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No. 3813
At the beginning of his new career some time ago the engineer had devised a simple, linear protocol for his sentry guns which dictated their behavior in combat – detect target – shoot target, etc. But since the first prototypes detected targets with motion detection, many days and weeks of collateral damage and testing would then result in hours upon hours of mechanical modifications (cameras and CPU's instead of motion sensors and mechanical triggers) and data entry – data which would allow the sentry distinguish a BLU target from it's surroundings, and then take action toward that target accordingly. Of course, this tinkering eventually led to the engineer's supposition that he would need to work in a way for information to be recorded by the sentry through means aside from a cable jack and a keyboard, and then equip the thing to automatically process said information into it's behavior protocols. Building his sentries with a capacity to learn was more of a move towards convenience; manually entering all those lines of script was about as fun as watching paint dry on a hot Texas afternoon. What really counted in the field was real-time tactical input, be it from voice command prompt, or from other sensory stimuli. By now these machines had the science of killing advanced as such that no feeling human being could come close. They worked with perfect precision and tireless execution; if they couldn't get a lock on an enemy's head, they would take out their legs. There was no fear involved, no sadism; just target neutralization. Independent problem solving. To the engineer it was a beautiful thing.
RED engineer frantically repaired the sentry shielding him from heavy gunfire. RED pyrotechnitian was diligently throwing huge plumes of flames in all outward directions at their furious BLU attackers and kicking away the occasional grenade. The dispenser behind them was keeping them intact, but each of those $200 custom rounds was worth three of the sentry's comparatively dinky 50 caliber rounds. After several minutes of onslaught where-in one or two scouts or spies would succumb, the engineer finally re-adjusted the twin rotary barrels with a rough shove.
“Take down those damn medics first, dummy!†he shouted over the din. That sentry beeped it's acknowledgment and shot a line of metal slugs into a BLU medic. The much higher pitched German screaming over the bellowing laughter of those two heavies offered little comfort as they came closer, but once the medics were down, each of those burns and unhealed bullet-wounds actually started to count in their favor.
One of the heavies died as often expected; the Russians were never known to back down peacefully, and they usually lacked any kind of strategy aside from simply advancing, using their bulk to form a wall with their big ol' sausage fingers holding down the trigger all the while. But the second, out of bullets and his now shattered legs collapsing under him, let out a final roaring shout and threw his minigun forward, a simple innovation which caught the engineer off guard. Those huge impractical weapons weighed well over five hundred pounds even without all those enormous rounds loaded. There was no question that the little RED men needed to dart backward and watch helplessly as their sentry was smashed.
“SENTRY DOWN!!†The engineer shouted over the deafening noise now encompassing this control point. He pulled his shotgun and took aim at the Russian still stubbornly crawling toward the point.
“I AM COMING FOR YOU!!†That huge man was like something out of a nightmare – aflame, bloody, mangled, on his belly, but still dwarfing the engineer and eying him intently, showing his grinning maw like a hungry hell-bear. The engineer shot him in the face and he finally collapsed at his feet.
“Gotcha, Pork-drippin's!†the engineer huffed and wiped the curtain of sweat and blood from his brow.
“EXCELSIOR!!†At the sound of another approaching battle-cry, the engineer quickly ejected the empty shell casing and took aim at a flaming ball of BLU soldier. He dropped him with two shots, then turned his attention back to that sentry, which might as well have been a pile of scrap underneath a boulder.
“Dammit...†the engineer was still catching his breath, but at least he still had that dispenser up and the control point now blinked into red under his feet. No sense in crying over spilled milk.
“ALERT! Our second control point has been captured!†BLU's administrator sounded oddly familiar as she usually did.
The RED engineer let out a sigh of relief, knowing that the point was now locked down for RED. Two down, one more to go.
The RED pyrotechnitian raised his flamethrower over his head and celebrated in the usual manner – dancing in place and laughing like a man possessed. Then a baseball flew out of nowhere and bounced hard off of his forehead. It didn't render him unconscious, but the loud groan and immediate cradling of his head indicated that he was momentarily stunned – possibly blinded.
“THAT'S RIGHT! It's BONKIN' TIME, chuckleheads!†A BLU scout shouted from a rapidly shrinking distance.
“ALERT! THE FINAL CONTROL POINT S BEING CONTESTED!â€
“Well it's about damn time...†the engineer shot at that BLU scout, emptying the shotgun into the kid's chest. Then there were three again. “Aw hell! Let's git along now!†he holstered his shotgun momentarily to pack up. The pyro shook his head and acknowledged the engineer with a defensive wall of flames and a few muffled words of resolve. Once loaded up, the engineer immediately started scuttling for control point number three, the pyrotechnitian running backwards and covering their rear with a wide cone of fire.
At the scream of an incoming rocket, the pyro quickly grabbed one of the engineer's shoulder straps and yanked him around a corner, saving the both of them from the ensuing explosion. The engineer stumbled momentarily, trying to get his bearings, and the pyro simply shoved him forward, his muffled voice still urgent, but reassuring with one hand pointing straight ahead.
“Thanks, partner!†The engineer nodded and got back to hauling ass for the next point, which, judging from the red flash of another explosion, was just yards away around another corner.
“..I AM ON FI-AARR!†That BLU soldier screamed in pain and the RED pyro laughed maniacally as he dowsed the man in flames.
“Get on ze point, dumkopf!†The RED medic joined them from an intersecting path, taking a position between them.
“Where else would Ah go, doc?†the engineer huffed.
“Why, to HELL, of course!†The medic's voice suddenly changed.
“SPY!!†the engineer yelled, quickly dropping his gear in favor of his pistol and spinning around to take aim. But in that fraction of a second, the pyro had already been fatally stabbed and the spy slipped out of visual range just as the engineer fired his first shot. “WHY - YOU - LOW - DOWN DIRTY - GUTLESS - COWARD!!†the engineer shouted and fired almost the entire clip trying to hit that invisible spy, and finally got him at the last one.
“That oughta learn ya.†the engineer reloaded and holstered his smoking pistol. He looked at the body of the pyro, lying face-down a few feet away. There was a time when he would try to apologize for not saving him in time, but these days there was no sense in wasting his breathe on a final farewell that wasn't truly final. He hoisted his gear back up and started off again up a steadily rising hill. The new exit of that teleporter wasn't going to deploy itself.
Even with RED medic and heavy artillary pushing through with that Uber-charge, the team still had their hands full; there were plenty of BLU to go around and the scene that the engineer came upon was a massive cluster fuck of explosions, gunfire and burning bodies. He positioned himself on a spot overlooking point number three and unpacked that dispenser first thing, then the teleporter, then finally a new sentry.
“Somebody's sappin' my dispenser!!†He heard some electrical discharge and angrily turned his wrench upon another invisibly spy. It didn't take but a second for metal to meet skull this time – that yellow bellied son of a bitch could only move as fast as his relative mass and velocity would allow, after all.
Then back to work again, pumping up that sentry. He took out a soldier and a demolition or two, then another set of medic and heavy with a newly added rocket launcher. There was so much blood on the ground, all those blue uniforms stuck out like sore thumbs. Of course it became overwhelming again pretty quickly when a BLU soldier launched himself out of range and came screaming back down towards him. In a panic, the engineer fired his shotgun, but missed. The BLU soldier landed and tried to hit him with a shovel, but the engineer managed to duck. Then the soldier was suddenly shot with a single bullet between the eyes and he fell to the ground in a heap.
“DIS-MISSED!†RED sniper took a moment to mockingly salute with a wide grin.
“Nice shootin' there, partner!†The engineer straightened and tipped his hard hat to the man now standing on top of the dispenser behind him.
“Wot kind of sniper would I be if it wasn't? A DEAD ONE, that's wot.†The sniper cocked his weapon, shot, cocked, and shot again in the span of that sentence. “HA! Would ya lookit that! He's bleedin' gravy!†he laughed at a chain reaction started by his bullet striking a heavy right in one eye, who alarmingly did not die instantly, but rather started spinning his minigun in all directions, crippling his own medic as well as a few other BLUs in his panic.
“YEW! YES YEW!! STAND STILL LADDY!!†RED demolition guffawed, sloppily ran up behind the BLU heavy, and shot him up with sticky bombs. With a swift boot to the seat, the RED demo sent the BLU heavy careening into a few more of his own team mates and blew up the lot of them. “YER ARSE IS GRASS AN' AE'M THE GRASS-MAN! ...PUNK!!†he slurred.
“NICE WASTE OF BLOODY MUNITIONS, YOU SPINNIN' ONE-EYED YOBO!!†RED Sniper waved and yelled.
“YOO KIN TAKE A SPIN ON ME NOB, YA WHOORE!†RED demolition yelled back and grabbed his junk provocatively at his Australian team-mate. “OH Ae kin see ya lickin' yer lips! GO ON, DRINK I' IN WHILE YA CAN!!†then he caught fire and started shooting off his sticky bomb launcher at anything that moved. The BLU's avoided him for the most part, but the explosives had been deployed non-the-less.
“Good night, Irene!†the Engineer looked on at the windows of various buildings blow out from the RED demolition's projectile explosives, unable to help a chuckle at that mess; a BLU sniper flew out of one window, a BLU engineer out of another.
“MEDIC!!†the RED soldier's voice rang the loudest to the RED engineer up on the hill. He was shot up pretty bad, but still advancing for the point – literally digging his way across the BLU field with that trench shovel. He was possibly out of ammunition, but he often resorted to hand-to-hand combat whether the necessity existed or not; swinging that shovel in what looked like a frenzied manner, but every swing landed a deliberate hit to an enemy skull or midsection. That damn soldier was an odd, masterful madman – jamming the handle of that entrenching tool into the awaiting barrel of a BLU rocket launcher, causing it to explode, but ignoring the shrapnel and using that BLU soldier's freshly headless body as a springboard up and onto the point.
“ALERT! Our control-point is being captured!â€
Almost everything was on fire down there; RED demolition eventually succumbed to two BLU pyros that managed to escape his grenade launcher and slam an ax into his chest. With their quick footed masters, BLU flamethrowers seemed to be causing most of the problem – except for one standing out from the group with his face to the wall like a statue with one of his gloves on his head. Then his head exploded. RED engineer didn't register the loud POP right next to his head until
“Crikey, it's like they don't even care anymore.†RED sniper reloaded his rifle.
“Let's cull the herd, shall we?†RED engineer nudged RED sniper with his elbow as he cocked his shotgun.
RED sniper often bragged about how he learned how to make full use of his natural senses from bush-men, and for that reason he never had a need for a spotter. But he was never heard complaining about having a good nest and a second set of eyes and ears – in the mist of it anyway.
RED pyrotechnics finally materialized on the teleporter and braced for a moment, there was a lot to see and fear here.
“Git along now, partner! We're almost done here!†the engineer turned around to meet him with a smile in between shots. The pyro gave him the muffled 'aye aye sir' and took off down the hill, setting fire to a row of BLUs.
“WOA WOA! What's goin on here?!†RED scout popped out of the teleporter almost immediately afterwards.
“Shut up and get on that point down there!†RED sniper obviously getting irritated with the amount of distraction.
“You heard the man! Hop to it, Jackrabbit!†RED engineer pushed the scout off the platform and shooed him down the path that the pyro had just created.
There was a crack from a high-powered rifle some distance off, followed by a high-pitched scream near the point. “Take THAT, you German whore!†The BLU sniper that killed the RED medic was standing on top of an empty train car and sounded different – like he had his nuts taped up or something. He also appeared to have a pony tail and … dark colored lipstick.
RED sniper took him out easily, but a shudder still overtook him. “Thanks for givin' away your bloody position, wankah!â€
“OHH NOOOOOOO!!†That kind of desperate sound coming from the RED heavy over the noise of his gas-powered rotary gun meant that with the medic down, he was having to go back into his berserk-kamakaze routine for keeps. For a man that supposedly hated everyone, he sure got awfully upset whenever the medic was killed. But the engineer had seen the man get equally upset over missing that ice-cream truck the previous week.
“Ah gotta move this gear up!†RED engineer turned for his dispenser and poked the sniper perched on top of it. Without the medic, RED was doomed to failure under these conditions.
“Right-o.†The sniper hopped down and started loping off for the water tower.
“Keep them BLU fairies off my back.†The engineer gave that sentry a pat and it abruptly turned to him, pausing to point it's sensors directly at him for a solid second or two. Strangely there was no standard beep that would indicate orders received.
“Now don't you give me that look!†The engineer had been seeing a lot more of this 'off' behavior ever since he had started introducing human interface protocols. “Our boys need some dog-gone help!†He hurriedly packed up the dispenser and hoisted it up.
The sentry started beeping up a storm and whipped it's barrels around in all directions, almost as an indication that there was some kind of flaw in the engineer's logic of leaving it on such a conspicuous platform. It was a pantomime that it must have learned from the pyrotechnic at some point. The engineer began to regret introducing it to the concept of self-preservation.
“DAMMIT! Ah built you to do a damn job, understood?!†The engineer gave the sentry a kick and it quickly collected itself – beeping twice and pointing itself firmly toward the point. “That's what the hell Ah thought, ya over-grown pop-gun!†He started down the hill at the best speed he could muster with that heavy load.
The control-point was only a few yards away, but the ground between it and the engineer was a mine field. The engineer less than gracefully just started running for the point weaving through bodies and grenades, the sentry on the hill taking out what it could in his path – and a sniper or two that were out of sight save for the trajectory of their bullets. He could feel BLU bullets smacking the dirt around his feet, missing him by inches; his own sentry never missed. Everything it fired upon yelped or exploded. Then a stray from some distance off slammed into his arm, then another grazed his ear. A BLU rocket missed him and blew a crater into the ground behind him, the force of the blast almost knocked him flat on his face. He stumbled, but did his best to ignore the wounds and just run. No sense in sweating over near-misses. RED Scout and pyro had already gotten trapped and gunned down by a big BLU sentry, but RED heavy and soldier were now on the point; the indicator light at their feet fluctuated between red and blue as they stood back to back fighting off BLU after BLU that bore down on them. Heavy turned that sentry into swiss cheese, but looked like he was really suffering from the heat and strenuous cardiac activity as he often did toward the end of a mission. That damn soldier never slowed down; his being covered head to toe in red made it hard to tell how much was his – even if it was, he would never show anyone any openings, no weakness.
“Dispenser goin' up!†The engineer shouted and threw threw his gear forward, the box fell open on the ground just a few inches from the point and the dispenser started unfolding itself on it's own. As soon as his hands were free, the engineer pulled his shotgun, there was barely a moment to catch his breath before he had to use it. Artificially accelerated healing was always a strange feeling – the sharp pain of open wounds shrinking into dull nausea. His heart pounding out of his chest from all this adrenaline wasn't much help either. He almost lost track of where he was, but in the midst of emptying his gun, everything started slowing down.
“ENGINEER IS CREDIT TO TEAM!!†The RED heavy artillary took in a deep breath and threw a clenched fist into the air as that pink mist started washing over him. Sasha started shooting air, so the big man just used her as a 500lb+ extension of his fist, smashing her down on a BLU pyro, who flattened almost instantly as though he were made out of paper.
“YOU SORRY SACKS OF SCUM CANNOT HURT ME! I DO NOT HAVE TIME TO FEEL PAIN!!†The RED soldier straightened up like someone had just shoved some fresh batteries into his back. He threw his shovel up over his head with both hands and brought it down onto a BLU soldier's head with a scream, cleaving down the middle of his enemy's helmet and issuing a fountain of blood. The spade stuck, so he kicked the now lifeless BLU soldier's body to the side to free it. “COME HERE, SALLY!†With a laugh he then swung the spade flat against the face of a BLU medic that was trying to come at him with what looked like a curling iron for some odd reason.
By the time the RED engineer heard that telltale electrical discharge, a BLU spy hand already slapped a sapper on that dispenser and had stabbed him in the back. Unlucky for that spy, he missed his spine and lungs; RED engineer cried out at four inches of steel plunging into his shoulder, and his knee-jerk response was to whip out that twenty pound wrench and start swinging. He landed one hit, and he heard a grunt, but the invisible man was far from finished. RED engineer received another cut, this time landing just outside his collar bone, again not causing enough immediate damage to stop him from fighting back. He swung low and hit the spy in the leg, judging from that snapping sound. He followed the sound of the man's pitiful screams in order to more accurately strike his head until the spy's cloaking device stopped working, revealing the bloody mass that he had created. RED engineer's wounds stopped closing; the engineer's lung had been punctured, and he was now finding it harder and harder to breathe in. The dispenser was down.
“You wanna capture my point?!†BLU scout ran up and tried to hit him with a bat, but RED engineer had just enough left in him to swing back at him, a loud clank rang in the air when their weapons collided. “You can't capture my point!†BLU scout came in again, this time hitting RED engineer in the gut. “What the fuck are you thinkin', man?!†BLU scout knocked him down even further with a hard strike to his back. “BONK!†and again.
RED engineer reeled from the impacts, but used his first returning sense to grab that cotton t-shirt, pull BLU scout down to his stooped level, zero in on that face, and smash his forehead right into it. BLU scout fell backward and RED engineer stood over him, gripping his wrench, slippery with blood in both hands. Once he was satisfied with the kid's neutralization, he turned his attention back to that dispenser without a second thought. The sapper came off no problem, but immediately most of the machine's inner workings actually needed to be replaced, and the RED engineer was miles away from shop. He did what he could, trying to re-wire the thing's power source and at least get that healing tank back online, but it was completely fried, and his hands just weren't doing what he told them to. Every time he breathed out, blood clogged his windpipe and he could no longer breathe air back in.
“HAIL COBRA!!†A BLU soldier fired a rocket.
With an angry scream, RED soldier ran off the point and brandished a shovel.
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! GET ON POINT!!†RED heavy roared angrily at the retreating soldier, but could not let his fists stop moving.
RED engineer, still preoccupied with trying to fix that dispenser heard a clank, then felt himself being jerked away from his work. He didn't feel much after that or see much more than red, but he could still hear at least one explosion and the heavy calling someone stoopid over and over.
The engineer tried to get his bearings, but he wasn't sure if he was even standing anymore. All this water was making it mighty hard to even stay upright – and it was freezing to top it all off. As soon as he caught sight of the surface he started paddling for it, but his injuries wouldn't let him. In this state, he must have missed how the place flooded this bad, and how he came to be by himself all of the sudden. Just as he had come to accept his eventual drowning, a dolphin jetted towards him – an honest to god dolphin clear as day. Somehow the engineer thought he heard the word 'maggot' in all those squeals and clicks as it swooped in and grabbed his arm in it's mouth. Didn't seem to be trying to hurt him, though – it just grabbed hold and started swimming even harder in a straight upward thrust. Even though it hurt, the engineer wrapped his body around the sleek animal, eventually finding a grip on it's dorsal fin for dear life against the pressure of the water rushing past them as they approached the light of the surface.
When they reached the surface, it suddenly didn't matter that the engineer's lungs were full of blood. He coughed until the air rushed in and stayed there, as though he had taken his first breath in a week.
“Thanks, mister.†The engineer patted the dolphin, but was saddened to see the ground coming back up at him as the water receded.
“Dumkopfs.†RED medic administered treatment to the engineer draped over the RED soldier's back.
“YOU FAILED!!†The administrator scolded over the loudspeaker. What followed was an immediate uproar of both cheering and pitiful cries for mercy as the BLU company scattered. Demolition and Pyrotechnics were already celebrating – locked at the elbows and dancing in a circle, shooting off fire and grenades without regard to anything but the expression of their hard-earned victory. A few happy cracks from a sniper rifle being fired into the air could also be heard.
“RUN COWARDS!!!†RED heavy's voice rang triumphantly over all others from the control-point as he started laughing and cleaning house with his fists.
“Quit screwing around and finish the fight, men!†RED soldier abruptly dropped RED engineer and spun around to shout at the rest of his team on the ground. “NO mercy! NO prisoners! Women and children first! I want this perimeter secured and clean enough to eat off of... I'm thinking ribs...potato salad...†he carried on barking orders as he marched down the hill, ignoring the little aftershocks and mercy killings that were happening around him for the sake of maintaining that stiff march and that nonsensically confident string of commands. The engineer rolled back up onto his feet and dusted himself off, all the while reassuring himself that the soldier probably had no idea who he was talking to either.
“AW MAAAN!!! How could that fat bastid cap the point instead of me?!†RED scout had apparently just re-spawned on that teleporter, and he looked like he might cry.
“I vas going to ask you the same question, useless svinehund!†RED medic snarled at him.
“Yeah, I love you too, deutch-bag.†the scout's mood lifted when he saw BLU's running away. “Hey where are you chuckleheads goin'?! I'm just gettin' started with my battin' practice over here!†He zipped after them with his trusty bat.
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