Now loading cp_dustbowl...

Gunfire.

The noise tore through the previously still air, contested only by the sound of an air raid siren.

A woman's voice blared over the loudspeaker system, but no one gave any attention to it. They all knew what to do.

Scout grinned.

Behind him, he could hear the crackle of a fully charged medi-gun, alongside the low, whirring noise as Medic and heavy followed him out of the building, ready to take on the onslaught of red clothed doubles that they called their enemies.

Weaving his way through the spray of bullets, he made it past the two men guarding their exit out of the respawn zone. While one of them - a Demoman - had been too busy to notice the speedster pass, his red suited companion had. Unfortunately for the Pyro however, the Scout was faster than its axe as he sent two shots into the thing's back.

Another two shots felled his (her? its?) companion.

Scout didn't even pause as he spun around and sprinted to the control point.

Up head, he could see a Soldier, along with a Medic approaching. Running full tilt towards them, he strafed to the right at the last possible moment.

A point-blank shot from a force-of-nature was enough to send the Soldier flying backwards, away from the Medic and out of the range of his medigun.

Medic however spun around to face his attacker, withdrawing a bloodstained bonesaw as he did so. Scout quickly ejected two shells from his gun, hoping to reload it before the german managed to swing his weapon. The RED Medic did manage to swing it, but his hit glanced off the barrel of his opponents reloading gun as the BLU agent brought it up in an almost automatic gesture of self-defence.

The Medic snarled something in German and drew back the saw for another strike, but before he could, the American snapped the barrel of his gun shut and fired two shots directly into the man's chest.

"Where's ya hip-o-cratic oath now huh?" he said grinning as he inspected his handiwork, ejecting two more empty shells from his modified shotgun.

Three kills within the first thirty seconds of the mission? That had to be a new record of some sort. He grinned wider as he fully loaded his gun once more, turning to once more face the control point.

A sudden, bloodcurdling yell of fury made him start as the Soldier the Medic had been healing suddenly noticed Scout. Instinctively, he pumped two more shots from his gun into the Solider, but it did relatively little to the overhealed defender.

Backpedalling furiously, Scout tried to get himself away from the furious soldier, but some small part of him knew it was useless. A well placed rocket would send him back to respawn faster tha-

**BOOM**

A sudden explosion jolted him back into reality as his attackers head suddenly exploded into a small shower of brain and skull fragments. The body fell, revealing the tall form of Sniper standing in the door leading to respawn.

Scout grinned and gave the Australian a quick thumbs up in thanks as her turned and sprinted off towards the capture point. Who was his mind kidding? He was the Scout! He was a freaking force of nature! Hell, he could win this war single handedly if Spy wasn't such a damn prick about it! He was freaking invi-

**BEEP**

That one noise.

That one noise suddenly shook the Bostonian back into the cold, harsh reality of the battlefield.

He knew that noise all too well. He hated and dreaded it with every fibre of his being.

He tried to stop, to turn around and look for another way around the sentry, but he was going too fast. The momentum of his speed sent him tumbling forwards, right into the view of the red level three sentry set up behind the corner.

The rockets hit first, exploding into his ribs, shattering them into a mess of bone shards that not even a medi-gun could heal. He let out a shrill scream of pain as the impact slammed him into the ground. Instantly followed by a sickening crack as several more bones cracked under the impact.

For a brief, nauseating moment, Scout could see everything around him on the battlefield, despite the pain that was searing through his body right now. To his far left, the white coated figure of their Medic was visible, too busy focused on the heavy beside him to notice the dying runner. Scout let out a pained cry for the doctor's aid, but even before the words left his lips, he knew it was of no use. The doctor rarely, if ever came to help Scout, always preferring to hover around the more robust defence classes. Just out of the corner of the right side of his vision, there was a blue shimmer in the air as their Spy stealthily made his way around to take down the incoming opponents.

And right in front of him, goggled eyes looking down at his fallen corpse was the red wearing form of the Engineer, wrench in hand as he grinned down at the dying form of his sentry's first kill of the day. Behind him stood the red, masked figure of the Pyro, clouded glass eyes showing not even the slightest hint of emotion.

And then his vision suddenly turned black as the cold mercy of death finally and suddenly overtook him.

Respawn was a confusing and terrifying experience.

That moment of being neither here nor there terrified Scout.

It was painless - hell, he knew that Spy and Medic enjoyed those few moments of purgatory for some sick reason - But for him, it unnerved him even more than the faceless thing that was the Pyro.

No matter how many times he died and respawned, the process always seemed to take slightly longer than he expected. And that one second was what scared him the most, that one second of unknowing as the process took longer than expected, always making you worry if something had gone wrong with the system, always fooling in to think that you might spend the rest of eternity in this limbo.

And then, with a sudden, lurid flash, the Scout was back in the respawn room.

He collapsed to the floor as his ribs was wracked with a phantom pain where the rockets had hit not a minute earlier.

Moments later, there was another flash and Medic suddenly appeared, hands clutching his head. Unlike Scout, he managed to keep his balance, instead dizzily swaying about for a few moments before coming to a halt.

"Headshot?" Scout asked, picking up his discarded force-a-nature and inspecting it for damage. Their Engie had reassured him that the respawn process didn't harm their guns, but one couldn't be too sure.

"Ja." The German replied, adjusting his glasses and unhooking his medigun from the side of the box on his back. "You?"

"Freakin' hardhat and his freakin' sentry." Scout muttered. "Where's that goddamn frenchie when you freakin' need 'im?"

"Ici." An accented voice said, the figure of a man shimmering into view.

"Jesus!" Scout suddenly yelled, jumping and aiming the gun at the Frenchman. The man just smiled and brought out a silver cigarette case.

"Bonjour Scout. I see you have met a terrible fate." He smirked. "Again."

"Hey! That ain't my fault! You didn't sap the freaking sentry!"

"Perhaps you require a change of tactics. I cannot 'sap' every sentry you happen to find."

"A change of what?"

"A change of modus operandi. A different way of attacking."

"Oh no you don't! I ain't some dirty backstabbin' bastard like you pal!"

"I never suggested that. Merely that maybe you should think before you run out onto a live battle like a headless chicken."

"Think? Think? Hey, thinking ain't my shtick pal. If I stopped to think about shit all the time, I'd be waaaay too slow! An' anyways, it ain't like you got a better idea, do'ya?"

"Actually if you were to-"

"Right, I'm bored. Gonna go shoot some shit. Cya later chucklenuts!" Scout turned and dashed off out of the respawn room.

Idiot. Why the hell would he need to change? Spy knew nothing about how to do his job!

"Freaking idiot." Scout muttered, running towards the point. "Why the freaking hell does he think he can tell me what to do? I ain't some kid! It ain't like he ever does anything useful!" He jumped up to the platform and onto the point. The metal plate at his feet buzzed into life as he stepped on it, emitting a low hum as it did so.

He smiled.

This match was going to be a piece of-

"-piss." The Australian swore, slamming the fridge door shut with a bang. "How'da bloody hell did we lose that?!"

"I don't know mate." Scout said, momentarily mimicking the Sniper's dialect. "You're the one with the freaking scope. You tell me."

"Watch it." Sniper warned, giving Scout a withering look.

Scout shrugged and leaned back in the chair he was sitting in, balancing it on its back two legs. Using his feet to balance himself on the kitchen table, he pulled out a purple can of soda from his bag and opened it. Taking a draught from the can, he stopped to think about the match.

Everything had been just fine (bar that run in with that backstabbing bastard) right until they needed to capture the second point. It wasn't his fault really. It was just that the RED Sniper was so freaking good with his freaking bow and arrows. Who the hell brings a bow to a gun fight anyway? Freaking idiots, that's who. Scout made a mental note to report that Sniper for cheating (or as Scout insisted on calling it, hacks). There was absolutely no way someone could be that good a shot...

"Ah-HEM!"

Scout was suddenly dragged out of his musings by the loud sound of someone violently clearing his throat. Even without looking up, he knew that the large, angry form of the soldier was looming over him.

He lifted his head up, eyes darting across the room for the sniper or for some other means of distraction. But the Australian had long left — presumably to concoct more jarate — leaving him the only person within a ten metre radius of the angry attacker. Desperate to get away, the runner entertained the idea of deliberately losing his balance and smashing his head on the tiled floor below, earning him a trip down to Medic's office and a way out of the situation, but he decided against it — it really wasn't worth the risk of finding another dove in his chest.

"Eh...hi?"

"YOU!" The man bellowed, his face suddenly inches away from Scout's. "We LOST!"

"Eh, we all lose sometimes pal."

"What kind of answer is that MAGGOT?!" he grabbed Scout by the scruff of his top and pulled him up into a standing position. "No man should EVER take defeat as option! What were you doing on the frontlines?!"

"I was running about dumbass. What el–"

"You were RUNNING?!" Soldier shook the man violently, making Scout start to regret his choice about the doctor's office. "No man of mine would EVER run on the battlefield, you yellow-bellied COWARD! And there is no room for cowards in MY WORLD!"

"Watch it pal. Just 'cause I ain't some rocket wielding crazy like doesn't mean I ain't a freaking asset. Besides, it ain't like you were the MVP of the match."

"STOP speaking in your communist riddles and speak AMERICAN cadet! This is WAR, not some childish GAME!" Soldier dropped Scout and he landed back in the chair he'd been occupying. "I don't know what war you fought in private, but it certainly wasn't MINE!"

"I ain't been in any freaking war pal. I have no freakin' idea what ya talking about."

"Then what. Are. THOSE?" Soldier yelled, interjecting each word with a jab at Scout's dog tags.

"Hey! Don't touch those!" Scout yelled, grabbing the militant's hand.

"They aren't yours, are they? No American war would let a filthy COWARD like you fight in their ra-"

**BLAM**

With the speed he was known for, Scout punched soldier mid-sentence right in gut. While he did lack the strength possessed by his other teammates, his attack was going fast enough to knock the unprepared soldier off his feet and onto the ground.

"Don't know when to stop, do ya pal?" Scout said, kneeling down to look the fallen man in the eye. "I ain't some kid you can just tell off pal. I'm on this team because I'm the freaking best at what I do. I'm the best freaking guy on the team and you know it. An' you know freaking nothing about me pal. Nothing. You got that pal?"

There was only a tension filled silence as Soldier stared at Scout in a mixture of surprise, rage and disbelief.

Scout grinned and got up, turning away from the man to exit the room.

He didn't even see the shovel as Soldier slammed its blade into the back of Scout's head

changelog 9-7-16

+ edited chapter