Chapter 1

“Alert! The control point is being contested!”

The announcer's point was moot before the last word had even left her lips. Ankle-deep in what remained of the BLU Heavy, the RED Soldier admired the glorious crimson splatter on his shovel's blade. “Not today, maggots.” he chuckled, spitting over the side of the single, central control point at Nucleus.

Somewhere far below him, the harmonious ‘crack’ of breaking bones echoed. Looking over the edge, he could see that the pipes below the point had caught the hapless BLU Medic’s body. The dead Kraut would be dangling there like a discarded sock until respawn picked him up at the round’s end...and with only a few BLUs left alive, that wouldn’t be too far away. Arena...God, he loved it. The sheer hot-blooded intensity of it, the desperation that came from being moments between a few hours of oblivion or a glorious blood-stained victory...

“AUGH!” Soldier suddenly snapped back to reality as an arrow embedded itself in the floor behind him. His hand reached up to his ear, then quickly pulled away as the pain intensified. Blood on his fingers...warm, fresh...and not a filthy BLU’s. He glanced around quickly for the man who’d dared to make him bleed his own blood. But then something else whooshed past him, barely missing his other ear.

A chocked scream made him look to a nearby balcony, where the BLU Sniper wobbled around then toppled backwards comically, an arrow sticking straight up from his left eye socket. Then an unwelcome voice came from behind him; “What the bloody hell are you doin', standin' around like a bleedin' statue!? Stop playin' with yerself and keep movin'!”

Soldier shot a glare at their team's Sniper, resting the Direct Hit on his shoulder as he moved off the control point. Normally he wouldn’t have taken orders from any filthy, jar-throwing hippie. But there were still BLUs alive, and while they still were living in his world, he’d make it his sole purpose to crush every single one. One rocket was all it took to propel himself to higher ground, and a second finished off the sparking, smoking sentry gun that BLU’s Engineer had been fretting over. Another rocket barrage had the man running left and right like a wooden target in a carnival game, before Soldier finally put him out of his misery. Maggots, all of them. They were just insects, and he was the kid with a magnifying glass and a sadistic streak. Just with more explosions.

He searched around for his next target, dropping down from the slanted concrete roof and onto a balcony to reload. From up here, he could see just about everything. Engineer was wiping his brow and looking proudly at his Level 3 Sentry, Scout was running around looking for more heads to cave in. He saw the BLU Demoman collapsed in a pool of blood as Medic unleashed a Kritzkrieg, Heavy laughing maniacally as the pair headed for the point...and a momentary flicker in the air behind them.

Immediately he was in the air again, flames licking the heels of his Gunboats as he descended upon his prey. “Sneak up on MY team will ya, you scum-sucking...!”

“BONK!”

The bat sent an arc of blood into the air. The BLU Spy’s body crumpled, his once-raised butterfly knife clattering along the floor and coming to rest against Scout's cleats. “Flawless victory!” crackled over the loudspeakers as the young man grinned proudly, giving the dead man's ribs a swift kick for good measure.

“How d'ya like me now, ya back stabbin' coward? Yeah, that's right! Ya don't, because yer freakin'...dead...!” Scout trailed off, his voice squeaking as Soldier cracked his knuckles, with a glare that could melt through steel. Dropping his bat and stepping backwards onto the point, the terrified young man tried to stammer out an excuse, before a loud metallic clank cut him short. Still on the bridge, Soldier looked up to see the machinery above the point had moved. The two gigantic rings had separated, and he could see right into the glowing blue and green core, which spun faster and faster as he watched.

Suddenly, a thunderclap ran through the base, the colors merging into a searing turquoise light that expanded explosively. Already deafened by the ringing in his ears, Soldier stumbled as the light blinded him, and something that he assumed was Scout pushed past him. His hands felt the edge of the bridge, the pit and certain death waiting below as he got to his feet. Squinting through the spots plaguing his vision, he could make out the silhouette of Engineer, his arms flailing wildly to direct the rest of the team back to their spawn before he himself went inside. The only thing Engie knew better than how to make some damn good ribs, was how to work with machines. And if this machine scared him...

Soldier broke into a run, but even with the second wave of adrenaline coursing through his veins, he struggled with the injuries from his multiple rocket jumps. He gritted his teeth; real men could deal with a few sissy bone fractures. But it was then that an excruciating pain suddenly shot through his head, the shock making him trip and fall flat on his stomach, his hands clawing uselessly at the concrete floor as his consciousness faded.

Someone grabbed his arm. And the last thing he heard was the spawn door slamming shut behind him.

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“Oof-!”

Engineer fell right on his backside, his fingers losing their grip on Soldier’s jacket as he dragged him into the spawn room. His lower back ached as he slowly got to his feet, but he felt more concerned for the unconscious man his team-mates were now huddled around.

“Hey, he's not...DEAD-dead, is he? They keep respawn on even after we win, right?” Scout asked, wringing his hands. “I mean, the guy's crazier than a shithouse rat, but...aw man...”

“Rrm nrrt shrr...” Pyro scratched his head, and shrugged. “Mrrbe?”

“Figures, really...” Sniper took his hat off, solemnly holding it over his heart. “Crazy bastard. Gettin' 'imself done in loik that.”

“Vill ze concerned frauleins please step avay from ze patient?” The Medic said sternly, the others immediately taking a step back. The Doc only ever used that tone of voice when he was ready to get Heavy to play crowd control. Engineer squeezed in between Sniper and Demo as he unclipped the Medigun from his belt, pulling the handle with one hand and checking Soldier’s pulse with the other.

“...I did not ask for an audience...schweinhunds, blocking ze light...” Shaking his head and muttering in annoyance, he took a small flashlight from his pocket and pried open Soldier’s eyelid, shining the light into it. As he repeated the check with the other eye, still with no response, the mood in the room almost tangibly dropped.

Medic stroked his chin in thought for a moment. Then with one swift movement he reached into his pocket again, took out an empty syringe, and stabbed it into his patient’s hand before anyone could even think of protesting.

“OW! What in god’s name-get your filthy drugs the HELL away from me, you crazy Kraut!” Suddenly awake, Soldier pulled out the syringe as quickly as it had gone in, and leapt to his feet. Seeing what was about to happen, Heavy silently stepped forward and picked the man up by his collar, letting him dangle and struggle like an angry cat. “Put me down, Stalingrad! That's an ORDER! I'll grind your precious Herr Dok-tor into bratwurst and send him straight back to the Kaiser!”

“See, he is fine.” Completely unfazed by Soldier’s outburst, Medic adjusted his glasses, and calmly shut off the Medigun as he stood up. “Now. I vill require everyvone to report to ze infirmary - in alphabetical order - for a full medical exam. Unless somevhan has any idea vhat zat...zhing above ze point is and vhat it just did?”

Engineer suddenly felt everyone's eyes on him at once. He’d seen it coming as soon as that thing had gone off...big machine doing god-knows-what, and who’s the guy who’s always tinkering with the darn things? He coughed a little, stalling for time by wiping his forehead with a slightly greasy handkerchief. “Well...ah’m sorry t’break it to ya fellers, but ah’m stumped. That big wheel was mixin’ together the stuff comin’ in through those pipes, but as for what that stuff is and was meant to do, well...your guess is as good as mine.”

He shrugged. Most of the others looked worried, but Medic raised an eyebrow skeptically, and Spy gave a know-it-all smirk as Engineer looked at his feet. He twisted the square of cloth in his hands. He couldn’t tell them because he’d given his word not to, but that blue-green light looked familiar. Real familiar. The last time he'd seen light like that, he'd been looking into the eyes of a man insane from desperation; a man more than a century old, who'd died several times that very morning. He just wished he knew why that terrible light had come from that monstrous device hanging above the point.

“...Alright zen. I vill prepare ze eqvipment for taking ze blood samples.” Medic said far too cheerfully, eliciting a collective groan from the gathered men, but Soldier's impatient growl was even louder. The doctor looked at him like he would a piece of gum stuck to his boot. “Ah yes...Herr Soldat. Heavy, you may drop him.”

Heavy took the command all too literally, releasing his grip on Soldier's uniform and letting him fall to the ground like a sack of potatoes. He chuckled as he followed Medic through the concealed entrance to the team's living quarters and infirmary, leaving the military man to nurse his wounded pride as the rest of the team filed out.

“You gonna be okay, Solly?” Engineer asked, offering a hand and a friendly smile as Soldier stiffly got on one knee. “You took a pretty nasty-”

“Outta my way!” Soldier snarled, pushing him to one side as got to his feet, and stormed off down the waiting hallway. “Me and the kid need to have a little ‘heart-to-heart’...”

Engineer hurried after him. Usually it wasn't his job to worry about his team-mates; they'd come use his dispenser during battles, maybe talk a little about strategy or about home, and they'd be off and fighting again in no time. But he'd been looking at the point before that thing went off; he'd seen Scout kill that BLU Spy before Soldier could. And then that big machine had scared the heck out of him, and he’d been humiliated in front of the entire team, so it figured he’d be madder than a cut snake. He just hoped he could get there before Solly’s temper got the better of him.

“Son, you do realise that I could-no, I should wring your scrawny neck right here and now...” Engineer rounded the corner and saw Soldier pinning Scout to the wall, his hands in a tight grip around his neck. The younger man made a weak choking noise, a pleading look in his eyes as Soldier’s knuckles turned white.

“Solly! Leave ‘em alone, yer gonna kill the boy-!”

“But since you won us this round...” Engineer’s protests seemed to fall on deaf ears, but Soldier’s grip relaxed just slightly. “I don’t know if I should kill you, or kiss you full on the mouth.” Scout flattened himself against the wall in fright, not sure which fate would be worse.

“Instead...please accept this friendly but firm pat on the back.” Finally releasing his grip, he let the young man gasp desperately for breath before winding him again with a hefty pat. “You did good today, private! Don’t do it again!” He shouted over his shoulder as he marched towards the infirmary.

“What the hell is his problem!?” Scout coughed as soon as Soldier was out of earshot, rubbing his neck painfully.

“That’s Solly for ya. After what happened today, ah’m thinkin’ he figured he looked weak. An’ if there’s something that Solly hates, it’s weakness...‘Specially in himself.” Scout flinched slightly when Engineer gently patted him on the shoulder. “Now let’s get this here checkup finished before dinner’s ready. Don’t want Heavy to eat all the mashed ‘taters again.”

“Yeah, yeah...Soldier’s still a freakin’ crazy bastard, though.”

“Boy, didn’t your mother ever teach you to respect your elders?”

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“Fess...”

Medic took his glasses off, rubbing his temples with his gloved hands. Placing the medical record back into its folder, and putting the folder back in a neat pile with the rest, he leaned back in his chair and sighed. He’d spent hours trying to make sense of the results of his examinations, of the blood tests, of everything. Every possible abnormality he could test for, with the limited equipment he had, had come up negative. Normally he would have let it be...maybe re-test in the morning, if just as another excuse to plunge sharpened needles into exposed and trembling flesh.

But there was the issue of the sudden, strange symptoms that afflicted the team. For now, he could assume that it was due to their collective exposure to Nucleus’s core. But no kind of dangerous chemical he’d ever worked with, no radiation sickness he knew of seemed to match. And what left him particularly frustrated was there was no consistency between their individual symptoms. He’d been standing on the point, directly under the machine when it went off, and had felt strange for several minutes afterwards. He recalled that the English word for it was ‘goosebumps’...it’d made him shiver and squirm, like tiny spiders were crawling over his skin. And the feeling had returned several times throughout the evening.

And yet Heavy - he retrieved the Russian’s medical file - had experienced nothing even close to that. Instead he seemed lethargic, yawning almost constantly throughout dinner and leaving before he’d even had second helpings. Medic had later caught him snoring and resting his head on a partially-dismantled Sascha. Heavy adored his gun, often spending many quiet hours delicately cleaning and maintaining her, so seeing him asleep halfway through was more than a little worrying.

And the list of seemingly random symptoms continued as he picked up each file. The Pyro hadn’t taken his usual portion of food to his room, and mostly by gestures he’d complained of feeling nauseous. Soldier had severe headaches, and of course refused even simple painkillers on the grounds that it was weakness leaving his body. A very nervous Scout claimed he felt dizzy; something Medic would have dismissed as hypochondria if he hadn’t swayed slightly when he walked, and grabbed the door frame on the way out to balance himself.

Another file, and more notes; despite his usual suave demeanour, Spy’s skin had been feverishly hot to the touch when he’d rolled up his sleeve for the blood sample. And Sniper’s arm was covered in scratches, his skin itching but with no visible rash. At dinner Scout had subtly suggested he could have fleas, and nearly sparked a full-out brawl...whether their symptoms were connected to it or not, that machine had the entire team on edge. The only exception was their Demoman, who energetically recalled how he’d single-handedly taken out the BLU Soldier, and said he felt about ten years younger.

And then...he picked up the last file...there was Herr Engineer. He’d been arguing with Spy as they both waited outside his office, accusing him of knowing something about the machine, even though his own nervousness seemed to indicate he might not be telling the whole truth. Nonetheless, when his turn on the examination table came, he’d given his word as a Southern Gentleman that he didn’t know anything that could help in a diagnosis.

Medic had just nodded and made note of his single symptom; an almost constant thirst. But then, Engineer had been exposed to that terrible light not once, but twice. And yet it had been Soldier who’d collapsed, and now displayed symptoms much more severe...Medic clutched his head, his fingers grabbing his grey-flecked hair. None of this made any sense...but then, maybe he was trying to find patterns where none existed? They’d been at Nucleus for just three days, but it had been three days of solid fighting, and with delayed respawn. Survival was a much higher priority when you stayed dead until the end of the round...and stress was often an overlooked factor...

“Doktor?”

Medic sat up suddenly, only now sensing the large presence behind him; he’d been so deep in thought that he hadn’t even heard the door open. He turned his chair to look at Heavy, whose face was still smudged with grease from falling asleep on his dismantled weapon.

“Ees time to sleep, Doktor. Announcer says we move to new base tomorrow.”

“I am sorry, mein Heavy...” Medic shook his head, his fist thumping the top of the folder pile. “It is just...zese verdammter test results, zhey...”

“Doktor.” Heavy grabbed the back of Medic’s office chair, pulling it away from the desk. He felt a large hand on his shoulder. “Leetle papers can wait. Vas beeg day today, and ve must rest for beeg day tomorrow, da?”

“Ja.” Medic sighed reluctantly as he realised Heavy was probably right. If he left it until morning, things would probably make a lot more sense. “Ja, you are right.” He got up slowly, his spine making an unpleasant series of cracks as he straightened his back; the Medipack was murder on his lower vertebrae. Heavy’s smile turned to a worried frown, and he opened his mouth to say something before the other man waved his hand dismissively.

But Medic made no further protests as he held open the door, and followed him all the way down the darkened hallway like an oversized puppy. He was far too tired to argue. And the muscles in his back still ached terribly, even as he set his glasses on the bedside table and turned out the light, the sound of Heavy’s snoring already filling the room. At least he’d feel more flexible after a good night’s rest.

Chapter 2

Now THIS is living, Soldier thought to himself. A variety of military surplus weapons, two crates full of ready-to-eat military surplus rations, and a basic shelter he’d rigged together with his own blood and sweat and a military surplus EZ-Pitch tent. Miles from the civilised world, it was just him, his trusty shovel, and the elements. And those god damned Nazis. He didn’t know where...but they were out there, somewhere. They were just scared of him and especially his shovel. It was that knowledge that had kept him going all these months, scouring the forests of Poland for any sign of them, supplementing his meagre rations with any unfortunate forest creatures that happened to cross his path.

Then winter had come, and heavy snow had stopped him from moving camp like he usually would, so he’d built a snow wall around the tiny forest clearing and waited for the Nazis to come to him. That had been almost two weeks ago. He’d kept himself sane by reading Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ to an audience of snow decoys...they were damn good listeners, but never really said much.

And now, staring at the glowing logs in the crackling fire, Soldier was getting bored. He smirked momentarily, imagining one of them was a Nazi’s ugly skull, and split it clean in half with his shovel. Shadows danced on the trees surrounding him as he hit it again and again; take that, you Nazi son of a bitch! Eventually those cowardly Krauts would show themselves, and then he’d get to crack some real skulls...

“Who’s that!?” A loud crack echoed from somewhere beyond the trees. He was stiff from the cold and his empty stomach ached, but after so long without a fight, nothing could dampen his bloodlust. He gripped the shovel’s handle with both hands, looking all around him and grinning excitedly. “Alright Fritz...you finally found me. But you’d better be ready for me, ‘cause I am gonna shove my boot so far up your ass your tongue will TASTE AMERICAN SOIL!”

Soldier swung his weapon in a wide arc, lashing out at the moving shadows. Somewhere close by, voices whispered. Unseen eyes stared at him, plotting against him. Raising the shovel above his head, he charged in the direction of the sounds with a roar, slashing his way through dead and leafless bushes, pushing his way through ice-covered brambles.

It was only when he finally emerged, scratched and bloodied, that he suddenly had no idea where he was. He searched for any sign of the enemy - any sign of anything - but saw nothing but identical trees, stretching for miles in every direction. Even if he looked right behind him, to where he’d come from, he couldn’t see the glow of the fire any more. Black trees, white snow, and the moonlit night sky formed a monochrome world.

“Looks like it’s just you and me, old friend.” he muttered. The shovel’s handle felt like solid ice as he gripped it ever tighter. “COME OUT AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN, YOU MAGGOTS!” his voice echoed.

And the forest roared back at him. Without warning he was surrounded by a wall of noise, a million voices smothering him, drowning him in sound. He couldn’t even hear his own screams as his weapon slipped from his grip; he tried to run, but slipped on the snow and landed painfully on his knee. His hands clutched his ears like he was trying to pull them off his head, clawing at them until his fingers were wet with his own blood, as he desperately tried to crawl away. He’d do anything, give anything just to stop the noise. Stop the noise. STOP THE NOISE!

His vision started to blur. He was fully immersed in sound, unable to breathe through the voices bombarding him as he collapsed onto a snowdrift. The numbing cold took away the pain, far away, along with every feeling in his body. The endless trees dissipated like smoke. The forest floor simply ceased to exist beneath him, letting him fall into the nothingness below.

But at least the noise had stopped. Thank God he thought, before he blacked out completely.

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Heavy stretched his muscles as he sat up in bed, scratching himself under one meaty arm. His foggy mind drifted to the previous night’s events; he wasn’t sure why he’d been so sleepy, especially when Sascha needed his attention. She’d been working far harder than he had during their battle, mowing down BLU’s Scout and Demoman, and doing significant damage to the rest of the tiny men on their team. It had been a good day, but it was a shame it had ended so badly for his Doktor.

Smacking his lips sleepily, he mumbled “Good morning Dokt-” before he realised Medic was mysteriously absent. Suddenly more awake, he looked at his surroundings. “Doktor?”

He vaguely remembered falling asleep in Medic’s bed, but the lace-trimmed sheets indicated this was definitely not his Doktor’s bed, or his Doktor’s room. This was somewhere with pastel-pink walls and neatly arranged silk pillows, a fireplace in the corner, and porcelain figurines of apple-cheeked children on the mantelpiece. Warm sunlight poured in through the window; there were no windows in Nucleus, nor was there ever a room like like in any base he’d ever stayed in. It reminded him of his childhood, of his dear Babushka’s house with all its strange and delicate things that he shouldn’t touch. There was even - he sniffed deeply - the smell of delicious food from the kitchen.

He stood up, noticing his clothes were folded neatly and placed in a pile on a small wooden chair. But there was no sign of Sascha, and when he looked under the bed, the shotgun he kept there in case of emergency was gone too. His brow furrowed. Wherever he was, the place suddenly seemed more wrong than comforting, and suddenly stank of a cowardly trick by the BLU team. He cracked his knuckles, and went to open the door...he may be a Heavy Weapons Guy with no weapons, but those baby men couldn’t take away his fists.

“Good morning, mein snuggle bun~”

“Doktor...!?” Heavy found himself speechless. The door opened into a small kitchen, every surface sparkling in the early morning sun, and in the middle of it was a sparkling creature that looked a lot like his Medic. But Doktor would never wear a frilly pink apron, or be cooking sausage instead of downing his morning cup of coffee, or wearing such an overly-cheerful grin that it made Heavy shudder uneasily. Medic never smiled like that, not when he activated an Übercharge, or even when he got a lucky kill with his Bonesaw.

“Vhat is wrong, liebchen?” The strange Medic fretted, his cheeks flushing as pink as his apron, and his bright blue eyes sparkling with tears. “I am so sorry zat I left you...but you vere so tired, I just couldn’t vake you vizzout making breakfast!”

“Vell...I...” Heavy’s stomach growled loudly. He’d been so confused by his situation, he hadn’t even realised he was hungry. But he suddenly felt like he hadn’t eaten in days, and the huge pile of freshly cooked sausages looked terribly tempting.

“Oh, you are vasting avay! Come now, eat!” The Medic grabbed his arm and pulled him over to a small wooden table, and a chair that creaked dangerously when he sat in it. “I made wurst and sauerkraut - and do eat it all, Schnucki, you need to be big and strong!”

Heavy looked away as he winked an unnaturally azure eye, and heaped Heavy’s plate with mounds of cooked sausage and pickled cabbage. As hungry as he was, he still purposefully moved the sauerkraut to one side with the tiny, delicate fork he’d been given. Doktor would never forget that sauerkraut gave him gas; not after that one terrible night, he thought while shovelling more wurst into his starving maw.

This doll-like impostor Medic had failed terribly at imitating the real thing, Heavy thought. But at least he kept the food coming, bringing another plate of sausage with an unnervingly wide smile on his face. That was good, more was good...he was so hungry, he’d long since abandoned the fork and resorted to using his hands instead. More plates and more wurst came and went. And suddenly the terribly abused wooden chair beneath him collapsed, sending him to the floor, his fists still clutching his next mouthful of greasy sausage.

Heavy dropped the food, suddenly aware of himself and where he was again. How much had he eaten...? He couldn’t even remember; he’d forgotten all about finding Sascha, finding his team, finding Doktor! He got to his feet as quickly as he could, heading for the door.

“Do you not like my cooking, Heavychen...?” He turned around. The Other Medic’s sapphire eyes sparkled worriedly; Heavy could swear that they seemed to be getting more and more blue each time he looked at them. “I haff more wurst for my big, strong Kuschelbär...”

“Not now, Doktor.” The words were sour in his mouth...this wasn't right. He needed to get away from here, he needed to find something familiar in this strange place. But then his progress was halted, as he found himself stuck in the doorway leading out of the kitchen.

“Very vell, but it vill all go to vaaaa-aaaaste~!” The Other Medic answered in a sing-song voice, still cheerfully cooking up sausage and piling it onto the table almost robotically.

Heavy growled, his hands pushing against the wall either side, wood creaking and plaster cracking from his efforts. It had seemed more than wide enough just minutes before. Maybe it was the food? It made no sense, but then nothing here seemed to...it reminded him of a book the real Doktor had read to him one evening, about a girl in a blue dress who chased a white rabbit. She fell down a hole and into a place a lot like this, where everything was familiar yet strange. And as the cracks in the plaster started to spead, and his head bumped the top of the doorframe, Heavy realised with horror that this place was even closer to the book than he’d thought.

“NO!” he yelled defiantly, and with one last push and a shower of rubble, he was finally free. But the next room was still as pink and frilly as the last, and the garishly coloured reclining chairs and matching couch seemed to shrink before his eyes. He was still trapped; too wide to fit through the next door, so tall that even his stooped shoulders were pressing against the ceiling. The couch buckled and collapsed under his weight as he sat down, and still his growth didn’t slow, his legs pushing furniture aside and his arm knocking pictures off the wall as the strange sensation coursed through him.

And then just as suddenly as it started, the feeling stopped. “Ees not good day to be giant man...” Heavy muttered to himself, looking at the destruction around him...he remembered how the girl in the blue dress drank something to make herself small, but the kitchen was out of the question with the Other Medic still maniacally cooking away.

He sighed, wondering if he could break through the ceiling without seriously injuring himself, when something bright red and yellow caught his eye. At his huge size, it was almost like a grain of rice, but somehow he reached over to the coffee table and picked up the Bonk up between a massive thumb and forefinger. For once, he was thankful that Scout was always leaving his things around, the tiniest drop of sweetness landing on the tip of his outstretched tongue as he crushed the can.

The effect on Heavy was immediate. He felt like he was falling without moving as he shrank rapidly, and within just a few seconds he was grinning happily, back to his normal height. Then his face fell, and a horrible feeling crept up on him as he reached Scout’s normal height. Another second or two passed and he was shorter than Engineer, and still getting smaller as he ran desperately for the door. Table legs became skyscrapers, and the distance between him and freedom grew from feet to miles as he shrank. And to make matters worse, the Other Medic was moving out from the kitchen, calling his name, footsteps shaking the floor like earthquakes. A sausage the size of an aircraft carrier fell from the plate and landed with an earth-shattering impact, the shockwave throwing Heavy around like a child’s toy.

For the first time in a long time, he felt afraid. Cracking open an eye, he realised he was so small now that grains of dirt looked like boulders, and the air grew thicker and more difficult to breathe as he continued to shrink. He could never hold Sascha, or any of his weapons again. His team was gone. And even if Doktor was here, he wouldn’t notice him at this microscopic size. But one thought still occurred to him as he grew smaller and smaller still; what would it feel like, to shrink out of existe-

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Sniper was back in that place again. Purple sand stretched out in front of him in every possible direction, punctuated only by the occasional rock or dead tree. Sure, he’d see other things out here; the occasional billabong, maybe a sand-blasted signpost still encouraging him ever forward. But they were so few they may as well not exist at all...he’d even turned around once, thought about going against the signposts. Maybe he’d end up somewhere different, actually be somewhere other than here. But the horizon behind him was identical to the one in front, bathed in the perpetual twilight of a sun neither rising nor setting, where the air never moves and the desert goes on forever.

He kicked a small rock next to his shoe, and started walking. That was all he ever seemed to do now, not like once upon a time, when he’d lived out his every fantasy in this place. He’d bagged the biggest game using only his bare hands, his body huge and muscular, his top lip adorned with a magnificent moustache that would make any sheila swoon. Just like everyone else. Like someone who didn’t need the crutch of ‘mechanical assistance’, like someone whose dad wasn’t ashamed of his scrawny, moustache-less son. If only in this place, he could be one of them, a dinkum Aussie. He could be one of the most beautiful, creative, and deadly people on the planet, not a bad joke on legs.

But times had changed, and the desert had slowly emptied as he found less need for fantasy. He'd been taught how to survive in the desert, and he’d learned what it meant to be a professional, to have a set of standards to live life by. He’d spent hours cleaning and maintaining his rifle, refining the patience and delicate movements needed to line up a headshot, a clean kill. He’d learned to love his job at the nature reserve; keeping the animal populations in check, picking off the occasional poacher, and maybe a few other people of questionable morals if the price was right. And then RED had come calling, and the last of his wild fantasies had crawled back under the unmoving sands.

There was nothing left now except the flickering shadows of memory, and the occasional inner demon stalking him in the corner of his eye. He kicked another rock spitefully, remembering when he'd first camped out in the bush. If only he hadn't eaten the wrong bloody kind of mushroom, or cactus or whatever the hell kind of vegetation he'd naively stuffed down his starving gullet, maybe he'd be able to have normal dreams. Or at least he’d be able to control where his subconscious mind ended up. The beach would be nice, maybe...still bloody sand everywhere, but at least there’d be the sea, for a change.

“Hmph. Anythin' other than bloody desert would be noice.” he grumbled, giving a particularly oddly-shaped rock a good, sharp kick. It rolled a few feet, leaving a long and wobbly trail in the sand. Sniper followed it at a jogging base, ready to give it an even harder kick, when the slightest of sounds made him stop and look down. The desert was silent, it’d always been silent. The only sounds here were ones made by him, or by figments of his imagination, and he couldn’t remember imagining a deep crack up the side of the rock. He knelt down for a closer look, and the crack grew and widened as he watched in awe.

“Wot...?” he gaped as something defiantly green appeared against the purple background...a tiny sprout, unfurling a pair of round leaves. He hadn’t imagined this, so where could it...? His hand shaking, he reached out to touch it. And the desert exploded.

Sniper threw his arms over his head to protect himself from the sudden showers of sand. All around him, spreading out in every direction, plants of all types burst from the parched earth. Trees groaned like ghosts as they rose fully-formed from the desert, branches sprouting leaves and growing heavy with ripening fruit. Vines snaked their way along the ground, spiralling around the new tree trunks and hanging from the flourishing canopy. Flowers of every colour burst from their buds and filled the air with sweet and enticing aromas. By the time he opened his eyes again, he was stood in the only patch of bare sand, surrounded on all sides by a dense, living forest.

“Holy dooley...” Sniper said breathlessly as he looked at everything, all around him. Had he, had his mind done all this? He’d been thinking of the beach, but this...this was literally like nothing he’d ever dreamed of. And looking down, he could see the rock - or seed as it turned out - that had started it all. What had once been a sprout was now a slender stem with long ribbon-like leaves, crowned with a flower that seemed to beckon to him with its psychedelic colours and a smell that reminded him of his mum’s baking.

“Well aren’t you a beaut.” He smiled, his fingers wrapping around the base of the stem. But what he wasn’t expecting was for the flower to grab him back, leaves wrapping around his wrist and pulling tight. “What the bloody hell!?”

The plant pulled his arm forward, bringing his fingertips closer to the desert soil. And Sniper screamed in fright as his fingernails twisted bizarrely, trying to bury themselves in the soil until he finally escaped the thing’s grasp. Gasping for breath, he stared at his hand...the nails looked brown and gnarled, like claws. And worse; his fingers were starting to itch, the skin turning into dry, cracked leather. He didn’t know how this was happening, how he could have suddenly lost control over his dreams and let this nightmare creep in. All he knew was he had to escape it.

He drew his Kukri - always by his side, even here - and started clumsily hacking at the vegetation to clear a path. But like the mythical Hydra, even more leaves and stems grew to replace their fallen brethren. The blade split a hanging vine in half, thick sap splattering his arm. Immediately a terrible numbness overtook the limb, the Kukri falling from his paralysed fingers, smothered by the growing vegetation as soon as it hit the ground. He screamed again as green leaves sprouted from his deformed fingers, the skin up to his shoulder hardening into bark, freezing the limb in place. As he tried to move his left arm, he found it was almost fully transformed already, scrawny twigs ripping through his shirt sleeve.

Sniper’s heart pounded in his chest. He tried to run, but found himself literally rooted to the spot. Tendrils that were once toes wormed their way out of his boots, plunging deep into the ground as he pulled and tugged uselessly. Climbing plants twisted their way around his legs and up to his chest, his ribs stretching and twisting into branches that tore gaping holes in his shirt. This really was a nightmare; he’d almost forgotten what they felt like. But he couldn’t feel much of anything any more, his head now permanently turned upwards, staring helplessly at the night sky as the bark crawled up his neck.

His breathing slowed and stopped, his cries of terror silenced as his mouth became just another hollow in another tree. His eyes were the only part of him still human now, darting back and forth as he continued to scream inside his own head. Wake up. Just wake up. Oh God. Someone. Please. Help me.

Chapter 3

Medic squinted, trying to see his way through mist so thick he could almost reach out and grab a handful. He wasn’t sure where he was or how he ended up here, but it was like he was back in the center of Nucleus again, surrounded by blinding whiteness. Only this time there were no team-mates to guide him; here, he had only his instincts. And of course a surgical-grade steel blade, packed with RED technology that converted useless bodily fluids into precious Übercharge...

Chapter 4

“So then I realised I was inside an egg or some shit. But it didn’t seem weird, ya know? Seemed like I was supposed to be in there.”

Chapter 5

In his army days, he’d been a surgical artist. He'd done anything to get soldiers back on their feet again, creating abominations of stitched flesh and wired bones that shouldn’t have been alive and yet he made them live. He’d despised the Nazi party and their idiotic ideals of a tall, blonde-haired Übermensch, but he remembered the hushed talk of creating more literal super-men. Creatures that stretched and surpassed the limits of the human body. It had all sounded so exciting. And yet here he was, a joke of a man, a man who’s limits were stretched literally... like a child’s plaything...

Medic strained to open his eyes, and tried his hardest to keep them open as he sat waiting. Usually he’d take this time to check and double-check his equipment, and mentally prepare himself for the upcoming battle. But right now, he was struggling to shake off the lingering effects of inhaling the concentrated vapour from his Medigun. Last night it’d helped him sleep. This morning it had lifted his mood enough to save him from paralysing despair.

He’d had an unwelcome reminder of his own affliction when his shirt sleeve had caught on the doorknob, and he hadn’t noticed until he was halfway to breakfast. And once he’d freed himself, he’d arrived to find no sound of conversation, no discussion of battle plans. The mood was more suited to a funeral than a breakfast table; any hopes of just waking up and finding it had all been a dream were completely obliterated. But what seemed worse than any of that, was that Heavy still wasn’t talking to him after their argument. Medic had left a plate with scraps of scrambled egg and bacon next to the tissue box the man had used as a bed, and headed straight to the respawn room to dull his senses. And now all of them - except Heavy - were here, waiting for their inevitable defeat.

“Ah donnae care, ya big girl’s blouse.” Their Demoman folded his arms, his voice the only one above a whisper. Medic shook his head at the child’s foolishness, and switched the healing vapour of his Medigun to Soldier. The man had been uncharacteristically quiet since he lost the ability to speak English; probably the only change Medic actually welcomed.

Still looking at his feet, Sniper muttered something else to the Demoman, which just made him shout louder. “I donnae care! Ah’m gonna keep fightin’ as long as there’s breath in mah body! Even if ah jus’ pick up those piss jars o’yours and lob 'em at the BLUs! We’re still a bloodeh team! We can still fight! Even all o’you wee weepin’ lassies!”

“Mission begins in sixty seconds.”

“Zis is not a team, eet ees a circus freak show.” Spy scowled, his shoe grinding a cigarette butt into the pristine white floor. “Maybe if we are lucky, ze enemy will laugh themselves to death.”

“Well ah’m a black scottish cyclops, an’ ah never let that stop me! Ah’ll go over to their base and capture their briefcase MESELF if ah have to!”

“Mission begins in thirty seconds.”

“Not without me, yer not.” Sniper lifted his head. “I mean, we don’t know ‘ow long we’re all gonna be stuck loik this, so the least we can do is try...” He retrieved the Huntsman, which he’d been carrying on his back, and his face froze as he saw the hardwood bow had sprouted leaves. “...ah, piss!”

Spy covered his mouth as he snorted loudly. There was no trace of humor in his laughter as he doubled over, guffaws sounding more like sobs as he tried to catch his breath between them. Medic stood up, turning away from the unfortunate man to face Soldier’s back. His gloves creaked as he tightly gripped the handle of the Medigun... he didn’t want to fight, but he was under contract. If RED terminated his employment, he had nothing to go back to, not while he was still like this. And especially not while Heavy was still like this.

“...Three. Two. One. Fight!”

“Gehen Sie nach links!” Soldier indicated left with his arm. Medic turned and followed him onto the battlements, when he suddenly realised what he’d just said.

“...Sie sprechen Deutsch?” he asked as they dropped down onto some dusty boxes, and made their way across the bridge. The sound of gunshots and explosions were already building to a cacophony, but through his team-mate's growls he could hear something that sounded like ‘Jawohl’. They spoke the same language... Soldier’s stubborn self-reliance meant they rarely crossed each other’s paths on the battlefield, but maybe this could actually work.

“Sentry voraus!” A rocket left the level 1 Sentry outside BLU’s base spewing sparks and smoke, before it exploded with a small, sad beeping sound. Soldier grinned victoriously, charging into the enemy base. “MADEN!”

BANG. Medic suddenly woke up to the white walls of respawn, muttering and clutching his terribly aching head as he remembered what happened. “Schweinhunds...” It seemed so obvious now. The tiny sentry had been a distraction to delay their progress across the bridge, probably the most dangerous part of Teufort’s battlegrounds. And with their Sniper unable to use his bow, and unwilling to touch his precious rifle with its wooden stock, the BLU Sniper had been alive and free to line up a headshot.

Stupid, stupid... Medic sighed and unhooked the Übersaw from his belt as he left their spawn room for the second time. Herr Engineer was probably somewhere downstairs, guarding their Intelligence... he just had to sit and wait for a while, and he’d soon build up an Übercharge. Then they could smash through the enemy defences and maybe - just maybe - they’d capture the intelligence, and all this would be done with.

Suddenly, halfway down the sloping hallway leading to their basement, he heard an unfamiliar voice from somewhere up ahead. Immediately he stopped, ducking into an alcove and flattening himself against the wall. Now there were footsteps, getting closer; he couldn't let them see him. He closed his eyes, trying to press himself more and more against the concrete, and his body... responded. Biting his lip, Medic tried not to think about his internal organs, trying to ignore the bizarre sensations of his ribcage being squashed and his limbs flattened to an almost paper-like thinness. Mein Gott, what was his body doing? He wasn’t even thinking consciously about it, it was as if his flesh had gained a sentience of its own...

“Heh...not a single RED down here...” The BLU Solder chuckled. “Come in, Scout. You read me, over?”

Medic held his breath, not that his lungs could probably take in any air like this. He was thankful he could at least still close his eyes... he really didn’t want to know what he looked like right now. Probably like a character from the childish cartoons Pyro sometimes watched; run over by a steamroller or squashed by a piano, alive but pancake-flat. Surely, BLU had to move on soon... his lungs screamed for air, every part of him ached to return to normal... a few more seconds, and that would be it...

“Yeah yeah, I’m comin’ down ya big blowhard, over. What we got heyah?” The enemy Scout streaked past without even glancing at him, one hand on his earpiece. Medic gratefully took a gasp of air as he sprang back into human shape, then clamped his hands over his mouth. Scheisse.

“What the hell was that...?” The BLU Soldier growled suspiciously, looking behind him just as Medic ducked back into the shadows.

“Who cares? These sissy REDs ain’t got nothin’ on us. Their freakin’ Sniper can’t even aim straight!”

So, the BLU Scout and Soldier had both made it into their base. Herr Engineer probably had a Sentry already guarding their Intelligence, but with their current situation they needed to stall the enemy team’s advance by any means necessary. Medic glanced at the Übersaw still in his hand...taking on both at once would be suicide. He needed a distraction of some sort. Glancing round the corner, he could see they were both standing side-by-side with their backs to him.

“So did they build a sentry in there, or are these guys actually that dumb?” the BLU Scout chortled.

“Never underestimate the enemy, son. The toymaker’s away, but his little toys are all at Level 3. I’ll need you to drink that little radioactive sodie pop of yours, and run in there and dodge those bullets while I retrieve the briefcase.”

“So I eat lead, and you get to be the big hero!? Some kinda big, brave military man you ar-OW!” The Scout rubbed the back of his head, glaring at his companion. “The hell was that crap? Why’d you hit me!?”

“I can assure you, Private Twinkle-toes, that if I had hit you, you would not be ALIVE to complain about it!”

“OW! Ya just did it again, ya crazy-AGH! Oh, you wanna go? Is dat it? Those REDs not enough for ya and ya wanna fight a real man, huh? Well let’s go! Come on! I can take ya!” The Scout danced from side to side, beckoning his BLU comrade.

“What in god’s name has gotten into you, you spineless-hey!” He held onto his helmet as something hit the back of it, then looked to the Scout, who’s face had drained of all colour. “Was that YOU, private!? And why do you look like you’ve just seen a ghost!? ANSWER ME!”

“H-h...h-h-h-h...ha-HAND...!” was all the Scout managed to stutter out before Medic grabbed the backs of both their heads, and smacked them together with a ‘clunk’. He couldn’t help but chuckle slightly as the two unconscious bodies fell to the floor. It had been so childish of him to do such a thing, and yet he couldn’t help himself. Besides, it had proved rather effective...and he wasn’t even finished yet.

“Auf wiedersehen, dummkophs...” a sadistic grin crossed his face as he firmly gripped the handle of the Übersaw. Now this...this was the fun way to get an Übercharge.

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“Bloody HELL! Missed again!”

Sniper threw his bow down in disgust. He’d already abandoned his usual strategy of carefully aimed headshots, but even aiming in the general direction of the enemy was fruitless. With the Huntsman bow constantly bending and deforming under his ‘green fingers’, the arrows pretty much had a life of their own, veering off to the side or just falling uselessly to the ground.

“Take THAT, fannybaws!” Even Demo was having more luck than he was, chuckling at the enemy’s cry of anguish and disgust as he dropped another Jarate down from the Nest’s window. “Bet that BLU Medic di’nt see that one comin’!”

Meanwhile, Sniper planted himself on a box in frustration, facing away from the sounds of battle. In response to his rotten mood, gnarled branches with dagger-like thorns twisted into existence and bore sickly, poisonous-looking fruit. It was strange, but he didn’t dwell on it for long, opting instead to give the useless bow a sharp kick. He sighed, wishing he could use his rifle. That thing was the closest he’d had to a friend, out in the bush. It kept him safe, kept him fed, and as long as he’d maintained it with utmost care it had never let him down.

“Sniper, mate! You’ve got tae see this! Pyro jus’ got cornered by their Demoman an’ he turned inta somethin’ small! Poor BLU bastard’s just scratchin’ his head, lookin’ at an empty suit...”

He couldn’t possibly risk using it, not with its wooden stock. Or worse, what if a seed or something got into it while he was up here? He couldn’t possibly replace that gun, he just couldn’t contemplate using anything else.

“HA!” There was a terrible scream from outside, and a heavy thumping noise. Demo cackled maniacally in response, wiping a happy tear from his good eye. “Aw mate, ye’re missin’ a great show! Pyro’s a sorta gorilla or somethin’ now, an’ he’s bashin their Demo inta the ground! GREAT JOB, LAD! I KNEW YE COULD DO IT!”

It was then that Sniper looked over, and suddenly realised the danger of sticking your head out of the window. “TAVISH, NO! THE BLU SNIPER’S GONNA-!”

BANG. The whole room went dark. But there was no blood, just a shower of leaves and splinters from the thick branch covering the window. The young Scot rubbed his miraculously still-intact head, and Sniper looked at his hand. He’d reached forward, trying to pull Tavish away from the window, and something just...happened.

“...THAT WAS BLOODEH BRILLIANT! How did ye do that!?”

“I...I don’t know...” Sniper flexed his fingers experimentally. He’d reached out, and he’d thought for a split second how that big branch over there would probably block a bullet. Squinting at it again through the darkness, he took a deep breath and tried to clear his thoughts. Don’t think of anything else. It’s just you and...the tree. You and the tree. Just breathe deep and...Chroist, this is bloody stupid...

He moved his arm. Wood creaked, leaves rustled, and the branch noisily shifted out of the way as it followed the movement of his outstretched fingertips. Sunlight flooded into the room. And immediately he whipped round, flinging open the hatch to the ladder and climbing down as quickly as he could.

“Oi! Where d’ya think YE’RE goin’!?” Demo shouted down after him.

“I’ll be back in a minute, I just have to get something!” The spawn door automatically slid open, and Sniper immediately flung open the supply closet. There, right where she always was, was his rifle. Every part of her had been replaced at least once...new stock, new triggers, new scopes...but somehow she’d still remained the same loyal old friend. Waiting, patiently, for him. The man reached forward with a quivering hand, screwing his eyes shut. Please. Not this time. He reached forward another inch or two, the tips of his fingers just barely touching the cold gun metal. Just this once. He was biting his lip so hard now, he could taste blood. Please.

He picked up the gun, and opened his eyes. No groaning wood. No vines twisting their way around her barrel like he’d imagined, no invading roots destroying delicate mechanisms. Exactly the way she should be...he grinned widely, chuckling a little. Then he laughed; for the first time in almost two days, he was starting to feel like himself again.

But even from down here, he could hear Tavish shouting “INCOMING!” at the top of his lungs. Sounded like BLU were starting to re-group, and with RED still several men down their chances weren’t looking good. But he clipped the strap onto his rifle, carrying her on his back as he ascended the ladder. If nothing else, after his terrible luck with the Huntsman there was bound to be a few revenge kills waiting for him.

Chapter 6

This sucks. This sucks so hard it BLOWS. Shit, I am so bored. I wonder if I could steal Spy’s mask from up here? Man, that’d be funny. He’d probably kill me though. Still, dyin’ would be better than bein’ stuck up on the ceiling. Maybe. Maybe I should try lookin’ round here again, there were those two dead guys lyin’ on the floor a minute ago...

Scout finished his what must’ve been his 100th lap around the intel room. He knew Spy had been watching him go round and round like a goldfish in a tiny bowl, occasionally flicking a cigarette butt into the growing pile at his feet. But no matter how much he hated the backstabbing rat-bastard most of the time, he kind of felt sorry for the poor guy. That lady he said he was with probably fell for a guy who never showed his face, since that made him all mysterious and shit, but there was nothing mysterious about being a freak with a built-in nightlight. Poor guy didn’t really have much else but being mysterious and shit.

“So how you holdin’ up? I mean, I know the Doc’s completely stumped, but Hardhat looked like he had some kinda plan. That’s somethin’, right?” He looked up - or rather down - at Spy. “I mean, he’s gotta know how to fix this, he’s like a super genius or somethin’, wit’ alla those college degrees...”

Chapter 7

“I found ‘em...it wasn’t easy, but I bloody well found ‘em.”

Spy looked up as Sniper shut the door behind him. He could sense the relief flooding into the room; RED usually frowned upon walking around the base after ceasefire, and stepping into BLU territory was strictly forbidden, but they'd gone out as far as they dared to look for any sign of their missing comrades. There had been talk of desertion, of them escaping through the hole in the fence that Engineer had planned to fix the last time they were stationed here. Talk of ‘maybe we should join them’. But what awaited them on the outside, especially while they were still like this? Such foolish thoughts.

“Well? Where are they!?” their Demoman thumped a small fist against the tabletop with childish impatience.

“Yer not gonna loik this...” the bushman muttered, reaching into a dusty pocket and placing two tiny figures between the dirty plates and cups left over from supper. Sniper shuffled his feet awkwardly, still muttering as he pulled his hat down slightly. “...The doc popped ‘is charge an’ I saw the glow through me scope.”

“Y’mean now they’re BOTH bloodeh tineh!?” Demo stared at the miniature Heavy, holding a tiny Medic in his arms, and nearly knocked over the pair of them as his forehead thumped against the tabletop. “This is it lads...we’re doomed...we’re all gonnae shrink away until there’s nothin’ left of us!”

“SHIT, you mean dat shrinkin’ thing’s contagious!?” Scout flailed his arms in panic. “How do we know who’s next!? What if I'm next!? I’m too young to shrink! Oh gawd someone pass me a tape measure right freakin’ NOW I swear I can feel myself gettin’ shorter here-!”

“Calm yourself, boy. I am sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for zis. After all, it does appear that a few of us old dogs have learned some new tricks today, n’est-ce pas?” Spy dropped his cloak and smirked as jaws dropped all around him. Ah...after almost two whole days of hell, it was good to be the center of attention for the right reason again.

After a moment of silence, it was Sniper who stated the obvious: “Yer not glowin’ any more?”

“I’m afraid not. And it is quite a tale as to why.” Spy took a long drag of his cigarette. That was it... draw out the moment. Always make them wait. Do that, and they’ll hang on your every word. “Once ze battle ended I had an unfortunate run-in viz ze enemy Soldier. Zat madman was still out for blood when he entered our intelligence room, but my ethereal appearance had him paralysed with fear.”

“Yeah. So?” Scout perked up.

“I am getting to eet, you ignorant child.” He sighed in frustration. Of course some people just couldn’t appreciate good storytelling. “Ahem. Now...suddenly, ze Soldier raised his infernal entrenching tool above his head! And as he came charging at me like some kind of enraged beast, I created a flash of light zat completely blinded him, and returned me to my former glory.”

“Hey, dat ain’t fair, French Toast! Why the hell do YOU get cured an’ us guys hafta suffer!?” Scout yelled from his spot on the ceiling.

Immediately a chorus of angry voices filled the room as they demanded answers. But before he could even open his mouth, Spy suddenly found himself lifted off the floor and dangled upside-down by Pyro’s heavily muscled arm. Now in gorilla form, he barely fit inside his flameproof suit or mask, and grinned at him with yellowed fangs. He'd seen Pyro pounding the enemy Demoman into the floor like an oversized nail during the battle, but he hadn't quite accepted it until he'd witnessed the firestarter apparently recounting the incident to Soldier. The man had stood there and laughed as he gestured and grunted...and though that raised the question of how he could understand Pyro even when he wasn’t human, Spy had no intention of becoming part of another war story.

“SCHTOP!” The shrillness of the voice was like nails on a chalkboard, making one or two of the angry men stop to cover their ears. Their tiny Medic - standing up, his little arms folded - glared at them from the table. “Dummkophs. Ze Spy is not cured. Upon observing Heavy’s actions today on ze battlefield, I haff concluded zat-”

“PfffffHAHAHAHAAAA!” Unable to hold it in any longer, Scout clutched his sides as he laughed out loud. “Oh man, you sound like one o’dem Munchkins from dat movie! C’mon doc, sing a lil' song or somethin’! Ow!” Scout rubbed his arm where Pyro just punched it. Then, just as carefully, the giant ape set Spy down right side up, even brushing some lint from his lapel as a gesture of apology. With a silent nod, he let the doctor continue.

“...Danke, Pyro. I haff concluded zat zese...abilities may be dependant on subconscious thought razzer zan conscious. For example, ze need to protect somevhan, or to protect oneself. Perhaps, if emotions ozzer zan fear could somehow trigger zese sudden changes...”

“Loik me.” Sniper blurted out, suddenly looking embarrassed as he everyone's attention suddenly on him. He tipped his hat another inch to hide his flushed face. “...I mean...I was thinkin’ about usin’ me rifle, and...and what the old girl means t’me. I just ‘ad ‘er around  for so long, I didn’t want to damage ‘er somehow. An’ since then, no more floorboards sproutin’ under me feet.”

Spy watched as Sniper extended his hand. There was a creaking sound as entwining branches emerged from the wooden floor beneath his outstretched palm. And as stupidly naive as it sounded, he himself couldn’t deny there was an almost magical aspect to it as leaves unfurled and buds opened into star-shaped flowers. Such ability was truly wasted on the filthy jar man, who added  “Or not unless I tell ‘em to, anyway.” with a snaggle-toothed grin.

“Zen perhaps once ze change is triggered, it allows more control over our abilities...like an extra limb, or an extra sense... !” It seemed that Medic had just had an epiphany, pacing back and forth, trying to get his thoughts in order. Then suddenly, he grabbed the front of his tiny team-mate's shirt. “Heavy, I know how to un-shrink us! Could you sink back to vhen ze BLU Shcout zhreatened my life? And ah, keep your hand on me, bitte...”

A deeply thoughtful look crossed Heavy’s face. The team leaned in closer, and Scout jumped up and down frustratedly, to get a closer look at the action. Until finally, after a few tense moments, the Russian’s shoulders slumped dejectedly. “...Ees hard to remember, Doktor. Everything move too fast vhen ve fight.”

“Hey! HEY! Speak louder dammit, I can’t hear shit up here!” Scout interrupted as the pair discussed their options. Spy frowned. It was difficult to think with such noise, but he chose to ignore the boy. If they didn’t of a solution soon, they’d be down one very valuable team member come the next battle. And that could be any time, even tomorrow.

“Have ye tried stretchin’ yerself taller? Ye’d be a wee bit thinner maybe but that never did a man any harm...”

“Vhat?” Medic sneered at Demo, folding his arms again. “Hmph! Zat is razzer typical, coming from ze man who almost failed his last physical fitness exam...”

“Ah wuz DRUNK!” Demo threw his little hands in the air. Spy covered his eyes with his palm; it was hard to take the situation seriously when there was a child arguing with a man the size of a toy soldier. Their Demoman scratched his head with pudgy fingers as he tried to recall the incident, Medic raising an eyebrow and tapping his foot impatiently. “Or ah think ah wuz drunk...maybeh...”

“An’ now I can’t see shit! Down in front, rummy!” As Spy glanced upwards, Scout took a baseball from his pocket and hurled it at the back of Demo’s head. It bounced off and landed on the table with a thump, and a panicked Medic quickly ran behind the salt shaker, the ball almost crushing him as it rolled by. "Oops."

“YOU! NEVER... TOUCH... DOKTOR!”

Now it was the rest of the team's turn to run away, the circle of men scattering to avoid the plates and cutlery flying off the table. In the middle of the chaos, Heavy rapidly grew in size, surpassing even his usual height so he could make a grab at the fleeing, shrieking Scout. Spy peered through his parted fingers as the table groaned and collapsed under the Russian's massive weight, the others keeping to the sides of the room to avoid his giant footsteps as he gave chase. Mon Dieu. This team really IS turning into a circus, he thought to himself.

Medic, on the other hand, had let go of Heavy just in time as they both grew bigger. Now back to his normal height, he was nonchalantly cleaning his glasses. Spy approached him in an equally nonchalant manner, twisting his next cigarette between thumb and forefinger. Thank god for the coping mechanisms of the human mind, the little habits that acted as an anchor of sanity when the impossible was actually happening.

Spy cleared his throat. Act hopeful. Optimistic, perhaps. But absolutely not desperate. “Docteur...as utterly fascinating as I am sure this is to you, what does this mean for all of us? Is zere a cure?”

“It means zere is hope, Herr Spy. Vhich is more zan vhat ve had before.” Medic replaced his glasses, and looked around. “Even for Herr Engineer, zis could be very promising... vhere is Herr Engineer?”

Spy hesitated for a moment; he didn’t know? He turned and glowered at Sniper, who had retreated to the corner as the chaos unfolded. The man sighed frustratedly in response; “...Look, I don’t loik bein’ the bearer of bad news, alroight? Especially to some bloke who’s just a few inches tall and been trapped near the enemy base for three hours! An’...well...it just had t’be Truckie...”

“Ze Engineer did not come back after ze battle ended. Ze Soldier is still out zere, looking for him.” Spy said bluntly, ceasing his nervous habit and lighting the cigarette instead. He took a long drag; not for the dramatic tension, but for the nicotine to calm his nerves. “All zat we know for sure is he disappeared shortly after leaving ze intel room. No-one has seen him since zen.”

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Soldier looked at his helmet, picking off a few of the dead leaves that had been floating in the water. He was soaking wet and bitterly cold, resting his back against the hard concrete wall of RED’s sewer, but he’d put up with far worse during his time in Poland. If that damn Texan saw him like this he’d probably frown and sigh and get him a blanket, saying what an idiot he was for being out all alone after ceasefire and in the water too. And he’d mutter a quick “Thanks Engie” as he accepted a cup of coffee, feel the warmth coming back into his numb fingers...until the cup turned back into his helmet, and he was back in the sewers again.

He hated this. All of this. He hated how he missed hearing Engie’s voice. He hated that he couldn’t open his own damn mouth and just speak English. But he especially hated that he couldn’t escape the voices any more. They were in the walls, under the floors, even by the water’s edge, and with the sounds of battle fallen silent they were louder than ever. It all started when he’d heard Medic speak that kraut language of his and he’d somehow understood, like he was speaking plain English. And then he’d started hearing other things, and Pyro’s muffled grunting started to make sense...

God, what if the Doc was right about the damn pills? The damn Kraut had tried forcing them on him before, when he recounted the glorious day he’d killed two hundred nazis and stuffed 4 feet of his own intestine back into his body before breakfast. But...they’d make the voices stop, maybe? No. No! He defiantly jammed his helmet back onto his head, and stood up to wade out into the cold water for the fourth time that evening. Once he got drugged up like some kind of dirty hippie, he might wake up one day and he’d be spreading peace and love and helping their Sniper tend his precious little flowers. He’d gut himself with his own shovel before that day came.

“Soldier.” Spy didn’t even flinch at the shovel suddenly resting against his throat. As usual the coward just looked down his nose at him, judging him, as if he was somehow superior. “I am here to relieve you of your duties. Ze good Docteur was quite insistent zat you do not catch pneumonia.”

Soldier opened his mouth to protest, but instead a few oddly-toned syllables tumbled out. He immediately clamped his jaw shut, to the apparent amusement of the other man. “Chinese?” the Spy smirked. ”Oh dear. I am afraid zat I took Russian as my fourth language. Now do run along and let a professional take over.”

Water sloshed inside Soldier’s boots as he stepped back into the mostly dry pipe. With one of the few things he was good at - yelling at his good-for-nothing team - taken away from him, he felt weak and useless. He’d sunk so low, he couldn’t even bring himself to use his Shovel to give the smug bastard a much-deserved fatal head injury. But then, if he couldn’t give Spy a lecture about respecting your superior officers while he slowly bled to death...it hardly seemed worth the effort. He left the Frenchman leaning against the smooth concrete, blowing smoke into the night air as he watched the fireflies dance over the water.

Make that smug AND lazy bastard... Soldier thought to himself as he left. The cold was making his old injuries act up; the deep-running scar on his left leg ached as he made his way upstairs, pausing every so often to shake the last of the water from his boots. Finally, his palm smacked against the handprint scanner in their main spawn room, and the concealed door to their living quarters slid open.

“Aw man, Py, you shoulda seen it! Dat BLU Pyro was chasin’ after me, ‘an next thing I know I’m running circles around ‘em! Literally! Like running down the wall and then back up the wall...man, I wish I could remember how I did it!”

Soldier quickly pushed past Scout, covering his ears as Pyro waved to him. No, he did not just say “Hi Soldier”, he was a monkey of some kind and therefore incapable of human speech. “Hrrk hrrk!” does not make sense to you. It’s all in your head. You just need to sleep. Run to your bedroom, lock the six locks on the door and try to forget about all of this.

“I found some half-eaten sandwich in the kitchen we should go eat it hey is that food do you have food I want food hey give it to me hey I want food I want food I want food food food food-”

Oh god, it was happening again. Even if he covered his head with a pillow, he could hear it. The squeaking and scuffling in the wall that somehow sounded like a lot of small things were talking all at once. And they were always hungry. He just wanted them to stop, he just wanted them to leave him alone!

“SHUT UP!” he tried to yell. But instead, a series of high-pitched sounds just barely on the edge of human hearing poured from his throat. Sitting up, his hand went to his neck. How could a voice like his, hardened over many years by almost constant shouting, even make a sound like that? Hell, even the Scout with his family jewels in a vicegrip couldn’t make a sound like that. Not that it even mattered, since he still couldn’t speak any GOD. DAMN. ENGLISH!

Soldier glared at the dent in the wall left by his bloodied knuckles. He was going to track down that Engineer and kill him for deserting this team, and he was going to do it like they did in the military: by firing squad! Repeatedly! Until that god damn cowboy knew never to run away like a god damn coward! He punched the wall one last time, kicked his door open with a shower of splinters, and headed back outside. He was going to give Spy a piece of his mind even if he started speaking Martian.

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Medic clipped his belt into place, still running as he secured the Medipack to his back. Heavy was just a few feet behind him, feeding shells into his shotgun. Sasha was too big to fit through the narrow hallways, but like every RED team member, Heavy had his backup weapons stashed in his bedroom. He expected the worst; at 3AM it was far too early for any kind of fighting to start, but a single gunshot from inside their living quarters had woken both of them. Perhaps after seeing their strange abilities on the battlefield - and especially if they’d caught sight of Herr Engineer’s condition - the BLU team thought they were fighting monsters, and had come to slaughter them in their beds.

He gestured at Heavy to stop as they approached an open door; the scars on the frame indicated it had been forced open. Medic could smell the blood and gunpowder in the air as he drew his Übersaw. Beckoning quickly to Heavy, the pair rounded the corner, ready to face whatever was waiting for them.

“Ach...” Medic lowered his weapon as he saw the grisly scene in front of him. Herr Engineer was dead, his corpse slumped against the plain white wall, now stained by a large blood splatter. He nodded to Heavy, who began quietly checking the room for any signs of a BLU intruder, as Medic surveyed the scene. The blood splatter followed patterns he’d had the misfortune of seeing time and again in his army days, and picking up the pistol from Engineer’s lifeless hand confirmed his suspicions. Still warm, with traces of saliva on the barrel...a self-inflicted gunshot. Suicide.

But then, why had one of the large computers in the room been opened up? Punch cards littered the floor, and some of them inside the machine stuck out oddly from the rest, like they’d been inserted in a hurry. In fact, what room was this? Their team had been assigned to Teufort several times since the start of their careers with RED. The place was almost like a second home, and yet Medic only vaguely recalled coming in here once before...

“Doktor, there are no tiny BLU men here. Unless it was BLU Spy-!”

“No, Heavy. Ze BLU Spy...he takes far too much pride in his job. He vould not use a man’s own veapon against him vhen he has his own. But vhy Herr Engineer vould do zis to himself, I do not know...if he died he would simply respawn...” Looking at Heavy as he got to his feet, he noticed something over his shoulder, written on the glass panel of the door. ‘Respawn’. Respawn.

“Mein gott, no-!” he leapt to his feet and rushed over to the nearest computer terminal. That’s what this place was; the control room for Teufort’s respawn! The Engineer had been manually re-programming the system by switching the cards around, removing them, replacing them. “...Vhat vere you doing, vhat vere you trying to do...” The screen turned on as he hit the power button. There was a strand of twisting DNA, a full-body picture of Herr Engineer himself... and the words ‘ACCESS DENIED - SYSTEM LOCKED’.

“GOTTVERDAMMT NOCH MAL! VERDAMMTE SCHEIßE! VER.. .verdammte...” Medic almost fell to his knees, covering his face with one hand, and using the other to barely keep himself on his feet as the terrible realisation hit. Mein Gott. How could he have let this happen? He felt Heavy’s hand gently squeeze his shoulder. He could hear the rest of the team approaching with a sound like rolling thunder...how was he supposed to tell them...?

“Doktor... vhat happened to Engineer?” Heavy asked, Medic leaning against him for support.

“Heavy, I...I fear he may have attempted to erase his respawn data. If zat is true, zen Engineer is dead. He is dead permanently.”

Chapter 8

“Get avay from him! Get AVAY, you Dummkophs!” Medic shouted angrily, shoving his way past his team-mates.

Soldier looked at the plastic cup he’d just dropped, the coffee slowly forming a puddle which shimmered under the almost blinding lights. The world seemed to swim as he looked back to where Engineer lay. He couldn’t tear his eyes away as the man’s flesh shifted and writhed beneath a patchwork of scales and mottled patterns and normal human skin. Blood leaked from his mouth with each gurgling, laboured breath. His whole body heaved and shook as he spat out a few deformed teeth. And more drops leaked from his gill slits, which sealed and tore themselves open again and again like old wounds.

“Somevhan get me an oxygen canister right NOW!” Medic fumbled with his Medigun, desperately trying to aim it straight.

Soldier blinked a few times. Heavy was using his body as a barrier, keeping the rest of the team away from the dying Engineer and frantically working Medic, when things started to fade. Their Demoman sniffed, using a translucent hand to wipe away the tears streaming from his eyes, until there was nothing left but echoes getting further and further away. He glanced back at the freshly spilled coffee and saw nothing but a stain. The room was empty, too, except for him.

A dream? No, a flashback. He’d come here sometime early in the morning for that god damn cup of coffee, and Engineer suddenly respawned like that, right in front of him. It wasn’t something he’d ever forget, despite how the memories of last night stopped dead right there, like the hours between then and now had never happened. He must have been marching mindlessly for hours when his bad leg finally gave out, and he dragged himself back up here to...he looked at the Medikit laying in his lap.

With a disgusted snarl, he threw it and the empty canister of healing vapour to one side, the attached plastic mask still fogged with his breath. He’d used Medkits on the battlefield before, but...god, he was as pathetic as that damn Kraut. In fact, Medic had been saying something at some point, when he’d come up from the infirmary exhausted and covered in blood. Something about Engineer using pieces of broken teleporters, and putting his old self back together like a jigsaw puzzle. He’d be damned if he understood what it meant.

Soldier stood up, heading outside for some fresh air. What he knew for sure, though, was who was to blame for this. He’d cursed that god damn machine above the point at Nucleus. He’d wanted to cut Medic into pieces when he’d said he couldn’t do anything to fix them. But really...it was his fault. He’d been the one stumbling around like a blind idiot. If it wasn’t for him, Engineer wouldn’t have stepped out into that light for a second time. He’d still be human, or as human as most of them still were.

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“Fess...” Medic muttered as he caught a glance of himself in the mirror.

Carefully removing his gloves and placing them in the disinfectant solution, he let his bare fingers touch his face for just a brief moment. Was it his elasticity that exaggerated the bags under his eyes, that made every line and crease on his face seem that much deeper? But then, since when had he last had a full night’s sleep? It must have been before Nucleus. Before he became almost afraid of sleep, afraid of being woken up by more screams and gunshots and strange mutations.

Fetching a new pair of gloves from the correctly labelled drawer, they felt like lead weights on Medic’s hands as he dragged himself over to the nearest chair and collapsed on it. His limbs felt like wet cloth, limp and useless. He knew it was exhaustion, it had to be. But in the nightmares that plagued him when he tried to snatch a few precious minutes of sleep, he’d look in the mirror like he did mere moments ago, and his face would deform and melt. His body would lose all semblance of structure until he was an amorphous mass of skin and loosely contained organs, unable to do anything but scream inside his own head.

Such a thing shouldn’t be possible. But after seeing Herr Engineer in the respawn room, his genetic structure so destabilised that his entire body twisted and transformed as he watched... he was starting to fear for his humanity as well as his sanity. He’d already established that they were all still changing in some way; but who was to say when they’d stop? When he’d been trying to stabilise Engineer’s condition, his flailing limbs must have resembled a mad octopus, but at the time he hadn’t given it a second thought. Would they even notice as the changes crept up on them, until one day they were too late?

Medic looked up as Heavy came in, and shut his eyes. Then he looked again. No, it wasn’t just his eyes; Heavy had shrunk himself by about a foot in height so he didn’t have to squeeze past the narrow cabinets and other equipment that crowded the infirmary. But with his body retaining its usual proportions, he didn’t look quite real until he stopped in front of him, quickly growing back to his normal size. Medic covered his eyes with his palm...mein Gott, they really were getting complacent with their conditions...

“Doktor. Rest of team is outside.” Heavy said sheepishly.

“Tell zem to go avay, zen.” Medic waved his other hand dismissively. “Herr Engineer is in a stable condition but I...I mean, he is in no state to see anyvone.”

“Eet ees leetle Scout. He fall and land on tiny Spy.” There was a yell from outside, and the heavy thump of someone falling to the floor. A chant of ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ drifted through the silence of the room. “...Sniper and Demoman are here as vell...”

“Ach! As soon as ze dummkophs have novhan as zeir babysitter...” Medic got up - if nothing else, at least his elasticity meant his back was no longer a problem - and headed towards the door.

“At least I am not content wiz being a FREAK!” Spy shouted as he took a swing at Sniper, both men wrestling with each other on the ground. The Frenchman’s skin glowed a deep red like the embers of a fire, which intensified to a livid purple as a creeping stem wrapped around his right arm, pinning him. “Release me at once, you walking compost pile! Let us settle zis like REAL men!”

“Nah, I don’t think I will.” Sniper smirked. Spy’s expression quickly changed to a look of horror as a flower budded right next to his face, his whole body - even his clothes - turning a ghostly white. “I mean, that light yer givin’ off...my ‘pathetic little posies’ as you call ‘em seem to quite loik it...”

“Bushman. You wouldn’t dare-!” Immediately it burst open, in a cloud of yellow pollen that sent Spy into a sneezing fit, his eyes red and streaming. Sniper cackled at the man’s misfortune until his aviators were swiped from his face, a blinding flash from Spy’s fingertips making him cry out in pain and tumble backwards. The vines pinning Spy to the floor withered and died, letting him pull himself free.

“Have you two Schveinhunds finished your little playground fight?” Medic’s question was quickly answered as Sniper lashed out blindly at Spy, who dodged and grabbed the man’s arm between sneezes. “Vell it is finished NOW!” His temper finally getting the better of him, the doctor wrapped one arm around each of them, pinning their arms to their sides and forcibly pulling them apart.

“ ‘E startet id.” Spy sniffed, and violently sneezed again. “And takink advantage of by allergies...’ave you no honour, no - ACHOO! - decency ad all!?”

“Only because I said you looked loik a tomato after Scout fell on yer head. S’not my fault that yer a human mood ring or something now, ya bloody Spook!”

“Hey you, drama queens! It’s me and my busted arm we’re freakin’ here for! How about ya stop hoggin’ all the attention so’s I can get freakin’ fixed!?” Medic reluctantly let go of the pair, and instinctively looked to the ceiling.

“Down here, chucklenuts. Dat’s right, I fell off the freakin’ ceiling an’ broke my arm tryin’ ta run up the wall again, spare me the freakin’ lecture.” Scout frowned impatiently, cradling his limp left arm. He yelped in pain as Medic grabbed it rather more roughly than necessary.

“It is just bruised.” Medic said dismissively, watching Scout’s fingers twitch from his tight grip. The boy gasped when he finally let go, and he smirked in response; that should teach him to feign injury for sympathy. Although - he looked at the others gathered in the hallway - if that was the case, then why...? He gritted his teeth furiously as his mind added things up.

“...And I already told you concerned frauleins zat I vill tell you if and vhen Engineer shows any signs of recovery! Now GO AVAY! All of you! And do not bozzer me again unless you ah ZIS CLOSE to dying!” His thumb and forefinger were the tiniest fraction apart as he brought them close to Scout’s face, very nearly touching the space between his eyes. “Zis. Close. Understood?”

The young man nodded dumbly, and Medic slammed the door on his team-mates. His fingers pulled at his hair as he headed deeper inside the infirmary. Mein Gott. Bickering, whining, fretting over Engineer’s condition... what were they, mercenaries or children? But the more he thought about it, the more he realised he was... right, in a way. Herr Engineer was like a father figure to the team; another twisted soul who laughed while his machines tore apart his enemies, while still keeping 8 other misfit mercenaries from tearing at each other’s throats.

Medic sat down, surrounded by the beeping of machines and the gentle hiss of gas canisters. Their strange little world, now getting stranger by the day, was starting to fall apart. The one thing that had held things together for so long was being kept alive artificially. A pair of re-purposed dispensers had helped to slow the man’s constant and unstable transformations, but without pure oxygen his re-grown lungs were too small and fragile to sustain life. And his deformed gills were worse than useless, essentially open wounds on his neck.

It reminded Medic of his days in the army; the things he’d done to try and keep his patients alive, the perversions of nature he’d created in the process. But...the man in the bed in front of him was more than that. Engineer was more than just another interchangeable part of the great War Machine; he preferred checkers over the more cultured game of chess. He’d spend long, lazy afternoons either tuning his machines or tuning his guitar. He’d tell stories - especially the one about the pig - that made the team howl with laughter.

It frustrated Medic, how he was getting soft in his old age. He never used to be so sentimental. Back then, he’d have never hesitated for even a moment when it came to highly experimental surgery. He’d see them laying there and see not a person, but merely potential. Especially when he looked at a body as broken as this.

Engineer looked back.

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Engineer flexed the fingers on his left hand one last time...he could feel Medic’s eyes on him, watching him expectantly. Gritting his teeth, his arm shook slightly as the webbing between his fingers slowly grew back, dark mottled scales forming on top of his hand and smooth frog-like skin beneath. As the transformation slowly crept up his arm, three slender needle-like bones pierced the skin, a translucent film growing between them as the newly-formed fin unfolded.

“Fascinating... !” The doctor adjusted his glasses, a grin spreading across his face. “And you say zat you feel no pain from zese changes?”

“Like I told ya, doc.” Engineer coughed hoarsely; Medic immediately handed him a glass of water so he could take a quick sip. Talking made his throat and mouth more than a little dry, since he was still getting used to having vocal cords again. “Thanks. Like I told ya, it don’t hurt at all, but it sure does itch.”

He chuckled to himself. The Doc hadn’t left his side since he’d started moving his lips; he’d only stopped his various tests and questions to call Heavy in, who quickly ran and called the rest of the boys in. There’d been so much fuss just over him, and then Medic had shooed them out and he’d spent a few quiet hours getting to grips with his new shape-changing abilities. In that short time, he already had it down to an art; right down from his head to his toes, no blood or pain. He’d been a little worried when his teeth changed to the same serrated, meat-tearing form they’d been before, but he hoped those predatory urges had been fixed when he’d hacked respawn.

The hardest part had been using his trusty but seldom used crowbar to force open the door. After that, he just had to retrieve the data fragments from his old busted-up teleporters, from back when he was still human. He’d fed those fragments into the respawn system, switched a few cards around so it’d let him piece them together, and he’d been about halfway done when it suddenly locked him out. And like the damn impatient fool he was, he’d done himself in so he could respawn instead of taking another look at it. By now, the system would have activated the rest of its automatic failsafes, and permanently closed the loophole he’d opened. That particular hope for making the team normal again was long gone.

But then, he wouldn’t want to put his worst enemy through the messy rebirth he’d endured. Laying here, he’d thought to himself that there had to be a better way. And over these last few hours, having little else to do but think as he got used to switching between his two forms, he might have just found that way.

“Doc...sorry to trouble you, but couldja send the boys in again? An’ maybe a pitcher o’ water...ah’m gonna be doin’ a whole lotta talkin’.”

“Ah you sure?” Medic looked at him skeptically. “Viz your lungs and vocal chords only just re-grown, you ah risking permanent damage to-” Engineer just waved his hand, cutting the man short as he took another sip of water.

“Ain’t nothin’ a lil’ cayenne pepper n’ blackstrap molasses won’t fix. ‘Sides, this is important. Ah think ah might be onto somethin’ involvin’ our predicament.”

Medic sighed, shaking his head and muttering to himself in German. But within a few moments he’d returned with the rest of the team, who shuffled awkwardly into the relatively small space. “Knock anysing over and I vill haff Heavy shrink every last vone of you.” he said threateningly, placing a jug of ice water on the bedside table. “Now...Herr Engineer?”

“The Doc said you thought’a some way ta fix us. Freakin’ FINALLY.” Scout threw his arms in the air, then folded them as Medic cleared his throat. “I mean, just ‘cause I’m not on the ceilin’, it don’t mean I ain’t gonna wake up dere again. What would ma say if she came in and saw me like dat!?”

“I ain’t got a cure for us yet, Scout...y’all need to learn a lil’ patience.” He took a sip of water to emphasise his point, leaving the Scout fidgeting until Spy punched him in the arm. “But ah think ah might be on to somethin’. An’ you boys have the right to know what this is, but...y’all have to swear that what ah tell you never leaves this room. Cross yer heart. You too Spah, ah can see you crossin’ yer fingers too.”

Scout returned Spy’s punch with a much harder one, the man turning a dark crimson as Engineer continued.

“Good. Now, I’m sure some of y’all have heard of an element called Australium... rarer than gold, more precious than diamonds, and only found in one place on Earth. That is, until my grandfather acquired one hundred pounds of it.” There were a few raised eyebrows. Scout started to ask where on Earth you’d find Australium when Spy silenced him with a hiss.

“See, he figured out a way to change the Australium. He mixed it up with other metals, an’ created the alloy that powers my Dispensers... the Medigun... even Respawn itself. All it takes is electricity, and it can rebuild an entire body. But in its pure form...” He reached carefully into his pocket, and pulled out a set of photographs, handing them to the gathered mercenaries. “...You can see what it did to my grandfather in just a few months. That stuff changes people. It makes them more than just human.” He took a big gulp of water, and a deep breath.

“An’ when that point at Nucleus opened up, ah knew ah’d seen that light before. Australium alloy. Tons of the stuff, all packed into that machine and decaying from exposure to electricity. It sure as hell ain’t the same alloy as what we have in our equipment, but it’s gotta be close... and ah’m pretty darn sure that’s what changed us like this. An, well... it might take a lil’ while, but eventually we might just have a cure.” He smiled.

“S... ’scuse me a minute...” Sniper muttered, leaving the yellowed photographs of Radigan Conagher on the side of the bed, and pulling the brim of his hat down to completely hide his face. He walked out silently, the floorboards sprouting under his heels again, and a rotten-looking apple dropped from a solitary branch with a sad thump.

“The hell is his problem?” Scout frowned.

Chapter 10

Very carefully, Sniper touched his palm to the concealed handprint scanner in their spawn room, the door to their living quarters sliding open silently. It was very early morning now, the sun just barely starting to peek over the horizon. After his little ‘exercise’, fatigue had suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks, and he’d collapsed on the thin foam mattress in the back of his van for a few hours. Growing six or so trees from seed to a fifty-foot monstrosity in a matter of minutes had been an amazing, almost cleansing experience... he just wished he knew why all the excitement seemed to have exhausted him. But one thing he knew for sure was the soft, warm bed downstairs was calling to his aching limbs.

Chapter 11

“Heavy.”

"Doktor vas just doing job." Heavy faltered for a moment; although he usually understood what his Doktor was saying, his grasp of English was still far from perfect. His brow knitted in thought as he tried to find the right words, Medic looking at him, still expecting the answer he didn't want to hear. Instead, he just shrugged his huge shoulders, smiling back reassuringly. They'd talked about something like this before; about the inevitability of age despite respawn. He'd thought of the lines on Medic's face, battle scars earned through a life of hard work, saving the lives of others at any cost. "Doktor ees alvays Doktor. Vhatever happens to outside, inside is still the same."

Relief washed over Heavy as he treaded water, keeping himself afloat. But the feeling lasted for no longer than a moment as an enemy boot came crashing down; missing them just barely, the impact was still enough to send both of them tumbling underwater. He saw nothing but bubbles, heard nothing but rushing water and distant screams. His chest felt tight. He needed to breathe. Suddenly realizing he was upside-down, Heavy swam towards the light, to where he only hoped the surface was.

“I vill live..." Medic coughed, pressing the leaf beneath them with his hand. That familiar glint of fascination came into his eyes, and with Heavy's help he stood up slowly, marveling at their huge surroundings and the leaf that supported both of them without sinking. "But zis is amazing... ve are even smaller zhen before, less zhan an inch tall! Imagine ze possibilities, ze potential for micro-surgery could be vithin our grasp!"

A dragonfly passed overhead, its wingbeats sounding like a lawnmower at their tiny stature. Heavy sat down, the sunlight slowly drying his soaking clothes, and the Medigun healing his many bullet wounds as Medic pulled the lever again. If not for the briefcase still waiting in the BLU base, he would have been content to sit there all day, with the pleasant warmth of the healing vapor and the sound of Medic's voice...

Heavy held onto Medic tightly as the lilypad swayed dangerously, every stomp of Soldier’s boots threatening to throw them off. A strange yet familiar feeling surged though his body; if they were going to survive to capture the intelligence, they now needed to get bigger, and as quickly as possible. Like an elevator in fast-motion, the air rushed past him and his surroundings became a blur, the lilypad that had supported both of them crushed beneath his feet as he reached his full height.

Chapter 12

The kitchen was filled with laughter and song, and the lingering smell of sweat, booze, and barbeque sauce. A fairly typical victory party. But right now it was also something normal for them to hold onto; something firmly anchored in reality, so they wouldn’t lose themselves in the sea of strangeness and uncertainty. The last few days had brought them closer than the past year. The Respawn system made death meaningless, but after Nucleus, they’d been given something to fear: change. And even if they followed Engineer’s lead, by grabbing their new abilities by the horns and wrestling for complete control, there was no telling when - if ever - the changes would stop.

Chapter 13

Spy watched from the corner, holding his breath until his counterpart cloaked, disappearing from his view. He’d disguised as the enemy plenty of times, imitating every little habit and gesture to blend in perfectly among their ranks, but something about the BLU Spy had unnerved him from the moment he’d set foot in the building. The way those sunken, haunted eyes had stared into their Medic’s... the unfortunate man had been completely paralysed, his eyes wide open and his body un-moving, a look of sheer horror on his face. Until finally, his attacker grinned, one hand pushing his head down so he kneeled before him, the knife severing the spinal cord in a single, swift motion. No scream, barely a drop of blood...a kill almost too clean. And he’d escaped, chuckling, wearing his victim’s identity not like a disguise but like a second skin.

Chapter 15

“The enemy has received additional time!”

“Fall back, men!” Soldier yelled, holding onto his helmet with one hand as he prepared to rocket jump back towards his team-mates. “I-want-every-single-one-of-your-sorry-asses defending my Control Point!”

Blasting himself into the air, the man landed with a sickening crunch. But the pain from his fractured ankles barely registered through his sudden, barely-contained rage. There were no teammates. The only sign of human life was a lonely level 1 Dispenser, hastily erected and completely abandoned by Engineer. It gave a quiet ‘click’ as it generated more metal, and tendrils of healing vapor winding themselves around Soldier’s broken bones as he took a rare moment to think. He’d been mowed down by that Commie robot the BLU team called a Heavy, been impaled on a baseball bat by their Scout, and even buried alive by a god damned Ghost Medic. The bastard Kraut had come out of the floor, grabbed hold of his ankles, and the next thing he knew he was 6 feet underground... but was that going to stop him from fighting? No; he’d beat the enemy hordes with his own severed leg before he’d just give up!

“You are all pathetic, spineless COWARDS!” he yelled, glancing at the spawn door behind him. In response, there was the sound of a struggle behind the closed door, which turned to shouting as the door slid open.

“NEIN! Fass mich nicht an! FASS MICH NICHT AN! BITTE! NEIN!” Medic shouted, struggling in Heavy’s grasp as the man tried to pull him out of the spawn room. His elasticated arm stretched to its limits as his boots screeched along the tiled floor.

“Doktor-” Heavy started with concern, and grunted as Medic desperately kicked him in the gut. Determined to free himself, the German’s breaths came in frantic gasps as his left hand fumbled the Ubersaw. Heavy moved to stop him, but Medic had already unclipped the weapon from his belt, the tip of the blade resting on the Heavy’s chin.

“Lass... lass mich allein...” Medic’s voice shook. He was visibly sweating, his eyes fearfully darting around, searching for some means of escape. Like he doesn’t recognise his own damn team, Soldier thought, tilting his helmet to hide his disgust at the tears running down the German’s face. “Let go. Let go of me now.”

“DOC! DOC, YOU GOTTA COME QUICK!” Scout’s voice came floating through from somewhere near the back of the spawn room. “They just- Spy an’ Sniper just respawned, an’they ain’t... oh god, oh god, whadda we gonna do...”

Soldier sighed as he leaned against the Dispenser. As he stared blankly ahead, the metal door distantly slammed shut. God, it was worse than he’d thought. They really were spineless cowards. When the odds were stacked against them, their team had always fought until the last man fell; even Medic had never gone down without a flurry of syringes and slashing saw blades. And then he’d seen the Doc panicking and blubbering like that, and it hit him; if the BLUs had broken his spirit, their team didn’t have a chance in hell. Not now, or ever again. As much as he hated the man for his dubious past, his fixation with needles, and how he’d tried to sneak drugs into his food, a team without a Medic was as good as dead...

He flinched suddenly as he felt a large hand on his shoulder, and whipped round to point the Direct Hit squarely in the middle of Heavy’s chest. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing, sneaking up on me like some kind of Ruskie Spy!? If the rest of the team weren’t busy with their little pity party, I’d blast you straight to Kingdom come!”

“Comrade does not shoot comrade.” Heavy said darkly, his thick fingers giving Soldier’s shoulder a threatening squeeze. Determined not to show a moment’s weakness, he gritted his teeth against the pain. This seemed to amuse the man; he smiled as he released his iron grip, then gave Soldier a steely glare. “I do not like you, tiny American man. But the others... they have lost their spirit of fighting. Ve are all that is left of RED team, da?”

“Da.” Soldier frowned. He still hadn’t worked out how to make his ‘gift’ turn off, but with the BLU team on their way, he had no choice but to swallow his American pride. "Got any ideas?” he asked, the English words twisting themselves into Russian somewhere between his brain and his mouth.

“Perhaps, I have one idea.” Heavy continued in Russian, a smirk breaking through his serious demeanour. “Hold still. This may feel strange.”

Soldier opened his mouth to ask what the hell ‘this’ was, but stopped as he felt the strange sensation spread outwards from Heavy’s fingertips. It had a kind of tingling warmth to it, like sinking into a hot bath, renewing his strength and re-invigorating his tired muscles. But before he could lose himself in the feeling, something grabbed hold of him - all of him at once - and pulled. He stumbled backwards in shock, almost knocking over the Dispenser as it shrank down to waist height. The tremendous room seemed to close in on him, his helmet knocking the halo-shaped walkway above, the loud ‘clang’ finally bringing him to his senses.

“Ees good day to be giant men!” Heavy’s laughter boomed as he let go, the sensation slowly fading away as realization dawned on Soldier’s face.

The room hadn’t shrunk at all; they’d grown, and to almost twice their normal size! The Dispenser he’d been leaning against moments ago now barely reached his knee. The revving of Heavy’s enormous Minigun was like a battalion of tanks. The Direct Hit was the size of a canoe, and yet Soldier hauled it back onto his over-sized shoulder with little effort. He grinned; if it hadn’t grown in size along with the rest of him, he could have held it like a shotgun! Those BLUs didn’t stand a chance against their two-man army; they’d come running in, and he’d crush every single one of those maggots. Literally; under the heels of his massive boots, until their insides squirted out like thick mustard!

Then he saw one of them; badly injured, the lower half of his face wrapped with filthy bandages. Soldier sneered at the creature as it shuffled towards them; some unfortunate bastard, shoddily patched up by an incompetent BLU Medic. It was practically a mercy killing, but he smirked as he took aim at the enemy Soldier. No matter what the target, a giant crit rocket should still leave beautiful carnage in its wake.

He fired. The oversized rocket exploded in mid-air, the explosion so close it singed his eyebrows. And before Soldier could begin to wonder what went wrong, there was a shriek like a jet engine, and the wall of sound smashed into him. So loud it went beyond hearing and straight into feeling; every bone shook so violently it threatened to crack. His vision blurred. He was vaguely aware of blood dripping from his nose. Punch-drunk from the sonic assault, Soldier could only watch as the BLU slowly advanced through the roaring silence, his fingers slowly tearing away the bandages that still clung to his destroyed face. His cheeks were completely torn away, his lower jaw dislocated and hanging loose. Soldier could see his counterpart’s ribs creaking as they separated, the man’s jacket ripping open and his entire upper body expanding to make room for his monstrous lungs.

Then he exhaled, in a soundless scream that shattered Soldier’s right arm and sent the crumpled remains of the Direct Hit flying into the wall behind. Heavy collapsed in a heap. And Soldier looked down to see the whites of the Russian’s eyes turned completely red, a thin trickle of blood dripping from the corner of his un-moving mouth. Soldier grit his teeth and grabbed one of the grenades from his bandolier, looping his shattered thumb into the ring-shaped pin as the enemy drew closer.

Heavy’s pooling blood was lapping at the sole of his boot as he threw the grenade. He’d wanted exactly what any true RED would want; to bring their team back from the brink of defeat. He’d put that much faith in his team - in a man who was technically an Enemy Of The State - that he’d really believed they could win. The two of them against an unimaginably powerful enemy, standing together as brothers in arms... but in the end, all that Ruskie bastard had done was give the BLUs a pair of bigger targets.

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Damn it. Train must’ve destroyed their generator. Engineer thought, his Gunslinger gently tapping on the metal hatch above his head.

At least the water’s pretty dang clean here, he mused, his fingers carefully examining every inch of the twin doors. Teufort’s muddy creek had been a thankful escape from the heat, but every breath had filled his mouth with grit and floating debris. Well’s concrete trenches were so clear he could spot a BLU from a mile away. A place like this should be the last place he’d start seeing things that weren’t really there. And yet his mind twisted the dancing shadows into the undulating seaweed from his nightmares, long tendrils threatening to strangle him, wrapped themselves his body like a slimy shroud.

The Texan forced his metal fingers into a tiny gap. He should have far more to be scared of than figments of his fearful imagination; he’d seen a translucent BLU Medic dive into the water through the floor above, his ghostly body disappearing into a solid wall. He’d felt the earth-shaking crash as Well’s omnipresent train was torn from its rails. Muscles twitched beneath his scaly skin as he gripped the other door with his flesh-and-bone hand. He’d emerged from the water only once before, and stared straight into a pair of eyes that glowed like balls of plasma. His efforts sent streams of bubbles through the water as his body thrashed, slowly forcing the passage open. He’d come face-to-face with the BLU Engineer, and the son of a bitch just reached forward and efficiently ended his life. With his clothes and skin still soaking wet and raw electricity crackling through his counterpart’s veins, a single touch was all it took to send him straight to Respawn.

He had every reason to be terrified. And yet here he was, taking his first breath of air inside the BLU base as his lungs re-formed. His bare feet lost their webbing as he hauled himself out of the water, the remnants of his dorsal fin retreating into his spine as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. Changing from one form to another had been hell when he’d first woken up in the infirmary; his flesh seemed to have a very indecisive mind of its own, and it’d taken incredible effort to control it. Now it felt natural. And from what he’d seen of the others, he wasn’t the only one; Heavy regularly shrank himself to squeeze through the many tight spaces in their living quarters. He’d caught Spy making a wall-mural of one of his French girls, the colors flowing from his fingertips without a trace of paint. And Scout... the boy’s feet hardly touched the ground any more; he even levitated in his sleep. He needed to know more.

His BLU counterpart was close by. He could hear the man at work on his machines; the shriek of a drill, a light tinkling noise as a screw dropped to the ground. Engineer drew his pistol, calmly stepping out to face his nemesis... and froze in place. It’s just a Dispenser, he reassured himself distantly. But the sight of the tortured machine was enough to physically sicken him; multicoloured wires poured from gaping holes in the chassis. Parts of the insulated casing carefully removed, others violently torn away, patched with whatever scrap metal was available. The display needle flicked wildly between ‘empty’ and ‘full’. A drawer that had been welded shut burst open as he watched, spraying chunks of metal and sizzling oil. And yet the BLU Engineer barely moved at the sound; he remained crouched in front of the machine like it was some kind of shrine, his breathing heavy, his head bowed to its overloaded Australium heart. The man’s hands reached for a pair of flailing live wires, and a look of euphoric bliss crossing his face as the raw energy coursed into his body. It made sense now; his mutations had advanced so far that his body needed the electricity. He’d been using his own Dispenser, opening it up to feed his addiction and then messily patching it to cover his shame. So that’s how he does it, Engineer thought distantly, as he raised the Southern Hospitality above his head.

He brought it down once, twice, as cold and methodical as building a sentry, even as blood arced and splattered onto the walls and ceiling. The weakened man raised his arm to block the next blow, the confusion and fear all too apparent in his eyes. He didn’t even try to fight back; Engineer quickly lost count of the blows as they rained down upon his enemy, each one exacting a small part of his revenge. For his painful death, for every one of his team-mates’ tortured screams. For the very existence of the BLU team, for what they used to be, what they’d become, and how he’d come to see too much of himself in them.

He’d been fighting this for so long. Too long. He’d struggled, alone, against a rising tide of new senses and predatory instincts. He’d smiled and joked with the others even as his flesh secretly and silently writhed beneath his uniform, beneath his skin, as he struggled to maintain a form that could pass for human. And now it was Teufort all over again; everything he’d repressed for so long was erupting from every pore, and he could only watch as his monstrous body uncontrollably tore into his enemy. Claws sprouted from his fingertips and ripped away the BLU’s skin like soft dough, inhuman sounds erupting from his throat as his teeth found the meat beneath. He was tired of fighting it. So tired, it almost felt good to give in.

And now something was approaching him, sneaking up on him. He looked up from his kill. The sensitive barbels on either side of his face could detect its scent, even out of the water: another predator. MINE! He lashed out instinctively, baring his teeth in a gurgling roar, and charged forward just as he saw the blue dot trailing up his body, to center itself on his forehead.

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Spy’s fingers fumbled a cigarette. He’d spent so much time inside his own head. Too much time, far too much. He’d calculated every movement he made in his efforts to keep up the illusion, the poise and finesse that was so expected of the gentleman he seemed to be. His very existence had been his masterpiece. His web of lies had been so beautiful. He’d cared for it, maintained and expanded it, never breaking a single thread. And then the whole thing was suddenly pulled from under him, plunging him into the acid bath of reality, until even that was taken away and he was left clinging to the precipice of oblivion.

He couldn’t bear to look back at the ruins of his inner world; it was like the center of the sun or a black hole, the yawning, all-consuming chaos. If he looked within for answers, he’d surely go insane. Maybe he was already insane. His perception of the world had changed so drastically in such a short time, and yet he couldn’t imagine it ever being any other way. Even here in the often-overlooked Respawn Control Room, the colours swirled like galaxies, infinitely beautiful and hopelessly confusing. He didn’t dare set foot outside; he knew, somehow, that out there they’d blind him completely. Even with his eyes closed, he could ‘see’ them somehow.

It was no wonder Sniper had tried to close himself off from the world, surrounding himself in an impenetrable cocoon of tangled branches. He was seeing this too, experiencing all of this the same as him, and that was a fact. Their minds should have been damaged beyond repair and yet somehow they’d been forced to adapt, supporting each other in a life-saving connection that threatened to drive them both completely insane. Spy finally lit the cigarette, letting it rest between his lips without bothering to inhale; the idea had come from nowhere, fluttering past like a scrap of burned paper. It made little sense, but he couldn’t help but feel like something outside of themselves had intervened, something that wanted them to live at any cost.

He remained un-moving, simply staring at the wall. Something suddenly had everyone’s attention, but why should it be any concern of his, in the condition he was in? Nonetheless, a certain someone, who was still keeping his own eyes in darkness, reached into him and practically forced him to turn his head. After half-heartledly looking over him before retreating back into his own inner turmoil, something had kicked their Medic back into full-on professional mode, shouting at the others to clear some space and move back. He squinted through the continued assault on his senses, out of his own curiosity this time. And with a numb realisation that spread right across his shared mind, he saw Engineer had not finally respawned, as he'd expected. Instead, laying on the floor, was the tiny body of their Demoman.

Spy inhaled the cigarette smoke, letting the firework flares of nicotine in his system drown out everything else for a few precious moments. Maybe that was why they'd survived; the BLU Spy's final, sadistic parting gift to them, letting two grown men live as freakish siamese twins, joined at the mind, while a child died in front of them.

Maybe not, Sniper distantly finished for him.