Hiya Folks! Been a long time since any of ya heard from me! For some reason I got the uncontrollable urge to re-write my old story, "The Newest Recruit", mostly due to me finding a few plot holes and just dumb shit that I thought made sense at the time. I also stopped writing the sequel because I was waiting to see where the comics went and go from there alongside it. But ya know what? Fuck it.

I also decided this would be in the time period of the game/comics, so 1971.

Lemme know what you guys think. Also, this was not beta read.

I'm gonna try and keep it similar to the old story, but the original introduction was fucking trash and the most confusing thing ever. Why would the mercs be driven in the same bus? That doesn't make sense.

Anyways, here's the first chapter. Hope ya enjoy!

The first thing she noticed was darkness.

Her first thoughts were clouded and muddled, lost in a sea of heaviness as she fought and lost to the lure of sleep. The air was warm and thick, almost soupy as she struggled to get a clean breath of air.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she began to regain consciousness. Her body was rocking back and forth on a rough surface, the movement alone enough to make her sick. There was some sort of bump, as she was lifted from the ground for a brief moment before kissing the floor once more. She groaned, struggling to lift herself. Pain sharply lanced up her hands and arms, leaving her even more breathless than before.

Sweat traveled down her brow as she finally got to her knees, opening her eyes to the very dim light coming through the slats in the window. It had to be mid-day or later, as the sun was a warm yellow color, the light pouring through orange.

The van was mostly empty aside from the dirt and dust covering the floor, and the bare steel seats on either side of her. The doors were locked, as to be expected. Turning, she could just barely make out the form of a woman in the driver's seat, a cage keeping them separate.

She swallowed hard, her mouth dry. Pain roared through her head, her ears ringing.

What had happened? Was she being kidnapped?

The last thing she had remembered was walking away from work. It had been at least twelve pm at the time. She winced, remembering that she had been suspended due to theft.

Again. Her mother wouldn't be happy.

But at the moment, she and her mother had bigger things to worry about than her job. Her very life could be at stake.

Moving forward slowly, she grabbed onto the cage separating them and lifted herself to eye level. Grunting, she could see the woman in the mirror.

For a moment, she was startled. She had expected a man or some creepy old hag. This woman was... well... gorgeous in all honesty. A little nerdy perhaps, but definitely an eye-catcher. Black glasses, a violet dress, and her raven hair pinned and curled just so. She was so taken aback that for a second all she did was stare.

"So, you're awake?"

She jumped, and immediately regretted it. Her knees immediately slammed against the floor of the moving vehicle, causing her to curse loudly.

"I'll take that as a yes." The amusement in her voice wasn't lost to her captive.

Growling, she regained her footing and looked once more upon her abductor. "Yes, I am. And I have to wonder, how in the ever blue loving hell did I end up in the back of your vehicle, miss?"

The lady in violet granted her a laugh. It was obvious she wasn't taking her seriously, and this only served to anger her prisoner more.

"Yeah, don't get your panties in a twist." She shrugged, as if she had done this many times before. To her hostage, this did not bode well.

"My name is Pauling." She began, turning for just a moment enough to allow the sight of her jade eyes. "I can't exactly tell you at the moment why you're here, mostly because I don't want to unveil the surprise until we get there, but I will tell you that you're not going to be killed."

Her hostage couldn't help but feel like there was a "but" coming, however it never came. Regardless, the feeling never went away and she was left with a million questions.

She began to rack her mind for what she could have possibly done to get herself in such a mess. Could it have been her job? Unlikely. All she had stolen was a damn candy bar. At the most she would have to pay the store back maybe fifty bucks. It had to have been something much, much worse.

But she had done so much shit that would be considered "worse", that she had a hard time picking out one single instance that would cause such a reaction.

Sighing, she turned back to Pauling. "Can I at least ask how you got me here?"

"In the van? Oh yeah. I caught you before you got home and injected you with ketamine." Her tone of voice was still relaxed as she casually explained how she had kidnapped her. "To be honest, I'm not certain how much I dosed you with."

Her charge began to hyperventilate at that news. Pauling began again, a slight lilt of regret in her voice. "Hey, it was just a joke. I'm a professional."

"A professional kidnapper?" She gasped, settling down on one of the seats.

"Well... not exactly. Although I have done this before." She shrugged, switching on her turn signal as she went around a bend. "Not often, mind you. It just comes with my line of work."

"And what exactly is that?"

Pauling paused for a moment to consider her next words. "... A little bit of this, a little of that. It's hard to explain. I promise you though, once we get to our destination, all your questions will be answered."

Her hostage sighed, but leaned back and resigned herself to her fate.

She awoke which felt like a second, but must have been at least a few hours. The sun was completely gone now, no light to be seen in exception for the small fluorescent letters of the radio telling the time. Nine o'clock at night.

Just as she was about to stretch, she heard the sound of whispering. She barely shifted, trying to make out what Pauling was saying without making a sound. From what she could just barely see, Pauling was holding AMPS phone to her ear.

"I'm on my way with Richardson. She's been compliant so far, doesn't have a clue to why she's here." Pauling paused to hear the response from the person on the other end. From what she could hear, it had to be an older woman, but she couldn't make out any distinct words.

"We should be arriving within an hour. Where should I set her up at?" She paused, "Are you sure? I'm not questioning your judgement, I just figured putting her in one right away would be the simplest. No, of course Helen. I'll do exactly that. I'll let you know when we arrive."

Pauling hung up and set the clunky equipment to the side, and without even turning addressed her. "So, as you've heard, we'll be arriving soon."

"Yeah," She didn't even bother trying to hide it at this point. "So you guys know my name?"

Pauling snorted as they turned onto what must have been a gravel road, as the bumps became more often. "Tracy Richardson, twenty-one, just recently off parole and already back at it again with the theft. Yes, we know your name. We've been watching you for a couple months now."

A couple months? Tracy shivered at the thought.

They went over a bump, and from the small view she could see, they were approaching some sort of building. Shuffling from the seat closer to the doors, she could peer out and see a blue insignia painted onto the side. Builder's League United? She had heard of it. They were contracted to build a lot of homes in her area. But what in the hell did they...

Wait. Shit. Now she remembered.

Three or four months ago, she had been walking home from work at the dead of night, and had been passing by a warehouse. The BLU sign on the front flashed clearly in her mind. Wooden crates, heavy from the looks of it, were being rolled into the building occasionally by men in blue uniforms. She couldn't help it, she had to go in and look around.

And she did. There was a startling lack of security, probably had their guard down due to the shipments and didn't expect anyone to trespass on the property when there was so many people around.

Tracy rummaged around in open crates, surprised to find weaponry. She didn't really know or care why a building company would need weapons, and didn't question it. Eventually she found other interesting things, like money and hats. She took all that she could carry and ran out, slipping past the men in blue with ease.

She cursed, now realizing her past had come to bite her in the ass.

The van rumbled as they finally made their stop.

"Welp, here we are." Pauling spoke, cutting the silence. She took the keys out of the ignition and got out. For a moment, Tracy was blessed with silence just to think. She had to handle this carefully. If they had guns, they could kill her.

The van's back doors were unlocked and open, and for the first time Tracy was able to see Pauling entirely. She was young, probably the same age as herself. Probably a couple inches shorter than Tracy was, and much thinner. Before she could even take a step, Pauling had a pistol in her left hand. She didn't aim it, but the promise was clear. One wrong move, and she was dead.

Sighing, and wondering to god what she did in her past life to deserve this, she slowly stepped out of the van. It seemed they were in a desert, with tufts of tall grass sprouting up here and there. The building was surrounded by dirt and gravel however, making their footsteps loud. The moon was out, and soft breeze blew her short dark blonde hair to the side. Adjacent to the blue building was a red one, although Tracy didn't know anything about RED.

"This is Teufort. Well, 2fort to be exact." Pauling corrected herself as they walked towards the BLU building. The area was in rough shape, the walls littered with bullet holes and scorch marks. "This is where you'll be staying for awhile."

"Awhile?" Tracy repeated, questioningly. They walked down a flight of concrete steps, their descent the only noise. They walked past a desk with a briefcase and continued down, moving beyond a room full of computer equipment. Below, Tracy found herself in what appeared to be a living room accompanied by a junky looking TV set.

They kept moving, hallway after hallway. Eventually she just lost track and gave up on trying to keep her sense of direction.

"Ah, here we go." Pauling said with clear relief. It seemed she was just as excited as Tracy was. Pauling stepped forward, pistol still aimed at her charge as she opened the door. The room was bare in the exception of a table and two chairs on either side. The woman in violet ushered her forward with a gestured of her pistol wielding hand, and Tracy stepped inside and took a seat.

Her captor closed the door behind them and locked it with a swift motion and proceeded to quickly sit down. Tucking away the pistol, she took files from a drawer in the table and layed them out. She didn't speak, allowing Tracy to sweat as she stared blankly at the parchment she couldn't read.

"Well. You stole approximately two thousand dollars in cash and in... hats." Pauling didn't laugh, her face suddenly devoid of emotion. Tracy squirmed in her seat.

Pauling sighed, rubbing her temple and once again looked at the woman across from her. "Let's get down to the nitty gritty. You're indebted to Blutarch Mann, owner and founder of Builder's League United. So, instead of taking legal action which would be more drawn out than what it's worth to him, he decided to take you on as a mercenary."

"A... what now?"

"A mercenary. A hired gun." The raven haired woman replied smoothly. "Essentially, you'll be trained and then set off to go kill people."

"Okay, hold on a minute." Tracy raised her hands, an expression of exasperation on her face. "I'm just a petty thief. I have literally no idea how to kill anyone, nevermind wanting to."

"Please, I'm well aware of your exploits. You've stolen quite a lot from many places, and only occasionally got caught out of stupidity or due to an accomplice." She rolled her eyes, "And it's either this or jail time for you."

This brought silence upon the room as Tracy weighed her options. She didn't want to go to jail, staying the night at the police station was bad enough. She began to tap her foot, nerves getting to her. The fluorescent light flickered ominously overhead.

"So, this is how it's gonna work." Pauling cleared her throat, shuffling the papers and putting them into a neat pile on the table. "You're going to be in a team of nine men. They'll get you up to speed on what you need to know. You'll have your own bunk room, with a lock, and a small shower area."

Tracy let out a small breath of relief. At least she'd have her privacy.

"As for what you need to know in terms of who you're fighting, that would be RED. Blutarch Mann's brother. They share the land, and they're really aren't happy about it. So if you manage to somehow survive the RED mercenaries, you'll have to kill Redmond." Pauling said this as if she had repeated this same speech multiple times. "He's an old man now, completely unable to defend himself. I doubt you'd ever get to him, but you never know."

"Fighting wise, you should have no problem. Your team will back you up for most missions, although you may be sent on lone missions occasionally. And in terms of death... I wouldn't worry about it. We have a machine that can bring you back right from the brink. Which is why this war has been going on for... one hundred and twenty-one years or so."

"Hold the fuck up. One hundred and twenty-one years? How long have these guys been alive for?" Bewilderment plastered on her face, Tracy was getting increasingly worried that she was just stuck in some sort of hellish dream.

"Ever heard of Australium? Both Blutarch and Redmond have machines that feed off of it and keep them alive." Pauling answered coolly. "Which is why the war has remained so long. The cast of mercenaries has changed throughout the years, but they remained."

"Okay... this doesn't sound too awful once you put it in perspective." She mulled in over a moment. "But I'll still feel pain, and get horrible mutilated."

"Possibly. Although you could always kill yourself before that happened." She adjusted her glass and said this in such a way that she had to have been joking... right?

Tracy winced at the image, but ultimately threw in the towel. "Alright, fine. What's next?"

"Well, you'll have uniform you will need to wear while on the job, but otherwise you don't really have any limits. You can wear accessories if you want, but don't get too attached to them. No fraternizing allowed between teams... or just hide it very well. Don't kill your team mates, don't try to leave the premises without permission or an escort." She rattled this all off, "Ah, that should be about it. Oh yeah, you're indebted for a year."

"A year?!" Tracy pulled back in exasperation, her brow furrowing in disbelief.

"You're lucky it wasn't longer. The Administrator had to pull some string to even allow you as a mercenary." She stood from her chair, the feet scraping against the floor in a cacophony of shrieks. Tracy winced. "For one, Blutarch doesn't like women involved in the war. So you'll have to hide that."

"Seriously?"

"Yes. And secondly, Blutarch just wanted you murdered immediately, but the Administrator assured him that this was a better idea." Pauling gathered the papers and stuffed them into a folder, returning it to it's drawer. "Come on, your teammates are still asleep and you should get to bed as well. Mr. Doe likes to wake the men up early. They aren't aware of your presence yet, but I'll inform them in the morning."

This time Pauling didn't even bother to take out her pistol as she unlocked the door. Tracy stood, resigned to her fate and followed after.

They went down another set of stairs and turned a corner, stopping at a single door. Pauling unlocked it and flicked the lights on.

The room was drab to say the least, with a single light dangling in the middle of the room. It was large enough for the bed, the desk, and a drawer for clothes. To the right was two doors, which Pauling strode over to show her the shower and closet. The shower was just as dim and cramped as the other but supplied with shampoo, body wash, the necessary feminine products, a toothbrush, and tooth paste respectively.

"This is your room. Here's a set of keys, do not lose them. If you lose them, you can ask Dell Conagher for help, if he's avaliable." Pauling dropped the keys into her waiting palm, "Tomorrow I'll introduce you to your teammates."

"Thanks I guess." Tracy sighed, very obviously unenthusiastic.

Pauling paused by the door, considering her words before turning back once more. "I know it's a shit show. And it's really bad right now. But I think you'll grow to like this place. Your team is, for the most part, are good men. And if you gain their respect, they'll have your back."

Tracy was surprised but touched by these words, despite her being the woman who brought her to this place.

"Thanks."

The woman in violet grunted. "Have a good night, Ms. Richardson."

The door closed behind her, and Tracy was left in her cold room.

She began to inspect the room more. The desk was filled with a few notebooks and envelopes, pens and pencils. A pencil sharpener and eraser. Her closet was mostly bare in exception for a hoodie, a winter coat, and a rain jacket. There were multiple pairs of shoes at the bottom, arranged from dress shoes to sneakers to rain boots.

The dresser had underwear and bras, and even a curious black garment that Tracy wasn't quite sure was. There was also what she assumed was her uniform. A dark blue turtleneck with arm bands sewn on, which appeared to be a newsboy cap and a face mask. High waisted cream colored trousers accompanied by a leather belt, and what appeared to be a supply of newsboy caps, eye masks, and gloves.

God, they were really playing up the whole thief thing, weren't they?

Thank god there was more casual clothes on the bottom drawer. Tracy practically ripped off the clothes she had on earlier as she stepped into the bathroom, a purple hoodie with shorts and t-shirt, and exchanged it for a tank top and sweatpants. Looking into the mirror, she was greeted by the sight of her own tired face.

She had short dark blonde hair, nearly cropped to the scalp. She had learned early on that long hair could be tangled or grabbed when sneaking or being confronted. Her hazel eyes, with deep purple bags underneath, stared back coldly at her with extreme prejudice. She pressed a hand to her cheek, scrutinizing the fat. Sighing, she brushed her teeth and returned to the bedroom.

Throwing her old clothes in a corner, she approached her bed and found the blankets to be servicable, not too scratchy or small. The pillow left something to be desired, though. Tracy was suddenly hit all at once with her situation, immediately feeling home sick.

God, her mother was going to be worried sick. Tracy immediately regretted her choices in life, wishing she could have just been a good person and resisted the temptation to take things.

She fell asleep, tears staining her pillow as she slipped off into a better dream.

Alrighty, hopefully I won't totally forget about this. I'll try to write every single night that I can.

TBC!