Kidnapping Caper - A Tf2 Story

6 - A Plan Up In Flame

Sniper, Soldier, and Spy marched through the halls of the Blu base with their heads held high. After a flawless infiltration, each was brimming with excitement to report their contributions to the operation. If success was not enough to satisfy alone, the bragging rights that came alongside such a perfect heist surely did the trick to inflate their egos. The trio made their way into the barracks hall where the rest of the team awaited news.

Down the hallway, Scout sat in an old chair he'd dragged from his room, tossing a baseball at the wall repeatedly. He glanced up from his game to find the returning mercenaries coming down the hall and shot up out of his chair. "Hey, you're back! Took you long enough!" he grinned, waving at his coworkers before grabbing the bat and frying pan that laid under his chair. Weapons in hand, he ran down the hallways loudly beating them together. "Everybody up! The guys are back! That means you, Demo! Up and at 'em let's move it, everybody! Move it!" he shouted, moving from room to room and occasionally beating on the doors.

The rest of the Blu mercenaries began to trickle out of their rooms at various stages of wakefulness. The groggy hoard, already fully outfitted and in uniform, fell in behind Sniper, Spy, and Soldier like a shuffling blue mass.

Scout ran to the front of the pack, trotting backwards in front of Spy. "So, how'd it go? You guys catch the moron?" he asked excitedly.

"Of course we caught the moron," Spy declared. A smug smile tugged at the corner of his lip, despite his best attempts at hiding his pride.

"Oh, ho! How'd you do it? Beat his head in? Pull some fancy pressure point move on him to knock him out? A funky trinket? Come on, Spy, I want details here, man!" Scout pestered, doing his best to get a good look at the sack dangling over Soldier's shoulder.

Spy simply shook his head. "You will hear the details in the briefing at the same time as everyone else. This is a professional operation, not a showboating victory lap."

Scout frowned, crossing his arms as he glared at Spy. "You're no fun, you know that, Stink Lines?"

"If you want to hear about it, I suggest you get in that meeting room already, we haven't got all day," Sniper urged Scout, a faint chuckle peppering his words.

Scout simply rolled his eyes, jogging ahead into the meeting room. He leapt over the table, landing nimbly in his backward facing chair. As he leaned forward onto its frame, the rest of the Blu mercenaries found their seats around him. Soldier scraped a chair loudly across the floor to the front of the room, where he roughly dropped the sack on display. He sneered down at the lumpy bag as Spy and Sniper positioned themselves on either side of their hostage like hunters over a prized kill.

Spy stepped forward, practically swelling with pride. "Gentlemen, I am proud to announce that tonight we have claimed an advantage against the Red mercenaries. After years of constant back and forth in battle and countless losses, we take a peek under the hood at the key to their success. With the most brilliant of their minds at our fingertips, we finally grant ourselves the upper hand we've waited to gain for years. This advantageous position will–" Spy rambled, only to be cut off in his speech.

"Yeah yeah, adventurous position or whatever. You gonna tell us what actually happened in there or what?" Scout butted in, tipping forward in his chair in anticipation.

"We'd like to see the bloody toymaker, not just hear you yap about strategy, lad," Demoman chimed in, rocking the bottom of his liquor bottle back and forth on the table in front of him out of boredom.

Spy blinked in shock, before slouching forward sulkily. "Yes, fine. We found our way into the base and captured him," he grumbled, intentionally skipping the details. Dispirited, he gestured to the chair behind him. "My friends, your Red engineer," he huffed as he awaited Soldier's unveiling of their captive.

Though he was disheartened by the team skipping his speech, Spy was thoroughly surprised by their reaction to the reveal. The men had at first seemed disappointed in Spy's lack of detail of the mission, but as soon as the bag dropped to the floor they let out a chorus of gasps and adorned various expressions of fear, disgust and horror.

"Geez, Spy! I thought you said you were bagging their engineer, not that freak!" Scout shrieked, leaping up and latching onto Heavy, who seemed just as frightened as Scout was, now reaching for his shotgun.

Spy's face scrunched up in confusion. He turned around to find Soldier and Sniper standing bewildered beside the unconscious, pajama clad figure of the Red team's Pyro. Spy stared with a slack jaw at the unexpected sight, before becoming overwhelmed with rage.

"Soldier!" he seethed, red faced and through gritted teeth, "You grabbed the wrong man?!"

Soldier looked between Spy and the Red pyro in an attempt to explain himself. "No! That was the engineer, I took the engineer!" he stammered. His face wore his confusion and panic plainly, seeming like if he thought about it any harder he might hurt himself by accident.

Spy snatched Soldier by the front of his tunic and drew him close to his face. "Does that–" Spy began as he thrust a shaking finger toward the Red pyro where he sat slumped forward in his chair, "–look like the engineer to you, Soldier? Does it?" he screamed, yanking Soldier so close their noses pressed together.

Sniper spoke up quickly, stopping the tirading Spy in his tracks. "No, Soldier's right. That was the engineer, I saw it when he grabbed him," he insisted.

"Well that ain't no engineer!" Scout cried, peeking out from behind Heavy.

"Could it be a Spy?" Medic suggested, standing to get a better look at the collapsed pyro.

"No, the spytron doesn't work when its user is unconscious," Spy explained.

"There is no sense in asking 'why' and 'how' now. We must be asking what to do to get rid of it," he insisted, "Preferably with Sasha, and many many bullet." Heavy gripped his shotgun tighter, seemingly ready to fire at the Red pyro at any moment.

"Yeah, I say we kill the freaking thing!" Scout pressed, "That way it's dead and out of our base!"

"Right!" Soldier grinned, cracking his knuckles and taking a step toward the hostage.

"No, wait!" Demo shouted, standing quickly to stop him, "Hell itself won't take that devil back, it'll come back looking for revenge. You can't just kill it, do you have a death wish?"

Medic set a hand on Demoman's shoulder. "Oh no, it's not that Hell won't take it, no need to worry there. The immortality is my doing. Or really the respawn machine but that is another story. However, you are correct about the death wish and revenge, so I am sad to inform you all that we must keep it alive."

"Then how are we supposed to get that mutant freak out of here? We can't just drop her off at their doorstep with a bow and apology letter," Sniper wondered, glancing back at the unconscious figure.

"Like I said, we just shoot it! It's out cold, it won't know it was us," Scout demanded.

"Scout has good point. We should do that. Many time. Red pyro will never know what hit it," Heavy nodded.

For the first time since the mercenaries had entered the meeting room, Engineer spoke up. "If we kill him, that's wasted effort," he began, stroking his beard. The room silenced as he thought. "It's best if we keep him alive."

"Then what are we gonna do with it, smarty pants? Let it burn this place to the ground? I don't think so!" Scout cried.

"Well we have their pyro. They've got something we want. We've still got the upper hand here, we just gotta play it right," Engie explained, "If we hold him for ransom in trade for their engineer, it works out in our favor again." The group pondered the solution. When they still seemed unconvinced, Engie continued. "We're not empty handed until the trade either. We know their pyro and engineer are close. Surely he's got something we can use information wise. Maybe he'll even give us something the engineer won't after we trade them. We get information and their engineer. We're coming out of this better than if we just caught their hardhat."

Spy traced his lips with a finger in thought. "Mr. Dell, my good sir," he uttered, looking up with a newfound confidence, "That may just work."