!WARNING! A TIME ANOMALY HAS BEEN DETECTED IN REPORT 007 AND REPORT 008. SOME MEMORY FILES MAY HAVE BEEN CORRUPTED. PLEASE REFER TO SAID FILES AND MAKE NOTE OF ANY CHANGES THAT MAY HAVE RESULTED IN YOUR TIME-SPACE CONTINUUM. THANK YOU.

MEET THE TURNCOAT

RETRIEVING FILE…

DATA LOAD 001: FOUND

-INITIATE TRANSMISSION-

Silence.

It was a rare commodity in the gravel pits of Teufort. One was always surrounded by noisy comrades, shouting to one another over the shriek of exploding shrapnel, laughing and joking, arguing over whose turn it was to use the shower. From nine to five, the air was rent with the bark of gunfire, the earth-shattering thunder of detonating bombs, the screams of fallen enemies...or allies.

So in those rare moments, when all went quiet, it sent a shiver of unease down everyone's spine. This was one of those moments, when the bullets suddenly stopped and an eerie sense of peace descended upon them like a fog.

It filled the Spy with absolute dread.

It meant there was no one left on his team to fire at. It meant they were gone. It meant he was the only one left.

Being a Spy, the situation wasn't entirely hopeless. He could cloak himself for a short time, or disguise himself as the enemy, and if worse came to worse, he always had the Dead Ringer. But in the end, he was still Support Class, and there wasn't much he could do now other than simply survive.

As much as he hated to admit it...he needed his Team.

Or, at the very least, the goddamned Medic.

Grimacing, he pressed a hand against the wound in his leg, biting back a grunt of pain as blood spurted sluggishly between his fingers. It was already leaking through the hastily crafted tourniquet, and if he wasn't careful he'd leave a trail. Several nasty burns were scorched into the flesh of his arm, and his shoulder was a knot of agony from one of the Sniper's arrows.

"You are the last one remaining," the Administrator coldly informed him over the intercom. As if he needed reminding. "It's all up to you now."

Like he could actually do something, other than cower beneath a flight of stairs and pray that his cloaking watch didn't run out. The Soldier and Demoman thundered down the steps above him, eyes scanning the room briefly before moving on. Moments later, the Pyro shouldered his—her? its?—way through the door, the nozzle of the flame-thrower sweeping around in a slow arc.

By chance, it came to rest right in the Spy's face. He stilled instantly, resisting the urge to even swallow, and firmly told his frantic heart to kindly shut the hell up. For a horrific moment, he could have sworn the Pyro saw him, when the masked head cocked to the side like he was some kind of inquisitive dog. His skin broke out into a cold sweat, his breath stuttering in his lungs, and he could almost feel his flesh burning again—not again—

But then the flame-thrower moved away, and the Pyro trotted out of the room, none the wiser. Spy let out a shuddering sigh of relief, and slunk off in the opposite direction as stealthily as humanly possible.

"Defend our Control Point!" the Administrator cried, and Spy snorted. There was no way in hell. The day was lost. That was all there was to it. All he could do now was run and hide, until time ran out or…

She found him.

The Spy had marched through Hell more times than he could count. He had had been blown to pieces by a stray rocket, shredded into paste by the Heavy's artillery, burned alive by the Pyro, and stabbed in the back by his own doppelganger. He had died, and died, and died until there was nothing that could faze him.

Until recently, he'd thought the worst that could happen was if the Respawn failed in the middle of a mission, and he and his Team were trapped in a state of perma-death until the system could be rebooted. If the system could be rebooted.

What was happening right now, however, was entirely different.

This...was absolutely terrifying.

One by one his comrades had fallen, turned on him, and with each one he could feel the noose tightening just a bit more. Until he and his companions were forced to fall back, suddenly outnumbered and outgunned, and filled with the dread that they could be next. Almost hoping they would, if only to avoid being left on their own.

Spy rounded the corner, and came face to face with the business end of the Heavy's minigun.

The Medic stood at the Heavy's shoulder, and behind them, the Scout and Demoman grinned wolfishly. The Spy had one bullet left, and his cloaking device had finally fizzled out.

He simply sighed, as the terror singing through his veins congealed into a sickened pit of growing resignation. How many times had he died today? He'd quite lost count. Well, no matter. There was really only one thing to do now.

"Gentlemen," he said evenly, and raised his gun to his temple. "It's been Hell."

And then she appeared.

In a flash of light and the thump of rushing air, she dropped out of nowhere and landed square on the Heavy's minigun, forcing the nose straight into the ground just as it started spitting bullets. The Spy was so startled he simply froze, as the muzzle of her laser-gun came up and pointed directly at his chest. Meanwhile, Heavy was making a sound like that of an angry bear protecting their cubs, clearly outraged at the treatment of his dear Sasha, but the impossible little chit paid him no mind.

"Got you," she said, her infectious smile wide and triumphant. He stared down into the golden tint of her goggles, unable to see her eyes, and smiled back.

"Oui, mon petit renard," he sighed, withdrawing a cigarette from his coat pocket, as the rest of the enemy Team began to surround him. "You got me."

And she fired.

-THREE MONTHS AGO-

"ALERT!" snapped the Administrator's voice over the intercom. Immediately, nine pairs of eyes turned towards the ceiling, and all activity ceased at once. "A NEW CLASS HAS BEEN ASSIGNED. ESTIMATED ARRIVAL TO BASE: 0900 HOURS TOMORROW. BE READY."

"What?!" the Scout yelped, and shot to his feet so fast he not only managed to knock his chair over, but ended up toppling to the floor in an ungainly sprawl of floundering lanky limbs. "Did—did she say a new Class?"

"Hm, indeed," the Spy drawled, and arched a disdainfully mocking brow in Scout's direction as the boy scrambled upright. "Zhey've not added a new Class to zhe roster in...quite some time."

"Last one was Pyro, if I recall," the Engineer nodded, idly scratching his chin with the head of a spanner. The innards of a new teleport system were strewn across the kitchen table in front of him. "But...well, that was a while ago. Seems like ages since I seen anyone new 'round here."

"Could'a given us more of a head's up," Scout muttered.

"Yes, it is a bit short notice," the Medic noted as he stepped through the door, with the Heavy not far behind him. "Ah, vell. Ze more ze merrier, eh? Und it vill be interesting to vork vith a...blank slate vonce more."

From the bloodstains splattered across the Doctor's chest, it wasn't hard to guess he'd been in the lab...experimenting...again. The Medic had been trying to perfect his Ubercharge lately, and was constantly pestering his teammates to "volunteer" as test subjects for The Good of Science. Unsurprisingly, he'd had very little success in this endeavor, and in the end only Heavy had agreed to help him out.

"Ach, who cares?" the Demoman slurred, sloshing a large amount of an indeterminate liquid all over the floor as he staggered unsteadily to his feet. "Aboot time we 'ad a new face aroun' here, I was gettin' bloody sick o' starin' at yer ugly mugs all day."

"MAGGOTS!" the Soldier roared, and kicked open the door. It slammed hard against the wall, bounced back, and smacked Soldier in the face as he tromped into the room. He turned his head sharply, though his expression didn't change an ounce—possibly because he was already scowling as hard as he could anyway—then pulled a rifle and shot the handle clean off.

"Dagnabbit, Solly, I just replaced that from the last time—!"

"What are you all standing around for?" Soldier barked, and somehow managed to entirely ignore the Engineer's cursing altogether. "We've got a new recruit on the way!"

"Tch, yeah," Scout drawled, rolling his eyes. "Tomorrow morning, we know, Soldier."

"And I expect this place to be spick and span by the time our new team-mate gets here, Private!" Soldier shouted, shoving a finger into Scout's chest for good measure. "Look at this pig-sty! Absolutely UNACCEPTABLE! Cleanliness is next to Godliness, son, which is why they'd have SHOT your STUPID head off during the War if you didn't have any clean socks! Now, report to the broom cupboard, men, I want to see my face in these floors come morning!"

"But da floors are all concrete, how are we supposed ta…?"

"I DIDN'T COME IN HERE TO LISTEN TO YOUR CRYING EXCUSES, MAGGOT!"

Spy simply rolled his eyes, and decided to withdraw to his smoking room for the evening. Leaving the two morons to bicker, he moved soundlessly down the hallways, idly wondering what their new team-mate would bring to the table. One never knew what sort of Class they'd get, though immensely destructive seemed to be the norm.

Perhaps it would give them the edge they needed to overcome the deplorable stalemate they'd been locked into for the past two years.

At least things couldn't get any worse.

.oOo.

Scout did not like this.

He did not like this one bit.

The early morning sun threw long shadows across 2Fort, already hot as hell, and soon enough it would rise over the battlements to beat down on an unusual scene. On one side of a shallow waterway stood the RED Team, and on the other stood the BLU, each separated by a narrow bridge.

For once...the Administrator had expressly forbidden them from fighting.

The air was thick with tension as both Teams squared off. They hadn't been this close to one another without at least someone blowing up, and it was making more than one of them rather antsy. That morning they'd been directed into the middle of the battleground, and the second they'd laid eyes on one another, instinct had kicked in and their weapons came up. A sharp, hissing reprimand from the Administrator—and the promise of what might happen if she were disobeyed—was the only thing that stopped them from firing. Now they stood in an uneasy sort of truce, barely a hair-trigger away from the usual chaos and bloodshed of the day.

Scout wished more than anything to bash somebody's head in, his hand clenched so tightly around the handle his of baseball bat his knuckles were turning white. Across the way, the other Scout bounced on his heels with nervous energy, his eyes hard and wary beneath his cap.

Both Soldiers stood front and center, trying to glare the other down, and occasionally made threatening gestures or barked insults at one another. Sniper was hanging back, standing in the shade of a three-story tower, his sharp gaze flicking back and forth across the other Team and his spine pressed firmly to the wall. His counterpart had hunkered down in the shadow of a large warehouse, with much the same idea, his jaw clenched so tightly it was a surprise his teeth didn't weld together.

Spy—both of them—affected an air of disinterest, but his attention was sharp and focused, ready to disappear into the battlements at a moment's notice. His balisong was a warm, comforting weight in his hand.

A few paces away, Heavy was absently petting his Minigun, staring longingly over the water at the nine babies who weren't crying for their mamas, and imagining the rain of bullets he could have been showering upon them. He was definitely not happy with the situation.

Neither was Medic, if the shouting match with the Administrator this morning was anything to go by. He'd been eager to test out his latest innovations to the medigun, and being told he was, under no circumstances, to engage with the enemy had not gone over well. Now he stood at Heavy's shoulder, his medigun at the ready, and his prominent mouth set in a hard line of bitter resentment.

The only ones that appeared to be completely unphased were the Pyros. The RED Pyro sat on the edge of the bridge, swinging his feet and dropping flower petals into the water below from a daisy he'd found...somewhere. The BLU Pyro was busy stalking a butterfly.

And...well, Demo seemed too sloshed to care either way at the moment. The second he'd figured out he was being told not to attack the enemy, he'd dived nose-first into a large brown bottle and hadn't resurfaced.

"Why d'ya t'ink dey got us all out here like dis?" Scout muttered, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and shooting the BLU Heavy an 'I'm watching you' death-glare out of the corner of his eye. "I mean, dey nevah done anyt'ing like dis before. Makin' us just...stand around. I mean—dey're right dere."

"I'm sure we will find out soon enough," Spy shrugged, looking bored, but nonetheless curious.

"ALERT!" snapped the Administrator, causing the RED and BLU Mercenaries to jump like a bunch of skittish cats. Sniper's rifle went off, gouging a sizable hole into the concrete at his feet and he cursed loudly. "THE NEW CLASS WILL BE ARRIVING IN THIRTY SECONDS."

"Cuz, I mean," Scout yammered, nervously wiping sweaty hands across his sky-blue t-shirt. "It ain't like we nevah got a new Class before. But dey'd just come straight ta the Base, ya know?"

"TWENTY-FIVE."

"It's like, come on, what's the deal?" the RED Scout continued. "Why dey gotta make us ALL troop out 'ere ta meet a couple'a newbies? What's dat about?"

"TWENTY."

"It's got me thinkin', ya know?" the BLU Scout went on as he started pacing back and forth, sharp eyes sweeping over the RED Team. "Got me wonderin'. What makes dem so special, huh?"

"FIFTEEN."

"What's different about 'em? I mean, what if dey're—HEY! You stay on your side'a that bridge, buddy, an' i won't hafta cave your stupid face in!"

"TEN."

"Yeah, wit' what? Dem two wet noodles ya call yer arms?!"

"FIVE."

"HOW ABOUT YA COME OVAH HERE AN' SAY DAT TA ME PERSONALLY?"

"FOUR."

"OH, SO NOW YA WANT ME TA COME OVAH DERE? WHAT, CAN'T YA MAKE UP YER MIND? ALSO-WE GOT DE SAME FACE, YA FUCKIN' MORON!"

"THREE."

"WHAT DE HELL DOES DAT HAVE TA DO WIT' ANYT'ING?"

"TWO."

"IT MEANS YA JUST CALLED YER OWN FACE STUPID, STUPID!"

"ONE."

"DAT'S IT! I DON'T CARE WHAT THAT CRAZY OLD BAT HAS TA SAY ABOUT IT, I'M KICKIN' YOUR ASS!"

"BRING IT! I DON'T NEED NOTHIN' TA TAKE YOU DOWN! "

By this time, both Scouts had been standing at opposite ends of the bridge, hands planted against the wooden scaffolding as if they needed to somehow hold themselves back, shouting at the tops of their lungs at one another while their team-mates looked on in vague disinterest. But then the two shot forward like they'd both been simultaneously fired out of a cannon, barreling down the narrow wooden walkway like a pair of charging billy goats about to butt heads.

That's when there was a flash of light, a whumph! of noise, and suddenly there was a confused-looking-and-then-very-alarmed young girl standing between them.

"Oh, shit!" the Scouts yelped, their sneakers skidding uselessly across the planks as they tried in vain to stop—and crashed spectacularly into a pile of flailing limbs and a bluestreak of cussing.

"Scout!" the Medic called, stepping forward, but pausing at the mouth of the bridge. "Vat in the vorld—who is zat?"

"GENTLEMEN," the Administrator announced. "MEET THE TURNCOAT."

-END TRANSMISSION-

New story, yay! Been kickin' this idea around for a bit, thought I'd post and see if ya'll liked it. I've got several more chapters written up so far, so leave a review if you'd like to see more of this one. The idea isn't too terribly original at first—new class gets added, happens to be a girl, hijinks ensue—but with a bit of a new spin. Or at least a spin I haven't seen as of yet in this fandom.