do but the other part of himself had believed it could be someone else. Before the latter would say anything, U!Richtofen yelled for anyone to hear.

“Come on now! Ve are now going to get zhem!”

The two men looked at each other, not saying anything but exchanged looks before they walked away from the shed, silent after what they found. It’s going to take a good courage to tell others what they have discovered yet they are worried whoever disembowled him will be still with them as they know.

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okeymakeydude · 4 years

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Can I get some headcanons for the mercs with an overweight S/O? I've been feeling real shitty about my self-image and am in need of some validation. Maybe I'm being a bit selfish but can it be a fem S/O? To give you an idea, I'm 5 feet and four inches tall, and I weigh 210 pounds. Most of my fat is on my belly and thighs, and my breasts seem small compared to my body mass and i hate it. They're not even pretty. Just floppy n gross. Sorry if that's tmi. i just need some love from my faves.

Sorry for responding too late. Hope you like it. @tf2butgay

They would love her anyways, the way she is and how she is. I have the idea that they can see the good side of eveything, but some are better at expressing themselves than others.

If she needs help with something or feeling bad about herself. They would do anything to cheer her up and see a smile in her face and, why not? Create some plans.

Hope she likes nature or wildlife walks because it's known as a help to calm down and to find oneself. A distraction. I think Sniper and Engie would do that. They would take and show her the best places to impress her; a hill where they can see eveything, a clearing in the middle of the forest with a beautiful view of stars... An enjoyable location.

Engie'd rather have a picnic while Sniper a campsite next to his campervan, like a road trip, in case they are out for more days. Being in the middle of nowhere can be scary but they would assure her that it will help to clear the mind. It's not a simple walk, they don't just bring her there just to move her feet, nor just to observe the beauty of what we usually ignore, no, they give her the opportunity to talk without someone else listening to. Just her and him.

She can open up to them, relax and expands on her problems and the things that worry her. They would be happy to listen to her all the time and if she wants, advise her.

I'm sure Spy is fashionable, he always wants to make a good impression, and seeing his S/O feeling bad about her body or with herself, makes him prepares the next move. Now, hope she loves shopping because that will happen for all the day, they would visit the nearby malls.

He doesn't want to be there just to get her mind away of the problems at all, also to show that she can look just as beautiful in her outfit and there are a lot of advantages in each body. They only need to find em out. He couldn't help but give her some tips/advices, type of clothes that suits her better (ignoring he finds everything she wear great) and he would pay the purchases.

This is her day and he wants to see her content.

Looks like it's time to talk. Yes, some distractions are temporary but a thought can last for years and more it's about ourselves. The sooner it is discussed, the better for the person and mainly, for the mind and self-esteem because it hurts have that guilty feeling, that one that make you think 'I'm not worth it'. It's our body, our decisions and our lives, we can do whatever we want and we can change that feeling, it can be difficult but not impossible.

Demoman had a serious conversation with his mother when she heard; "I'm a black, Scottish cyclops" from him, with a big sadness in his voice and face. Believing himself to be worse than others because of it. Since then, he smiles and exclaims "Yes, i am! I'm a bloody black, scottish cyclops!", and no one can destroy his proud aura. He'd escort his S/O to a place where she feels safe and where she could express herself, he's all ears, and he would try to recommend.

Scout also had problems with his body when he was younger, he was skinny, not that skinny but enough to be ridiculed or teased by others. Some comparing him with a skeleton. His mother's been through a lot with her other children and it was the same with him, one heart-to-heart was enough to change things. Scout'd do the same with his partner, exchange some words and advise her and if she needs help, he will try everything he can.

Heavy is the most serious about this, as soon as he heard how she hates her own body, he took her gently by the hand and carried her as far as possible. Where only the two of them were and no one else. "Why you no like yourself? What happened?" He'd get worried immediately and want to know all the reasons why she's feeling like this. That hurts him but the only thing he can do is listening to her and support her.

Now, it's turn for Not-the-best-but-at-least-trying guys; Medic, Soldier and Pyro. Yes, these ones may react a biiit rudely at first, like "Well, it's your body, it's you who must change that, i can't do nothing." Ignoring that Pyro would just stare at her completely in silence for a few minutos, wondering what to do.

Medic would be 'cold' at first: "are you bad with your body? Oh, don't worry, liebling. There's nothing better than an operation to fix things!". He can't help but be more 'Medic' than a partner with his S/O. If she doesn't accept that, he would offer different solutions to help her to feel better or get a goal, he tried his best, he loves her so much but can't confort her at all about that term as he'd like do.

"That excuse doesn't work on me, lady!" Soldier yelled while he was pointing her with the finger. Yep, he doesn't believe what he's hearing from his S/O. He's sure that everyone has the same advantages and disadvantages and, complaining is just a way to avoid doing something, he's not buying it. If he can do a tour of 1600 hours, she can too, if someone can be pretty, she is too or even prettier, no one is worse or better than others. He doesn't want to hear that she hates herself, ever again.

Pyro, well, eh... Like said before, they would just look at her, at her soul, for few minutes, thinking what to do. They feel unhappiness when they perceive how downhearted their love is about herself, yes, they could comfort her and they would do it until see a smile in her face. She looks beautiful smiling. But then, they just pick up a lighter and shrug their shoulders, "Do you want to burn something?"

MASTERLIST.

@tf2butgay

#team fortress 2 #tf2 request #tf2 headcanons #tf2 scout #tf2 spy #tf2 engineer #tf2 sniper #tf2 medic #tf2 demoman #tf2 soldier #tf2 pyro #tf2 heavy #tf2 #TF2

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thetriggeredhappy · 4 years

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I absolutely love your writing! If you're taking requests, could you maybe do a speeding bullet soulmate au?

thanks a lot pal! and sure thing, i’ve actually had something half-finished in my drafts for soulmate!au for a while. in this AU, it’s the classic “your first words to your soulmate are written on your wrist”, with a minor twist–if your soulmate’s words are on your left hand, that means you will need to speak first. if it’s on the right, then your soulmate is the one who has to speak first before you say your words. this adds a little bit of clarity in-universe, since you can see your phrase is something simple like “how can i help you” and if you’re speaking second you can shoot them back with something buckwild. it can lead to people being more or less extroverted–knowing your line comes second means you can say whatever without being worried that it’ll be written on some poor sap’s skin, and knowing your line comes first means you don’t have that luxury. also limitations like “must be speaking exclusively to that one person” (unless polyamory), “can’t be through a phone or writing”, and “must be identifiable as the person” (do with that what you please). anyways, i like soulmate AUs and put a lot of thought into them.

actual fic is below the cut, and again, you’re very kind

”Are you doing alright, mate?”

To be honest, that wasn’t the worst line that Jeremy could’ve gotten, but fuckin’ seriously.

It wasn’t as bad as his brother Joey, he had “Your shoe’s untied” on the left, and Petey got the nightmare scenario and just got “Hey, how’s your day?” on the right, but the thing that really frustrated him was that it wasn’t even the reaction phrase. That was the opening phrase, meaning they had to say that to him first before he could respond with his own line, and if they were asking if he was doing alright that had to mean something bad was gonna happen and he’d probably look stupid in front of his soulmate and not have a good response or whatever because he’d just, like, fallen in the harbor or something.

Turned out, by the time Jeremy was twelve, he was starting to find out that bad things happening to him was gonna be a consistent issue. He had bad luck, worse than all his brothers combined, and over the course of all that time he got an awful lot of “Are you okay, dude?” and “Are you alright?” from a lot of people. But none of them ever got it exactly right,

missing the crucial few words, nobody ever saying “mate”. Nobody ever asking him that in a voice that felt dark orange.

“Y’know,” his Ma said to him one day when he was sulking, twenty-two and still soulmate-less and with a terrible time at job hunting to boot considering his most recent cast, luckily on his left arm so he could still glare at his mark. “It does have a hint at least.”

“That I’m gonna be a total klutz forever?” Jeremy sulked.

“That your soulmate isn’t gonna be an American, sweetheart,” his Ma corrected gently. “He’s probably gonna be British, or Irish, something like that. They’re the only ones who say “mate”, right?”

“Didn’t you also think my dad was gonna be a Canadian?” he asked suspiciously.

“Honey, I’m not magic, I don’t know everything. I thought it was unrealistic to think it would be someone actually from France,” she said, a little haughty.

She was one of the lucky people to get a really specific phrase, in a language that wasn’t her own no less. It was in French, and when he’d asked as a kid what it said, she’d laughed and said it meant “I promise I had a much more intelligent line to say, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it.”

She always said his dad had died, and worn the traditional covering to show that someone’s soulmate was dead, to hide where the words had gone black. But once or twice he’d glimpsed her wrist, and to be honest, the words looked more navy blue.

“Why the heck am I gonna talk to a British person?” Jeremy asked, sulking again.

“World works in mysterious ways, J-Bear,” his Ma shrugged.

She was right. Because a few months later, he was in a particularly terrible situation, and he received a phone call asking if he wanted a job.

”I’m seriously, actually, 100% going to murder you.”

It hadn’t shown up until he was four years old, which Mick’s parents had a bloody field day with, and once they were good and tired of dealing with that conundrum they moved right along to address the fact that in reply to whatever their son was going to say, he was going to promptly be threatened.

Great.

He ended up baking under the sun just like everyone else in his god-forsaken country, which only made the bright, cherry-red phrase stand out all the better. His mum tried to be supportive, honest she did, but even getting bullied at school every other day never led to him finding anyone, and she wasn’t all that surprised when at age nineteen he packed up the bare essentials and left home without a word.

He had an idea in his head. He’d heard before of people, terrible people, who used the idea of soulmate to do… bad things. To manipulate people, to make them stay in bad relationships because they thought this one person could and would solve all their problems. And if his soulmate’s first words to him were a threat…

He’d admit if he was asked that he was a lonely person. He didn’t ever seem to fit with anyone. Nobody ever seemed to understand what he meant once he started actually talking, being honest. And he didn’t know if he would have the strength to get out of a bad situation if he was promised up front that this person would understand him. He was pretty sure he would put up with a lot of bad things just for the sake of genuine connection.

So he decided he wouldn’t ever find his soulmate. He’d go off to do hunting and tracking in fuckall nowhere and nobody would ever bother him and he’d never need to deal with a soulmate. He didn’t need one. He’d be fine alone.

When he eventually turned to killing people for money, some part of him deep down wondered if he was just getting too lonely and giving in to what fate had in store for him. If becoming an assassin was the most pathetic, fucked-up bid for someone’s love that had ever happened in history. People did threaten to kill him a lot in that line of work. And more often, people actually tried.

Eventually he got a job offer out in America, more consistent pay and all for the same job, less moving around required, and he took it. He was getting up there in years, and he had a feeling that if he hadn’t found his soulmate by the time he hit thirty, he never would.

Jeremy got a new name: Scout. And his new coworkers—“teammates”, as the very pretty lady who unfortunately didn’t ask if he was doing alright had specified to him—were from all over the place. And he’d had high hopes for a minute as he realized one of his teammates was Scottish, but when he spoke face-to-face with the guy he’d instead greeted him with a cheerful “Pleasure to meet you, lad!” and his reply of “Yo, so you’re the Demoman?” had elicited exactly no response, so that was a bust.

He spoke to the Pyro, as briefly as possible since they freaked him out, but they’d similarly not seemed to react to what he first said to them, and neither had any of the rest of the team. Hell, the Heavy had outright brushed him off up front and the Sniper had given him exactly one up-and-down before he’d left entirely.

So cool. Great. New job with people who didn’t care. Nice.

And he found out more and more as time passed that they very much didn’t care. Most of the team could hardly tolerate him for more than ten minutes at a time, Spy he could barely put up with for two sentences, and even though he eventually got to be better friends with Pyro, and Engie eventually started putting up with him more, they still got annoyed with him pretty quickly. Pyro basically ignored him once they reached their limit, and Engie would essentially kick him out of his workshop.

And… to be honest, he didn’t feel totally comfortable talking to them about certain stuff. He felt a little bit like he’d get laughed at. And his once-every-two-weeks phone call home sometimes wasn’t enough to deal with various stresses and he usually was more interested in hearing their news than complaining anyways.

He didn’t know why he went out to the watchtower. Maybe because he was out for a run and it just happened to be in his line of sight. Maybe because it occurred to him that Sniper could keep a secret, wouldn’t tell the guys about whatever he ended up talking about. Maybe because he felt like he didn’t really have any other options.

Anyways, he ended up climbing the watchtower, asking Sniper if it would bug him if Scout sat around and hung out for a while. Sniper didn’t reply, just glancing at Scout over his shoulder briefly before returning to his scope. And then Scout made it exactly three minutes before he started in on talking. “I dunno I just think it’s funny that Spy thinks I’m rude when he’s always the one starting shit for no reason—“

And Sniper didn’t interrupt him, didn’t say anything, didn’t chase him off. He sat there, staring down his scope, occasionally pausing to take a drink of his coffee, for about two hours. Two hours of Scout just talking, thinking out loud.

It was nice. So nice that Scout cut himself off, eventually said goodbye and left the tower again, sure that Sniper would get tired of him and he’d never be allowed back up there again.

It became a weekly thing, every Monday Scout would go up there and talk to Sniper. Talk at Sniper, more like. And Sniper would listen.

One of the days, Scout said something, something he couldn’t even remember, because it was overshadowed by the thing that immediately followed it—Sniper laughing.

He’d never heard Sniper laugh before, he didn’t think. Not in the real way, anyhow. Sniper didn’t talk much. He’d occasionally mention something over the comms, and once or twice Scout heard him cheering along with the rest of the team when they won a match, but overall, he was a man of few words. So getting him to laugh…

He thought about it a lot.

Sniper didn’t entirely get why Scout started talking to him.

He tried so hard—so hard—to be left alone. He put on a scowl and wore the brim of his hat low and carried his knife off the clock and didn’t say hello or goodbye. He wanted to be left alone. He deserved to be left alone.

Scout, apparently, didn’t notice. And halfway through Sniper trying to figure out what to say to get the kid to leave, he started telling some story about his brothers back home, and…

He never got around to it. He never… got around to telling him to leave. And once Scout had that foothold, had that… constant nature, that consistency, once Sniper knew to expect him every Monday two hours after the team dinner or half an hour before sunset—whichever came first—he found himself…

God damn it. Enjoying Scout’s company. He liked some of the phrases Scout used. He talked in an interesting way. It was pleasant to listen to. And he was honest, uncomfortably honest at times. He told Sniper about all sorts of things that he figured it was safe to say nobody else knew about.

He talked about his family. His mum. His dad, who died, and then later he corrected himself to say his dad, who disappeared, who probably left, words in navy and not in black. He talked about growing up in the bad part of town, about never being allowed to walk home from school without at least one of his older brothers there until he was eight, when he started carrying a knife on him because sometimes none of his brothers showed up for him, until he was twelve, when he just started running there and back every day after baseball practice to save the trouble. About shoplifting, about getting a job delivering newspapers the second he was legally allowed to, about older brothers going in to work sick and Ma working two jobs to try and support them all when they got too sick for work, too sick for anything for a while. About what he did with his paycheck—he kept some pocket change for himself, to buy records sometimes, or posters, or snack foods for when dinner sucked, or fast food or drinks at the bar when he had time on the weekends. The rest of it—every goddamn penny—went back home. One day, maybe his Ma would never have to work again.

He wanted to tell Scout about his own sad life story. Climbing up the tree outside school and throwing rocks at the bullies who chased him, starting to skip classes and smoke towards the end of his schooling just to try and look a little more intimidating. About his dad scoffing at him when he tended to use a gun to chase off predators from their flock of sheep instead of fighting them hand-to-hand like a good Australian. About running away from all of his problems, and how killing animals, especially people, seemed to be the only thing he was ever any good at, and how sometimes that really did bother him, a lot.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t convince himself that Scout cared, somehow. Visits jumped up to twice a week, Monday and Thursday, same time. It was hot for a while, and he went into town one Sunday to pick up two cases of beer, hauled a cooler up into the watchtower, and left three beers next to where Scout sat and three next to himself about ten minutes before the kid showed up. When it started getting cold at night, he brought up his own quilt like he always did, but brought up the spare as well, left that on what he’d mentally started thinking of as Scout’s Crate. Scout drank the beers, and used the blanket, and would talk for his two hours and then say goodbye and not mention anything to Sniper when they went out to battle the next day.

It…

He didn’t like that he enjoyed it so much. He didn’t like looking forward to it, didn’t like perking up when he heard the ladder rattling, didn’t like hanging on to every word and the increasing frequency at which Scout was making him laugh. He didn’t like how much harder it got every time to bite his lip and hold back from chiming in.

He was a killer, he reminded himself. A hermit from absolutely nowhere Australia who didn’t deserve the company of other people. This was the best thing that could’ve happened to him, and he couldn’t push his luck. If he pushed his luck, then he’d drive Scout away and be left alone again. Scout only talked to him because he was quiet anyways, because he was a mystery. Remove the mystery, and the draw would be gone, and he’d be all alone again. Already this was selfish; he should just shut up and be grateful.

He stared down his scope and drank his coffee and was grateful.

A bad day at work, followed by a bad weekend, had Scout hesitating at the base of the watchtower.

Some part of him was rational, and knew he was being ridiculous. But another, stronger part of him couldn’t seem to make his feet move, was repeating a steady mantra to him.

Not wanted.

Sniper didn’t like him. Sniper didn’t want him around. Sniper was just too polite to turn him away, too nice, and was annoyed with his constant talking and wished he would go away but didn’t have the courage, didn’t want to be rude. He wasn’t wanted. Or maybe Sniper just pitied him, maybe Sniper just heard his assorted sob stories and thought, man, poor little idiot kid, might as well set out a blanket for him and let him talk. Maybe Sniper was collecting everything he said for blackmail.

The worst idea to run through his head: maybe Sniper had never been listening to him in the first place.

If Sniper wanted him around, he would’ve said something, right?

Scout didn’t go up into the watchtower that day, or the following Thursday. He didn’t bother looking for Sniper in battle, sure that Sniper would be ignoring him the same way he always did, pretending he didn’t exist the same way he always did.

When he went to the store that weekend, hoping to pick up some chips and soda, he found himself staring at a six-pack of beer. He didn’t even particularly like beer, usually, he preferred other drinks. But he was looking at this six-pack of beer, and he wound up buying it.

It wasn’t some cheap garbage, it was craft beer. It was more expensive.

He drank exactly three of the six and tried not to think about it.

Scout was gone. He never showed up. Sniper ended up getting so freaked out about it that he went to check the Medbay, sure that something bad had happened. Medic was there, working on something bloody, but not Scout. And Scout wasn’t in the workshop either, or the workout room, or the rec room. He got a lot of strange looks from his teammates as he asked around. For some, it was the most he’d spoken to them in months.

He was halfway to Scout’s room when he realized he was probably being strange, manic. Scout was allowed to not want to come visit him. He wasn’t offering anything. In all the time—six months, he realized, they’d been doing this for six months—that Scout had visited, all he really had to gain was Sniper occasionally humming or laughing, and exactly three beers on the hotter days and a tobacco-scented blanket in the winter. There was no reason for Sniper to expect him to show up on the little schedule that had been established. He started to feel silly.

Then he didn’t show up on Thursday either, and…

He felt worried, of course he felt worried, obviously he felt worried. One of the only good things to ever happen to him, and it just stopped showing up one day. And he wanted it back. God, he wanted it back. Two days and he already felt more lonely than he ever felt in his life. Maybe having felt even the smallest glimmer of companionship had made him soft, but damn it, he wanted to feel it again.

He made a decision.

Scout was lacing up his shoes before battle on Monday when a pair of boots stopped in front of him. This wasn’t strange. What was strange was that it wasn’t the calm amble of Engie, the sturdy stride of Heavy, the confident stomp of Soldier, or the crisp stride of Medic. No, it was an awkward shuffle. A rough clearing of a throat. He looked up, and it was Sniper.

He froze up. “Uh,” he said. “Hi.”

Sniper was looking at him. That was strange. In something like 95% of their interactions, Sniper was facing away from him down a scope, occasionally viewed in profile as he took a sip of beer or coffee, depending on the weather. And the other times were in battle itself, both of them otherwise preoccupied. But now Sniper was looking at him, thumbs shoved in his front pockets. After a second he moved to take off his sunglasses and immediately glanced off to one side, tapping them against his palm.

It looked like a nervous tick. This was strange. Sniper was never like this. Scout was confused.

Sniper glanced towards the rest of the team, all a short ways away, chatting amongst themselves at various volumes. When he spoke, his voice was rough and low and quiet. If Scout had to describe it, he would call it a dark orange.

“Are you doing alright, mate?” he asked, tone hesitant.

Scout remained frozen. Stared. Stared.

“It’s just,” Sniper continued, stumbling awkwardly with his words, unable to make further eye contact with Scout. “You haven’t come around in a while, and I suppose I just got… worried, that something happened—“

Scout got to his feet, whirled around, and angrily started digging through his locker, jaw clenched. He eventually pulled forth a pocket knife and angrily started ripping the grip tape from his right hand. He didn’t say a word.

“I’m sorry,” Sniper said quickly, holding up his hands, taking a step back. “I, I just thought it was odd is all, I didn’t know if—“

Scout silenced him by holding his now-bare wrist directly in Sniper’s line of sight, a few inches from his face, Sniper flinching back minutely at the motion. When he realized what he was looking at, his eyes widened. He looked at Scout. Scout looked at him.

“I’m seriously, actually, 100% going to murder you,” Scout said calmly, matter-of-factly, and Sniper had never thought about it before, but he would absolutely describe Scout’s voice as a bright red. Shaking hands moved to undo his watch, and he held his own wrist, the left, out for Scout to see.

Silence for a few seconds. “I—“ Sniper started to say, but was cut off by Scout.

“I cannot believe that you’ve never once since I’ve met you ever talked one-on-one with me. You’ve never said a fuckin’ word to me, Snipes,” Scout said, more than a little pissed off.

“I didn’t realize,” Sniper defended, a little weakly. “I thought… I thought I had.”

“Man, how many people can say they fuckin’ monologued to their soulmate for hours and hours before meeting them, huh?” Scout asked, hands on his hips now.

“I’m sorry,” was all Sniper could think to say.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Scout declared, glaring at Sniper hard. “I’m gonna meet you after work like usual at the watchtower, and you’re takin’ me to go get pizza, and I’m gonna eat pizza while you talk about yourself. You’ve got about—“

He did some math in his head.

“Somethin’ like sixty hours or so of talkin’ to do to make it even,” he decided. “Got it?”

“Got it,” Sniper agreed weakly. Scout moved to sit down and start lacing his shoes up again, but before he could get to it, Sniper spoke again. “I’m… glad you’re okay.”

Scout looked back up at him. The sudden influx of nervous honesty on Sniper’s face made him feel surprisingly guilty. “Sorry. I just… got all up in my own head. I figured I was probably pissing you off, so I stopped going.” A pause. “I wasn’t pissing you off?”

“No,” Sniper replied. “Not at all. I… liked… having you around.”

Scout fought hard against the smile threatening to take hold. “Good to know,” he finally said.

“And I should’ve said something earlier,” Sniper continued, words flowing forth in a rush. “I should’ve told you, I should’ve—let you know. I really should’ve.”

“Well,” Scout shrugged, and finished tying his laces up, and stood to face Sniper head-on. “Now you told me.”

A pause between them, Sniper clearly working very hard to maintain eye contact.

“It doesn’t have to be pizza,” Scout amended, picking at his remaining hand’s worth of grip tape. “It can be anything. I just wanna hang out, like, away from base.”

“Like a date?” Sniper asked, slowly, hesitantly.

“Sure,” Scout shrugged.

A pause again. “Pizza’s fine,” Sniper seemed to decide.

“Alright,” Scout said, and smiled at him. “Alright. I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah,” Sniper agreed, and took his cue to walk away. He stood off to one side of the rest of the team, moving to take a drink of his coffee. His wrist caught his eye, and he looked over the words again, and for the first time in his life, they didn’t bring him dread. They brought him hope.

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #speeding bullet #sniperscout #my fanfiction #shut up me #everybody talks #sorry if parts of this are a little weird or hard to read I'm in a weird brainspace today #requests sometimes help keep me distracted at least

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my-tf2-writing-place · 4 years

Note

Mercs reacting to s/o proposing to them with a puppy

Mercs Reaction to s/o proposing with a puppy

(Took me awhile but I GOT IT! Also it gave me an excuse to look at dogs. I loved this ask so much)

Offense

Scout: Was out playing with his baseball. He through it up and down but soon got tired of it so he threw it pretty far. He watched as the ball hit a rock and it went around the corner of the base. He sprinted over to where the ball had landed, but stopped dead in his track at what he saw. A Beagle puppy was gnawing on his ball, licking it every now and then. Scout slowly went up to it and squatted down, a joyful smile on his face. “‘Ey there, little guy! What are you doing all the way out here?” He asked. The pup only looked up at him and softly barked. A whistle was heard in front of Scout and the pup walked over to the source. It was his s/o. Scout’s smile grew. He stood up and walked over to them, wrapping his arms around them. “Was the little guy your doing?” He asked them. They nodded.

“I know I told ya I’ve been wanting a companion like that but I didn’t think ya would do it.” He said. He pressed his forehead against theirs.

“But there is a bigger thing as to why I got him..” they admitted. Scout’s brow rose and he moved himself back as they moved out of his grasp. He watched as they reached into their pocket, then picked up the tiny beagle. The pup licked them as he grew more and more excited, as if he knew what was happening.

Scout’s eyes widened when he realized what you had. “You... you’re serious? For me?” He felt tears well up in his eyes, but he tried his best to keep them from slipping down his cheek. His s/o nodded wit a soft smile. They opened the box and the tears rolled down, Scout couldn’t be happier.

“Yes! A hundred times, YES!” He then pulled his s/o into a loving and passionate kiss.

Soldier: Was out training as per usual. He was on the ground doing push-ups, sit-ups, and other training tactics to keep himself in best physical shape! That helmet of his stayed in the way of his sight, because a small pup managed to catch him off guard. He immediately stopped and sat up.

“What commie is here to take me on?!” He had a stern look on his face. He took his helmet off to see better and what he saw caused a huge grin to appear. An American Bulldog pup was tugging at one of his pant legs. He almost immediately picked the dog up and held it close. He gently pet the pup and let it lick him, causing a chuckle to come from Soldier.

He soon looked up and saw his s/o.

“Cupcake! You will not believe what I have just found!” He said enthusiastically.

“Oh, I believe I do. And it looks like the little guy has got something else.

Soldier’s brow rose before he looked down and saw the open box.

“Cupcake! I was going to do this! Take it back!” He said, “That is an order!” The pup barked after he had finished.

His s/o playfully rolled their eyes and let Soldier propose to them. Of course, they said yes.

Pyro: Pyro was playing with one of the lighters once again. Flicking it every once in awhile as the other mercs went about their day. They were in their room, minding their own business. A small knock was heard at the door. A muffled “come in” came from them. His s/o slowly opened the door and closed it once they stepped in. “Hey, Pyro.. I uh. Wanted to ask you something,” his s/o said. They walked over to Pyro and held out a tiny Dalmatian puppy. Pyro gasped at the sight of such a cute little thing. They held their hands out to take the dog from their grasp, in which his s/o happily let them have. “That wasn’t the thing I wanted to do though, it’s um... well,” his s/o was stuttering every now and then, something was making them nervous. They didn’t know what until they saw a small box now in their grasp. They gasped once again, and set the puppy down. Pyro got up and moved closer to them. They took their mask off completely and looked at his s/o. “Y-you...” his s/o slightly nodded and opened the box. Pyro’s hand went up to their face, covering it as a few tears of joy slipped from their eyes, rolling down their cheeks.

“I don’t know what to say..”

“Say yes.” Their s/o said. Pyro took their hands from their cheeks and nodded, a quick “yes” coming from them as well. They pulled their s/o close and hugged them, they planted a small kiss on the top of their head as well.

Defense

Demoman: Man was laying on the couch in the common area, minding his own business as he drank whiskey straight from the bottle. He sat in a tank top and his kilt. He was starting to fall asleep when a wet lick to his face woke him up, “Aye! The bloody hell was that-“

He was interrupted by the sight of a Scottish Deerhound puppy looking up at him. He gently brought his hand up and pet the pup. “Aww, you’re just a wee little thing, aren’t ya..?” He smiled.

He soon felt arms wrap around his neck from behind the couch he sat on, the soft kiss to his temple made him instantly know who it was.

“Did you do this..?” He asked.

They smiled and nodded. “Look at what else the pup has, love...”

And so he did, he looked and saw the pup had picked up a small black box. Demo carefully took it from the dog and opened it. His eye widened. His s/o had gotten in front of him and knelt down.

Demo smiled widely and pulled his s/o to him, causing them to end up on the couch as well. “Of course! Yes!

Heavy: The Giant Russian was out polishing his precious gun. He carefully handled his gun, rotating the barrels and continuing to polish it. He was focused on this, until he felt something press against his leg. He stopped and looked down at the weight that leaned against him, it was a Caucasian Mountain Dog. It looked like a giant fuzz ball at first but it’s head popped up to look at him. A soft whine came from it, Heavy gently picked the pup up with his large hands. “Where did little puppy come from?” He asked himself.

Soon his question was answered seeing his s/o with a small box in hand come over to him. He smiled at them. They stayed clear of his precious gun and leaned over to kiss his cheek. Heavy’s free hand went up to their cheek.

“Heavy knows what you are about to do.. and Heavy says yes, for you. And...” he held up the small pup, “For the little one as well. His s/o’s gentle laugh filled his ears.

Engineer: He was out enjoying the night, guitar in hand, gently brushing his hand against the strings to play a little tune. He smiled to himself as he continued. As the time played, a soft howl came with it. The engineer’s eyes widened a little as he turned around to find the source. It was his s/o with what looked like a fuzzball in their arms. As they got closer, he realized it was a Golden Retiever puppy. A soft “Aww” came from the Texan. He kept his gaze on them as they sat down beside him with the pup in hand.

“Aw shucks, darlin’... You didn’t have to.” He said.

“I did, you mean a lot to me.. and I have a little something else to go with this little pup.” They said. They then lifted up the pup and Engie saw there was a small note on its collar. He carefully took it and read it, while he wasn’t paying attention his s/o got down onto one knee in front of him. Engie looked up at them after reading it.

They opened the box and asked “Will you marry me?” The Texan was awestruck due to someone doing this for him.

He nodded, “Yes, how can I say no to someone like you..” he smiled. His s/o soon has the same soft expression, they leaned down and kissed his forehead. Engineer took the pup into his arms as he night went on, him and his s/o had their time of happiness and peace.

Support

Medic: Medic being the busy man he is, was in the Med bay, dealing with papers and the mercs coming in every now and then. When he heard the med bays doors open once again, he groaned. Archimedes flew to who it was causing Medic to look up, seeing it was his s/o. He softly smiled through his somewhat tired expression. But his smile fell once he heard a small bark from behind their back, his brow rose. His gaze stayed glued to his s/o’s eyes and they seemed to get a bit nervous. “What was that, Taube?” He asked. The next thing he saw was a Black and brown dachshund puppy was held in their hands. His eyes widened when he saw the little thing, speechless really.

“There was something I wanted to ask you..” his s/o said shyly. The puppy had managed to get a small box from his s/o before they could notice, and Medic watched as it happened. He reached out his hand and the puppy dropped it. His s/o gasped and watch Medic quickly open it. “Taube... are you..” his gaze returned back up to them. They lowered their head and nodded. Medic set the box down and gently took the puppy from their hand, setting it down on his desk. Archimedes immediately flew to the pup and started to examine it, before snuggling up to it. Medic walked around his desk to his s/o, wrapping his arms around them, placing a gentle kiss on their head. “Of course, Liebling... How can I say no..” they heard the joyful tone in his voice as he spoke, causing a bright smile to grow on their face.

Sniper: The Bushman was outside of his Camper Van, watching the sun set. He was enjoying the peacefulness of nature. The small breeze, the faint noises of the area. Peace and quiet. His silence was broken by a small bark, his gaze shot over to where the source was. A small chocolate Labrador Retriever ran over to him. “Bloody hell...” When the pup made it over to where he sat, he carefully picked it up and held it. The small pup gently licked him, and a few more soft barks came from it. A chuckle came from the Aussie, “Now where did a little thing like you come from?” He asked. The small pup had a note attached to its collar. He carefully took it off of it as the pup laid down on his lap. He read over it, he knew too well who this was from, the Bushman couldn’t help but blush at the words on the paper. His s/o soon walked up to him.

Sniper watched as they came closer, “Mate, I...” He didn’t know what to say, especially when they brought out that small box.Sniper gently set the pup down and got up. He looked down at his s/o and pulled them into a hug, kissing their temple as well. “You did all this... for me?” He asked, his voice cracking as he held back a tear or two.

“How could I not? You mean everything to me.” They responded. All Sniper could do was nod as a response to it all. He was the happiest he had been in a while.

Spy: He was in his smoking room when this. He heard the open and close, he looked over and saw a little puppy waddling towards him. He raised his brow and got up to look at the pup, in a closer inspection, he sees it’s a poodle. A small cream colored poodle, with a small box in its mouth and a note attached to its collar. He gently took the small box and note. He silently read the not, as the puppy laid down near the fireplace in the room. Spy’s eyes widened when he finished reading.

Little did he know that his s/o was in the room, silently watching, hoping he would accept their proposal. Silence rang through the room, his s/o felt a bit discouraged by it but their worries were soon brought to ease once they saw him pick up the ring and smile. They walked up to him, and before they could speak a soft “yes, mon amour..” was heard from him.

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icefir-windbreaker · 5 years

Text

All-Stars -Story Mode- [CHAPTER 5]

Here comes Chapter 5 from the story! I had done this awhile ago and it seemed like that now. Enjoy:

[EDITED]

-Later on after 12 hours passed…-

Demoman was sleeping in his bed, passed out drunk for close to 12 hours, nearly to 13 if longer, ‘’what a nap!’’ I wrote here.

Demoman, his real name being Tavish Finnegan DeGroot, heard a hammer hitting from outside of his room and it caused Demoman’s eyes-er, eye to flutter opened, his brown eye now opened as he come to terms of the realization that it’s 4:00 in the morning, he listened for a moment for the sound and sure enough it did, so he just layed back down on the bed.

he tried to go back to sleep but the sound of hammer hitting the nail had persisted through from outside his room, causing the black Scottish man to groan in annoyance and then getting out of his warm bed as his head swirls from a hangover he had last night. He grabbed his eye-patch and then tied on his left eye that had been lost as he thought ‘’Who in the bloody hell would be makin’ noises in 4:00 o’clock in the morning?’’

He jumped when a thunderbolt crackled from the sky, he groaned ‘’Bloody hell…Not right now storm…’’ and then in nothing but a tank-top and boxers, he stumbled out of his dorm room and then into the hallway to get to the main room that has the nearest exit.

He stumbled to the door as he place both hands on it to steady his balance while he muttered “Engie, keep that racket down...!”, then he goes to the doorknob then turns it, opening the door and letting himself through it and into the lobby, he was expecting Engineer was working on his one of his building but what he didn’t expect is to find his team with four men he had never seen before all in the lobby together, boarding up the windows as his eye went wide open upon seeing this.

Two doctors and Engineer are at the table with a corpse wearing a nazi uniform and it appeared to be it had been into some kind of accident. Medic said ‘’Und it brought zhem back to life?’’ to Richtofen who nodded as he takes a blood sample with a syringe.

‘’Of course, 115 may be solution for power and making veapons warfare but it can be like a virus if you’re exposed to it or having it injected into you with too much doses.’’

‘’If a rock of it is in you?’’ Engineer questioned as he cutted it’s liver out with a scalpel.

‘’If it’s been shoved in you, there’s a slight chance of you turning one of zhem or become a superbeing if not two rocks at once, Nazis had once tried zhis und it’s the result of two rocks in one body.’’ Richtofen answered as he handed it to Medic.

‘’But uh, it’s dead right? I mean ‘’Dead dead’’ dead right?’’ Scout asked as he rubbed his arm up and down uncomfortable when he’s seeing a corpse of a zombie in the lobby with them.

‘’Unless you cut of its head or destroy it Scout.’’ Takeo said as he clean his katana sword with a cloth while he sat down.

‘’Yes… Of course we will… What?! They are after you for… Fantastic….’’ Spy spoke on the phone as he’s taking a cigarette between his fingers. Demoman was completely speechless upon seeing this, he was in shock and he had no idea what to do as he became fully sober enough during this till Scout noticed him and said ‘’Hey! Look who woke up!’’

Everyone looked at Demoman in unison, Takeo was ready to fight but Nikolai stopped him as he held his hand out to halt.

‘’Morning Demoman!’’ Soldier greeted as Scout said ‘’It’s still night Sol.’’

Demoman finally snapped out of his shock as he finally found the words for him to say it out, he yelled ‘’BLOODY HELL!! What is that thing?!!’’ as he points at the corpse, demanding answers from anyone in the room.

Suddenly, Spy then groans in frustration ‘’UGH! Alright fine!” before ending the call with her and then putting it away in his hidden coat pocket then turning to everyone and saying “She says we have to hurry.’’ as Heavy looked over at Spy with concern, ‘’Mrs. Pauling said that? Where was she? Is she alright?’’ he asked to the Frenchman.

‘’Yes, she is but she is now hiding from some type of otherworldly army she called ‘’The Helghast” with a ruthless colonel named ‘’Colonel Mael Radec’’ or someone other who now out looking for her so,’’ Spy turns to face everyone again ‘’This may be or not be worse than those dead things outside but now we are her only hope of rescue.’’

‘’Could someone tell me what is going on?!’’ Demo demanded with anger toning his voice, then a knocking came from the door winch nearly jumped and were going for their guns but they hear Sniper’s voice calling out like an alarm.

‘’It’s me! Let me in!’’

Heavy undid the board that was keeping the door close to prevent the dead from getting in, opening the door for Sniper to get in and when they looked at him, with ripped vines and flower petals all over him a little bit, he looked like he had gone to a garden that been created by none other than the Devil himself. ‘’I’m sorry mates, I couldn’t reach the bloody train…’’

‘’What? What happened?’’ Takeo questioned with concerned and worry had printed on his face, Sniper grabbed one vine that is on his right shoulder and threw it on the ground as he said ‘’I know this is crazy for me to say but a big deadly flower had blocked the way, I fought back but it just kicked my a@# and handed it to me with no trouble at all!’’

Now Dempsey isn’t the only one that everyone thought had finally gone crazy, he said ‘’Are you serious?’’

‘’Aye, unlike the man with a dice for a he-’’

‘’DON’T start it up Sniper.’’

‘’Speaking of deadly flowers, are you alright Sniper?’’ Nikolai said as Pyro got up and handed Sniper their blanket with ducks on it they had covering them, Sniper grasped lightly on the cloth as he looked down ‘’’’Define‘’ Alright Nik… Thanks Pyro.’’

‘’You’re welcome!’’ Pyro mumthed.

‘’Can we all make this quick please? I want to be paid very quick and well for this job.’’ Spy stated as Scout walked by with a bat on his shoulder as he muttered ‘’If we survive…’’

‘’UGH!! First ve’ve been sent to medieval times in zhe Middle Ages period und now this!’’ Medic declared angrily as he threw both the scalpel and the blood-filled syringe but luckily Engineer caught it by it’s plunger thankfully not the tipped needle as he yelled ‘’Doc!’’

Engineer held it as Medic calmed down then puts the cap on the needle so they could use it later for research then looked at the Medic.

‘’It’s not really everyone’s fault for this, it’s not like the last time after what the other Doctor told us.’’ the Taxen assured him, Demoman’s went wide as he closed the door upon hearing what was happening while he was asleep.

‘’No way! Did we travel back in time again?!’’ Demoman exclaimed towards the two genius, ‘’Nein, zhis may like it but in the other zhis time Demoman.’’ Medic explained as he retrieved the scalpel but Engineer steadied him to hestaition as he said ‘’That’s quite enough for right now Doc.’’

‘’And you must be Demoman?’’ Takeo asked as he looked at the black scottish man with an eyepatch, ‘’Aye, who is asking ye? Are ye with--’’

‘’It’s alright Demo, they’re with us for right now man.’’ Scout said as he held his hands up to gesture to him to calm down. ‘’True, they became our allies after they helped us killed these undead rotten ugly creatures known as--’’ Spy said till he was cut off by Demoman saying ‘’They were zombies you killed?’’

‘’You knew what Spy was saying?’’ Dempsey asked.

‘’Me ma once told me a lot about these things and what they will do, she told me that the only way to destroy them is-’’

‘’Is to go for the bloody head, thanks, we learned that already.’’ Sniper interrupted as he looked at the Scottish with anger because he had slept through everything like a rock. ‘’Listen, vhatever happening here is something else threatening the multiverse zhan another one previously. Vinch ve are trying to figure it out right now.’’ Richtofen told them, Demoman turned to everyone with shock.

‘’Multiverse? Where are we then?! What happened here while I was asleep!?’’ Demoman demanded, Medic turned and walked over to the Scottish with an angry expression and said ‘’You didn’t zhink zhat we vould be zhe same predicament as you?! Ve vere fighting vave after vave of zombies zhat tried to kill us for zhe past 12 hours! I am just surprised your own bombs didn’t voke you up!’’

‘’Hey Doc, I was drunk! How can it be happening again?! With random people from different world this time?!’’

‘’Not only different worlds but different timelines of each universe,’’ Edward once again began ‘’I had no idea vho or vhat was bringing us here but I am sure zhat ve can stop it.’’

‘’How can we do dat when we’re the ones dat need to be savin’?’’

‘’I don’t know!’’

‘’If we got here first and already met people from different worlds across time and space, there’s no doubt that there is more to come than zombies.’’

‘’Tank’s right ‘bout that.’’ Engineer added

‘’We need to destroy the enemy before it gets more worse in this war! For the good of mankind and the universe!’’

‘’Soldier, we need help if we were going to do so.’’

‘’And we are going to need a lot of help we can get,’’ Nikolai corrected Engineer as he walked up to one of the boarded up windows, ‘’Things are going down hill from where we stood.’’ as he was looking through the wood boards he can clearly see 5 helicopters flying by across the plains just outside of the fortress as zombies took notice of them.

Everyone then go to the windows to watch the dead looking at the aircrafts going by towards the far south.

They then began to follow the copters away towards the south as others stood back and watched them leave the area with relative peace.

‘’Well, at least they are leaving us alone for frickin’ once.’’ Scout sighed in relief as Richtofen perked up ‘’For now until dawn. Best not let our hopes up high just yet.’’

Dempsey turned to everyone as he loaded his pistol once more.

‘’It is almost dawn, better be ready for what comes next.’’ Dempsey said.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It’s now 7:00 AM after three hours of sleep, as the sun slowly rises from the horizon overlooking the fortress, zombies had left the area overnight after the helicopters as they headed for the south.

*New day is here.

Back in the lobby, the group are preparing themselves for a mission to rescue their employer in distress. They talked amongst each other while they’re preparing, wondering what they will do next after she was rescued from this otherworldly army.

‘’Hey! Give dat back!’’

‘’Nah!’’

Sniper was looking at the comic that he had took from Scout’s hands awhile he chuckled, Takeo is sharpening his sword as well cleaning toff the blood off it, Nikolai is helping Engineer and Heavy packed up canned food and bottled water they will need for the trip, Engineer had invented a pocket-like device for each member in his team; he called Back-Pit, it would contained anything for survival: Tents, Weapons, clothing, food, water, anything you need when you’re going camping!

Primis Crew had never seen and used Back-Pit that Engineer had invented since they were from the early 1900’s but he shown them instructions on how to use it since he had written down notes to go with each device after he had stayed up all night working on it.

‘’Is everyone ready for this mission yet?’’ Spy said as he takes a drag of cigarette while everyone turned to face him and Medic all dressed up and ready.

They are in their usual clothing when they wore it in war games, ‘’Uh, guys? Do you think that ya be worried about getting them dirty?’’

‘’Nein herr Scout,’’ Medic answered, ‘’Besides, we can’t be mercenaries if we can’t look our best.’’ Spy added to winch Scout shrugged as he said ‘’Okay then, but don’t come crying to me when you’re all covered in mud and blood-’’

‘’We are always covered in mud and blood everyday Scout.’’ They both said as Dempsey chuckled humorlessly.

*Burned.

Scout glared at them two supporting mercs while Soldier and Demoman are looking at the weapons on the wall, then a sword sheathed on the Scottish’s back suddenly spoke up ‘’Do we really have to chop off zombies’ head?’’

‘’So, you’re bringing the Eyelander.’’ Soldier said as he looked at his friend, ‘’Aye, if I had ever ran out of ammunition, I would use him since I had own him.’’

‘’But I don’t want to chop off dead heads, I want to cut off live heads.’’ Eyelander complained as Demo’s eye turned yellow, to winch he replied ‘’Shut up ye overgrown toothpick.’’

‘’Are you sure? Your eye is turning yellow. I don’t think it’s such good idea.’’

‘’I can control him Jane, trust me.’’ Demoman assured him, then he looked over to the photo that Soldier has in his hand. ‘’And ye’re taking her photo with you on this trip.’’

‘’Yeah, I am.’’

He calmly holding the photo of Zhanna, Heavy’s sister to winch he loves when he first met her as he looks at the photo. Spy then begins to speak up ‘’Gentlemen, this is now the one thing we may have never had experience before in our lives. Never once we would’ve thought of this might happened again but differently this time with enemies we have never known. As long we will fin--’’

‘’Don’t give off the speech Spy, we don’t even know what was out there. Out there is all f*&%ed up! We’re all gonna die, over and over, this is much worse that dat!’’

‘’Don’t doubt everyone about this Private! We are going to survive this war!’’

‘’OoOoh yeah, like that would be comforting to know Soldier when these things could come back!’’

‘’If you know what was good for ya, you would shut it before you will say something ya might regret maggot!’’

‘’ENOUGH!!’’

Heavy’s yell silenced everyone in the room around him, Scout had muttered something then walks away.

‘’Yelling at each other isn’t going to help anyone in this problem, we have to be ready for war.’’ Heavy said as he tossed a backpack onto his back then turned back to face everyone ‘’And crush little dead men along the way.’’

‘’Alright then.’’

Engineer then looked over to Pyro who was holding and looking at the Ballooncorn in their hands, they looked worried as they kept looking at it. Engineer walked over to Pyro, placed his hand on their shoulder, smiled softly and said ‘’Pyro, don’t worry about him, he’ll wait for us till all of this is over and done with. Just make sure you bring ammo and warm clothes with you okay?’’

As Takeo and Nikolai looked over to the two, the sergeant wondered if Pyro was like this before. More likely long before these… events happened, ‘’Maybe they had a mind of a child.’’ he thought.

‘’Still though,’’ Spy began once more ‘’as soon after we found her and mission accomplished, 9 of us and four of them will go on our separate ways before she would notice them.’’

Dempsey looked at the French with mix of anger and confusion, ‘’Why would she notice us with-’’

‘’Mistakes you four for mercenaries and gets all of you hired? It’s what I am concerned of at the least of it.’’

‘’But ve are not mercenaries, ve are from a different plain of existence. Vhy is zhere a reason for her to-’’

‘’It’ll be based on judging your talents you’ve got, since you are from a different universe and all.’’

‘’I see.’’ Takeo said as he looked the other way as his allies does the same.

Sniper looked down as Engineer took noticed that other of his teammates is worried, so he asked ‘’Is there something wrong?’’

‘’The only way out of this area is by train, but we can’t get to it because of a bloody giant flower.’’

‘’Even through if you’re really are crazy for being alone too long or not, you are still a part of the team through the Gravel War and through when robots tried to destroy Mann Co. There’s nothing we can’t fight back Sniper.’’

Sniper looked at the Texen as his hands rested on his arms after he crossed them, he then smiled softly as he said ‘’I am willing to bet that we can still win Engie.’’

After preparing for the journey ahead, they picked up their weapons and headed out through the doors, leaving the lobby behind to find Mrs. Pauling and rescue her with a song in their hearts but just in case the zombies are still around, they stayed cautious and keep their eyes opened for anything with legs and is dead.

They had looked around as they walked passed the corpses they killed a day before and passed the Panser that tried to kill them as Demoman looked at it with curiosity. ‘’Could any one of ye explain this to me?’’ Demoman asked to the Spy who was walking beside him.

‘’The day before?’’

‘’The day before I woke up lad, please’’

‘’Well, while you were asleep, we were transported to this part of the world but in the a different dimension somehow. Then Medic met Richtofen who is the doctor like him but from a different timeline like us, then more things happened when we met Dempsey, Takeo and Nikolai long before I met them in the Respawn Room before Soldier destroys it with the RPG. when 12 of us were finished killing off the dead, the armored zombie, to switch the Samurai called it the ‘’Panzer Soldat’’ from what I can recall, came out of the sky then tried to kill us but Heavy, Medic, Scout and Engie had killed it first before it could. As much as you can tell, I know that you couldn’t believe it on what we saw, if it’s not going well with you, then your mind is more f*&$ed up than it was.’’ Spy told the black Scottish man.

‘’Ah… I see that now...’’

‘’But still, you were their demotion expert, why were you drunk on a time like this?’’

‘’I didn’t realize it was bad timing till now, I had been an alcoholic, even when my liver left me then came back. Yet I’ve still alive for you to have a sobered Demoman!’’

Nikolai looked at Demoman who had his eye closed with an confident smile with a stare before saying ‘’...And what good will come from that?’’

‘’Roasted’’ The Eyelander spoke as Demoman went wide eyed upon hearing this response from Nikolai, he turned away as he said ‘’W-well, when ye’re in the same slate as me after you sleep through the whole bloody thing, ya’ll be something like…’’ he then looked over to the a pot before saying ‘’A rock!’’

‘’Why a rock, Demoman?’’ Nikolai asked.

‘’It’s uh… represents strength a-and if it had been hit by a hammer, over and over until it breaks into a few pieces to winch… You can repair with what’s left of it into something new and making it more stronger with others for you to help.’’

Nikolai gave him a look of confusion as he said ‘’Are you sure that you are not drunk before this?’’

‘’Demoman means to say is to keeping your spirit strong despite being broken already and staying with close to your friends Nikorai.’’ Takeo corrected.

‘’Exactly lad!’’

‘’Even after the Em-’’

‘’I KNOW Nikorai and I rather not speak of it in the moment.’’ the samurai sneered as he walked faster away from the Russian and Scottish. ‘’Was there something wrong with him in the past?’’

‘’Of course, but he would keep an eye on those who would do things to betray his trust and to where the suspicions and betrayal come from; he rather not speak about it in the moment Demoman.’’ he said as he too walked fast away from Demoman to catch up to Takeo, leaving him alone with the sword on his back.

‘’In his words that the more that the walls you kept building around yourself, the harder it is for you to destroy it, even it became much more harder to do so after you had been stabbed in the back by someone you trusted the most.’’ Eyelander quoted as Demoman glared him with envy and anger ‘’Oh, now ye’re the one being wise?’’

‘’Someone needs to be teached about such things Demo, now about the heads-’’

‘’You will have the chance to do so in a moment after we deal with these zombies first Eyelander.’’ Demoman said as he kept walking to caught up with the others as they followed Sniper to where the train station is.

They expectantly to find a road clear to the railway but it was blocked off… with vines with thorns, everyone looked at the vines with confusion and curiosity. ‘’They…. Weren’t here yesterday when we were here.’’

‘’Why were there vines here man?’’

‘’I don’t know’’

‘’Something’s not right about it…’’

They whispered amongst each other as they looked around the area then at the vine, Takeo suddenly getting the feeling about these vines, they reminded him of the vines back on the island after his other self was betrayed by… No, no no. he can’t think about it right now, something else is controlling them and it’s not a Thrasher this time.

‘’Sniper?’’

‘’Yeah mate?’’

‘’Was this the ‘flower’ doing this?’’

‘’Yeah.’’

‘’If it’s really doing this, we should follow the vine to the source of this.’’ Takeo stated, Sniper nodded to this agreement as others began to think of the same thing to investigate. So they followed the vines to the railway station where they spotted something that wasn’t there before: an orange petal peeking over from the roof.

This strengthen their curiosity upon seeing the petal, why is there a orange petal peeking out from the roof? Takeo looked at the petal in confusion, he had never seen a flower that big before, not big enough to have it’s petals peeking over from the roof of a train station.

Takeo then gets a feeling that this is no normal flower and it may be dangerous as he said ‘’I now do believe this is the flower that Sniper spoke of, we need to remain cautious for this.’’

‘’I was going to say the same thing about it Takeo.’’ Spy said as he gets a revolver out from back pocket of his coat while they walked towards the entrance to the station and saw there is a giant flower but…

Meeting Cagney Carnation

Not like what Sniper had said, it’d looked like a harmless friendly giant flower as he gently held his leaf-hands to his face like he’s was very shy when he saw a group of humans came to him in full view with dumbfounded looks on their faces.

‘’Heh… Cute.’’ Scout commented as he place the bat over his shoulder.

‘’A ’Deadly Flower’ huh? Unbelievable… Un. Believable…’’ Spy groaned in disbelief.

Sniper too was in disbelief upon this discovery, this isn’t what he remembered when he first encountered him last night and as for Takeo, looked at the giant flower with shock but for a reason he held on as he looked at it, the feeling of danger gotten stronger and didn’t fade away without fail.

‘’My my…’’ Flower began to speak that startled everyone ‘’Hello there little humans!’’ with a kind cherry voice as Pyro waved hello to the flower as they mumbled ‘’hello! Who are you cute flower?’’ in an excited child voice.

‘’Oh how nice of you! My name is Cagney, Cagney Carnation.’’ the flower introduced himself, then he asked ‘’Golly, what brings you all here to this train station?’’

‘’We need to ride the train out of here Mr. Carnation. We are doing something very important so, if you could kindly move the vines away so we can be on our way.’’ Spy answered, ‘’Spy…!’’ Takeo mustered a worried tone under his breath as Sniper looked .

‘’Oh really? You want to go through to get to the train?’’ Cagney asked.

‘’Yeah, that’s why we came here for man.’’ Scout said with a confident smile, ‘’If you want to go through me…’’ the Flower’s tone suddenly turned sinister that caught everyone off guard by this sudden change in this endeavor.

‘’Then you’ll just have fight me…’’ He continued as group noticed Cagney’s friendly form begins to change; thorns grown on his stem, leafs turned hands as he covered his face from everyone as they watched the flower turned.

‘’Then rip it off off from my cold dead VINES!!!’’

Cagney’s 1st phase

Everyone looked at the flower with terrified expressions, as Sniper said ‘’See what I mean?’’

‘’Yes, yes we now do see it, you are man of your word.’’ Spy said while Heavy nodded, Dempsey then loads the StG-44 as he said ‘’Less talking, more fighting!’’

‘’If you can fight!’’ Cagney said as he sends the vines flying through the air, Everyone tried to run but ended up being wrapped up in vines one by one as they tried to dash to different directions. Well, all but Takeo and Scout.

*The vines had captured your new found friends and allies, *All but you two. *It is now harvest time.

‘’Takeo! Do what the text said to do!’’ Nikolai shouted as he struggled to break free from the vines with the others. Takeo and Scout turned to face the Carnation who is doing a dance, ‘’Fools who attempt to fight this will leave with allergic rhinitis!’’ the flower taunted at them with the overconfident smile.

‘’Unless you will be cut down like a tree!’’ Takeo spat back as Scout nodded while he readies the bat to attack. Cagney’s head then turned into something that resembles a gatling gun with the hand on the crank and then turns it to fire seeds at the air and then fall onto the duo.

‘’Incoming Tak!’’ Scout shouted as he runs to the left, Takeo ran towards the right at seeds comes crashing down from the sky as Cagney’s head changes back. ‘’Good job but can you dodge THIS!?’’ he said before luging his face towards the two with his hands wigging.

‘’OH GOD THAT IS JUST CREEPY AS @#$%!!’’ Scout screamed as he and Takeo ducked and covered their heads from Cagney’s attack, Takeo then noticed the Ray Gun that Richtofen dropped on the ground after the vines got him, he crawls for it and then grabs it then aims at the flower and opened fire.

Cagney hissed in pain as he contacted his face back to his head to rubbed it and feel the marks where the Ray Gun had left, to winch he turned angry as he said ‘’Oh not like the other time I had been beaten! Not like the last time!’’ then he put both his hands together then made three acorns appeared as he spread his hands apart as they spinned.

Then they quickly stopped spinning then fly towards the two, Scout dodges the acorns but was hit by one of them as he screamed in pain ‘’Medic!’’

‘’I am occupied in the moment Scout!’’ Medic shouted out towards his injured teammate as he struggled.

Cagney then does his magic hands trick again, Takeo then got his sword out, turned it to the blunt side and then hits all three at the right timing to send flying fast back to Cagney with full hitting force.

One hit the side of his head, one hit him on the left arm then last one hit him on the stem and he became furious than ever as he pulled on his own petals in frustration. ‘’Grrr… NOW you asked for it!’’

‘’Asked for what??’’ Everyone asked that question, to winch Cagney answered ‘’THIS!’’

Then the Flower buries his arms into the ground as Takeo and Scout looked down at it in shock as they felt rumbling while the small pebbles are shaking and hopping, then sudden vines sprouted out of the ground, taking three chunks of the ground with the samurai and RED Member with them as Cagney’s appearance changed once again to more monstrous look; his teeth had become sharpen, his petals became sharpen and straighten and more thorns and vines covered his stem, making it more tougher than leather armor.

(((I like to note, I had originally had put Cagney’s Final Phase on Google Doc so I decided to put this GIF here.)))

‘’Extreme pollination and total domination!’’

Cagney then laughed hardy at them as his tongue turned hand-like and point at them in a funny manner. ‘’I can’t decide what is more worse: The bread monster or him!’’ Engineer shouted as he watched helplessly with everyone who gave up struggling to get free from the vines that wrapped them up.

‘’If this is the worse thing up to this point, then yeah!’’ Scout shouted as he rummaged through his bag for his scattergun as Takeo stood for his defense. Cagney then launched his attack on the two, vines rise up from below and they had to jump over to the next platform before the vines would fully wrapped all over the previous one.

‘’Hurry Scout!’’

‘’I AM hurrying!!’’

Scout then began to rummage through the his bag faster for his scattergun as if his life depended on it as Takeo is cutting through the vines with the sword til Scout finally found it and got it ready for him to open fire at the flower as Takeo does the same.

Cagney screamed in pain then growled as he launched vines at them once again from below, Takeo jumped to the middle platform but Scout wasn’t fast enough to escape the vines in time as he was caught in them, making Takeo turn around in surprise.

‘’Scout!’’

‘’Go on man! Don’t worry ‘bout me! I’ll be alright!’’ Scout said as he struggled to break free from the vines. ‘’Oh I won’t be worrying about him if I were him,’’ Carnation stated ‘’You will never knew when life was being squeezed outta ya!’’ then begins to squeeze everyone, causing everyone gasping for air for a few moments till he’s done as Takeo yelled ‘’No!!’’

‘’And what are ya going to do about it?’’ Cagney smiled a smirk.

‘’I will defeat you, you dishonorable carnation!’’ The samurai spat at the flower who let out a laugh with a confident grin. ‘’And how are ya going to do that?’’

Then the officer took out his sword and then swing it at the vine, cutting it as it was going towards him, Cagney winced in pain at the sudden stinging feeling but was soon being under fire by Takeo with the Ray Gun.

Cagney then roared and fought back with pink and purple bullets at Takeo, he reacted and strikes the pink bullets first to his surprise they disappeared as soon as he hit them but he immediately knows that the purple ones didn’t do the same as their pink counterparts.

Vines under the platform he was on was about to attack but he somehow knew there was a vine then jump to the next platform, much closer to the deadly flower with a glare as Cagney grinned wider.

Before he could attack, Takeo opened fire on the flower with the raygun, he screamed in pain as the samurai kept firing at him.

‘’Hey! Stop! STTTOOOOOOPPPP IIIITTT!!!!’’

Takeo fired one last shot at Cagney, finally defeated him in his own game as he is screaming to the sky while his eyes becomes black and hollow as Takeo watched.

Knockout! You won! Reward: 50 Gold and a Fabled Ribbon

Cagney eventually stopped screaming as the vines dropped his comrades to the ground, some of them fell flat on their faces while most of them landed gracefully on their feet and looked over to Takeo.

‘’Takeo! You have saved us all!’’ Nikolai started,

‘’You have killed the enemy’s super weapon!’’ Soldier proclaimed.

‘’It may be but I can tell that this isn’t what 115 would do to plants like how it did some of them on an island.’’ Takeo said as he looked at Cagney, then a bird came by and landed on one of the vines before pecking on it.

‘’Still Takeo, you had saved us from zhis flower und killed it.’’ Richtofen said as he walked over to the plant, ‘’Mate, this is…’’ Sniper said as he is somewhat satisfied with Takeo defeated Cagney but disturbed to seeing him like this.

‘’This is… Is the creepy sight…’’

Heavy then perked up ‘’Little Japanese had killed flower but it is too easy.’’ as he pointed at the fallen flower as Richtofen walked over to the fallen flower.

‘’Herr Heavy is quite right about it, it seemed that you can’t beat zhe dandelion zhat easily vith just one person.’’

Richtofen then knocked on the stem, only an echoed hollow thunk responded as he knocked on it again while he said ‘’Unless you vere counting on something zhat is killable but zhis isn’t it, it’s hollow! A husk even.’’

‘’Hollow?’’ Takeo asked.

‘’The flower’s unkillable?? Aw man! If this day can’t even worse than this.’’ Scout said as he cautiously looked around nervously for any signs of the flower that tried to kill them with no mercy.

‘’Calm down herr Scout, if... Cagney is it? If Cagney really is unkillable and leaves his old body as a husk zhen there’s a chance he will-’’ Medic said as he noticed something on the ground that had sprouted and began wiggling, something green and some type of a leaf as if it’s dying to be a plant,

Medic smiled upon this discovery and said ‘’Ah! Exactly as I thought he vould do! Don’t worry zhere Mr. Carnation, I am zhe doctor. Let me help you out of zhe dirt.’’ then grabs the leaf between his index finger and thumb and begins to gently pulls the sapping out of the dirt, coughing as it grew into a normal-sized flower as others looked on at this.

Others looked at this with interest and yet fear as Cagney bloomed while his petals peeled away from his face, he is in his beginning form and this time he is much smaller than a big flower.

‘’This isn’t fair!’’ Cagney shouted ‘’I was going to win!’’

‘’I guess the odds aren’t in your favor when you’re trying to kill us.’’ Dempsey said.

‘’And yet now you really looked like a cute flower now!’’ Heavy bellowed out as others laughed.

‘’This must have been embarrassing dishonor for you Cagney.’’ Takeo stated.

‘’Look who’s saying! I just wanted to be stronger to beat guys like you to a plump!’’

Takeo gave him a pitied look as he sheathed his katana away, kneeling down to Cagney’s level and asked ‘’Why would want to be stronger? You’re only a flower.’’

Cagney looked up at Takeo with nervousness in his eyes and guilt deep down, then he looked at the different direction to avoid his gaze.

‘’W-well,’’ he began as his voice was shaking, ‘’You see… I wanted to d-defend myself from anyone who wanted to d-do me harm so I uh… I kinda made a deal with someone that is…’’

‘’That is what?’’ Nikolai asked.

‘’The Devil.’’

Others but Medic and Richtofen looked at the flower like he was crazy til Richtofen asked ‘’You sold your soul to the Devil?’’

‘’Pretty much and that’s how I was… Well, like that before being beaten by the two kids who had also lost their souls to the Devil and eventually had beaten him and freed everyone’s souls that had unluckily sold their souls to him as well. If that’s not enough to justify everyone’s justice, they had managed to beat Devil’s good-for-nothing lacky, King Dice in his own game.’’

‘’King Dice? The one with a dice for a head?’’

‘’Yep, has he tricked you too?’’

Dempsey raised an eyebrow at this response.

‘’No,’’ Dempsey answered ‘’I have only just met him the day before, Why would he-’’

‘’He’s the Devil’s right hand man, he can manipulate people with only reason so they can make a deal with the Devil. I am now sure hopefully none of you got caught up in his charm or-’’

‘’Uh oh!’’ A familiar voice that Dempsey heard had caught everyone’s attention and turned over to King Dice who appeared out of nowhere, standing there with his arms behind his back and with the same grin on his face.

‘’Did I feel my ears burning?’’

Dempsey turned to anger as he said ‘’Why are you here?’’

‘’Just stopping by when I saw your friend defeated that flower, and heard a chit-chat about the two brothers who sold their souls. You really are full of surprises, are you Dempsey?’’

‘’You are talking about the two children who had made a deal with a demon?’’ Nikolai growled.

‘’Of course! There are a lot of stories spilling out today like there’s no tomorrow,’’ Dice said as he adjusted his glove on his hand. ‘’Bunch of questions are asked after they were told like one for example: How did we get here after we’ve been snatched and taken. Like how ol li’ Cuphead and Mugman!’’

‘’How should we not know if you and Devil was behind it all?’’ Takeo asked.

‘’Nope, none of us are behind the snatching and taking anybody here. To be honest with you sinners who started swinging. I like that! Every one of you are sinners of your own deeds.’’

‘’Are you suggesting that we should surrender our souls to your boss?’’ Richtofen confronted him with a glare.

‘’Heh… Of course not! Not now that you guys know about me and the big cheese. But if you all are willing to make a deal, just call me by name alright? Right then! Hi-De-Ho!~’’ he said as he had once again toralls again and falls down the hole he came from and then it shrunks.

‘’I swear I will kill him…’’ Dempsey muttered under his breath as Richtofen walked up to his side, ‘’Good vill come to those who vait but now… Ve need to leave zhis place.’’

‘’Yeah yeah…’’

‘’Um, Cagney, if you don’t mind-’’

‘’Yes! I know! I will let you all pass! Just don’t worry about me alright?’’ Cagney bellowed out with anger.

Scout looked at Cagney with concerned, ‘’Are you sure ‘bout that? Zombies, you being small flower, they will kinda-’’

‘’I’ll be fine, I’ll just be back to my big old self in no time before they could. Now get out of my sight.��’ Cagney said subborningly.

Vines that blocked off the path begins to separate and moved upward til the pathway is cleared. Sniper looked down at Cagney and said ‘’Thanks mate.’’

‘’Don’t mention it, all of you proved to be tough than I think but don’t think that I would ended up meeting you guys again.’’ Cagney replied.

‘’We won’t, see ya mate.’’

With the footsteps passing by the Carnation and then passed by as he watched them go to the train station.

They walked the rest of the path to the train station til they finally got there, feeling accomplished by reaching their goal but they know that there could be zombies lurking in the station si they couldn’t waste anymore time than they already have to complete the search and rescue mission.

‘’Does anyone know how to drive a train?’’ Nikolai asked everyone, then Engineer came up to him.

‘’I can drive that thing son, after all I am an engineer but what can I say? I have many talents.’’

Dempsey chuckled ‘’Well, I can’t argue with that one Dell.’’

Spy walks over to the cargo, ‘’If we are done? We better get going before the dead or this ‘’King Dice’’ fellow comes back.’’

‘’Right.’’

Everyone then hopped on on the train, Demoman used black paint that he found from the ticket booth to write the cargo the words ‘’The Pain Train.’’ the he hears a train whistle pierced the air, he then hops abroad on the cargo as the train begins to move it’s wheels against the rails then goes forward as 3 to 8 zombies comes out of their places in attempts to catching up with the train but wasn’t fast enough to catch up as the train goes quickly out of the station.

Scout looks out of the cargo door and laughs at the undead failed attempt, ‘’See ya later zombies!’’

Richtofen sighs out a breath of relief as Takeo sat down on a crate while looked outside with the others. They see the old red western buildings and blue 80’s era buildings before the train leaves the fortress and away from it as they watched.

‘’That was close.’’ Sniper said as Dempsey nodded, ‘’Indeed, a little TOO close.’’ Richtofen added.

‘’Still through, I am so glad that we’re out of there and away from those abominations that are created by none other than Lucifer himself.’’ Spy said as he again takes another drag, Medic jumped up to the comment with sweat formed on his forehead as he says ‘’Oh Ja! Of course glady!’’ the others looked at him like he was more crazy than usual.

‘’Although Doctor, you seemed jumpy when Cagney mentioned the Devil before King Dice appeared after he said that he is the Devil’s right hand man. Mind explaining that one?’’ Nikolai asked.

‘’Me? Scared of the Devil?’’ Medic excused, ‘’Nein, nein. I vas only surprised zhat zhe Devil might be real. If Cagney is his debtor zhen zhat means-’’

‘’There are more than just one that owes the Devil their soul.’’ Dempsey interjected as Medic said ‘’Hey!’’

‘’That must’ve explains why Laddie.’’ Demoman as he drinks his scrumpy as Nikolai turned away. ‘’What do you think where Pauling is?’’ Nikolai asked.

‘’She said that she’s in an abandoned town, she had said that it looked like that war had rampaged and ransack it for 80 years or so, not to mention that she said it’s far from the fortress we were in.’’ Spy answered to everyone.

‘’Far from the fortress huh?’’ Scout said, ‘’Hopefully we won’t encounter zombies there when we get to the town.’’

‘’I won’t get my hopes just yet Scout, Richtofen had said that they can always catch up.’’ Takeo said as he looked outside of the moving train to view the land, he noticed a few trees that he is so familiar with when he is growing up in Japan.

‘’If this is another world, do you think that there are others taken here as well?’’ Nikolai questioned, ‘’Perhaps, in studies of alternate timelines, there are different worlds as vell.’’

‘’Cool.’’ Scout said as he laid down the crate with his hands at the back of his head.

Everyone looked outside as the train kept moving on the railway tracks to the old town as the hours had passed til the sun begins to set over the horizon.

Takeo begins to notice that something is happening with the blossom trees, everyone else soon took notice at them when the sun disappears behind the hills to make way for night time.

The cherry trees began to glow white as the wind begins to blow, allowing the blossoms to fly free into the breeze while everyone looked at them with wonder and amazement.

‘’Wow…’’

‘’They don’t normally do something like this…’’ Takeo muttered as he watched, Nikolai walked up to his side and said ‘’Well, in this world, it doesn’t matter…’’

-End of the Flashback…-

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charlyoddsox27 · 6 years

Text

its 6am, i havent slept, im bored, so im posting a list of the mercs in order of whom i like the most and reasons why, because thats something i should do i guess?

here goes

(spoilers for the comics down below but either way i think im the only person on earth who has never read them before now)

~~~

~~1. Medic~~

reasons for being my favourite:

• fucking. look. at. him. 👌

• 'mad german doctor' is one of my favourite tropes and he is a pretty bang-on satirical depiction of it

• cute-ass german accent

• he has pet pidgeons hE LOVES HIS PIDGEON PALS THEY KEEP HIM COMPANY

• healers are the most respectable class imo and since Medic pretty much started it he's automatically the best, thats how it works right?

• he sold some random persons soul to satan in exchange for a ***ballpoint pen*** and can i just say, fucking mood??? (he is literally the "i'd sell you to satan for one cornchip" meme)

• "yes, Archimedes...I couldn't agree more." *shudders* b oi .. .

• so many more reasons to love this gross old doctor so little room in Tumblrs posts.

~~2. Spy~~

reasons for being my second favourite:

• cranky, done with everyones shit, just wants to be left alone, fucking mood

• he's a spy i mean c'mon. look at the swanky-ass suit, look at the class radiating from this asshole.

• he may be a dick but he has a soft side he's just too jaded to show it most of the time (see: Scouts death in the comics?? real tears. honestly wish they'd panned that out more.)

• masks are hot tbFH--

• he enjoys a nice glass of whisky by the fireplace and so do i (fun fact: france is the biggest importer of scottish whisky in the world so its a nice touch)

• shapeshifting is fucking cool are you serious like he can just. do that. what a legend

• "i have a cyanide pill in one of my molars, if i break it then spit some in your mouth before i die, we can avoid being tortured." *'heavy' bursts in to save them* "PFFTHBTHF--"

• "SEDUCE ME."

• arrogant frenchman is one of my other favourite tropes and this is the most arrogant frenchman ive ever seen

• he's the only fully sane Merc, maybe apart from Engie.

• people love to hate him bc he's an asshole but...come on. after working with all those other weirdos for years, you'd be pretty jaded too.

• as a gross shipper, he's the easiest and the most fun (imo) to ship with Medic (rip me)

~~3. Pyro~~

reasons for being my third favourite:

• would have tied with Soldier if it werent for that one picture of them in the comics holding a puppy over their head with the most adoring expression on their mask??? good Pyro. goodest Pyro.

• doesn't do much in the comics but makes up for it in pure charm. look at that soulless face and tell me you dont love it.

• ambiguous gender ambiguous gender amBIGUOUS GENDER AMBIGUOUS GENDER. she/he/they? trans? nb? whatever you headcanon, it'll never be confirmed so its literally up to your own imagination. fucking ace, Valve 👌👌👌

• likes to burn things. god damnit. they like to burn things, guys. but they enjoy it so much, you just cant hate them, you can only feel a sympathetic joy that this precious lunatic is having fun in their own little world.

• canonically mentally ill (schizoprenia? it could be hallucinogenic drugs but i like to think its schizophrenia.)

• pretty sure they burned a pair of pedophiles in the comics. at least i think thats what those panels were insinuating. "lets open an orphanage and have an endless supply of kids to--" sounds pretty red-flaggy to me tbh. plus they were the villains so, eh?

• bludgeoned a bear to death until its skull was pulp because it insulted their special interest. you go, Pyro.

• for a few bits in the comics they have a really cute family dynamic going on with other Mercs, Soldier for example."Miss Pauling, Pyros on my side of the car." "Miss Pauling, Pyro cut off my hand." fuckin' cuties.

• when they start putting on like 50 shirts to keep warm in the Russian mountains. chubby.

• a gas mask that can function as both badass, and completely adorable.

• just. everything about them. how could you not love them. they're not in the wrong, you are. stay away from my misunderstood child and let them burn things god damnit.

~~4. Soldier~~

look I'm sorry, I love Soldier and he was gonna be tied with Pyro but that fucking puppy drawing sold me.

• absolute gold every second he speaks. he could sneeze and i'll laugh.

• such a dumbass you cant get annoyed at him for it. like. just agree with him and move on. no point reasoning with a boulder. "haha! silly Miss Pauling, thinking theres different types of blood." Medic: "haha yes! indeed, silly."

• HUTTAH *NECK SNAP*

• i'm not American and even i can see how blatantly his character mocks stereotypical Patriotic Americans™. but its so dumb and laughable, its adorable.

• EVERYTHING ABOUT HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH ZHANNA IS A BLESSING. EVERYTHING.

• the first "meet the Mercs" video i ever saw was "meet the Soldier" so he holds a special place in my heart

• (preaches about experiencing the horrors of war; has never actually been to war. shh dont tell anyone though--) *neck gets snapped*

~~5. Demoman~~

• I'm Scottish. even though his accent is absolute garbage (no offense to the VA), any representation is very nice.

• Black AND Scottish?? i mean has a character like that even existed before TF2??? amazing example of representation right there. there are barely even any black people in Scotland, how did this happen. I love it. more of this, please.

• he's a drunk guy who blows shit up for shits and giggles and god I wish I could too, sounds like a miracle stress-reliever.

• his sassy black scottish mother. combining the stereotypical black mother with the stereotypical scottish mother is literally the best thing that ever happened.

• the bit in the comic where Medic explains that Demo can't remember what happened to his eye bc he scooped out part of his brain, and the look on Demo's face. just. the look.

• again, he's scottish, he's stereotypical, and he's awesome.

~~6. Sniper~~

• underrated

• piss jars. piss jars everywhere.

• "no dad, im not a crazed murdering lunatic, I'm an assassin. ...well one's a job and the other's mental sickness!!"

• "meet the Sniper" has kickass music

• ruffled gross old man who isn't actually old, he's just seen some SHIT

• actually given development in the comics + some really good scenes with Spy.

• so suave...so...handsome. handsome ruffled bushman. me like.

• he dies first in the comics but gets brought back and gets a cool-ass scar. and then he's just walking around naked everywhere for the rest of the comic. Medic, where the fuck did you put his clothes.

• isn't actually Australian. thats like one of the biggest twists in the comic. "no wonder i was never inhumanly strong and my chest hair didn't grow into the shape of Australia!!" Classic.

• says "bugger" a lot and i love that word

• he needs a hug, let me hug him. and give him a bath.

~~7. Heavy~~

I'm gonna be crucified for putting the big lad so low but i promise i dont dislike any of the Mercs. he'd be higher up but...ive never really liked big huge tank-men tbh :/

• loveable as fuck

• will murder you if you bully his puny little Medic

• i looove Russian accents omfg

• he like big gun. i can respect that.

• when Medic was killed and he went APESHIT on Classic!Heavy and I lost my fuckin' mind over that shit

• he probably has a soft spot for small cute animals. i love imagining him being swarmed by Medics flock of doves and petting them like "good bird...so many good bird..."

• actually smarter than people give him credit for???

• i really really wish his character was a lil more fleshed out but. that's just me. i love him but he doesn't have the same appeal to me as Medic or Spy.

• his entire relationship with Medic...ugh. yes. best friends and/or boyfriends. all good to me 👌

• he named his gun Sasha and that's adorable

~~8. Engineer~~

• gOD, FUCK, I REALLY WISH HE DID MORE IN THE COMICS. i barely know anything about his character. i like him a lot but...god, he...he doesn't...do.....anything.......

• he built a cool robot arm for himself and AI turrets and teleporter machines and guns that fire magic healing powers and immortality machines, in the 1960s. what. some kind of wizard fuckery is this.

• smoothest voice in the west

• "y'all"

~~9. Scout~~

oh god i really am gonna be crucified. i dont hate him i just. like him the least.

• shitboy

• reminds me of a shitty ex but also kinda relateable in a way

• some genuinely funny bits in the shorts.

• gross horny hetero teen boy with a god complex and serious daddy issues. also, he can't read. the "sex bom" tattoo on his chest will be an eternal testament to that. nice job, Spy. you raised him good.

~~~

hoo boy there we go theres all the boys, all the beautiful boys (and Scout) in order of how much i love them. if i made any errors in my info about the canon, feel free to send me death threats 💙 (no seriously tell me though, being a newbie is embarrassing)

so uh. yeah. that took two hours to write. its now 8am. im still bored lol. bye i guess.

#long post #charlyspeaks #charlys cesspool of interests #team fortress 2 #team fortress #medic #pyro #heavy #engineer #scout #spy #demoman #sniper #soldier #zhenna #tf2 #drabble #my opinions #ooooo

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allstarsstorymode867 · 4 years

Text

All-Stars -Story Mode- CHAPTER 5 [RE-EDITED]

I had decided to re-edited this chapter since I had gotten better at my writing. I had add new words and editted out mistakes. Please enjoy the Chapter. ^^

-Chapter 5-

-Later on after 12 hours passed…-

Demoman was sleeping in his bed, passed out drunk for close to 12 hours, nearly to 13 if longer, ‘’what a nap!’’ I wrote here.

Clank! Bang! Clink!

Demoman, his real name being Tavish Finnegan DeGroot, heard a hammer hitting from outside of his room and it caused Demoman’s eyes-er, eye to flutter open, his brown eye now opened as he come to terms with the realization that it’s 4:00 in the morning, he listened for a moment for the sound and sure enough it did, so he just layed back down on the bed.

Bang! Bang! Clink! Clank!

he tried to go back to sleep but the sound of hammer hitting the nail had persisted through from outside his room, causing the black scottish man to groan “That bloody toymaker….!” in annoyance and then getting out of his warm bed as his head swirls from a hangover he had last night. He grabbed his eye-patch and then tied on his left eye that had been lost as he thought ‘’Why the bloody hell would he be makin’ something in 4:00 o’clock in the morning?’’

Bang! Clack! Clank! Bang!

He stumbled to the door as he places both hands on it to steady his balance while he muttered “Engie, keep that racket down...!”, then he goes to the doorknob then turns it, opening the door and letting himself through it and into the lobby with his throbbing legs from a hurting hangover, he was expecting Engineer was working on his one of his buildings as usual but what he didn’t expect was to find his team with four men he had never seen before all in the lobby together, boarding up the windows as his eye went wide open upon seeing this.

“Yes, they are indeed taking a blood sample from one of them just in case a vaccine will be made if it is…. No Miss Pauling, we do not know if it’s a wide pandemic or not, it’s a chance to see this though… Yes, yes…” Spy speaking into a microphone attached to an old radio that was once used in World War II too.

‘’Of course, 115 may be solution for power and making veapons warfare but it can be like a virus if you’re exposed to it or having it injected into you with too much doses.’’

‘’If a rock of it is in you?’’ Engineer questioned as he cutted it’s liver out with a scalpel, then he handed the severed liver with brownish red blood covering it to Medic who simply took it like it was a normal medical operation.

‘’If it’s been shoved in you, there’s a slight chance of you turning one of zhem or become a superbeing if not two rocks at once, Nazis had once tried zhis, und it’s the result of two rocks in one body.’’ Richtofen answered as he handed it to Medic.

‘’But uh, it’s dead right? I mean ‘’Dead dead’’ dead right?’’ Scout asked as he rubbed his arm up and down uncomfortable when he saw the corpse of a zombie in the lobby with them. “We wouldn’t have to worry about them right?

“Wrong, Scout.” Takeo answered as he kept his attention on his sword stained in the blood of the fallen before continued with ‘’But unless you cut of its head or destroy it Scout.’’ as he cleans his katana sword with a cloth while he sits down.

“Zhe samurai has a point, Herr Scout.” Medic mumbled as he puts on a glass plate that is used for samples from germs and something medical, he then gets an empty syringe and then plunged the needle into the liver and slowly and carefully pulled the plunge back, drawing and filling the syringe with the blood of the undead as he said “Zhese creatures vere like us, zhey can be killed vhen ve go for zhe head.”

‘’Yes… Of course we will… What?! They are after you for…? Fantastic….’’ Spy spoke as he’s taking a cigarette between his fingers. Demoman was completely speechless upon seeing this, he was in shock and silent in horror of the scene before him, he had no idea what to do as he became fully sober enough during this till Scout noticed him, smiled and said, ‘’Hey! Look who woke up!’’

Everyone looked at Demoman in unison, Takeo was ready to fight but Nikolai stopped him as he held his hand out to halt as he whispered “Wait Takeo.”

‘’Good morning Demoman!’’ Soldier greeted with a smile as Scout said ‘’It’s still night Solly.’’

Suddenly, Spy then groans in frustration ‘’UGH! Alright fine!” before turning off the radio, ending the conversion with her and then putting it away in his hidden coat pocket then turning to everyone and saying “She says we all have to get to her quickly.’’ as Heavy looked over at Spy with concern, ‘’Mrs. Pauling had said that? Where was she? Is she alright?’’ he asked the Frenchman.

‘’Could someone tell me what is going on?!’’ Demo demanded with anger toning his voice, then hard knocking came from the door winch nearly jumped and were going for their guns but they heard Sniper’s voice calling out like an alarm.

‘’It’s me! Let me in!’’

Heavy undid the board that was keeping the door closed to prevent the dead from getting in, opening the door for Sniper to get in and when they looked at him, with ripped vines and flower petals all over him a little bit, he looked like he had gone to a garden that has been created by none other than the Devil himself. ‘’I’m sorry mates, I couldn’t clear a path to the bloody train…’’

Now Dempsey isn’t the only one that everyone thought had finally gone crazy, he said, ‘’Are you serious?’’

‘’Aye, unlike the man with a dice for a he-’’

‘’DON’T start it up Sniper.’’

‘’Speaking of deadly flowers, are you alright Sniper?’’ Nikolai said as Pyro got up and handed Sniper their blanket with ducks on it they had covered them, Sniper grasped lightly on the cloth as he looked down ‘’”Define” Alright Nik… Thanks Pyro.’’

“You’re welcome!” Pyro mumthed.

‘’Can we all make this quick please? I want to be paid very quick and well for this job.’’ Spy stated as Scout walked by with a bat on his shoulder as he muttered ‘’If we survive…’’

Engineer held it as the Medic calmed down then put the cap on the needle so they could use it later for research then looked at the Medic.

‘’No way! Did we travel back in time again?!’’ Demoman exclaimed towards the two geniuses, ‘’Nein, zhis may like it but on the other zhis time Demoman.’’ Medic explained as he retrieved the scalpel but Engineer steadied him to hestaition as he said ‘’That’s quite enough for right now Doc.’’

‘’And you must be Demoman?’’ Takeo asked as he looked at the black scottish man with an eyepatch, ‘’Aye, who is asking ye? Are ye with--’’

‘’You knew what Spy was saying?’’ Dempsey asked.

‘’Me ma once told me a lot about these things and what they will do, she told me that the only way to destroy them is-’’

‘’Multiverse? Where are we then?! What happened here while I was asleep!?’’ Demoman demanded, Medic turned and walked over to the Scottish with an angry expression and said ‘’You didn’t zhink zhat we vould be zhe same predicament as you?! Ve vere fighting vave after vave of zombies zhat tried to kill us for zhe past 12 hours! Und vhat had surprised me zhe most is zhat your own bombs didn’t voke you up!’’

‘’Hey Doc, I was drunk! How can it be happening?! With random people from different world this time?!’’

‘’Not only different worlds but different timelines of each universe,’’ Edward once again began ‘’I had no idea vho or vhat was bringing us here but I am sure zhat ve can stop it.’’

‘’How can we do dat when we’re the ones that need to be savin’?’’

‘’I don’t know!’’

‘’If we got here first and already met people from different worlds across time and space, there’s no doubt that there is more to come than zombies.’’

‘’Tank’s right ‘bout that.’’ Engineer added as he cleans his hand with a cloth as it was stained in blood.

‘’We need to destroy the enemy before it gets worse in this war! For the good of mankind and the universe!’’

‘’Soldier, we need help if we were going to do so.’’

Everyone then goes to the windows to watch the dead looking at the aircrafts going by towards the far south.

They then began to follow the copters away towards the south as others stood back and watched them leave the area with relative peace.

‘’Well, at least they are leaving us alone for frickin’ once.’’ Scout sighed in relief as Richtofen perked up ‘’For now until dawn. Best not let our hopes up high just yet.’’

Dempsey turned to everyone as he loaded his pistol once more.

‘’It is almost dawn, better be ready for what comes next.’’ Dempsey said.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

*New day is here.

Back in the lobby, the group are preparing themselves for a mission to rescue their employer in distress. They talk amongst each other while they’re preparing, wondering what they will do next after she was rescued from this otherworldly army.

‘’Hey! Give dat back!’’

‘’Nah!’’

Sniper was looking at the comic that he had taken from Scout’s hands awhile he chuckled, Takeo is sharpening his sword as well cleaning off the blood off it, Nikolai is helping Engineer and Heavy packed up canned food and bottled water they will need for the trip, Engineer had invented a pocket-like device for each member in his team; he called Back-Pit, it would contain anything for survival: Tents, Weapons, clothing, food, water, anything you need when you’re going camping!

Primis Crew had never seen and used Back-Pit that engineers had invented since they were from the early 1900’s but he showed them instructions on how to use it since he had written down notes to go with each device after he had stayed up all night working on it.

‘’Is everyone ready for this mission yet?’’ Spy said as he took a drag of cigarette while everyone turned to face him and Medic all dressed up and ready.

They are in their usual clothing when they wear it in war games, ‘’Uh, guys? Do you think that ya be worried about getting them dirty?’’

‘’We are always covered in mud and blood everyday Scout.’’ They both said as Dempsey chuckled humorlessly.

*Burned.

‘’So, you’re bringing the Eyelander.’’ Soldier said as he looked at his friend, ‘’Aye, if I had ever ran out of ammunition, I would use him since I had own him.’’

‘’But do we really have to kill zombies? I want to chop off the Helghast heads instead.’’ Eyelander complained as Demo’s eye turned yellow, to winch he replied ‘’Shut up ye overgrown toothpick.’’

‘’Are you sure? Your eye is turning yellow. I don’t think it’s such a good idea.’’

‘’I can control him Jane, trust me.’’ Demoman assured him, then he looked over to the photo that the Soldier had in his hand. ‘’And ye’re taking her photo with you on this trip.’’

‘’Yeah, I am.’’

He calmly holds the photo of Zhanna, Heavy’s sister to winch he loves when he first meets her as he looks at the photo. Spy then begins to speak up ‘’Gentlemen, this is now the one thing we may have never experienced before in our lives. Never once we would’ve thought of this might happen again but differently this time with enemies we have never known. As long we will fin--’’

‘’Don’t give off the speech Spy, we don’t even know what was out there. Out there is all f*&%ed up! We’re all gonna die, over and over, this is much worse that dat!’’

‘’Don’t doubt everyone about this Private! We are going to survive this war!’’

‘’OoOoh yeah, like that would be comforting to know Soldier when these things could come back!’’

‘’If you know what was good for ya, you would shut it before you will say something you might regret maggot!’’

‘’ENOUGH!!’’

Heavy’s yell silenced everyone in the room around him, Scout had muttered something then walked away.

‘’Alright then.’’

Engineer then looked over to Pyro who was holding and looking at the Balloonicorn in their hands, they looked worried as they kept looking at it. Engineer walked over to Pyro, placed his hand on their shoulder, smiled softly and said ‘’Pyro, don’t worry about him, he’ll wait for us till all of this is over and done with. Just make sure you bring ammo and warm clothes with you okay?’’

‘’Still though,’’ Spy began once more ‘’as soon after we found her and mission accomplished, 9 of us and four of them will go on our separate ways before she would notice them.’’

Dempsey looked at the French with a mix of anger and confusion, ‘’Why would she notice us with-’’

‘’Mistakes you four for mercenaries and gets all of you hired? It’s what I am concerned of at the least of it.’’

‘’But ve are not mercenaries, are from a different plane of existence. Vhy is zhere a reason for her to-’’

‘’It’ll be based on judging your talents you’ve got, since you are from a different universe and all.’’

‘’I see.’’ Takeo said as he looked the other way as his allies did the same.

Sniper looked down as Engineer took noticed that other of his teammates is worried, so he asked ‘’Is there something wrong?’’

‘’The only way out of this area is by train, but we can’t get to it because of a bloody giant flower.’’

‘’Even if you’re really crazy for being alone too long or not, you are still a part of the team through the Gravel War and through when robots tried to destroy Mann Co. There’s nothing we can’t fight back Sniper.’’

Sniper looked at the Texen as his hands rested on his arms after he crossed them, he then smiled softly as he said ‘’I am willing to bet that we can still win Engie.’’

They had looked around as they walked past the corpses they killed a day before and passed the Panser that tried to kill them as Demoman looked at it with curiosity. ‘’Could any one of ye explain this to me?’’ Demoman asked the Spy who was walking beside him.

‘’The day before?’’

‘’The day before I woke up lad, please’’

‘’Well, while you were asleep, we were transported to this part of the world but in a different dimension somehow. Then Medic met Richtofen who is the doctor like him but from a different timeline like us, then more things happened when we met Dempsey, Takeo and Nikolai long before I met them in the Respawn Room before Soldier destroys it with the RPG. when 12 of us were finished killing off the dead, the armored zombie, to switch the Samurai called it the ‘’Panzer Soldat’’ from what I can recall, came out of the sky then tried to kill us but Heavy, Medic, Scout and Engie had killed it first before it could. As much as you can tell, I know that you couldn’t believe it on what we saw, if it’s not going well with you, then your mind is more f*&$ed up than it was.’’ Spy told the black Scottish man.

‘’Ah… I see that now...’’

‘’But still, you were their demotion expert, why were you drunk at a time like this?’’

‘’I didn’t realize it was bad timing till now, I had been an alcoholic, even when my liver left me then came back. Yet I’ve still alive for you to have a sobered Demoman until the mission is over!’’

Nikolai looked at Demoman who had his eye closed with a confident smile with a stare before saying ‘’...And what good will come from that?’’

‘’Why a rock, Demoman?’’ Nikolai asked.

Nikolai gave him a look of confusion as he said ‘’Are you sure that you are not drunk before this?’’

‘’Demoman means to say is to keeping your spirit strong despite being broken already and staying with close to your friends Nikorai.’’ Takeo corrected.

‘’Exactly lad!’’

‘’Even after the Em-’’

‘’Of course, but he would keep an eye on those who would do things that will betray his trust and to where the suspicions and betrayal come from; he rather not speak about it in the moment Demoman.’’ he said as he too walked fast away from Demoman to catch up to Takeo, leaving him alone with the sword on his back.

‘’In his words; In life you can easily trust someone, but once the trust is broken its very difficult to trust anyone again.’’ Eyelander quoted as Demoman glared him with envy and anger ‘’Oh, now ye’re the one being wise?’’

‘’Someone needs to be taught about such things Demo, now about the heads-’’

‘’You will have the chance to do so in a moment after we deal with these zombies first Eyelander.’’ Demoman said as he kept walking to catch up with the others as they followed Sniper to where the train station is.

They expected to find a road clear to the railway but it was blocked off… with vines with thorns, everyone looked at the vines with confusion and curiosity. ‘’They…. Weren’t here yesterday when we were here.’’

‘’Why were there vines here man?’’

‘’I don’t know’’

‘’Something’s not right about it…’’

‘’Sniper?’’

‘’Yeah mate?’’

‘’Was this the ‘flower’ doing this?’’

‘’Yeah.’’

This strengthens their curiosity upon seeing the petal, why is there an orange petal peeking out from the roof? Takeo looked at the petal in confusion, he had never seen a flower that big before, not big enough to have it’s petals peeking over from the roof of a train station.

Takeo then gets a feeling that this is no normal flower and it may be dangerous as he said ‘’I now believe this is the flower that Sniper spoke of, we need to remain cautious for this.’’

‘’I was going to say the same thing about it Takeo.’’ Spy said as he got a revolver out from the back pocket of his coat while they walked towards the entrance to the station and saw there was a giant flower but…

Meeting Cagney Carnation

Not like what Sniper had said, it looked like a harmless friendly giant flower as he gently held his leaf-hands to his face like he was very shy when he saw a group of humans come to him in full view with dumbfounded looks on their faces.

‘’Heh… Cute.’’ Scout commented as he placed the bat over his shoulder.

‘’A ’Deadly Flower’ huh? Unbelievable… Un. Believable…’’ Spy groaned in disbelief.

‘’Oh how nice of you! My name is Cagney, Cagney Carnation.’’ the flower introduced himself, then he asked ‘’Golly, what brings you all here to this train station?’’

‘’Oh really? You want to go through to get to the train?’’ Cagney asked.

‘’Then you’ll just have to fight me…’’ He continued as the group noticed Cagney’s friendly form begins to change; thorns grew on his stem, leafs turned hands as he covered his face from everyone as they watched the flower turned.

‘’Then rip it off from my cold dead VINES!!!’’

Cagney’s 1st phase

Everyone looked at the flower with terrified expressions, as Sniper said ‘’See what I mean?’’

‘’Yes, yes we now do see it, you are a man of your word.’’ Spy said while Heavy nodded, Dempsey then loads the StG-44 as he said ‘’Less talking, more fighting!’’

‘’If you can fight!’’ Cagney said as he sent the vines flying through the air, Everyone tried to run but ended up being wrapped up in vines one by one as they tried to dash to different directions. Well, all but Takeo and Scout.

*The vines had captured your new found friends and allies, *All but you two. *It is now harvest time.

‘’Unless you will be cut down like a tree!’’ Takeo spat back as Scout nodded while he readies the bat to attack. Cagney’s head then turns into something that resembles a gatling gun with the hand on the crank and then turns it to fire seeds at the air and then fall onto the duo.

‘’Incoming Tak!’’ Scout shouted as he ran to the left, Takeo ran towards the right as seeds came crashing down from the sky as Cagney’s head changed back. ‘’Good job but can you dodge THIS!?’’ he said before luging his face towards the two with his hands wigging.

‘’OH GOD THAT IS JUST CREEPY AS @#$%!!’’ Scout screamed as he and Takeo ducked and covered their heads from Cagney’s attack, Takeo then noticed the Ray Gun that Richtofen dropped on the ground after the vines got him, he crawled for it and then grabbed it then aimed at the flower and opened fire.

Cagney hissed in pain as he contacted his face back to his head to rub it and feel the marks where the Ray Gun had left, to winch he turned angry as he said ‘’Oh not like the other time I had been beaten! Not like the last time!’’ Then he put both his hands together then made three acorns appear as he spread his hands apart as they spun.

Then they quickly stopped spinning then fly towards the two, Scout dodges the acorns but was hit by one of them as he screamed in pain ‘’Medic!’’

‘’I am occupied in the moment Scout!’’ Medic shouted out towards his injured teammate as he struggled.

Cagney then does his magic hands trick again, Takeo then gets his sword out, turns it to the blunt side and then hits all three at the right timing to send flying fast back to Cagney with full hitting force.

‘’Asked for what??’’ Everyone asked that question, to winch Cagney answered ‘’THIS!’’

(From Cuphead Wiki respectively)

‘’Extreme pollination and total domination!’’

Cagney then laughed hard at them as his tongue turned hand-like and pointed at them in a funny manner. ‘’I can’t decide what is worse: The bread monster or him!’’ Engineer shouted as he watched helplessly with everyone who gave up struggling to get free from the vines that wrapped them up.

‘’If this is the worse thing up to this point, then yeah!’’ Scout shouted as he rummaged through his bag for his scattergun as Takeo stood for his defense. Cagney then launched his attack on the two, vines rose up from below and they had to jump over to the next platform before the vines would fully wrapped all over the previous one.

‘’Hurry Scout!’’

‘’I AM hurrying!!’’

Scout then began to rummage through his bag faster for his scattergun as if his life depended on it as Takeo was cutting through the vines with the sword til Scout finally found it and got it ready for him to open fire at the flower as Takeo does the same.

‘’Scout!’’

‘’Go on man! Don’t worry ‘bout me! I’ll be alright!’’ Scout said as he struggled to break free from the vines. ‘’Oh I won’t be worrying about him if I were him,’’ Carnation stated ‘’You will never know when life was being squeezed outta ya!’’ then begins to squeeze everyone, causing everyone gasping for air for a few moments until he’s done as Takeo yelled ‘’No!!’’

‘’And what are ya going to do about it?’’ Cagney smiled a smirk.

‘’I will defeat you, you dishonorable carnation!’’ The samurai spat at the flower who let out a laugh with a confident grin. ‘’And how are ya going to do that?’’

Then the officer took out his sword and then swung it at the vine, cutting it as it was going towards him, Cagney winced in pain at the sudden stinging feeling but was soon being under fire by Takeo with the Ray Gun.

Cagney then roared and fought back with pink and purple bullets at Takeo, he reacted and struck the pink bullets first to his surprise they disappeared as soon as he hit them but he immediately knew that the purple ones didn’t do the same as their pink counterparts.

Vines under the platform he was on were about to attack but he somehow knew there was a vine then jumped to the next platform, much closer to the deadly flower with a glare as Cagney grinned wider.

Before he could attack, Takeo opened fire on the flower with the raygun, he screamed in pain as the samurai kept firing at him.

‘’Hey! Stop! STTTOOOOOOPPPP IIIITTT!!!!’’

Takeo fired one last shot at Cagney, finally defeated him in his own game as he was screaming to the sky while his eyes became black and hollow as Takeo watched.

Knockout!

You won! Reward: 50 Gold and a Fabled Ribbon

Cagney eventually stopped screaming as the vines dropped his comrades to the ground, some of them fell flat on their faces while most of them landed gracefully on their feet and looked over to Takeo.

‘’Takeo! You have saved us all!’’ Nikolai started,

‘’You have killed the enemy’s super weapon!’’ Soldier proclaimed.

‘’Still Takeo, you had saved us from zhis flower und killed it.’’ Richtofen said as he walked over to the plant, examining it in detail as he noticed it is cartoon-like, ‘’Mate, this is…’’ Sniper said as he is somewhat satisfied with Takeo defeating Cagney but disturbed to seeing him like this.

‘’This is… Is the creepy sight…’’

Heavy then perked up ‘’Little Japanese had killed flower but it is too easy.’’ as he pointed at the fallen flower as Richtofen walked over to the fallen flower.

‘’Herr Heavy is quite right about it, it seemed that you can’t beat zhe dandelion zhat easily vith just one person.’’

‘’Hollow?’’ Takeo asked.

Medic smiled upon this discovery and said ‘’Ah! Exactly as I thought he vould do! Don’t vorry Mr. Carnation, I am zhe doctor. Let me help you out of zhe dirt.’’ then grabs the leaf between his index finger and thumb and begins to gently pull the sapping out of the dirt, coughing as it grew into a normal-sized flower as others looked on at this.

Others looked at this with interest and yet fear as Cagney bloomed while his petals peeled away from his face, he is in his beginning form and this time he is much smaller than a big flower.

‘’This isn’t fair!’’ Cagney shouted ‘’I was going to win!’’

‘’I guess the odds aren’t in your favor when you’re trying to kill us.’’ Dempsey said.

‘’And yet now you really looked like a cute flower now!’’ Heavy bellowed out as others laughed.

‘’This must have been embarrassing dishonor for you, Cagney.’’ Takeo stated.

‘’Look who’s saying! I just wanted to be stronger to beat guys like you to a plump!’’

Takeo gave him a pitied look as he sheathed his katana away, kneeling down to Cagney’s level and asked ‘’Why would you want to be stronger? You’re only a flower.’’

Cagney looked up at Takeo with nervousness in his eyes and guilt deep down, then he looked in a different direction to avoid his gaze.

‘’W-well,’’ he began as his voice was shaking, ‘’You see… I wanted to d-defend myself from anyone who wanted to d-do me harm so I uh… I kinda made a deal with someone that is…’’

‘’That is what?’’ Nikolai asked.

‘’The Devil.’’

Others but Medic and Richtofen looked at the flower like he was crazy til Richtofen asked ‘’You sold your soul to the Devil?’’

‘’Pretty much and that’s how I was… Well, like that before being beaten by the two kids who had also lost their souls to the Devil and eventually had beaten him and freed everyone’s souls that had unfortunately sold their souls to him as well. If that’s not enough to justify everyone’s justice, they had managed to beat the Devil's good-for-nothing lacky, King Dice in his own game.’’

‘’King Dice? The one with a dice for a head?’’

‘’Yep, has he tricked you too?’’

Dempsey raised an eyebrow at this response.

‘’No,’’ Dempsey answered ‘’I have only just met him the day before, Why would he-’’

‘’He’s the Devil’s right hand man, he can manipulate people with only reason so they can make a deal with the Devil. I am now sure hopefully none of you got caught up in his charm or-’’

‘’Did I feel my ears burning?’’

Dempsey turned to anger as he said ‘’Why are you here?’’

‘’Just stopping by when I saw your friend defeat that flower, and heard a chit-chat about the two brothers who sold their souls. You really are full of surprises, are you Dempsey?’’

‘’You are talking about the two children who had made a deal with a demon?’’ Nikolai growled.

‘’How should we not know if you and Devil was behind it all?’’ Takeo asked.

‘’Nope, none of us are behind the snatching and taking of anybody here. To be honest with you sinners who started swinging. I like that! Every one of you are sinners of your own deeds.’’

‘’Are you suggesting that we should surrender our souls to your boss?’’ Richtofen confronted him with a glare.

‘’Heh… Of course not! Not now that you guys know about me and the big cheese. But if you all are willing to make a deal, just call me by name alright? Right then! Hi-De-Ho!~’’ he said as he had once again toralls again and fell down the hole he came from and then it shrunks.

‘’I swear I will kill him…’’ Dempsey muttered under his breath as Richtofen walked up to his side, ‘’Good vill come to those who vait but now… Ve need to leave zhis place.’’

‘’Yeah yeah…’’

‘’Um, Cagney, if you don’t mind-’’

‘’Yes! I know! I will let you all pass! Just don’t worry about me alright?’’ Cagney bellowed out with anger.

Scout looked at Cagney with concern, ‘’Are you sure about that? Zombies, you being small flower, they will kinda-’’

‘’I’ll be fine, I’ll just be back to my big old self in no time before they could. Now get out of my sight.’’ Cagney said subborningly.

Vines that are blocked off the path begin to separate and moved upward til the pathway is cleared. Sniper looked down at Cagney and said ‘’Thanks mate.’’

‘’Don’t mention it, all of you proved to be tougher than I think but don’t think that I would end up meeting you guys again.’’ Cagney replied.

‘’We won’t, see ya mate.’’

With the footsteps passing by the Carnation and then passed by as he watched them go to the train station.

They walked the rest of the path to the train station until they finally got there, feeling accomplished by reaching their goal but they know that there could be zombies lurking in the station since they couldn’t waste anymore time than they already have to complete the search and rescue mission.

‘’Does anyone know how to drive a train?’’ Nikolai asked everyone, then the Engineer came up to him.

‘’I can drive that thing son, after all I am an engineer but what can I say? I have many talents.’’

Dempsey chuckled ‘’Well, I can’t argue with that one Dell.’’

Spy walks over to the cargo, ‘’If we are done? We better get going before the dead or this ‘’King Dice’’ fellow comes back.’’ he then opens the door and then ushers his teammates to get on. “After you, Bushman.”

‘’Right.’’

Everyone then hopped on the train in a single file, while Demoman used black paint that he found from the ticket booth to write the cargo the words ‘’The Pain Train.’’ he hears a train whistle pierced the air, he then hops abroad on the cargo as the train begins to move it’s wheels against the rails then goes forward as 3 to 8 zombies comes out of their places in attempts to catch up with the train but wasn’t fast enough to catch up as the train goes quickly out of the station.

Scout looks out of the cargo door and laughs at the undead’s failed attempt, ‘’See ya later zombies!’’

Richtofen sighs out a breath of relief as Takeo sat down on a crate while looking outside with the others. They see the old red western buildings and blue 60’s era buildings before the train leaves the fortress and away from it as they watch.

‘’That was close.’’ Sniper said as Dempsey nodded, ‘’Indeed, a little TOO close.’’ Richtofen added.

‘’Still through, I am so glad that we’re out of there and away from those abominations that are created by none other than Lucifer himself.’’ Spy said as he again took another drag, Medic jumped up to the comment with sweat formed on his forehead as he said ‘’Oh Ja! Of course glad!’’ The others looked at him like he was more crazy than usual.

‘’Although Doctor, you seemed jumpy when Cagney mentioned the Devil before King Dice appeared after he said that he is the Devil’s right hand man. Mind explaining that one?’’ Nikolai asked.

‘’Me? Scared of the Devil?’’ Medic excused, ‘’Nein, nein. I vas only surprised zhat zhe Devil might be real. If Cagney is his debtor zhen zhat means-’’

‘’There are more than just one that owes the Devil their soul.’’ Dempsey interjected as Medic said ‘’Hey!’’

‘’That must’ve explains why Laddie.’’ Demoman as he drinks his scrumpy as Nikolai turns away. ‘’What do you think where Pauling is?’’ Nikolai asked.

‘’Far from the fortress huh?’’ Scout said, ‘’Hopefully we won’t encounter zombies there when we get to the town.’’

‘’I will not get my hopes just yet Scout, Richtofen had said that they can always one step ahead of us.’’ Takeo said as he looked outside of the moving train to view the land, he noticed a few trees that he is so familiar with when he is growing up in Japan.

‘’Cool.’’ Scout said as he laid down the crate with his hands at the back of his head.

Everyone looked outside as the train kept moving on the railway tracks to the old town as the hours had passed until the sun began to set over the horizon.

Takeo begins to notice that something is happening with the blossom trees, everyone else soon takes notice of them when the sun disappears behind the hills to make way for night time to begin.

The cherry trees began to glow white as the wind began to blow, allowing the blossoms to fly free into the breeze while everyone looked at them with wonder and amazement. They looked like they were stars being blown away by the wind in outer space as they watched them danced in the dark star-sprinkled skies.

‘’Wow…’’

‘’They don’t normally do something like this…’’ Takeo muttered as he watched, Nikolai walked up to his side and said ‘’Well, in this world, it doesn’t matter…’’

-End of the Flashback…-

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