Team Fortress 2 1. Personnel Problems

_In which friends are discussed._

_Click!_

_Fwoosh!_

There was no sound in the massive monitor room but that of a yellow lighter being turned on. The flame was applied to a long cigarette, and then extinguished as suddenly as it had been lit.

The cigarette itself was currently held in the lips of a woman dressed in purple, the smoke gently spiralling up into the air. On its long journey towards the faraway ceiling, the smoke formed a greyish halo around the woman's entirely purple-dyed hair. Entirely, that is, except for a single white tuft in the middle of her forehead.

The rows of television screens covered every available square centimetre of space on the ten-metre-high wall. Each one showed the view from a corresponding hidden camera in the battlefield outside. Heavily armed men wearing red and blue uniforms endlessly battled outside. But _here_ the was no sound, no screams, no gunfire.

Just the sound of a yellow cigarette lighter.

And of course, the purple woman's regular speeches through the PA system's microphones.

The Administrator placed the lead of her microphone into a slot marked 'BLU (all)'.

"Alert, BLU team! Our control point is being contested!" The microphone lead was switched, this time to a slot marked 'RED (all)'.

"Well done, RED team. You have captured the control point." And again to the BLU slot.

"Capture our control point, BLU team!" And one more time.

"RED team! Defend our control point!"

The microphone was removed once more. The Administrator leaned back in her chair, job complete…for the moment.

"Hmm…" mused the Administrator, glancing over to the left of the monitor bank.

"Well now, what's that spy up to?"

Spotting a shimmer of red in a screen, the Administrator took a closer look. Suddenly, she reared back, cigarette dropping out of her mouth in alarm. She jammed a mic lead into its slot.

"Alert! The RED spy is in the base!"

"The RED spy is in the base?" On the screen, the BLU soldier echoed her words, charging full pelt towards the briefcase room and away from the concealed camera. The Administrator groaned.

"Ugh. The Scout, you idiot. He's disguised as the scout." As much as she would have liked to have done otherwise, however, she delivered this verbal chastising with the microphone in the 'off' position. Such a shame that it would have been a breach of protocol.

The Administrator sensed a sudden presence behind her chair. She removed the cigarette from her mouth, holding it in two fingers. Without turning around, she asked,

"Is there a problem, Miss Pauling?"

The notion that the secretive Administrator had supernatural powers frequently occurred to Miss Pauling. How else could _she_ unerring tell whenever someone was standing behind her? It wasn't as if Miss Pauling was anywhere near her chair…

"Um. What makes you say-"

"Because you're hovering. And you only hover when there's a problem. Let's have it."

The petite woman licked her dry lips nervously. "We did a background check on the mercenaries. Standard protocol, nothing-"

"Sometime _today_, please," interrupted the Administrator irritably. Miss Pauling glanced down at the computer printout she held in her hands.

"Um. It's…well, it's the BLU soldier and the RED demoman." This pricked up the Administrator's ears. Still facing the monitor bank, she peered at Miss Pauling out of the corners of her eyes. Miss Pauling stared at her feet. Did she dare to say this out loud? She swallowed, and said,

"It looks like they've become…" The Administrator steeled herself for the worst. "…_Friends_, Ma'am.

One of the Administrator's expensively purple-shadowed eyelids twitched. This was bad. This was very bad…

"For how long?" she hissed. "_How did we not know about this?"_

"Within the last six months, Ma'am." Miss Pauling spread a small pile of freshly-developed photographs onto the switchboard in front of the Administrator. "As far as we can tell, they met at a projectile weapons expo. It, uh…seems to have blossomed into a life-long friendship."

The Administrator stared in annoyance and livid rage at the photographs in front of her. Every one, a different scene. A Las Vegas casino, complete with expensive cocktails and equally expensive women. A tour bus trip of the famous RED- and BLU-owned gravel pits and mines of the USA. A beer-fuelled Badlands Brawlers baseball game. A fishing trip on a luxury yacht, quite mundane but for the swordfishes caught with nothing except sheer muscle power. And, of course, a visit to the Eye Museum. In themselves these photos would be acceptable. The RED demoman and the BLU soldier acting in an overly comradely manner, on the other hand, was quite possibly the worst thing since unsliced bread.

Miss Pauling unwisely tried to fill the sudden silence.

"Heh. You know, forgetting for a minute that we don't condone friendship, it's sort of…almost…uh…" she trailed off as she caught a glimpse of the Administrator's face. "Reprehensible. Completely and totally reprehensible," she finished lamely.

"We are in agreement, Miss Pauling," said the Administrator. "This friendship is a profound betrayal of our trust. Why, friends could easily…could…hmm." This time it was the Administrator who petered off. For once, she was at a loss as to the situation. "Miss Pauling, you strike me as the sort of person who would have…_friends_." She spat the word out like an unpleasant morsel of food, or indeed a particularly vile cigarette. "Tell me, what do they actually _do_?" This was not the sort of question Miss Pauling usually found directed at her. More usually, the questions asked by the Administrator where rhetorical, as she was berated over and over again for not _quite_ getting every small detail correct.

"Um. Go skating…look at gun catalogues…sometimes we just talk…"

"_Talking?_" interrupted the Administrator. "Friendship is even worse than I thought. No, no, no, this won't do at all. If they talk, Miss Pauling, they might talk about work. And if they talk about work, Miss Pauling, they might talk about _us_."

She steepled her fingers and thought deeply for a few seconds, then turned around in her chair and spoke.

"This is what we will do. Call Mister Hale. Tell him we have some custom orders for him. Tell him money is no object. And most importantly, Miss Pauling, tell him we need them _right no_w_._"

"Yes, Ma'am," replied Miss Pauling. "Anything else?"

"Open channels to our two new best friends. I have a proposition for them." She tapped a few keys on the control panel in front of her. In two of the monitor screens, the profiles of the mercenaries in question appeared. "In my experience, Miss Pauling, nothing kills friendship more than a healthy competition."


	2. Customer Service

_In which steak is consumed._

The pilot's frantic voice cut across the howling wind that whistled into the aeroplane through the open cargo bay door.

"Sir, you shouldn't jump yet! We're too low! It's not _safe_!"

"I know the risks, Jerry!" replied a deeper and far more masculine voice. It was the kind of voice that made all other male voices up to and including a bull gorilla's howls sound feminine. "But I've got damn good men down there who need me! Tell _them_ it's not safe!"

"But sir, I-I can climb to a safe altitude. It will literally take seconds, if you'll just-"

"Tell those men down there you can 'climb to a safe altitude'," said the second voice scornfully. "Me, I'd rather get down there and tell them myself…_with my bare hands!_"

"At least take the backup parachute!" The pilot was now yelling at the top of his lungs to make himself heard.

"There's probably no time!" said the second voice. Now it was fading away, quite appropriately as the owner of the voice was now plummeting the atmosphere at quite high speed. The pilot inwardly cursed the stubbornness of his accelerating employer. But to be honest, he'd survived worse falls, without so much as a scratch, and still managed to sign the paychecks of every Mann Co. employee at the end of the day. It was probably fine.

But who was this mysterious masculine man plummeting through the sky? Who was this magnificently moustachioed male? To this, there was only one answer. The hippie-hating, Australium-powered, crocodile-tooth-hatted, the one, the only…

"SAXTON HAAAALE!"

As the pilot of the far-off aeroplane (who had opted to wear his parachute) bailed out some way overhead, Saxton Hale crashed through the twentieth-floor window of Mann Co., executing a flawless roll as he did so, and finally came to a halt and stood. Somehow unharmed from the broken glass lining the floor, his muscles steamed slightly as he stood before the two waiting men, wearing only a pair of navy-blue shorts.

"Mr Bidwell!" announced Saxton Hale. "How did my landing compare to yesterday's? Be frank with me now. I'm made of stern stuff."

"Tears were brought to the eyes, sir," said a long, thin man with a long, thin moustache that curled around the contours of his mouth. He was wearing a black business suit and tie. "Your breakfast steak," he said, proffering forward a silver platter that held a perfectly seared buffalo steak, fresh from the grill.

"It's the most important steak of the day, Bidwell." Saxton Hale picked up the steak, almost reverently, before tearing into it with appreciative munching noises. "Mr Reddy! How's accounts?"

"You're now the sixth richest man in America, Mr Hale," replied a shorter, plumper man, also clad in a black business suit, but unlike Bidwell he was wearing a black bow tie. He sported a thick boxcar moustache.

"Top drawer!" smiled Hale. "Send the other five a congratulatory bouquet and my 'You're a dead man' form letter." He paced the room, stopping in front of a stuffed bear-one of several that had fallen victim to Hale's incredible strength. "What's next?"

Bidwell sighed. "There's a group of hippies in the parking lot again…"

"The scoundrels!" shouted Hale, outraged. "What have they got their smelly ponytails in a twist about _this_ time?"

"Guns, sir. They're against them."

"Fine. I'll beat them to death with my bare hands! Or maybe with my bear hands," said Hale, his mind slightly wandering. "Did you get my memo about ursine weaponry?"

Before Bidwell could answer, Reddy rushed up, slightly out of breath. "TF Industries is holding on line one, sir."

"What? Why didn't you _say_ so, man?" reprimanded Hale. "You don't leave _Helen_ on hold!" He took the phone.

"Helennnn! You chain-smoking seductress! Do you still like steak dinners and sex with handsome men?"

"Mister Hale, this is Miss Pauling," said a feminine voice. "I work for the-"

"Excellent!" Hale boomed. "My offer still stands! What can I do for you, Miss Pauling?"

"We need to resolve a, uh…" On the other end of the line, Miss Pauling licked her lips nervously. "Personnel problem. We were hoping that you could provide the incentives."

While he talked, Saxton Hale began walking down a corridor until he came to a large store cupboard. He pushed the door open, revealing a number of crates covered in plastic tarpaulins. Every one of them bulged with suspicious metal objects.

"It just so happens that the boys in R and D just sent up a few crates of highly experimental new ordnance they wanted me to take for a test drive. Why don't I send those over? Hold on, Bidwell's gesturing frantically to me about something…"

"Sir, those were the weapons you asked us to send up so that you could destroy them before the senate investigation."

"I have no idea what you're - ooh, _right_. That poor monkey." Hale winced slightly as he remembered the Poopy Joe fiasco a few months earlier. "Well, never mind that. Helping Helen out's more important." He thought for a moment. "Also getting someone else's fingerprints on these things as soon as possible. I won't lie to you, Bidwell, we are in a _lot_ of trouble here."

He turned his attention back to the phone.

"Miss Pauling, still there?"

"Um…I heard everything you said, Mister Hale."

"Fannnntastic. And?"

"We'll take them."

Both Miss Pauling and Saxton Hale hung up at the same time. The giant of a man tossed the phone to Reddy, who had suddenly materialised beside him.

"Problem solved! Mr Reddy, we're going to need some ambulances! Mr Bidwell, I need an alibi that puts me anywhere but the parking lot for the next seven minutes." He straightened his crocodile tooth-lined hat.

"Let's go kill some hippies!"


	3. Me One Day Off

_In which the Demoman falls in love._

The Badlands, New Mexico.

It was a strange, alien thing to be seen against the backdrop of the ancient buttes in the distance.

The brilliant white walls of the mansion contrasted massively with the dusty red desert earth.

The vivid lawns and other assorted flora of the surrounding gardens were nothing like the aged green of the cacti that populated the surrounding area. The exquisitely carved statues, depicting warriors throughout the ages in horned helmets and granite armour spewed water high into the air, when not so much as a trickle of any kind of liquid was to be seen for miles around.

And inside, the Demoman was making a pot of tea.

"For the last time, Mum, I don't _have_ to work. It's me mornin' off," the Demoman's deep voice patiently explained as he poured the tea into a delicate china cup.

"Mornin' off?" gasped an elderly female voice. "Oh, Lord help me, you've been fired. I knew it."

The Demoman sighed. It was nice that his ol' mum was concerned and all, but sometimes…

He sighed.

"_No_, Mum. It's just the one mornin'."

"Oh, well, that's _fine _then, I'm sure," his mother said in an accusing tone. "_I_ just wish your poor ol' Da could take a mornin' off. From SPINNIN' IN HIS GRAVE AT YOUR IDLENESS!" Demoman whistled in his head. For such an old woman, she had quite a tongue on her, and when Demoman was a wee bairn back in Ullapool her verbal lashings were feared by small children all over the neighbourhood.

He sighed again. "I'm holdin' down three jobs, Mum."

"Three jobs! Harken to the lad! Tavish Finnegan DeGroot, just you listen to me. Your father, God rest him, had twenty-six jobs! And he still found time enough to teach you the family trade!"  
"I made five million dollars last year, Mum," the Demoman replied. "We live in a mansion."

"Aye, and who told _you_ to buy a bloody mansion, that's what I want to know. These're your prime earning years, and you're halfway to retirement already! Mark me, boy: no demoman worth his sulphur ever had an eye in his head past thirty."

"Mm-hm," murmured Tavish, carefully carrying the tea-tray into the lounge where his mother was sitting. "Tea's up, Mum."

His mother. Deep black-skinned, just like him, some dominant gene from an ancestor from long ago. Sitting in a blue armchair, a tartan rug pulled over her legs. Her beloved white walking cane was grasped firmly in her hand, and dark sunglasses obscured her sightless eyes. Now that Tavish came to think about it, he himself was already halfway to blindness. He had permanently lost his depth perception after all that business with that thrice-cursed _book_…

Now a black patch covered his left eye socket, or at least what was left of it.

His mother muttered something under her breath. Then she spoke again.

"It wasnae easy bringing ye up Scottish, lad. Lean years. In those days you could bomb mercs _all day_ and not have enough for a loaf of bread. Yer Da walked fifteen miles in the rain to blow up the Queen of England for a nickel!" She slumped down in her chair. Evidently this fierce recollection of past life had sapped much of what little energy she had left.

"I'll get more jobs, Mum. I promise."

"I just hate to see ye squandering your gifts."

"I know, Mum."

The ancient woman sadly shook her head.

"I miss him, Tavish. I miss him every day."

"I know, Mum," he repeated. And he did. He truly did.

As he started to put his arm around her, there was a sharp rapping at the door.

"_Bloody hell, me one mornin' off…"_ Tavish grumbled under his breath as he hauled himself off of the couch next to his mother's chair. "Drink your tea, Mum. I'll be right back."

"Mister DeGroot?" asked Miss Pauling.

"Tavish? Who is it?" called his mother from the lounge.

"Someone from work, Mum!"

"Ask him if he's got any more jobs!" his mother called back.

"Here, I _know_ you," said the Demoman. "You're that wee lass, works with the angry lady who's always screaming at us while we fight."

"Heh…" Miss Pauling scratched the back of her head in embarrassment. "She's not so bad once you get to know her."

"Really." It was quite clear how much Tavish believed her. "And what's she want, then?"

"She'd like you to kill your best friend. In exchange, we'll give you this." She gestured to a large rectangular wooden crate on the floor by her feet. THE EYELANDER was printed on the side in large letters.

Tavish scoffed.

"Are ye seriously asking me to betray me best mate for a _weapon_?" he asked incredulously. "Ha! I've got just a _little _more integrity that that, lass. I…" he trailed off, not through lack of words, but because Miss Pauling had just opened the lid of the crate. "I…Oh, my." He gazed at what lay within. His jaw dropped slightly. "What's _your _name, you dirty girl?"

Miss Pauling reached inside the box, and pulled out…

A beautiful sword, a work of art. It seemed to _glow_ with a silver shine, and reached out to Tavish at the subliminal level. That, and the fact that it was almost five feet of sharpened metal being offered to a weapons fanatic.

The Demoman held it with both hands. He stared at it with rapt fascination.

"This…is the Eyelander," said Miss Pauling. "Pattern-welded Damascus steel. Harmonically balanced. Slow-forged for generations in the bowels of captured English kings."

And then he heard it. Barely a whisper.

"_Headddds…_"

He felt some strange force pulling him around. Towards one of the fountain statues, an ancient warrior with a flowing beard and a horned helmet.

"_HeadheadheadheadHEADHEAD__**HEADHEAD**__…" _He was being dragged towards the statue. What started out as a whisper was now a roaring in his ears. He was close to the statue now. Close enough to…

"_RRRAGHHH!_" he roared as he swung the sword around in a sliver arc. The statue's head went flying, and water gushed out of where the neck used to be.

And then, the spell was broken. He stood in front of the decapitated statue, surveying the damage.

"Um…" a small voice spoke. Tavish turned round to see Miss Pauling standing there, an almost apologetic look on her face.

"Ah…I guess I forgot to tell you…it's haunted."

All things considered, Demoman took it quite well after Miss Pauling uttered those words, once he'd thrown the sword as far away as possible and tried to hide behind the remains of the decapitated statue. The sight of a fully grown Scotsman who had temporarily thrown his honour and dignity to the wind and instead was attempting to make himself as small as possible behind a destroyed fountain was quite comical, and she found it quite hard not to laugh. She eventually managed to school her features down enough to look professional, however, and patiently explained to the man that, while the sword might just have _one little_ thousand-year-old spiritual entity with a passion for heads, if he just got to know the thing a little it might become a very handy ally in the field of battle. She hinted that maybe, if Tavish satisfied its desire for heads during one of the many…ahem…_disputes_ the mercenary partook in, the ghost might just share some of its supernatural powers with him.

Tavish pondered all this for several minutes. Then he spoke.

"Blast ye, woman. Makin' a man choose between his best friend and a sword. No. No, I couldn't. Soldier's me best mate!"

Miss Pauling smiled.

"Tell you what, why don't I leave them here, and you can think about it." Demoman was puzzled.

"Them?"

Miss Pauling gestured to two other wooden crates by the path to the front door. The words 'CHARGIN' TARGE' and 'SCOTTISH RESISTANCE' could be seen written on the sides in black letters.

She turned, and started to walk away. Then she turned around, as if she had suddenly thought of something.

"Oh, and Mister DeGroot?" The Demoman perked up. "Your friend's employer made _him_ the same offer. He said yes, Mister DeGroot. Enjoy your morning off."

It was a cruel trick, Miss Pauling knew, but…well…some things had to be done. Such as, for one, whatever The Administrator said.

_Not so bad when you get to know her_, she had said. That is not the same thing as _nice_.


	4. Mister Jane Doe

_In which a flasher does not._  


It was dark outside. One of those dreary nights which turned everything a shade of grey. The man in the similarly-coloured trench coat had not counted fifty, but it was close enough. It was like some evil entrepreneur had unleashed a machine on the area to suck the very colour out of everything.

Or maybe monochrome was in fashion again.

The man stopped by a brick building, tucked away in a back alley. On the door was a sign. It read:

MISTER JANE DOE

Beneath it, slightly ruining the dramatic effect, another sign proclaimed:

NO SOLICITORS! DO NOT TEST ME

The lack of proper punctuation and the name confirmed the man's thoughts.

"This is the place," he murmured into a radio mouthpiece attached to his collar. There was a brief burst of static, and then...

"_It had better be, for the money we paid you to find it._" A woman's voice, as sharp and sour as a lemon. And, it seemed, very impatient. "_You're wasting my time. Go knock._"

Trench coat-man took a step towards the door. At this distance, he could not help but notice something strange about it. Two circles, like cat flaps, at just below head height. What on earth could _they_ be for? And beneath...were they _bullet_ holes? He reached forward tentatively, and knocked twice. The sudden noise echoed around him.

"_Good,_" murmured the woman on the other end of the line. "_Now duck._"

He stepped back just in time. Two mini explosions briefly lit up the night bright orange, momentarily blinding the man. They were accompanied by two ear-splitting noises, the echoes of which by far dwarfed that of the mere knocking that had taken place at the door just a moment ago. The man could have sworn that he felt something zoom past his face at high speed.

Well, at least he now knew why there were bullet holes in the door.

"_Who iiiis it_?" called a sing-song voice from the other side of the door. "Say, friend, why don't you move a little closer to the door?

"_Thaaaat's_ it. Don't be scared," reassured the voice. "I just want to - _HUTTAH NECK SNAP!_"

The man behind the door roared as he thrust his arms through the twin cat-flaps. His hands arranged themselves into grabbing positions as he attempted to find a neck to break.

Trench coat-man, meanwhile, had opted to stay put, his neck well outside of grasping distance.

The pair of arms searched in vain for a few moments, then sunk down dejectedly.

"Alright, you can come in," grumbled the man behind the door. The hands retracted, and then there was a series of staccato clicks as a great many bolts, catches, latches and locks were drawn back, removed, opened, and unlocked, respectively.

The door swung open, albeit lacking the traditional ominous creak.

Trench coat-man stepped through the threshold and into a damp-ridden, poorly lit room.

It was an absolute shambles.

What little wallpaper there was still attached was peeling, revealing the brick wall behind. There was a persistently lingering aroma of tomato soup gone bad, coupled with mould and the remains of take-away cartons from retailers long past. On the wall there was - trench coat-man strained his eyes to see - a map of Europe. Its elderly paper was a faded yellow, and various locations were circled in a colour that once was red. A desk piled high with boxes that advertised Captain Dan's Army Surplus Soup. An overturned table. And behind _that_…

"Unless you're the tomato soup wholesaler or a new delivery man from the rib place, you have just entered a doorway of hurt into an apartment of pain, son," growled an angry male voice from behind the makeshift barricade.

The interesting thing was that trench coat-man did not actually notice the man's strange garb. Not many people in their right state of mind would wear what seemed to be an M1 helmet at every occasion, or a T-shirt so tight that Simon Cowell would kill to get his little mitts on it. And _surely_ no sane person would choose _that _shade of blue as an everyday colour scheme. Then again, the Soldier wasn't exactly employed for his sanity.

No, he was in fact staring at the barrel of the shotgun that was responsible for the current state of the door. Trying not to make any sudden movements, trench coat-man slowly lowered his hands from their brief residence in the air. With a firm grip just below his lapels, he pulled his trench coat open.

"Good lord, no!" cried the Soldier in alarm, dropping the shotgun as he shielded his eyes from the would-be flasher. Then, purely, I say again PURELY out of curiosity (ahem.) he lowered his hands slightly. To his surprise, the intruder was fully clothed beneath his trench coat. And there was something else under there, too...

The man reached down and pressed a switch on the side of the television strapped to his chest. A grainy monochrome picture crackled into being, revealing a face that Soldier knew all to well.

"Tell me, Mister Doe," said the Administrator onscreen, lighting a cigarette. "Do you know what a _conflict of interest_ is?"

"Can I guess?" muttered the Soldier.

"No."

"You don't own me! Just you try and stop me, lady." The Administrator sighed inwardly. The Soldier was a good mercenary, bordering on the excellent. Although she would never tell him that, goodness me no. She knew that sometimes she had to humour him a little, but that didn't mean she wasn't reluctant about it.

"Fine. Go ahead."

"It is a form of combat!"

"No."

"A breed of dog!"

"I'm afraid not."

"It is knowing what words mean!"

The Administrator's patience was wearing thin. _Enough of this tomfoolery!_ she thought.

"Mister Doe. The point is that you have befriended a man that we pay you to kill. As such, you have two options. One, my associates will drive you to the nearest gravel pit..."  
"Ooh! That one," interrupted the Soldier.

"-Where they will shoot you for gross insubordination."

"Hmm," mused the Soldier. "Wait. Let me hear both choices first."

The woman on the television sighed, this time quite audibly.

"Option two, as I was about to say before I was _so rudely_ interrupted..." she leaned out of the camera's field of view for a few seconds, and some whisperering could be heard. Then, an equally grainy picture of one Tavish DeGroot came up onto the screen. "Option two, you kill this man. And we supply you with the custom-built weapons you'll need to get the job done."

That was the tipping point for Soldier. Coming into his house? Fine. Pretending to flash him? Nothing he hadn't seen in the service. But asking him to _betray_ his _best friend_? He pulled himself to his full height, which was quite impressive, and stomped over to the man in the trench coat, his reinforced jackboots turning the table-barricade to splinters in the process.

"Then I guess you'd better take me to the gravel pit and shoot me, lady. 'Cause if you ever ask me to kill my friend again, I will put my boot so far up your ass it will be ON THE NEWS!"

"That's not the option he took from his employers," the Administrator answered.

Kneeling down, quite ruining the dramatic effect, the Soldier addressed the television.

"He agreed to kill me for weapons? HA! I don't buy it, sister."

On the screen, the Demoman began laughing.

*BZZT*I-WILL-KILL-THE-SOLDIER.*BZZT* This caught the Soldier's attention. *BZZT*HE-IS-A-BAD-FRIEND.*BZZT*

Soldier rubbed the back of his neck.

"Ahhhh, but _dammit_-it doesn't matter what he said in that weird robot voice I've never heard him talk in before. Once you've taken a man out for whisky and ribs...then fought him...then fought the police with him..." The Soldier sighed, recalling fond memories of times past, then continued. "Well, you have forged a bond thicker than any soup you can buy.

"That's not girl talk, either. That's just facts. So NO DEAL, pumpkin. Find yourself another patsy."

The Administrator steepled her fingers. This was going to be tougher than she had thought...

*BZZT*HE-IS-NOT-A-REAL-SOLDIER.*BZZT*

*BZZT*HE-WAS-NOT-EVEN-IN-THE-ARMY.*BZZT*

*BZZT*HE-IS-A-FRAUD.*BZZT*

*BZZT*_HE-IS-A-CIVILIAN!_*BZZT*

Soldier was dumbstruck, something very unusual for him.

"Civ-civilian?" he stammered. "_He promised he'd never_..." whispered the Soldier. Then he exploded. "HOW _DARE_ HE? I EARNED EVERY ONE OF THOSE MEDALS I MADE! I DID THREE GODDAMN TOURS OF DUTY, AND I WASN'T EVEN ASKED! I PAID MY DUES! _AND_ MY PLANE TICKETS OVER!" He took a deep breath. "I...he..." He gritted his teeth. "HE IS A DEAD MAN!"

The Administrator smiled a shark-grin smile.

"I believe we have a deal, Mister Doe. There will be a new weapon waiting for you every day until the job is done." The camera panned around until it rested on a long, sleek rocket launcher fitted with-for some bizarre reason-a telescopic sight. "The first weapon we'll be sending you is a precision instrument. If you were blasting around randomly, it would be useless to you. However, I think you'll find it useful for sharpshooting..._specific enemies_." She glanced to the side. "Pauling, kill the feed, please."


End file.

Team Fortress 2, Friendship, Hurt-Comfort