Empty Clip

The bomb and it's cart

It had been at least a day I was there when I heard lots of rattling and voices in the kitchen, it sounded similar to the time I had sleep outside of a restaurant though this was a lot less cold. Got up from the dormitory I had been resting in for a while and left the room, followed my way down the hall until I came apon two wooden doors where light was shining out. I peaked through the door way before it suddenly opened up and before me stood Tik. Without hesitation or time to react he grabbed my arm and pulled me into the kitchen with the others.

Richard and the pyro were also in the room, but there were others. First there was a short and chubby man wearing a not as fancy tie and suit, his name was Orson to which I later learned: was our employer. Orson was a busy man but also very enthusiastic, he expected high of us though I'll say some of his ideas and actions were.. strange. Next there was a young lady wearing some armor on her chest, knees and arms with a medical symbol on them. She was also wearing a medical mask and cap which hid her hair, she was the team nurse: Claire. Claire was quite independent, usually working alone and isolating herself from others, I never saw her a lot in the old base. Finally there was the one that stuck out the most, in the middle of the group was a large mechanical man, or at least his body was mechanical.. his head was of an African American's with a visor strapped tightly onto his face. On the side of his arm read "JET" which was his name.. I never figured out what stood for. JET was said to be 100% loyal to mann.co and the BLU team in general, obeying almost any command with no questions asked and equipped with a very powerful set of skills and weaponry. Despite being part machine, he could also eat normal food like us.

Once everyone had settled down at a table, a certain smell caught my attention.. it was pasta. It was a food I had not had ever sense I was very little. Everything else in that moment felt like a blur, I do remember most of us got very drunk that night. Eventually the cyborg had to start taking away our cups. Out of the blur I also remember Richard mentioning about a pet crab he had brought with him on his travels. Eventually everyone left and I was with the nurse, her eyes were quite pretty and naturally I got nervous as she started to speak to me.

"It appears everyone else left. You seem nice enough, so how do you like it here?"

"I never expected something like this from a mercenary job.. all of theses kind people caring about each other so much"

"Most of us aren't evil, we're just out of our minds. So there should be no reason to be scared, as long as you're careful."

I would have said more to her but the butterflies in my stomach had turned into hornets and were cutting holes in my chest. I attempted to politely say goodbye to her as I got out of the kitchen. She hadn't looked the most happy when I left so suddenly, I hoped I would have a chance to apologize.

Nothing major happened between two weeks of my stay, after those two weeks we were told we would be starting an attack on the RED team. I had arrived in the battlegrounds waiting before anyone else when I was suddenly caught off guard by a pyro similar to Nick... but he wore red. His mask resembled a unicorn of sorts and he muffled in his voice. I jumped up and screamed, I wasn't watching where I was walking and fell back, luckily caught by Richard.
"I'd be carful.. they can smell fear."

Eventually others began showing up, both RED and BLU. There was an engineer who's name tag read "Kenny". He wore a trucker hat and some gray overalls with a bandana in his hair. A soldier had also appeared, he wore a radio headset and a bandana around his face. Along with some tough armor colored red. There were two others that looked just similar to him, though they wore blue and green. They were named James, Kyle and Grant. Oddly the blue one was not on our side. Finally the last one had shown up, it was a robot in similar design to JET though its red armor looked much stronger.. attached to it's back was a rocket booster. He didn't wear a visor, he wore a metallic eagle helmet. Across his arm read: "WING".

Both teams huddled with their respective members and began planning, it seemed what we had to do was push a payload cart over to a bomb pit near the RED base. A buzzer suddenly went off and we all scrambled around shooting each other. I saw JET going for the cart and ran over to follow his lead, he shortly stopped pushing as he needed to handle the incoming threat of turrets and RED's robotic menace. I was left alone to push the cart on my own, strangely no one seemed to pay attention to the objective. While pushing I watched all of the battles around me.

JET had engaged those three mercenaries, they shot at him about a dozen times and he didn't even take a scratch. Looking to my left I saw Tik suffering a blood wound, I wanted to run over and help but suddenly I saw a laser pointed at my chest. That laser was lead directly from the sentry gun next to it's engineer who was holding a trigger of sorts with an evil grin. Though suddenly the sentry began to buzz and fizz as I saw Richard stab his knife directly into Kenny's back, Nick jumped over the demolished sentry gun and got down to help Tik. Seeing this I decided to continue with the cart reaching a check point. The rails lead downward and the cart started moving on its own, I scrambled to grab on as the cart started rolling down into an underground tunnel eventually stopping when it got to an uphill point. Down the other end of the tunnel I could see WING slowly approaching his fist turning into a cannon of sorts as he shot a rocket out. I jumped out of the way and fired a rifle shot at him, Tik ran down into the shaft with me and engaged WING. I began to push the cart up the hill as he distracted the bot, slowly but progressively I made it up the hill to be met with three new foes, I don't fully remember much about they're facial appearance but from they're symbols and clothing I could assume it was a medic, sniper and a spy all in RED.

The sniper had shot at me and I got behind the cart quickly to fire back at him with my rifle as the cart reached another check point, I could see the base now.. it wasn't much farther. Tik eventually caught up to help me push the cart. JET also came by out of a corridor I had noticed some of the red coming out of, he had also helped us push the cart much quicker.

"Thank you!" I said in a exhausted voice
"It is my pleasure Master Michael, 3 hostiles detected up ahead."

JET said as he pointed out the blue mercenary, the sniper and Kenny all firing at us while we desperately pushed forwards with the cart. The sun began to set a small bit.. we were running out of time and had to hurry! JET stopped pushing and jumped onto the cart to block the incoming bullets, though his armor seemed to be breaking off, his grip was slipping.

"NICK GET OVER HERE AND HELP US!"

Eventually JET was launched back from the damage and scuttered behind a rock to start repairing himself. Nick ran into the scene but his head had been shot directly off by the red sniper who started cackling madly. I tried to push the cart but it was almost impossible to stay out of that sentry's range at the same time. I saw Tik clench his fists and suddenly run ahead of the cart swinging his axe all around, he slashed the sniper's head clean off as blood flew everywhere around him. The Red pyro made his own appearance and began to charge at Tik with a fire axe of his own.

All of this fire fighting around me became blurry as I continued to push that cart up another slope with all my might, I realized my team was depending on me and I depended on them. I could feel my arms cracking as I screamed and pushed the cart farther up the hill. Now I could see the large pit as I continued to push forward I could feel 100 souls pushing next to me. When finally I fell over and the bomb fell far down a large hole as a roaring explosion began climbing upwards, I was pulled back by JET to avoid the explosion. He set me down on the ground, I looked over and saw the red's throw they're weapons down in defeat and retreat. My teammates gathered around me. Tik excitedly pat me on the back, Nick came over to my side and put his hand on my shoulder. JET stood motionless, mostly paying attention to the retreating reds.

There was the screeching of a car that suddenly pulled up right in front of us, it was Orson. He quickly jumped out with an smg and declared to us: "Don't worry I'm here!" It took him a moment to realize he was already too late as we all started laughing. I looked at my hands, they were bloody and they didn't look right as everything started turning bright I felt tired. They helped me up and into Orson's car.