Nine of the ten mercs met in the holodeck, which had been renovated to look like a desert-industrial environment with two large factories facing each other.
“Aw yeah, we’re doing a practice skirmish, aren’t we?” grinned scout. He gripped his bat. “I freakin’ LOVE these!”
“But who’re we fightin?” asked Demoman, confused. “We’re allan the same team!”
“Nurse vants to show us something,” shrugged Medic. “Dell vas vorking vith him about an hour ago.”
“He just wants to show us his old team in action,” chuckled Engineer. “I helped him get their profiles into the holodeck. They’ll be playing remotely.”
Soldier chuckled. “I’m ready for those sorry sacks of scum!”
“Yeah, bring it!” chuckled scout. “This is gonna be fun, beatin’ the crap out of the people we replaced!”
“I am ready to fight!” announced heavy, revving his minigun.
“Mission begins in thirty seconds” announced the holodeck.
The team scrambled to their positions. It was a warm summer day in Teufort, and the team that captured the enemy intel wins the skirmish.
Engineer quickly set up a lvl 3 sentry nest in the flag room. Pyro stood at attention, ready to defend it. Spy slinked into the sewers, Demoman set up a medley of mines on the sniper battlements, while Medic and heavy waited at the doors near the middle bridge for the initial push.
“5…4…3…2…1! Begin!”
A klaxon sounded and scout zipped across the bridge, whopping. “Let’s make this quick!”
He zipped down the battlements and looked in horror as no less than 6 frag grenades flew at him. “Oh crap!”
Meanwhile, heavy raced across the bridge with Medic flanking. “Time to hide cowards-Aaugh!” The enemy Artilleryman sent a frag grenade flying at him, immediately blasting him into the red. Then he threw something else.
“What is…?” asked heavy confused, but Medic yelled, “Get back!”
But it was too late. The Nail grenade sent a medley of deadly projectiles flying into Heavy’s face, and then exploded. Heavy and Medic barely retreated with their lives.
“Hey fruit basket!” Soldier came dive-bombing in on his bazooka-wielding counterpart. Nw that he’d used his grenades, they were on even footing. Rockets flew and both were blasted badly and switched to shotgun. Six shots later, both were at 1 hp. Soldier quickly reloaded a single shell, but before he could fire it, he saw his counterpart switch to a second shotgun. “You get twoóAaguh!” Poor soldier was the first casualty of the match.
The artilleryman turned to retreat before getting his head blown off. “Wanker!” Sniper waved. “Thanks for standing still!” He kept his eyes peeled for his opponent.
Meanwhile, the enemy Sprinter had reached the intel room. Engineer laughed. “Good luck getting pastómah sentry!” He gasped as the Sprinter zipped through the room at such a speed the sentry couldn’t even track him. After grabbing the intel, the Sprinter pulled out a nailgun and ran laps around the sentry, filling it with lethal nails until it was scrap metal. Then he was gone.
Meanwhile, his counterpart dodged the enemy Firebug and was racing up the stairs to come around from another angle. Then he was hit in the back by an Incendiary cannon. “What the crap? Your pyro gets a rocket launcher? That sets me on fire?” He started to scream as his flesh burned, but said flames went out almost immediately, dealing pitiful damage. “Heh,” he chuckled, making his way to the battlements. There he saw the enemy Rifleman aiming through a scope. Knowing their weakness was close range, Scout raced forward and blasted him with meatshots. “Hard to aim when I’m batting your freaking head inóoh god!” The rifleman clicked a button and his sniper rifle became a high-powered perfectly-accurate assault rifle, plugging the scout with dozens of lethal bullets in seconds. Poor scout was no more.
Meanwhile, the enemy sprinter had been ignited, airblasted into a corner and firespammed until he was dead. Pyro chuckled. “Pyro!” gasped Engineer, “Help!”
“I’ve got ye lad!” yelled Demoman, racing down a hallway. “Incoming!”
Engineer and Pyro turned to see the enemy Grenadier see them and dart back behind a corner.
“We’ll get him when he neends to reload!” whispered Demoman.
Then 6 blue pills flew and exploded in rapid succession. While this happened, six yellow pills exploded in unison, destroying the Pyro and the newly erected sentry. Then two frag grenades bounced down the hall at them, followed immediately by two MIRV grenades, which exploded into little giblets that also exploded. Then there was a lull.
“What is he doing?” asked the badly wounded Engineer, panting.
“Reloading!” Demoman cried. “Let’s get him!”
He raced around the corner and exploded; the grenadier had prepped a detpack, which evaporated demoman and blew a giant hole in their roof for easier access to the flag. Down dropped…a friendly pyro?
Engineer smiled as he stood in front of his lvl 3 dispenser. “Don’t even try it, Infiltrator!” He raised his pistol, hitting the assassin twice and killing him. “I know you didn’t have a sapper," he chuckled, "so whatever you were thinkingóaugh!” In seconds he and his dispenser were rubble when the spy fired two grenades without undisguising; he had faked his death. Then he grabbed the intelligence.
Meanwhile, Heavy and Medic had healed up and made a second foray into the enemy base. “Rifleman!” warned Heavy. Medic ducked behind him. “I can outheal him!” he assured Heavy.
A shot rang out, and Medic had indeed saved heavy’s life. However, Heavy was even slower. “His rifle, it slows on leg shot!” gasped heavy. “Ow ow!”
Luckily, at that point the shots stopped; Spy had reached the enemy battlements and backstabbed the enemy rifleman. “Sorry to cut in!” he grinned, when he saw the enemy Firebug coming before him. “Oh no…”
The Firebug sprayed his flamethrower wildly, igniting Spy easily. Spy pulled out his revolver and began firing. The damage was pitiful, but to his delight he realized the enemy fire was literally doing less. He couldn’t have been taking more than 8 damage a second. In seconds, the pyro was a bullet-ridden corpse at his feet. “If only they were still like that…” he muttered sadly.
Meanwhile the Heavy/Medic had reached the enemy intel and destroyed the Constructor’s turret with little effort. “Where is his dispenser?” asked Heavy.
“Who cares, get ze papers!” yelled Medic back. “I am still fully charged!”
The two were retreating out of the base with the papers when they saw the enemy Nurse with his tanker, whose mingun was primed and ready. Smirking, Medic popped Uber and the Tanker’s firepower, grenades, and multiple shotguns were worthless, Heavy tore through him. As heavy bore down on the unprotected Nurse, The nurse suddenly shot up from a primed concussion grenade, which flew him over the roof and onto his battlements, and left his attackers with their heads spinning.
“Excuse me, I’m in need of Medical attention!” yelled the grenadier, running up to Nurse. The nurse obligingly tapped him with his medkit before jumping off. “What the hell?” winced the grenadier, who was actually Spy in disguise. Rather than healing him, he was now infected with a crippling infection. He grabbed a healthkit, but it didn’t stop the infection. It didn’t wear off for over thirty seconds. “When does this end?” he panted, looking around wildly for a source of health.
With joy he spotted the enemy dispenser and ran up to it to get healed.
Elsewhere, the enemy constructor noted on his HUD that an enemy was using his dispenser and Remotely detonated it, blowing the Spy to bits. Seconds later, the Sniper removed his head from his body.
“Sentry coming up!” he shouted across the bridge, where the Heavy/Medic were about to emerge into the water under the bridge. Thanks to his warning, they destroyed the sentry without problem. However, Sniper’s attention had been distracted, and seconds later a knife between his shoulder blades informed him that the enemy infiltrator had flanked him.
Heavy and Medic raced through the sewers, and noted that the enemy grenadier had set up a medley of sticky traps to block their path. “Vait!” called Medic, “I am almost charged!”
So they delayed, when they saw Sniper coming for them. “Infiltrator!” both yelled in unison and mowed him down with needles and bullets, making sure to shoot the corpse to ensure he was dead. But before he died, Infiltrator threw an odd pill-shaped grenade at them.
Heavy saw grenade explosions go off. “He detonated his traps early! Go go go!” he called, running into the hallway. Then he got gibbed; the infiltrator’s hallucination grenade had sent fake explosions ringing in his sight.
Medic gritted his teeth and held his crackling Medigun. “It’s just you and me, grenadier!” he called. The grenadier turned the corner, grenade launcher blasting. The Medic popped a millisecond before they hit him. Riding his Uber, Medic got in close and counted 4 shots before switching to melee and hitting him between the eyes. To his surprise, the next grenade blasted him without waiting to reload. He used his Uber to block the sixth shot. “You get six shots in your clip?” protested Medic angrily. Gritting his teeth, he smacked the grenadier again, obliterating him with a random crit. “Hehehe,” he cackled, before a frag grenade went off in his face; the grenadier had primed a grenade before he died, which flew out of his dead body.
“You failed!” the Announcer informed the shaken mercs when the holodeck simulation wore off. Standing across from them was Nurse, who had capped the intel.
As all nine began angrily protesting how over-powered Nurse’s teammates were, Shakila let out a low whistle from the observation booth where she and Aimee had been watching. “Why can’t we have hired those other guys?” she muttered, disappointed.
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