Chapter 1 – You have Failed

"Today's the day." Scout thought to himself as he breathed in through his mouth. Eagerly waiting for the Announcer to finish her countdown for their "mission" to actually start.

It had been a while since the REDs had won a battle against the BLU team. They were uncoordinated and refused to actually help one another while on the field, which the BLU team probably figured out and started formulating plans and attack formations to stop their RED counterparts. It was super effective!

"C'mon, c'mon," he groaned impatiently, hoping to speed the Announcer up.

" Mission begins in Sixty seconds."

"Ah JEEZ!"

" Already ichin' to be sent t' respawn?" the Red Sniper half chuckled. Scout almost rolled his eyes.

"Shut up!" he snapped, "That's not gonna happen 'dis time! 'sides, we would've won last time if someone..." He shot a glare over his shoulder at the taller man, who narrowed his eyes through his tinted glasses. "...wasn't so busy pissing in a jar!"

Sniper flinched slightly, unable to hide his embarrassment- a sheer clue that indeed that was what he was doing. "Mind yer own business, you lit'le ankle-biter!" The young man scoffed.

"I'm sick and tired of losin' to them BLUs! Focus less on your dick and more on your job!"

" I SAID-"

The Engineer stepped forward, intentionally jamming himself between the young man and rugged outdoors-man. "Aw c'mon fellas, lets not go through this again," the Texan practically begged, "we're suppose to be fightin' them BLUs, not each other."

The two let out a hard sigh, returning their gaze to the battlefield ahead of them. The Engineer remained between them to help avoid yet another fight between the Sniper and Scout. That happened a lot, and it was either the Engineer or Soldier who would have to intervene to stop the two. Actually, the Soldier encouraged the fighting.

"Mission begins in Thirty seconds."

Silence. The Scout let out another sigh, trying to focus on the route he was going to take that he figured would be the quickest and safest route to the Intel room of 2fort. All he had to do was run there, grab the suitcase and run back. Instant Victory. Simple, easy.

He could feel his heart pounding against his chest as he counted down in his head when that gate in front of him was finally going to open and he would rush forward ahead of his team mates. Just the thought of running made his blood flow even faster, making him more and more anxious. Nothing was going to take his mind off the road ahead of him.

" Wha' good is a Scout who can't properly retrieve Intel anyways?"

Never mind.

The anticipation in Scout immediately turned into anger. He turned around to face the man, but the Engineer stood firm to avoid a fist fight between the two. Sniper only smiled at him, knowing he hit a nerve on the Scout.

"What the hell is your friggin' problem?" Scout demanded, raising his voice so could gain some authority, or at least some respect. While the others couldn't see it, the Scout was trying his hardest to hold back throwing a punch as the assassin's face.

"BEGIN!"

"CHARGE!" The RED Soldier bellowed, pushing through everyone to get to the front.

Almost immediately, the gate swung open and everyone scrambled out of the base, practically trampling Scout who was left unprepared. The Sniper used his rifle to push the Scout to the ground as he jumped over him to get to his usual spot to snipe unsuspecting BLUs. Scout curled into a ball and covered his head with his hands as everyone ran past him. Thankfully no one actually stepped on him, which he was thankful for.

Scout groaned he picked himself off the ground, just in time to see the Heavy running full scale towards the BLU base with the Medic right behind him as always.

"GET BEHIND ME DOKTOR!" Heavy cried out.

"Jawohl." Medic replied.

Scout was almost tempted to call the Medic over to him; he was almost trampled after all, but mostly he just wanted to be mean and annoy the Heavy.

After dusting himself off, Scout took out his trademark bat and sprinted out of the RED base and onto the dusty front of 2fort. His strategy ran though his head as he picked up the pace, it was easy; avoid certain death, grab the suitcase in the BLU base, avoid death again, return to the RED base and win! Easy!

"Whoa! Deja-vu!" Shouted Scout. He shook his head and sped forward, avoiding bullets that were shot from a few BLU members from across the canal. The RED Engineer was setting up a Sentry gun along the walls of the RED Base, Scout paid no attention as he jumped onto the top of the covered bridge. His mind wandered again as he wondered why RED didn't just destroy the bridge and be done with the war. The Soldiers on either side could easily rocket jump across the moat, or so he thought. He wasn't a Soldier, so he wouldn't know if they could do that. Could they though? WHOA!

Scout jerked to the side as a bullet barely grazed past his face. The bullet belonged to a near by BLU Sniper perched on the second story, practically in front of him from atop the bridge.

"MISSED ME!" Scout cried. He regretted yelling that, though, as the Sniper quickly reloaded the gun and took aim at his head. That was a fast Sniper. "Ah, crap."

He didn't hear the gun shot, but the enemy Sniper staggered a bit before dropping his gun and falling to the ground below his perch. Scout stopped at the edge of the bridge and looked down at the now-dead BLU mercenary. He looked behind him and saw that the RED Sniper had killed his would-be killer. How ironic. He was still mad at the Sniper for his earlier comment, but the Sniper merely waved to him almost sarcastically. Scout could almost hear the Sniper's voice in his head as the man mouthed the words "You're welcome, you lit'le wankah!" in an equally sarcastic tone- at least to the Scout it was sarcastic.

"Jerk." The young man huffed.

"ATTACK!" Cried the BLU Soldier, thankfully not noticing the Scout. Even though he was standing right there in the open on top of the covered bridge.

The runner jumped from the top of the bridge and landed close to the BLU Sniper's corpse. He cursed to himself about his slow start, but sped forward into the BLU base. Scout noted to himself how similar their base was too his own, which made it easier for him – aside from having to avoid several of the BLU mercenaries who stayed inside to protect the briefcase.

"Morons." he thought to himself as he rounded a corner and ran up a flight of stairs, only to have to run down even more stairs.

He felt himself picking up his speed as he ran down the halls, quickly coming closer and closer to his objective; a simple blue colored briefcase. The Intel office itself soon came into view. "Luck be a freakin' hot lady tonight." he grinned.

The moment was interrupted by a loud gunshot. The sound itself wasn't aimed at him, but it was close.

"Oh shit!" Scout froze in place as the lifeless body of a RED Pyro flew from a separate room and landed in Scout's path. A large bullet wound was on the side of it's head.

"Hmm?" a deep voice rang out.

Scout hesitated, but he looked towards the voice. He already regretted it when he locked eyes with the BLU Spy.

"Damn cliché." he groaned out loud. Then again, he half-expected to run into the man, hopefully for a little payback for all those the times that the foreigner sent him to respawn.

To add insult to injury – in the Scout's case- he's been keeping track on how many times he's been sent to Respawn due to the Blu Spy managing to backstab him. Scout hated that the most; he was always the fastest one on the field (he always assumed his BLU counterpart was slower than he), and yet he was still being backstabbed that damned Blu Spy. He was a slower class, a slower class! Talk about embarrassing. Why did he crouch in the first place? Even he didn't know why, but he did. Which resulted in the Spy catching up to him and jamming the blade into his exposed back. God he hated that replaying in his head again.

The Spy let out a silent sigh as he looked at his cloaking watch, most likely pretending it was a real watch.

"Well, you certainly got here quicker than expected," Commented Spy. It was hard to tell if he was being serious or sarcastic, but he did sound a little impressed with the Scout. He chuckled slightly as he looked up at the Scout again, dusting himself a bit. "Quick as a little bunny, weren't you?" He practically spat out the word 'bunny', and it was the way he said it that really rubbed Scout the wrong way.

Scout didn't waste any time. He immediately took off running again, not in the opposite direction far away from the talented rogue, but towards the Intel room. He was going to finish what he started, darn it!

"Get back here, boy!" The Spy called out to him. Yeah right, like the Scout was going to stop that easily.

"You ain't gonna win 'dis time, dumbass!" Scout replied, reaching the Intel room and grabbing the briefcase, making his exit out the opposite door.

"Alert!" a familiar woman's voice boomed over the intercoms. "The Enemy has taken our intelligence!"

He couldn't tell if the Spy was behind him, nor did he want to risk checking to see if he was, but the Scout ran faster than ever with his objective in his hands. Already, several other BLU members were hot on his tail, particularly the BLU Soldier, who already attempted to cut off the Scout's path by jumping in front of him and taking a swing at the young man with his shovel. Scout had plenty of time to react, taking a single step backwards before leaping over the taller man; who immediately spewed insults and curses right and left as the RED runner narrowly dodge the sharp edge of the shovel and continued running up the hallways.

"MAGGOT!" was the only word the Scout actually understood from the BLU Soldier.

"GET BACK HERE!" The Soldier switched his shovel for his rocket launcher. Immediately taking aim at the Scout and firing a missile.

Scout took a sharp turn, the missile missing him but impacted with the wall instead. The small explosion still rang in the Scout's ears. "That was close" he thought to himself. He grinned suddenly, feeling the RED team's luck finally changed.

All he had to do was run across the bridge and run to their own intel room, and it would be over - for then, at least. Scout never understood why battle was never-ending. The BLUs would steal their intelligence, and somehow another briefcase would show up later and the battle would start again. Was this war ever going to end? Who cares, he was getting paid for it, so why question it now?

"Alert! The Enemy has taken our intelligence!"

"What the-?"

He almost forgot he wasn't the only Scout on the battlefield. Chances were, his BLU counterpart had also make a beeline for the RED's briefcase just as he did. Since he, himself, got the BLU's briefcase first, he still had the advantage of winning, just as long as one of his teammates took out the thief and recovered their own intelligence. Scout was in too good of mood for this battle to end in a Stalemate.

"Faster, faster, faster!" He silently yelled to himself like a football coach would.

A few more missiles flew over his head, thankfully missing again, as the BLU Solider desperately tried to keep up, though clearly no match for the faster class. It was almost laughable. Finally, though, his pursuer was stopped by his own team's Soldier, who challenged his counterpart to a shovel duel.

Deep inside, Scout really wanted to see who would've won that battle. His money was on the Red Soldier, naturally.

With everyone within either fort at each other's throats – a RED guy fighting a BLU guy that is- , it made the journey out of the BLU base easier for the Bostonian as he ran through the last flight of stairs before sprinting out of the BLU Base and into the open, almost blinded for a second by the bright sun. His eyes quickly adjusted to the change of lighting as he headed towards the bridge.

"I got it, I got it, I got iiiit!" Scout yelled out to his teammates across the bridge.

Sudden movement caught his attention. He looked up slightly and saw the Red Sniper standing in his usual spot. The Australian was calling out to him, but Scout was too far for him to be heard, although the way he was waving his arms rapidly was what caught Scout's attention in the first place. While he was unsure if the Sniper was trying to get his attention directly, he eventually understood what was going on when the Sniper began violently pointed in the air as if saying "Look behind you".

Scout was almost reluctant, in fact, he didn't even WANT to look. He grumbled to himself and just ran forward. He almost made it to the wooden bridge when a sharp, excruciating pain enter his back.. He released a near-silent scream as he fell forward. He KNEW this pain, it was all too familiar to him; The blade of the BLU Spy's Knife.

"That dirty rat cheated." was the first thing to come to his mind.

The Briefcase flew from his hands as the young man hit from the ground, his precious life slowly draining from his body, and yet he was still half-alive. As he lay there, breathing heavily and humiliated, he watched his own BLU Counterpart practically skip across the bridge with the RED Intel in hand.

"Dude, that was frikkin' awesome!" He heard the BLU Scout praise someone that was behind him. Scout wasn't able to turn his head to see who it was that the Scout was talking to.

The BLU Scout didn't hold still, immediately running into the his base to claim their victory.

"That..was a close one," The French accent was dead give away that it the Spy the BLU Scout was talking to.

Scout heard footsteps approaching him from behind, accompanied by several others. The BLU Pyro was the first to come into view, ignoring Scout completely and scooping up the BLU Briefcase and following after the BLU Scout.

"Well, here lies Scout-he ran fast and died a virgin." The BLU Spy announced in the most annoying tone Scout has ever heard. The laughter from several other BLUs was just salt in the wound for the young Bostonian .

His breathing picked up as the Spy was practically over him, it dawned on Scout what happened; The Spy threw his knife, that was how he managed to get the Scout all this time. He was never backstabbed, well, he was, but not in the same way a Spy would back-stab a sitting Sniper, no. More like a projectile-stab.

The Frenchmen paused, noticing the Scout's fingers digging into the dirt and hearing a slight groan escape the boy's mouth.

"Still alive are we?" He half-whispered. "How unfortunate."

Spy reached out and lightly curled his gloved fingers around the handle of the knife.

"I.Hate.You." Scout growled, his eyes burning with anger as they met with the Spy's again.

There was a slight pause. The sound of the Scout's heavy breathing was the only thing breaking the silence.

"The feeling is mutual." The Spy answered in a dry tone.

The BLU Spy tightened his grip on the handle, not hesitating to twist it deeper into the wound. Everything went black for the RED Scout.

"YOU HAVE FAILED!" The Announced was not pleased.

(I apologize for all the mistakes I made. I tried tried working from memory with the 2Fort map, and it didn't end well.)