1 . Name: SirKai @ 2011-01-15 19:44

One Night Without Respawn, Part 1

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He ejected the magazine, eyeing the stack of twelve .45 caliber rounds encased inside. Medic slammed the fully loaded clip into the heavy black handgun resting in his hands; he tugged the extra pouches pinned to his suspenders, each one filled with spare magazines and loose ammunition. In a final trial of reassurance, the doctor patted the massive rusted syringe and pocket of medical supplies clung to his belt.

He exhaled one last sigh of visible breath, and ran two scarlet-gloved fingers across the bridge of his nose. It was a nervous habit he never did shake. Medic rubbed his fingers together, the grey mixture from his make up smudging lightly between them. The face paint and dark service beret eased the biting of the frigid air.

Snow drifted throughout the tight canyon beneath an overcast sky, feint flakes scarcely peppering the doctor's long white coat. He planted his boots into the thick snow with caution and hunched over with both hands gripping his handgun. Every so often, Medic would whip his head around to double-check his surroundings, as if every decayed wooden structure and every nearby tree were hiding a potential foe. He was getting jumpy from excitement.

The enemy base was unmistakably enormous, a multi-floored shelter dug partially underneath the ground and coated in aged, chipping blue paint. The doctor's combat boots dug deeper into powder as he moved forward with lengthier and slower strides, reeling in towards the light emitted from the warped windows of the building. It had taken great effort to thoroughly memorize the maps of the canyon and the complex as the incredible scale of the base easily matched that of any respectable school or hospital campus he could recall.

Medic knelt at the edge of a small bluff, several meters from the shelter. He tucked the pistol into his belt, removing his spectacles and running his thumbs over the damp lenses to brush the condensation from his vision. What regretful climate.

Medic slipped his glasses back on. Forced routine dashed through his mind--the sequence of hand-to-hand defensive maneuvers, disarming techniques, the placements of his supplies and ammo clips which ensured he wasn't weighed down unnecessarily, but still acutely prepared. It had been years since he’d endured any true battlefield experience; his reliability, efficiency, and record as a field medic far eclipsed his other attributes in the eyes of his superiors.

But now he had no one left to treat.

The German descended the bluff, creeping closer to the building. He hugged the nearby tree line as he rounded the corner. The massive open air warehouse entrance came into view. Bright florescent light crept onto the thinning snow and dozens of industrial sized crates lay stacked upon each other, surrounded by chipped brick walls and hollowed-out cavern rock composing the natural ceiling. Wide tire tracks led to the back end of the room near two stack shipping containers, each adored with a worn Builders League United logo.

The numbing cold parted for the warmth that licked at his bare neck and face from the warehouse. He could smell oil, and the faint scent of gunpowder. And tobacco.

The doctor inched his way back around the corner, peeking into the warehouse. A series of rhythmic clicks honed towards him from inside. They weren’t the quick, consistent padding of a young athlete who may as well be gliding across the floor, nor were they the calculated steps of a compulsive thinker, the kind of man who counts the length and width of each footfall from one doorway to the next. These were the steps of a narcissist, a man who places each overpriced shoe with such precision and fidelity, he might even question why he bothers; after all, no one should hear him coming. Then he’ll remember that the act alone satisfies himself, and that’s more than enough. He’ll slowly shut his eyes and smile to himself at the thought. Then he’ll drop his exhausted, smoking fag to the floor with a smug chuckle, and inefficiently grind it against his sole.

Medic had learned long ago that men like that were better off without feet.

The tall, slender man stepped into view, masked in a deep blue balaclava and a slightly less blue pinstripe suit. He pinched his smoking cigarette between two leather-gloved fingers and exhaled a lengthy, cancerous breath. The Spy stopped at the large open air entrance and brushed an unnoticeable amount of ash from his lapel.

Medic slowly slid his foot around the corner, trailing his boot through the snow. He raised the handgun with two gripped hands, and studied Spy from across the length of the barrel. The way his cigarette so delicately dropped to the floor, hanging off of his lips for a moment, as if independently deciding whether or not it wanted to fall. The Frenchman sighed as it fell to the floor.

Spy brushed his pressed jacket back, sweeping his hand smoothly across the fabric of his clothes and into the front pocket of his pants. The hand was open as it moved, tasting the splendor and style of his suit through his gloves.

His hand was pocketed for no longer than the thrust of a bone saw before he rolled back his sleeve and glanced at his gold wristwatch. It was an act motivated by habit and audaciousness. No doubt he was more compelled to admire the beauty of the watch (painstakingly handcrafted by third-generation Swiss artisans, as Medic had been reminded on more than one occasion) than the time it displayed (a minute past eleven).

Spy thought himself a complicated creature, after all; however, Medic had learned that the the Frenchman was in fact very simple. Spy merely sought out complicated means for one dimensional satisfaction. He sat on a throne all his own, so high it must have been difficult to recognize the faces of people below. And to Spy, that was everyone. The way his half-lidded eyes glared into the darkness, as if whatever lingered there only deserved a fraction of his attention; the rest of it was quite occupied with pleasing himself.

Medic watched the man bathe in ignorance. The Frenchman savored the final wisps of smoke that crawled from his mouth, and stared into the wilderness. He was completely unaware that he was about to die.

The doctor was a predator. The power was invigorating.

Medic reaffirmed his grip on the gun, and squeezed the trigger so fluidly, it might as well have lacked all weight and friction.

The handgun kicked in his grasp, expelling an emphatic gunshot. Spy’s head bolted backwards towards an expanding cloud of blood and sinew. An empty, steaming bullet casing dug into the snow. The dissolving blast resonated through out the snowy terrain into silence. Spy lay spread on top of the cool concrete. His head rested in a thickening pool of scarlet.

The German lowered his arms, a trail of smoke thinning in front of him. He took in a deep breath of gunpowder and wiped his thumb over the pistol’s warm barrel. It was the most he could do to relish the kill. He felt like he’d just run an entire species into extinction.

Medic stalked over to the Spy’s corpse. He grabbed a handful of the Frenchman’s jacket in his left fist and dragged him around the corner, leaving the body face down in the snow. The bullet-made outlet in the back of his head was appropriately embellished.

Hunched over and head down, Medic crept through the open warehouse door.

“Spy?” A low southern-American drawl echoed throughout the warehouse.

Another one of the doctor’s targets had made himself known. It was no surprise someone had heard the gunshot. This was going to be easier than expected.

Medic heard a predictable series of clangs and metallic rummaging from the far side of the room. He pressed his shoulder against a couplet of netted crates to the left of the entrance. The Engineer must have been securing a weapon. The familiar, hollow pump of his shotgun rang over the dozens of crates.

“Spy?” he repeated, louder this time. The man’s sense of combat protocol always was severely lacking, unlike the rest of his unit.

The slapping of worn boots reeled in closer to the doctor’s position. Medic’s breaths, slow and quiet, contrasted to the agitated pants of the nearby Engineer.

“Spy?” Engineer asked again, his voice subdued and low, as if expecting to find a brutalized body around the next corner. A large pool of blood might indicate such.

The man must have been no more than two yards away.

Deducing Engineer’s location from the sound of his broken-record drawling, the doctor sprang from his knees and swung his pistol over the crate, quickly taking aim with both hands. The pistol fired a shot through the air at the center of the Texan; an ear-splitting ricochet immediately followed, ringing beyond the deafening gunfire.

Medic ducked back behind the crate and mumbled a curse. The action had been a blur, but he had seen the BLU’s gloved hand flinch from the collision of the bullet. A series of rushed footsteps revealed the Engineer’s retreat for cover.

“Whoo!” Engineer exhaled once the blasts and ringing had dissipated. “You nearly got me there, Doc.”

Medic heard the mechanical whirs and metallic scraping of the Texan’s vile prosthetic. The doctor had always held nothing but contempt for such a disgusting contraption. The uncouthed inbred even had the nerve to use Medic’s own equipment to make room for the mechanical forearm. Medic never used that bone saw again.

“That coulda’ caused some real damage, but it ain’t a nothin’ a good wrenchin’ or two won’t fix,” the American said.

Medic imagined Engineer flashing a loathsome, self-satisfied grin while admiring the craftsmanship of his own device: the same smug, open-mouthed smile he wore whenever his beloved sentry gun amassed a kill, or whenever he wiped his bloody wrench across his pant leg, standing over a bludgeoned Spy, or when he shooed the Medic away with the wave of his hand. “Don’t worry Doc,” he’d say, leaning against his contraption affectionately as if his body as a whole lacked the stress of even a single responsibility. “My dispenser’s got these boys taken care of.”

It was becoming more and more apparent to the doctor just how many facets of the man he hated. In retrospect, he found it a mystery how he ever tolerated him at all.

“Never were much for words were ya? ‘Specially not on the job. That’s pretty damn admirable.” Engineer choked on the remaining bits of his sentence. Three thundering shotgun blasts peppered the crate shielding Medic. Bits of splintered wood rained around the doctor’s body and scattered across the floor. Medic instinctively hunched over and clasped his unarmed hand over his head.

The doctor reapplied his hand to the pistol. He shot his arms over the crate and fired at the gun smoke, dissipating from beyond a wide open doorway. Four shots dug into the cement corner protecting his target. Medic cursed himself again as he ducked back behind the crate.

“Bein’ pretty hasty there Sawbones. Ain’t like you,” Engineer taunted.

He’s right, Medic thought with a deep, outward breath. Relax. Precision. Care. I am a doctor after all.

The doctor had learned that applying his highly trained sense of medical precision to any situation almost always yielded satisfactory, if not spectacular results. Then again, the sudden advent of burning metallic pellets burying beneath the skin of his lower back had a habit of altering his typical outlook. States of pain had always done this to his mind; shake his focus from medical clarity to the face of raw, unbridled reaction.

Medic dashed to his feet and swung his arm widely around, firing two bullets at the doorway to cover his own movement. He sprinted the length of the warehouse, sliding across his knees behind an enormous BLU shipping container. Another shotgun blast compounded through out the cavern walls.

“Awfully risky of ya Doc,” Engineer called out. “Did I gitchya?”

Medic instinctively groped the swelling flesh below his left deltoid. He hissed inwardly as his blood-slicked gloves explored the number of small pellet-wounds underneath his flesh. At least seven, he counted.

“Ya never did handle too well under pressure,” the Texan lamented, as the hollow thunks of his reloading shotgun echoed inside the cave. “Always got so flustered, an’ antsy.”

The doctor impulsively swiped the magazine catch of his handgun with his thumb and flicked the pistol clip away with the turn of his wrist. The used clip clattered and slid across the floor from his feet. He feverishly dug into one of his suspended pouches to retrieve a fully-loaded magazine, and slammed it into the gun.

“Y’know,” Engineer started. Medic was barely able to discern the Texan’s lavishly accented chant beyond his own labored breathing. Some men truly did talk too much. “Solly was never too mindful for keepin’ track of his stuff. Specially these two sweethearts.”

The doctor heard the rustle of Engineer fumbling with his over-sized pockets.

“Then again, he didn’t use ‘em much anyway.”

Medic imagined another pompous, toothy grin forming on the Texan’s face.

“A damned shame if you ask me.”

There was a quick metallic scrape and an instant snap, like the hastened forward crack of a pistol’s slide. A series of heavy thuds pounded against the smooth pavement until a yellow-banded hand grenade rolled into view from around the corner of the container, not a foot’s distance from Medic.

The doctor took a single solemn moment to mentally curse his very existence, before frantically scrambling to his feet and reeling his foot back. The toe of his boot collided with the broad center of the grenade. For a moment, Medic could swear the grenade decelerated, nearly to a stop, as it traveled airborne towards the nearby work bench and crates.

The next instant bypassed the doctor like a forgotten nightmare. A memory of something blinding, deafening, and overwhelming. Something that compressed him, like every oxygen particle around him were all suddenly grinding against his flesh in unison. A constant, vicious ringing assaulted the inside of his head. He reached up and dragged his hand over his scalp, half-tempted to try digging into his skull to make it stop. He recalled the Americans identifying such a sensations “shell shock.” Aptly named.

Debris scattered the center of the warehouse: charred, shredded wooden remains intermixed with dozens of rifle magazines and ammunition canisters. Countless bullets littered the ground. Medic glared into the slowly dissipating haze of smoke for several breathless seconds before determining just how much of the smattering gray was filling the air, as opposed to the smears on his glasses. The overwhelming smell of gunpowder stung his nostrils. He settled on deliberate, cautious breaths through his mouth.

Medic slowly rose to his shaken feet from the cushion of the container. He drunkenly brushed his hand across the sheathe at his hip, and awkwardly tugged at the grip of his saw. He strained his muscles to yank the stuck weapon. His empty hand dug into his empty handgun holster. The doctor wrenched his mouth open to utter a very vocal curse, just before his entire head jerked to the floor. The ferocious collision to his face snapped like a pair of flat brass knuckles from the end of a whip. The doctor rolled onto his back atop a very uncomfortable and pinching amount of splintered wood, bullet casings, and cornered objects. Medic rubbed his bruising left cheek with his gloved palm.

“Well damn, that went even better than expected.”

Out of all the things, the doctor begged. Out of all the things to split the ringing in my head, why did it have to be him?

Now Medic didn’t even have to imagine that despicable smile. There it was, suspended above him, attached to an otherwise featureless silhouette. Machine oil joined the gagging mass of smells. Engineer stood over the Medic through the thinning cloud of smoke and dust, and looked proudly at his skeletal right hand. The Texan stretched the fingers out, emitting a distinct electrical whir. Even the shortest of men looked imposing after suffering an explosive concussion and being threatened by a deadly mechanized prosthetic.

Medic heaved in an extended breath, watching the man above him stroke his artificial wrist affectionately.

“A damned shame to get all of yer pretty makeup ruined, but I ain’t gonna lie,” Engineer said. He seemed to be talking more so to his forearm. “I always wanted to do this.” His calloused fingers teased end of the rip cord dangling from the wrist of the metal hand.

The doctor strained his pounding head to the right and left, feeling the debris-laden cement floor through his gloves. Bullets, ammo drums, belt-bound pouches, even spare cigarette cases. Goddammit, he thought. How can a warehouse stock so many bullets, and yet no guns to fire them from?

Engineer tugged the rip cord aggressively. The arm shuddered and twitched at the action.

Medic was momentarily too distracted to confirm his suspicion, his hand brushing over useless debris and supplies, but the image of the Texan’s smile widening even further clouded his thoughts.

And then the doctor heard a motor turn over, like the Engineer was revving up a lawn mower. It drowned out all ambiance, as if the metallic hand was suddenly a void for all other sound. Medic almost sighed in an awkward blend of disbelief and desperation. The sick mechanic keeps a motor in his hand, the German thought. Light gusts of air whipped at his face and hair.

Why in the hell does he-

But a simple glance ahead proved the reason. The Engineer’s arm was lowering towards Medic’s face, spinning. It blurred in a circular rotation like a fan, and just beyond it was that detestable grin. The doctor regretted even looking up.

Medic’s arms went limp. The BLU leaned over and gripped the blackened shirt and scorched red tie with his organic fist, slowly heaving the doctor to his feet. Only a single bewildering question raced through Medic’s mind.

How did Spy ever manage to deal with this man? He suddenly had new found admiration for the French snake.

Medic had admittedly never been struck by lightning, but he believed it would feel something like the icy, breathless realization that cleaves through one’s senses. It was the moment he drew a syringe from a patient’s arm, and coldly recalling that his needles had gone unsterilized. The moment he remembered that his mother’s birthday had just passed, and he neglected to call her. The moment he finally comprehended that a blunt rotary fan the size of his head was startlingly close to trimming his eyebrows.

It was also the moment when the doctor discovered just how Spy did deal with this man.

Medic could have sworn his heart almost leaped from his chest.

Cigarette cases, he remembered.

The doctor fumbled his fingertips across the surface of the floor, lightly brushing aside the smooth, rounded features of the polished cases or brass-colored bullets. He needed a box. A gray box, the size of a bloated paperback novel, with dangling cords, and switches and dials and an over-sized gauge of tick marks and red bars that probably didn’t relay any notable information at all. He grazed his gloved fingers over the object, recognizing the sleekness of the switches and the heavily notched texture of the dial’s grip. He had been laying on it.

Engineer continued dragging Medic to his feet, but the doctor couldn’t hear the words beyond the active motor. The current of wind slapped aggressively at his hair. The mechanized hand had nearly engulfed his range of vision.

Medic pinched an end of the Electro-Sapper with two fingers. It lifted from the ground with him. The BLU cocked his head to the right curiously and slackened his grip of Medic’s shirt a bit, before re-equipping his devilish, conceded smile and muttering something. The German couldn’t hear the words over active motor between them, but had little doubt it was anything more than the inbred’s typical conceded drawl.

Medic never was one for unnecessary theatrics, but if there was an immediate audience, he’d admit to having a very difficult time not calling their attention to what he was about to do.

The doctor swung the sapper at the wrist of the prosthetic. Sparks immediately darted from the hand. Engineer dropped Medic back to floor, the shorter man stumbling backwards. The rotating hand was forced to a screeching, cringing halt, as the two corded nodes wrapped around the palm of the hand like predatory tentacles. The tightly-bound wires claimed the space between the steel digits. The Texan clawed feebly at the tightly-bound sapper with his other hand.

“Goddammit!” he screamed, drawing his scorched fingertips away from the writhing, contorting metal appendage. An orange flicker rose from the crevices of the prosthetic. Engineer’s arm had caught fire.

He stared at the burning travesty. His mouth was hung open and his eyebrows were arched in hopelessness, like a man staring at a newly carved tomb stone bearing his own name. Medic could only surmise that such a revelation must be quite sobering.

The fire spread until it had engulfed his entire palm, and neared the bare flesh of his arm.

“Aw hell.”

A blast of red and yellow erupted from short man’s forearm. The explosion overtook his entire stature. Fuid streaks of scarlet stri the surrounding walls and floor; bits of barely identifiable tissue, giblets, charred scrap metal and bone populated the cement. Medic watched the entire scene without blinking. He was vaguely aware of a new film of blood that had showered onto the knees of his pants.

The doctor rose anxiously, cupping his still-fresh shotgun wound, while mindful of any undocumented injuries. He brushed varying degrees of ash from his clothing. The blood will have to be washed out, he thought.

Medic’s eyes drifted towards the remains. Engineer’s arm was clearly missing (well, ‘missing’ wasn’t entirely true. In fact it was arguably harder to miss than the rest of him), but the explosion had also taken his entire shoulder, as well as an impressive amount of his chest. Even at a glance, the bloodied ribcage was visible; a subtle peek would have no doubt revealed the man’s heart and lungs too. The flesh across his jaw and right cheek had also been seared off. His hardhat couldn’t be seen.

The doctor swelled his chest with air and sighed, absorbing the grisly view. As far as he was concerned, few events were more worthy of historic recollection.