Pet by Magpie Chapter 3- A Friend The Blue Spy couldn’t wait for the beginning of the week to extract his revenge against the Red Sniper. But now that he was half-way up the ladder to where his target was, he was having second thoughts about his plan. A strong wind whipped past and he pressed himself further into the metal bars he was desperately clinging to. The last Red Sniper had at least had the decency to hole up in the old buildings near the battlefield, though the Spy had learned to avoid him after a while all the same. After he had killed the man several times in a single day without the man fighting back, he had started to feel like he was doing the man a favour. Secretly, he hoped that this one would follow the same pattern just so he could avoid having to drag himself up to the man’s perch ever again. A few steps from the top, he activated his cloak and pulled himself silently onto the platform. His steps were carefully calculated as he crept up behind the unaware Sniper. The familiar weight of his knife comforted the Spy as he flipped it open, and cut through the Sniper in a well practiced pattern. He watched the lifeless body slump over the railing before it was collected by the respawn system and smiled with a sense of smug satisfaction. Backing into the center of the platform, he dismissed his cloak and pulled out a cigarette. Since he was already up there, he may as well wait for the Sniper to return. He may as well kill him again too; for making him climb all the way up here. Not at all because he wanted to put off having to descend the ladder. By his third consecutive trip to the respawn room, the Red Sniper was pissed. Not only had the enemy Spy invaded the very personal space of his sniping platform, but he had started to take pot shots at him while he was climbing the ladder. Storming out of the fort, already pressing his rifle into his shoulder, he lifted it to get a better view of the platform. The bastard was still there, smoking that obnoxious little cigarette of his and the idiot wasn’t even bothering to stay out of sight. The expression Frenchman made when he put a pair of bullets into his tobacco ridden lungs was priceless. Throwing his gun onto his back, he hurried back to his perch, if he was lucky the Spy would still be alive when he got there. ~~~ In the days after the initial conflict, their little dispute had grown into an all out feud. Currently, the Blue Spy was cloaked outside of the Red respawn room. He knew the Red Sniper would be coming out the door soon, and he was ready to send him straight back. Settling into the path that he knew the Sniper would take to go back, he grinned as he heard the miraculous system brought his target back to life. The machine hummed longer than usual as another member of the Red team was brought back alongside the Sniper. The Spy didn’t care, from what he could tell the rest of the Red team ignored their snipers, which helped him. When the doors to the room didn’t open right away like it usually did, he carefully crept closer. There was an angry voice filtered out from behind it, but the thick metal of the door made it impossible to make out the words. The machine hummed again and the door opened as the Red Scout ran back out to the battlefield, allowing the Blue Spy a glimpse inside the room. His eyes widened as brain processed the scene. The Red Medic was standing over a cowering Sniper, scolding him for his latest failure in the field. The door began to slide down, and the Spy bent over as it descended, watching as the Medic raised his boot to kick the terrified man. Leaning against the wall, he tried to process the information he had just witnessed. It suddenly made sense as to why the Reds seemed to go through so many more Snipers than the Blue team. It also explained why the last Sniper had lost interest in preserving his own life. The Spy jumped as the door slid open again, and the Medic dragged the beaten man out by the collar of his shirt. He gave a final warning to the Sniper about neglecting his responsibilities to the team before storming off back to the battlefront. The Sniper collected himself a little too quickly for the Blue’s taste, as he adjusted his uniform and headed back to his perch. Quietly tucking his knife away, he followed the Sniper. It suddenly felt incredibly inappropriate to kill the Sniper after what he had just witnessed. His own Medic was always drilling the idea of team unity into them, and would often go out of his way to mediate arguments between teammates. The Spy blamed him for the fact that he couldn’t ignore what he had just seen. Stopping at the base of the ladder, he watched as the Sniper scaled it with ease, wondering if he should continue up the ladder. He tried telling himself that he shouldn’t involve himself with the affairs of the Red team and that there was nothing he could do about it. But – Red or not – no one should have to fear their own teammates. He spent the entire trip up the ladder silently cursing himself for caring about the enemy. He found himself back on the platform, cloaked, and just staring at the Sniper’s back. After they had gone out of their way to kill each other, he had no idea of how to convince the other man that he wasn’t there to do just that. So the Spy just stood there for a while, watching as the Sniper fired off a few rounds at the rest of the Blues on the ground, looking as though nothing had happened. It was a bit unnerving. He approached the sharpshooter slowly, and brushed his hand cautiously over his shoulder. He really shouldn’t have been surprised at the Sniper’s reaction to the touch, but he had forgotten that he wasn’t aware that he had seen the event in respawn. The only thought the Spy had as he plummeted towards the ground and his impending death, was that the encounter could have gone better. ~~~ After almost a week of trying to convince the Red Sniper of his good intentions, the Blue Spy was finally giving up. Storming out of the respawn room, he found the first person dressed in red that he could and emptied an all six shots from his Ambassador into them, before returning to his usual duties. He was done with this little charity project. If the abused man wanted help, he could find it himself. The Sniper, in the meantime, was enjoying sharing his suffering with someone else. Though he was curious as to why the Blue had decided to change his tactics. Normally taking on the appearances of the enemy worked well in lulling a target into a false sense of security, but the Blue Spy had missed a very important detail. None of the other Reds ever came to visit him, and none of them ever talked with him. They would often talk at him, but it was far from the conversations they would have with each other. He even had the nerve to show up once disguised as his Medic, but the Sniper quickly saw through the disguise. The real Red Medic never hesitated. Looking back, maybe he had been particularly cruel in some of the ways that he had killed the Spy and sometimes he regretted it afterwards. There was something though, about the look the Frenchman would give him just before he died that got under his skin worse than the degrading names he was called by his teammates. It was pity, and the Sniper hated that he was on the receiving end of it. The first day that the Blue didn’t show up in his perch the Sniper was grateful for the change. He still kept an eye out for the distinctive shimmer, a duplicate Red wandering where they shouldn’t, or any sentries showing signs of sabotage. By the third day, he figured that the Blue had given up on whatever scheme he had, and he relaxed at the thought that his retreat was safe again. After the following weekend, though he felt like he desperately needed to cut someone open and hang them from his perch’s railing by their guts. The Medic had taken great pride in parading him around the base naked lately, which hadn’t been too bad – the worst was some new verbal jabs, which he could handle. After the regular weekend duties though, the doctor made it very clear to him what his real purpose to the team was. The more he dwelled on the memories, the more real the phantom feeling of the slick rubber fingers pressing into him became, and the more he wanted to make someone else suffer. He searched the field for the Blue Spy, but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Instead, he settled for a shot at the Blue Medic, and his trigger finger jumped at the chance to riddle him with bullets. The first shot ripped though the Medic’s thigh, sending him crumpling to the ground, the one that followed immediately after made certain that he was unable to operate his precious Medigun. He frowned as the third shot was intercepted by the Blue Heavy as he moved to protect their doctor. He was disposed of with a quick shot though the skull and, once the body dissolved into the respawn, the Sniper to resumed taking shots at the defenceless doctor. By the time he was done he had put three more bullets into his helpless target, though none of them were fatal. Having released some of his frustrations, he left the Blue to bleed to death as he sighted out another victim. He gradually slipped back into his usual killing patter as the day wore on, but it felt like something was missing from his day. The relief that he used to feel when he was watching the battle below him had become a heavy blanket of loneliness. Even when he caught the enemy Spy in his sights, he found that he was passing up the opportunity to take the shot. Killing him just wasn’t as interesting as it once was. He took a half hearted shot as he caught the Spook attempting to sap a sentry, but the bullet burying itself harmlessly in the ground with a puff of dust. The Blue Spy quickly ducked behind a nearby corner to avoid any additional shots. It was painfully obvious that the Sniper had missed the shot on purpose, it was like the man didn’t care anymore. Normally, he would have to be on a constant lookout for the flickering red dot that indicated that he was about to die, but lately it would just hover over him briefly before disappearing. The sudden change of behaviour in the Sniper nagged at the part of his mind that had wanted to help him, and the mocking shots were making him very jumpy. Despite reminding himself that he no longer cared what happened to the Sniper, he still found himself cloaked and standing on the platform. He stayed that way for a while just watching, trying to identify which of his teammates the man was picking off. Moving out of reach of the man’s broad knife, he turned off the cloak. The Sniper’s reflexes reacted instantly at the sound, his hand snapping out for his kukri, only to find the barrel of the Spy’s own gun levelled at his head. Lowering his weapon first, he waited for the Spy to pull the trigger. “What do you want?†He asked, mumbling. The Blue examined the other man’s expression for a moment longer, before slipping his gun back into its holster, and producing his cigarette case. “Can you blame me for wanting a smoke break?†The Spy gave a limp wave as though he were dismissing the question, as he removed one of the slender sticks from the case and rested it loosely between his lips. “Funny place to have a break.†The Sniper narrowed his eyes at the enemy, who just shrugged and lit the cigarette before tucking the metal case away. “I’ve been trying to cut back.†He took a long drag and breathed out the smoke with a satisfied sigh. He finished the cigarette quickly and in silence, under the scrutinizing glare of the Sniper. He crushed out the last few remaining embers on a metal beam, before casually descending the ladder to rejoin the battle. Once he planted his feet back on solid ground, the Spy breathed a sigh of relief. Cloaking, he set about his regular duties again with as sense of accomplishment. Maybe the Red Sniper wasn’t a lost cause yet.