TF2: Scatterguns Crossed *DISCONTINUED*

(4) Guns Blazin'

Waking up from my deep trance, my world slowly swam into a strange focus. My eyes were still heavy from the depths of slumber. The bright glow of the sun above me made me groan and  lift my arm to shield my eyes, which were starting to sting from the intense light.  Dispite the dragging feeling of sickness, my head felt a bit clearer than before. I could actually think straight. Instead of using this to my advantage, I sat up a little, trying to remember what happened before I went out. 

The sun? Where am I? I rubbed my eyes, blinking my world into focus. Grass....it was tickling my legs. Grass?? We'd made it out of the desert? I frowned slightly, looking around. There wasn't a road in sight. I was surrounded by...trees..?? Their leaves rustled quietly around me as I looked around at them. I was alone. Where were Medic and the others?

"Hello?" I called out, standing up. My belly momentarily cramped in protest. I gently cradled my stomach with my arm and looked around some more. My heart was now starting to pound in my throat. I wasn't lost. I couldn't be lost. I...I must've been dreaming...I must've been hallucinating...I...I must've.

I grew more worried as I wandered past more and more trees, trying to at least find the road. Not even a whiff of gunpowder in the air was present. Just fresh clean air greeted my nose, so that wasn't any help. I stopped walking and listened around closely, turning my head slightly after a minute or two. Nothing. My last option was to keep looking, but staying on the ground wasn't going to help anything. So I decided to climb. I found a big strong maple tree and jumped up on the first branch, pulling myself up and climbing higher. After gaining height halfway up the tree I looked out and around. I needed more height. So up I went. The branches got thinner and were starting to bend under my weight. My legs were starting to shake badly. 

"Just don't look down..." I told myself, looking out over the woods again. 

Smoke....a heavy cloud of smoke was rising quite a distance away. It didn't look like a controlled kind of smoke either, like smoke you would see coming from a bonfire or a chimney. This one looked big and billowed in large amounts into the sky. I squinted my eyes at it. My stomach starting to flip and turn in uncomfortable ways. Something went wrong. Quickly and carefully I slipped down the branches, sliding down to the grass below and running for the smoke in the distance.  I ran as fast as my legs would take me. My head spun fast in protest, but I passed it aside. I couldn't let that bother me right now. 

I remembered the Medic telling me that my team should come before myself unless in a dire situation. I tried to remember a time where the Medic said this while he wasn't spending his time implanting animal organs into one teammate or another. It made me smile a little at his hypocrisy every time. I remember it being a chore to put others before myself, but now it was more of an instinct. It was morbidly like a mother-child relationship. I had to protect what was mine. In this case I didn't have anywhere else to go if I lost my team. Screw the money. Screw being a paid mercenary. This was my family.

The first thing I saw was the raging fire. The truck....it was overturned and in a blaze. There was so much fire that it was hot even though I was standing on the opposite side of the road. Bodies strewn about all over the road. I stayed calm and held my breath, carefully counting. 

1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...

How many of them were dead, I didn't know, but all of them wore RED. I didn't know whether to be comforted or worried. As a Medic would, I chose the ladder. One by one I gently grabbed each person's hands and pulled them over to the opposite side of the road and a little ways into the woods, staying a safe distance away from the fire. I knew it wouldn't be long before the truck would catch gas and explode, so I worked quickly. I found a Med-kit thrown a ways away from the flaming truck and hesitantly picked it up. From this distance I could see my Medi-Gun still sitting in the back of the truck. There was no way I was getting to it. 

I carefully checked over everyone as best as I could. Most of them were unconscious from being around the flames. Only two of them were dead...

Pyro and Soldier...

I never figured out what was wrong with Pyro because of his suit, but no heart beat was detected from his chest. I couldn't feel him breathing either. Soldier had burned to death, very bad fourth degree burns on his legs spreading all the way up his torso to his chest. My best theory was that he'd gotten trapped in the truck and couldn't crawl out in time before his clothes had literally fused to his skin. He'd slowly cooked before the men could help him out. It was the worst thing standing over him. Even worse to imagine what horrible pain he went through before finally dying. The air around me stunk of gas, smoke, and burned flesh. Something I would rather not smell ever again. 

I dipped my head slightly and closed my eyes. I wondered what could've possibly happened this fast to catch every single man off guard. I...I hadn't even been there to help. The Medic wasn't wrong about feeling the pressure after a death. I went through the slow process of dragging their bodies over to the side of the road, then going back to tend to the survivors. 

The other men just had some cuts and small burns. Sniper had a huge second degree burn on his right arm. I tended to that first and cleaned it out with what was in the Med-kit, then carefully wrapped it using bandages that hopefully wouldn't have been too painful to take back off. Getting to Scout last, I looked him over. There was almost nothing left of his shirt, so I did the most logical thing and took it off him. 

"Mmh...Newbie...?" He groaned, slowly opening his eyes. I looked at him, thankful that he was awake. 

"Yeah...don't worry, I'm here." I said gently, cleaning a few cuts on his hip. Surprisingly he smiled at me. I let the silence take over as I cleaned him off, letting him process what happened instead of overloading him with questions. 

"I thought I couldn't get you out fast enough..." he croaked quietly, turning his head. "If you're wonderin' why you woke up in the middle of the woods..."

I stopped working for a second, looking back at him again. 

"That was you?" I asked quietly. 

"Under doctor's orders..." He replied. "He said you'd be able to find your way back...guess he wasn't wrong about that."

I smiled a little, wrapping him up as best as I could.

"Or maybe I just couldn't get enough of you..." I replied sarcastically.