The trip this time was a bit less unpleasant than the last time, as at least the portal appeared at only a few feet above ground level. Unfortunately, this resulted in all those sucked through landing in a gigantic pile, and, as they were the ones closest to the portal when it opened, the Sniper and the Spy ended up getting the worst of it, winding up crushed underneath everyone else. As the group extricated themselves from the pile, they found that they were in Kong King again, right outside their base.

The Pyro clapped in joy once they'd gotten up. "Oh, we're back home," they said. "I can show you around," they said, turning to Mokou.

"Uh, maybe later," Mokou said. At the Pyro's despondent expression, she added, "We've got a bad guy to beat up, right? After that you'll give me a tour, right?"

The Pyro grudgingly nodded.

Marisa, meanwhile, was jumping back and forth, looking all over the place with unrestrained excitement. "Oh man, oh man, this is so cool! I never thought I'd get to see the outside! What's that?" she asked the Sniper, who was still groaning in pain, as she pointed towards a neon sign.

"I'll tell you when my head stops spinning," he said, struggling to get out from under the Heavy, but Marisa had already run off, looking at the side of a building.

Dell took out his PDA and hit a few buttons, causing a 3D map of the area to pop up again. "Looks like we're back in Kong King," he said. "And based on these energy readings, I'd bet that no-good varmint's set up right in the middle of the map," he said, pointing to the center of the representation, where a bright light was shining.

"Is there anything that thing doesn't do?" the Scout said.

"Well, it doesn't cook bacon anymore," Dell said. "Learned my lesson there the hard way."

"I don' wanna know why it ever did tha'," Tavish said.

"It's not really hard to explain why," Dell said, scratching his chin. "I just like bacon, so I thought it'd be nice to have an easy way to cook it."

"Fascinating," the Spy said, groaning as he rubbed his back. "I do believe we have more pressing matters to attend to, though."

"Da," the Heavy said, nodding. "We must find robot man and crush him." He squeezed his hands together for emphasis.

"And get zhat serum back from zhe robot," the Medic said.

"Wait, wait, wait, what the hell's going on? I was searching for that robot and suddenly we're back in Kong King," the Scout said.

"Bombinomicon," everyone else said at once.

"Oh, right," the Scout said.

"What are we all standing around for?" The Soldier said, gripping his rocket launcher with a fierce determination. "We've got a job to do! Now CHA-" he said, though the Sniper covered his mouth when he began yell.

"No. That's how we wound up here in the first place, remember? So this time, we're going to make a plan," he said. The Soldier groaned. "First, we need a bit more detailed layout, so Scout, you up for it? Meanwhile, everyone else resupply up."

"No problem," Scout said, grinning, as he rushed off through the tunnels underneath the map, while the Soldier got his rocket launcher back and Dell stocked up on metal.

"Alright, Mokou, Soldier, Heavy, Doc, you guys are going to attack from the main route," the Sniper said. "Whichever path is most defended."

"Hoo-ah," the Soldier said, grinning. He turned to charge, but the Sniper grabbed his collar.

"Not. Yet. Soldier," he said. The Soldier scowled, but continued waiting. "Meanwhile, Spy, you'll try and sneak in from the back and grab Gray." The Spy nodded, smirking. "Demo, Pyro, you'll take the two flank entrances. If Gray or any of those robots try to flee, you can take care of it." Tavish sighed, but nodded, while the Pyro looked pleadingly between Mokou and Sniper. "Sorry buddy," the Sniper said. "But it'll just be for a little while."

"Yeah, I'll see you again in just a little bit, alright?" Mokou said, patting their shoulder.

The Pyro looked disappointed but eventually nodded.

"Good. I'm going to try and find a nice perch on top of that bus there," he said, pointing to the bright red bus that never seemed to move. "Should give me a decent place to snipe from, while also providing me a good view of the area. Dell, if you could put down a mini to cover me, that'd help." Dell nodded. "I'll have the Scout here to deliver messages to each of you if the battle starts changing."

"Ooh, what about me?" Marisa asked, raising her hand. "What do I do?"

The Sniper looked worried for a second, but he thought about how she'd handled herself during the big fight at the shrine, and realized she could probably handle herself. "Can you still fly out here?" he said.

"Sure," Marisa said, getting on her broom and hovering for a bit.

"Ok, you can be our bird's-eye view of the area," the Sniper said. "If you see anything strange going on with their positioning, let me know right away."

"That's it?" Marisa asked him. "No blasting these guys to bits?"

"Well, you can if you want to, just be careful about it. And make sure you keep track of their movements. And watch out for Snipers," he replied.

"Fine, fine," she said.

The Sniper looked around, making sure he'd gotten everyone, and his gaze fell upon Suwako, who smirked at him. "Oh, don't worry about me. I'll just help out wherever I'm needed."

The Sniper shrugged. "I'll take your word for it." As he said that, the Scout came rushing back to the group. He explained what he'd seen – that the majority of the robots were in the center, though there were a few he'd destroyed in the underground tunnels. After the Sniper explained the plan to the Scout, who complained a little bit about being left out, the groups split off to fulfill their roles. The Sniper crawled up to the top of the bus, took his rifle off his back and used the scope to get a better view, while the main group charged up the stairs, ready to destroy some robots.

The Soldier began shooting rockets left and right at the assembled collection of robots, while the Heavy revved up his minigun and began mowing down the back row before they even knew what had hit them. Mokou began shooting waves of fire at random places in the crowd, destroying a few robots outright, and lighting a large amount of the ones in the area on fire. Despite the damage dealt, there were still over a hundred robots that turned and began to fire at the group. The Sniper managed to pick off the majority of the medics before they could use their ubercharge, keeping the rest of the group safe from invulnerable machines. Despite that, the large group of robots began firing rockets, grenades, and bullets galore in the direction of the main group. While Mokou dodged well, and even knocked a few out of the sky, she couldn't prevent them all from hitting the group, but the Medic made sure everyone weren't hurt for very long. In the center, Gray Mann turned to look at the group, smiling.

"Ah, RED team. You're later than I expected," he said, a slightly damaged Spybot at his side. "I'm almost disappointed. That said, I wouldn't have minded if you took a bit longer. I wanted to get a chance to use this first," he said, holding on to the injector. "Well, I suppose if my robots kill you that will solve my problem as well, so get to it!" The robots stopped fighting for a second.

"Get to what?" said the Scoutbot closest to him, after some deliberation with its colleagues.

Gray closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. "Get to killing them you imbeciles!"

"Ah! Yes, sir," the Scoutbot said, saluting. The robots began fighting again, the barrage pushing the group back. They had been pushed almost all the way back to the Sniper's perch when a few explosions of light and color began appearing in the middle of the crowd of robots. Marisa was shooting magic down randomly in the groups. Though it took a little time for the robots to recognize they were being assaulted from above, a group in the back quickly turned and began trying to shoot her out of the sky, causing her to fall back. The Sniper had the Scout run and tell Tavish and the Pyro to start a pincer maneuver while the robots were still scanning the sky and not their flanks. The Scout took off, and in only a few moments, Tavish was shooting grenades in and the Pyro was burning as many robots as they could spread the flames from his flamethrower over. The surprise attack managed to take out quite a few robots on the flanks until they regrouped enough to drive them back once again.

The robots, though greatly diminished in number, managed to stabilize, having a large force tackling the front while smaller forces went after the Pyro, Demoman, and Marisa. Despite the Sniper's organization, trying to send Marisa to harass the groups attacking the Pyro and Demoman, and cycling the Scout around to help out where needed, they were still not making any progress. The Sniper desperately looked around for some new strategy that would help, or for the Spy to get to Gray, but he couldn't think of any way to break the deadlock. Then a few giant iron rings descended and surrounded a few large groups of robots. They slowly constricted until the robots were simply crushed into each other. Suwako appeared behind the Sniper, wiping her brow. "Phew. That took a bit of doing. But it was pretty awesome, right?"

The Sniper looked at the battlefield, then back to Suwako, then back to the battlefield. "That's an understatement," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "Glad you're on our side." Suwako just laughed and sat down to rest a bit.

With the chaos caused by the large groups of robots getting taken out, the team of Mokou, the Soldier, the Heavy, and the Medic managed to break through the center, and split off into two groups to deal with the now divided robots, with the Mokou and Soldier taking the side that the Pyro was on, with Marisa providing air support, and the Medic and the Heavy went over to help Tavish and the Scout. Dell moved his sentry to the front to deal a bit of damage to any robots that managed to get past the two groups, with the Sniper helping pick off stragglers.

Gray Mann grit his teeth in frustration. "How am I being out maneuvered by these amateurs?" He began to reach into his pocket for a remote, but suddenly felt a hand on his wrist. Whirling around, he found himself face to face with the Spy.

"We really must stop meeting like this," the Spy said, grinning, as he put Gray's arm behind his back. "Although I do hope it is actually you this time. I'm much more skilled at the 'hide' part of 'hide and seek.'"

Gray smiled thinly. "Ah, Spy. I thought I'd missed you in the fray," he said, slowly lowering the fingers of his other hand. "I wish I'd been able to hire you before that woman got her hooks in you."

"Sadly, you did not, or you would have succeeded by now," the Spy said.

"Hmph, perhaps," Gray said. "Though I think your overconfidence may have made you worthless," he said, clenching his fist and pressing the small trigger he had there and closing his eyes, waiting for the electricity to travel along the wire mesh under his clothes. Nothing happened, however, and Gray opened his eyes in confusion.

"Expecting something else?" the Spy said, smirking, as Gray looked at the device in his hand in shock. He followed the wires leading from the trigger to find they had somehow been cut without him noticing. "I'm well aware of how paranoid you can be, Monsieur Mann. Now I recommend you call off your robots and give up."

Gray looked around casually. His robots were slowly and systematically being worn down, and he assumed that the Spy would have done something to his reinforcements requester. His eyes flicked briefly to the injector his missing spybot had delivered him, and he closed his eyes briefly, regretting the necessity of his next action. "I wanted to save this, but, desperate times, as they say," Gray said, before driving the injector into his leg and pushing the plunger down.

The Spy looked aghast for a second, before a snort escaped and he broke down into laughter. "Oh, you actually, you actually fell for it," he got out, between laughs, causing Gray's eyes to widen.

He turned to the Spybot that was next to him. "What. Did. You. Do. To. Me," he hissed through clenched teeth.

The Spybot looked confused. "I simply told you what they had said about it."

"You," Gray said, turning back to the Spy, his face twisted into a grimace of pain and rage, "What have you done to me?"

The Spy shrugged. "I don't know honestly. The Medic could give you more of an idea."

"Oh, did he take it? Vundebar! I haven't yet been able to see zhe transformation from zhe beginning," the Medic yelled from further down the path, while the Heavy took a rocket to the face. "Vhoops! Sorry, I vas distracted," he said, healing the heavy back up. "I haven't seen zhe early symptoms up close yet."

"Symptoms of what?" Gray spat out, before collapsing to the ground in pain.

"Ooh, it's starting! I vould move back a bit, Spy. I'm not certain just vhat vill happen." The Spy took a step back while lighting his cigarette. Gray Mann continued to writhe in pain on the ground, gasping for air. As they watched, red lines began to form on his hands and face, which slowly began to drip down onto the ground.

"Uurgh, that's disgusting. I'd feel bad for him if he hadn't tried to kill us all the time," the Spy said, taking another step backwards. As the remainder of the robots were wiped out, Gray started to spasm, while his life-extender machine began to glow as it seemed to go into overdrive trying to keep him alive. Slowly, as cuts began to appear on his skin before being instantly healed, he began to glow golden as well.

"Oh, zhis doesn't look good," the Medic said, watching Gray's transformation. "I did not consider zhat machine of his. Ve may vant to back up a bit." The other RED team members looked back and forth between Gray and the Medic before taking a few steps back.

Gray, glowing gold, began to stand up, seemingly not caring about the cuts that were constantly appearing and then healing themselves on his body. He looked over his body and began to laugh. The laugh started softly, but grew and grew until eventually he was laughing louder than even the Soldier's shouting could get. "Oh, this is wonderful. I finally have what I wanted. I should really be thanking you."

"Ah. Oh dear," the Medic said. "Vhoops. I suppose zhe life-extender machine helps counteract the effects of zhe extract, giving him zhe powers vithout zhe drawbacks. Zhis is fascinating! Admittedly, it vould be better if he didn't vant to kill us as vell."

"Uh, so, what's the plan here?" the Scout said, popping up next to the Sniper.

The Sniper pushed his sunglasses up and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why couldn't today have just been a normal, weirdness-free day of killing BLU team?"

The Soldier let out a battle cry and began shooting rocket after rocket where Gray stood. Gray flinched at the first shot, but quickly recovered, and soon began laughing as the rockets exploded around him. Once the smoke cleared, they looked and saw Gray standing, perfectly unharmed, without having even moved. The Soldier jumped in shock. Gray reached out a hand and the rocket the Soldier was about to fire next exploded in the launcher, causing him to reel back in pain, before looking at the now destroyed rocket launcher and back. "Don't you die on me," he said, trying to put the gun back together.

"Soldier," Dell said, shaking his arm. "It's broken. Just like the one that exploded in your hands yesterday."

"Bah, don't listen to him," the Soldier said, still trying to fit the pieces back together.

Before the team could try and draw their weapons, Gray waved a hand, and everyone flinched, expecting their weapons to break, and though Tavish's grenades did explode in their launcher, everyone else's weapons seemed to be perfectly fine "Hmm, guess I haven't learned everything there is to know about this already," he said, shrugging. "But I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to-" he began, before a jet of fire engulfed him.

"Oh, just shut up," Mokou said, snarling, as she sent flame after flame at him. "I think we're all sick of hearing you talk." Gray staggered backwards, knocked off balance by the sudden assault. "I don't care if you've got the power of a youkai, you threatened Keine and those kids."

Gray attempted to sidestep, and managed to jump back about twenty feet, getting him out of the range of the flames. Mokou ground her teeth in irritation, extinguishing her flames.

"That was rude," Gray said between clenched teeth, smoke still rising from his cracked and peeling skin. Within a few seconds, his burned skin broke off, revealing new, healed skin underneath. He glanced back at Mokou and threw out a hand, sending a bullet from one of the destroyed robots' guns hurtling towards her face. The Pyro managed to tackle her out of the way, though the bullet pierced their suit instead, ripping a hole and revealing a patch of charred skin.

"Hey, hey, why did you do that?" Mokou said. "I woulda been fine."

"Maybe. I did not know for certain. And this is easily healed," the Pyro said, as the Medic trained his beam on them for a second, healing the wound.

"Well, now that was interesting," Gray said, smiling. He began waving his hands, and bullets from the discarded weapons of his destroyed robots began to float in the air.

"Everybody, scatter," the Sniper yelled, dodging behind a piece of rubble. The rest of the team dodged as best they could behind what obstacles were available (though Tavish managed to simply trip and fall behind some destroyed robots), and suddenly a hail of bullets pelted all around the area, though luckily, other than one that bounced off the Soldier's helmet, they all seemed to miss. "Crikey, we're in trouble."

"Doc, what the hell happened, man," the Scout yelled, as Gray started raising more bullets (and even a few rockets) into the air once more.

"Zhat device his ancestor made," the Medic said, pointing at where Dell had hidden, "is interfering vith zhe extract and making him invulnerable. Ve need to disconnect zhat zhing, or ve're in trouble." The bullets and rockets hit again, blowing up the Scout piece of cover, causing him to yelp and run behind a wall. "Vell, more zhan ve already are."

"As things are, that will be rather difficult," the Spy yelled from behind his piece of rubble.

"We have ta try, don' we?" Tavish said from where he'd fallen.

"I can try burning him again, if it'd help," Mokou said, as a bullet nicked her arm, which caused her to flinch for a second before it healed up again with a flash of fire.

"I don't think he's gonna let you get close enough for that again," Marisa yelled down from where she was hovering on her broom.

"I might be able to get you there if you come over here," Suwako said, hiding under Pyonta. "But I think I'll only have one shot at this. I forgot just how much being out here drains me now. Stupid 'Great Disbelieving.'"

"Hold on, even if you get there, what'll you do?" the Sniper said. "It's not like burning him is going to help with disabling that device."

"It'll distract him at least," Mokou said, shrugging. "And maybe I still just want to burn him a bit more," she said, flames appearing around her fingers.

"Maybe it distract him enough for us to disconnect machine from arm," the Heavy said.

"Yeah, but we can't get through the fire she'd be spewing out-" the Sniper said, before looking at the Pyro.

"Ooh, do I get to help," they said happily.

"Merde," the Spy said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "This is a terrible plan. Asking that one," he said, indicating the Pyro, "for precision never ends well."

"Look, we don't have a lot of options here, Spy," Dell said, tapping on his PDA. "Based on how quickly he's picked up these new skills, we'll be out of our depth faster than a pig at a spelling bee."

"Fine. We'll try to distract him while you get your plan together," the Sniper said. "Pyro, try to stay back until she's got him fully engulfed in flames."

The group nodded, and Mokou rushed over to Suwako, who reached down to the earth and closed her eyes, before both her and Mokou began to sink into the ground.

"Ok, Soldier, it's time to do what you do best," the Sniper said.

"Hoo-ah!" the Soldier yelled, grabbing his shovel and charging out from behind cover to find that Gray seemed to suddenly be right in front of him. The Soldier swung his shovel, and while it broke the man's arm, it quickly rehealed. Despite this, the Soldier continued to hit Gray with the shovel, causing Gray to sigh and roll his eyes.

"I am astounded you managed to stop me for so long," he said, before punching the Soldier so hard he flew screaming through the air into a wall and crumpled on the ground. "I suppose I should have gotten hands-on earlier."

The Heavy charged at Gray, screaming a battle cry, as the Medic tended to the Soldier. He grabbed Gray and lifted him over his head, but before he could throw him, Gray kicked him in the back and flipped away, while the Heavy was propelled face-first along the ground until he skidded to a halt, the rest of his body falling with an earth-shaking thud.

"Ah, piss," the Sniper muttered to himself, eyes widening, as he lined up a headshot on Gray. He fired, and for a second, he thought he'd succeeded, as a hole opened up going right through Gray's head. The sense of relief quickly turned to horror as the hole sealed itself, and Gray turned to him. He brought out his SMG to try and slow him down, but Gray continued forward, despite the bullets tearing small holes through his skin. The Sniper attempted to run, but before he could, Grey managed to grab his wrist and get him in a chokehold.

"You are a pain," Gray said.

"Funny, I'm usually the one telling people that," the Sniper choked out. Gray frowned, an expression of distaste on his face.

Out of the corner of his eye, the Sniper saw a ripple on the ground, and saw Pyonta beginning to materialize, rising out of the strange ripple. He caught the Medic looking at him out of the corner of his eye, and frantically signaled for him to trigger his Ubercharge when they'd finished rising out of the ground. Meanwhile, he tried to squirm his way out of Grey's grip, but despite his best efforts, he couldn't manage to escape. Marisa tried to distract him, flying above and trying to use her danmaku, but all they seemed to do was annoy him.

Gray frowned. "I really should hurry this up. What have I been thinking?" He began to squeeze the Sniper's neck harder. The Sniper was unable to breathe, and quickly began to pass out. Out of his closing eyes, he saw Pyonta fully emerge from the ground and lift up, revealing Mokou and an exhausted Suwako. Mokou shot out flames at Grey, and the Sniper closed his eyes, expecting to feel the agonizing pain of burning alive. He hoped the respawn system was working, or he'd be in a lot of trouble. Right as he began to feel the heat of the flames on his face, and see Grey Mann beginning to flinch from the burn, he felt the Medic's Ubercharge hit, and let out a sigh of relief. As he took in a deep breath and broke his way out of Grey's grip, he tried to grab at the life-extender machine, but despite his efforts, he couldn't manage to cut it out, even when the Pyro fought their way through the flames to help. Though they couldn't get it out of Grey's arm, they kept him in place, causing the flames to eat away at his back. Eventually, as he felt the Ubercharge beginning to wear off, the Sniper moved the arm the machine was attached to into the path of the flames while pulling on it as hard as he could, causing the casing to crack a tiny bit. He then pulled the Pyro back out with him as the Ubercharge wore off, getting clear of the flames. Gray, gripping the life-extender machine tightly, quickly ran out of the flames. Mokou clicked her tongue in annoyance before stopping her flames and falling to one knee, panting.

"Damn," she muttered, glancing behind her to see Suwako sitting, looking just as tired as her.

Gray, still grabbing his arm, looked at the group in disdain. "Hmmph. That's all you could manage? From the looks of it, you're all too tired to try and defeat me," he said, surveying the battlefield. The Soldier and The Heavy were both still lying in pain where they'd fallen, Mokou and Suwako were exhausted, the Sniper was still trying to massage some feeling into his neck, and having trouble breathing, while the Medic was running from person to person, trying to get them healed up. The Engineer was frantically trying to build a sentry, while the Demoman tried to lob some grenades at Gray, but he dodged them with ease. The Spy was nowhere to be seen, so, on a whim, Gray swung his arm back and was rewarded with a scream as the Spy was knocked away and landed on the ground, moaning in pain. In desperation, Marisa and the Scout rushed him, Marisa in the air, the Scout on the ground, but Gray raised some fallen bullets from the ground and nicked the Scout's leg, taking him down, at least for the moment. Marisa, used to dodging small bullets, managed to dodge the ones coming at her, but her magic seemed slightly distorted, and she didn't manage to get any offense against him.

"C'mon work," she muttered, shaking her mini-hakkero, which promptly shot a laser right past her face, causing her broomstick to spin out of control for a second. She managed to regain control, but retreated back to the rest of the group, concerned over her mini-hakkero's malfunctioning. As she landed, Gray promptly sent a rocket her way, knocking her off her feet.

"Ugh, finally," Gray said. "Finally there's no one standing to fight back." He raised his hands, concentrating, and large pieces of debris rose into the air above him. "Now will you finally die and leave me in peace? I have a company to take over." The group tried, if they could, to run out of the way of the debris, but they could barely move. They closed their eyes in anticipation, save Mokou, who simply grit her teeth and glared daggers at Gray. Gray prepared to slam the debris down.

"Stop," a voice said, and suddenly no one could move. There was a small ripping noise, and suddenly Yukari was standing among them. She looked like a mess, her long hair tangled into knots, her back slumped, and her eyes wild and bloodshot, looking almost completely red. She took a step towards Gray, who stared at her in confusion.

"Who the hell are you?" Gray said, somehow able to speak.

"I'm the one who's been up way later than she should have been trying to fix your mess," she said. "I was almost asleep when Reimu told Ran to get me. I think she'll recover. Eventually."

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?" Gray said, still trying to break free and move. "So you're some sort of guardian, then? In that case, I'm so sorry you've been slightly inconvenienced by my plans. I'll be sure to call in advance next time I try to stage an invasion so I don't interrupt your beauty sleep."

Yukari's eye twitched as she glared at him. "It is so very, very tempting to just erase you from existence." After a tense moment, she relaxed a bit. "But that would take more effort than I care to expend, so instead," she said, snapping her fingers, "I'll let them do it." The RED team each felt like they were suddenly ubercharged, kritzkrieged, and had every vaccinator charge applied to them at the same time.

"Oh ho ho, hell yeah!" the Scout yelled, before running up to Gray and swinging his baseball bat at the man's head. They collided with a loud cracking noise, and Gray fell to the ground, clutching his head in pain. He attempted to attack the Scout, but his attack simply bounced off, leaving the Scout doubled over laughing. Gray's head wound began to heal, but the Heavy walked up, closed his fist, and brought it down on the man's nose, which broke with a snap. It quickly healed again, but since it hadn't been set, it was stuck crooked. Flailing around, he tried to punch the Heavy, but only managed to hurt his hand. Realizing that Gray couldn't hurt them anymore, the group charged at him, and, as he was unable to get away, beat him to a blood pulp. The Medic and Dell, working together, began to remove the Life-Extender machine from Gray, who thrashed around, attempting to break free, but due to the RED team's invulnerability he couldn't even budge those holding him down.

"No, no, stop!" he yelled, but, working together, they managed to lever the machine out from his arm, and, with Dell's expertise, disconnected it. As soon as the device was disconnected from his bloodstream, the golden glow began to fade away from his body, and he yelled out in pain as tendrils of dark energy began to break through his skin. His breathing became labored, and he reached out as if trying to grasp at someone, but could barely manage to keep his arms up for a second before they fell back to the ground. He twitched pathetically and began to whimper in pain, before curling up into a ball with tears running down his face.

"We beat up and stole from old man. We are big heroes now, yes?" the Heavy said, with the barest hint of irony.

"Hell yeah we are," the Scout said, while the rest of the group nodded in agreement.

Yukari popped up next to them, looking a bit more put together. "Ah, finally. I thought that was going to take you forever." She snapped her fingers, and Gray, still curled up in the fetal position, fell through a gap that opened up beneath him. "I'm sure that extract can be removed easily enough."

"Ah, zhat might be a bit more problematic zhan you expect," the Medic said, hopefully. Yukari raised an eyebrow at him. "But I suppose you know vhat you're doing," he said, hurriedly.

Yukari sighed and rubbed her eyes, trying to stay awake. Surveying the battlefield, she saw Suwako and Mokou resting on the ground talking to the Pyro, who'd run over as soon as Gray had been gapped away, while Marisa was trying to get her mini-hakkero to work properly.

"Hey, you three," she said, popping up next to them. "We're going back."

"Aww, come on, Yukari! We didn't even get a chance to look around yet," Marisa said. Mokou nodded, though Suwako looked ready to go back.

"Let me put it this way," Yukari said, one of her eyes twitching in irritation. "I'm very, very tired right now, and I don't need your permission to gap you back. Be glad I said anything at all."

"Aww, spoilsport. All I got to see out here was the cool glowing signs," Marisa said. "Can't we stay here just a little longer?"

"Do not take rainbow lady away," the Pyro said. "We were going to show her all around the base and the control point and all the nice places where I can make rainbows without other people getting upset, and-"

The Pyro kept rambling on, while Yukari turned to look at Mokou, who shrugged her shoulders. Yukari rolled her eyes and massaged her face with her hands.

"Look, I really don't have time for this right now, but just so that I don't have to use even more energy dealing with you, we'll set up a time when they can come back. After I'm rested and can supervise," she said, stifling a yawn.

"Promise," the Pyro said, extending their pinky finger.

Yukari looked at the Pyro in utter disbelief. Unbelievingly, she cautiously extended a hand with her pinky outstretched. The Pyro quickly grabbed it and shook it. "Good," they said. "I am sorry you have to go now, Rainbow Lady. I will see you later and show you around though. There is so much to see."

"Ooh, ooh, do I get to come back too?" Marisa said, jumping up and down excitedly.

"Fine, sure, you can come back when she does, alright? Now," she said, snapping her fingers, and then portals opened up under Suwako, Mokou, and Marisa, causing them all to vanish. "go home." She let out a long sigh of relief, before turning to the members of the RED team, and the 'defective' Spybot, who were laughing as the Scout tried to re-enact hitting Gray in the head, but managed to trip over a bit of destroyed robot and almost fall down. "Well, it's been fun," she said, appearing behind them. "Don't come back."

"Huh? Wha' abou' tha wedding?" Tavish said.

"It's probably done by now. They got it started again after all the robots there were destroyed," she said, dismissively. "Oh right, I guess I need to get that other one back here." She sighed, before opening a gap and pulling a bound, beat-up and burned Caucior and plopping him on the ground.

"Wha-how-where?" Caucior said, reeling, blood dripping down from his nose.

"You're back past the border! Now are you ever going to come back here again?" Yukari said.

Caucior took one look at her and shuddered. "No, no, I'll just go back home and make a better spell than that hack," he said, spitting out the word.

"Great," Yukari said, dryly. "Now shoo."

Caucior, grimacing, made a complicated hand gesture and vanished.

"Great, now that's done. I hope to never see any of you again," Yukari said. "Hell, I'll even send you the wedding photos in a few months."

"Excuse me," the 'defective' Spybot said. "May I come back with you? Ms. Hakurei said she still had more to teach me."

Sighing, Yukari snapped her fingers and the Spybot fell through. "Now can I please go home, or are any of you going to stop me?"

"I-" the Soldier began, before the entire rest of the team covered his mouth.

"No, we're fine," the Sniper said.

"Indeed, mon cherie, we wouldn't dream of keeping such a beautiful lady from her sleep," the Spy said.

"Good," Yukari said, before stepping through a gap and vanishing.

"But I didn't get to congratulate Merasmus," the Soldier said, looking slightly crestfallen. The rest of them looked at him in confusion.

Eventually Tavish patted him on the back. "Don' worry abou' it. He'll show up again."

"You, you really think so?" the Soldier said.

"Da. Next Halloween, we fight again. You will see," the Heavy said.

"Haa, I guess you're right," the Soldier said.

"Well this has been the strangest Halloween we've ever had," the Sniper said, scratching the back of his head. "Though it didn't involve a giant floating eyeball, so I guess that's something."

"Indeed," the Spy said, rolling his shoulders. "Well, I suppose we should get back to the base."

The Medic sighed, shaking his head. "Vhat a shame. So much effort to get zhat extract, vasted. Oh vell, back to zhe experiment lab. Maybe I can make a substitute."

"Wait, hold on, I just realized something" the Scout said, drawing everyone's attention. "We went to another dimension, with tons of hot chicks everywhere, and the only one who got a date was the Pyro?" The rest of the group turned to look at the Pyro, who tilted their head, quizzically.

"Le's jus' pretend this never happened," the Demoman said, wobbling his way towards the resupply cabinet where he knew more liquor was stored.

The Spy looked horrified, and simply nodded, while the rest of the group dragged him off to the resupply cabinet, and, eventually, they all had a small party with lots of booze until they passed out.

"It looks like the RED team has returned, Administrator. And Gray Mann seems to have been taken care of by a spatial anomaly, just as you said," Miss Pauling said, approaching the shadowy figure settling back into her chair.

"Thank you for the report Miss Pauling, however unnecessary it may be," the figure said. "Ah, I'm almost disappointed with how poorly thought out that man's plans were. It's been too long since I've had a worthy opponent."

"Oh?" said a voice from right next to her. "I'd be happy to oblige." Miss Pauling drew her gun and pointed it at where the voice came from, ending up aiming right for Yukari's head.

"Oh, do put your gun down, Pauling" the Administrator said, without even turning to face her. "Hello Yukari. To what do I owe this visit?"

"Ah, He-oh sorry, I mean 'Administrator,' you can't pull one over on me. I know this was all your doing," Yukari said, cheerfully. "You used me to deal with that problem of yours. I did wonder why you'd bother to build an arena for your little playthings so near the border."

"I don't know what you're talking about," the Administrator said, smirking slightly.

"Oh, don't even pretend, 'Administrator'," Yukari said, waving her fan dismissively. "We used to actually respect each other, you know. Do give me the courtesy of believing I'm smart enough to know when I've been manipulated."

The Administrator stared at her for a second, before sighing. "Very well. Yes, you are correct."

Yukari smiled. "See, that wasn't so hard." The Administrator gave her a fierce glare, causing Yukari to giggle slightly, before regaining her composure. "As I see it, you owe me a favor."

The Administrator sighed deeply and massaged her temples. "Of course you do. I believe you still owed me one from back in 1880, didn't you? Besides, I doubt there's anything I could do to help you at this stage."

"Oh please, I paid you back for that by letting you get away in 1902. You didn't seriously think you evaded me through sheer talent, did you?" Yukari said, causing the Administrator to glower. "And of course there's something you can do for me," Yukari said, smiling her plotting smile. "Let me put it this way, Helen: haven't you ever wanted to build a base on the moon?"

And thus ends my first ever fanfiction! I may go back and read through this to make typos changes and things in a bit, but that will take a WHILE (this ended up being 479 pages on my word documents of it. That is way, way longer than I ever expected). Also, thanks to the reviewer who mentioned the Lunarians, for giving me the inspiration for the stinger.

And finally, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it.