1 . Name: The_World_Awaits @ 2011-08-11 01:05

Inspired by dotchan's Nine Men and a Baby in her Massive Text Tump Thread. Dotchan kindly Beta'ed this chapter as well, so a big thank you to dotchan for tolerating my rubbish grammar and spelling.

This fic contains OCs, so you have been warned. They will be kept to bare minimum.

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"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years." ~commonly attributed to Mark Twain.

The first one to get suspicious was the Spy.

The RED Sniper had been gone for three weeks, nearing four. It just took the end of the first for alarm bells to start ringing for RED's sneakiest resident. The Spy prided himself on knowledge and information; there was no stone left unturned when it come to his investigations, but he had yet to find a reason for the Sniper's long absence from RED. Enquiries to administration yielded nothing: all they would say was that the Sniper had requested leave for personal reasons. That alone did not satisfy the Spy's curiousity. The Administrator was not the kindest of employers; for her to willingly give the Sniper that long a leave signalled that something was very off.

The other team members did not echo the Spy's suspicions till the end of the second week. By the third week, most of them were of the opinion that the Sniper had finally gotten sick of the nearly redundant battles and had thrown in the towel to return to the land down under. Nearly everyone was convinced that the lanky Australian wasn't going to be making another appearance. Their missing team member made their battles difficult; the teams were now stacked 8-9, with RED on the losing end. It wasn't surprising that after their latest defeat most of them were cursing their wayward friend with a passion for abandoning them like that.

The Spy quickly slipped back into the shadows the moment he could; he didn't want to stay for the inevitable earful that the Soldier would barrage the team with. Besides, he didn't feel that he needed the lecturing: he had sapped BLU's sentries till the enemy engineer was screaming bloody murder, and the enemy Sniper had met the pointy end of his balisong more than once. If anything, he deserved an award for all the extra work he had to put in since the Sniper left.

As his hand rested on the doorknob, the floorboards to his right creaked.

Calmly, he opened his door and shut it, locking it behind him. But the moment he was in the safe confines of his room he switched on his cloaking device and opened the window. Like a cat, he treaded the roof carefully to the other side before he slipped in through the other window into the corridor again. While there didn't seem to be anyone else in the passageway, the Spy knew better than to trust his sense of sight. Silently he tiptoed down the corridor. There were only two rooms on the top: one of which belonged to him. The other was originally assigned to the Sniper, but the man had insisted on his privacy and stayed in his van instead.

There was obviously no one in the Spy's room, leaving just one other room where the noise could have come from.

He pressed his ear to the wooden door. Yes, he could hear breathing inside. The Spy smirked to himself as he backtracked to the window and out onto the roof again. It was strictly against the rules for either side to break into the living quarters of the bases, especially during ceasefire. He gleefully crept across the roof again; he couldn't wait to catch someone from BLU and report him to the Administrator. She had hinted at dire consequences, and nothing was sweeter for him than to have an enemy suffer.

The Spy carefully peered into the window. No, no blue anywhere, unless the enemy was in the closet.

It took him two picks to get the lock undone. As the window gently swung open the Spy slipped in, cloaked. Inching closer to the innocent closet door, he prepared his Ambassador. The safety was pulled off and the gun cocked to a firing position.
The Spy considered his options now. Should he risk shooting? While death was no problem, it was, in his opinion, a very cheap way to end an opponent. The Spy preferred playing with his prey; it added flavour to all his missions. But if he didn't fire then he'd have to overpower him; first by luring out the poor fool and then attacking from behind. If the intruder happened to be the BLU Scout, then the Spy would have a problem getting his hands on the boy. And if it was the BLU Spy, then it was also possible that his nemesis WANTED to lure him into revealing himself. The Spy balked at the idea of his BLU counterpart getting the upper hand over him.

In the end, Spy took a few steps back for good measure, did a quick check of the room to make sure that no one else was around, before he regretfully pointed the gun at the door.

The scream that cut through the base though had every RED member snapped out whatever they were doing, including one very tall, skinny Australian who had been explaining himself to an enraged Soldier. Pale, the Sniper pushed Soldier aside with surprising force and ran up to his room. Other members followed, curious.
The first one to get to the room was the Medic. The doctor got there just in time to witness a furious the Sniper deliver a right hook to the Spy's jaw.

"Ya fuckin' frog! I'll kill you!"

The punch snapped the Spy's head to the side with a sickening crack before the man stumbled backwards and fell back against the wall. With savage ferocity the Sniper launched himself at the Frenchman and continued pummeling him with no restraint. Stunned, the Medic was about to pull out one of his sedative-filled needles when he caught the crying from the closet. Closer inspection left him shocked.

"G-Gott in himmel!"

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This is what I've written up for now. Comments, critics, suggestions and opinions are all welcome. As a note, I tend to write with British English seeing as I'm from a former colonised country. English is also not really my first language; although it's the one I primarily speak, I can't profess to be a master at it. So my writing style tends to be a bit boring and plain. If you see a sentence that could be worded better, shoot your suggestions to me. You'll be doing me a great favour; part of the reason I write fanfics is to better my English.

I also promise not to have such a long author's note after this one. This was just to explain myself a bit. Sorry if anyone got annoyed and thanks for reading.