"I'm telling ya Snipes, them cactus juice can be used for drinking!"

It was a hot day outside the walls of Teufort and inside the territory of Decoy. Scout was seated on an old wooden bench next to an abandoned barn that seemed to be situated in the middle of a dry desert. There were weirdly shaped cacti everywhere, and the cracks on the dry ground seemed to get bigger and bigger as the temperature increased. The usually hyperactive boy breathed heavily with his mouth open, and tongue stuck out.

Scout swallowed a few drops of his saliva. "Aw, come on Snipes you gotta let me drink some cactus water! I'm sweating like a pig over here!" He removed his headphones, then his black cap, and used it as a fan.

The lone ranger stopped wiping the lens of his scope for a brief moment and raised a brow at the Bostonian. The shade provided by his van prevented him from soaking up the heat of the sun. The Sniper was already used to this weather. In fact, his body has been trained to get used to any weather the earth could possibly think of. That was one of the best qualities and one of the reasons why the administrator immediately hired this specific man for the job. "And wot makes yah think that I'm gonna allow you tah do that?"

"THE SUN'S SO FRICKIN' HOT MAN IT FEELS LIKE I'M ON THE DAMN SUN I NEED SOMETHING FOR MY FRICKIN' PARCHED THROAT!"

Sniper smirked, clearly amused, and continued wiping his gun's lens. "That's still no excuse to just go for cactus juice, yah little bugger. We never know wot kind of grog is inside of the prickly plant. It could probably poison yah or give yah some strange hallucinations thah would make yah go tipsy."

Scout fanned his cap harder. "I don't care, Snipes! I'd prob'lly die in this kind of heat! Hallucinatin' nothin' compared ta this kinda sufferin'! Why won't them damn robots come anyway? We've been waitin' for like, 2 hours already!" He lied down on the rotting bench, and covered his head with his cap.

"Do yah mean 30 minutes?" The hat donning man chuckled. "Looks loike the temp's tamping with your sense of time, kid."

Despite his pride, Scout agreed a bit to what the Sniper said. The heat's messing with his brain, but it would mean almost nothing to him if only they were given some mean alien robots to fight. He swallowed a bit of the saliva from his dry mouth but did not find it refreshing at all.

Decoy really did seem to be a bit too quiet today, the Sniper noticed. He placed his gun down for a moment and stood up, shaking off the dust particles that stuck to his vest. Sweat beads formed on the face and neck of the gunman, but this warmth was nothing to him. After he picked up his hat, he jogged towards the far end of Decoy, the wooden gate which was the usual entrance of the steel soldiers and alien tanks.

There was no sign of any army robots.

"Hmm… that's strange…," he muttered under his hot breath.

From afar, he heard the Scout shout, "ANYTHIN' INTERESTIN' GOING ON DER, SNIPES?!"

He placed his right hand above his eyes, covering himself from the brightness of the sun. His eyes squinted at the direction of the wooden gate. "Ah don't think those mutated tin cans are comin' tahday, Scout. The whole place seems to be some kind ghost town for the moment!"

Hands grasped the black cap angrily, and in a split second the Scout stood up, ready with a baseball and a bat. "This is ridiculous, Snipes! When are they gonna come?" He carefully eyed the nearest cactus, which was only a few meters from him. The boy glanced to and fro, hoping not to find any hint of the Sniper who was away. He didn't care anymore. Poisonous or not, he was going to get something to drink.

As quick as a jack rabbit, the thirsty Scout ran towards the cactus. Unknown to him, the Sniper's hawk-like eyes could easily find him like predator on prey. He was on the roof on one of the abandoned buildings in Decoy, next to a box of ammo and a med kit. He quickly ran down the creaky stairs.

"Oy! Get back here yah little ratbag!" cried the Sniper, who just got back from surveying the silent place. "That cactus is not what yah think it is, and yah don't know where the bloody heck you're goin'! Watch out for that damn – "

"Woah, AH! AH! AAAAAAH!"

"– hole! "

The boy's back collided with the dusty and rocky ground of a large hole located just before his cactus. He got a few scratches, but there was no major injury. "What the… this wasn't here before!"

Sniper hurried and ran towards the medium sized desert hole surrounded by rocks, which kept it from being seen easily. One needed to be in an elevated place to be able to spot the hole that wasn't there. Sniper looked down on the averagely deep hole, then straight at the messed up scout, who was lying on his back. "Yah okay there, mate?" He scanned the area below. Something about the peculiar hole made him feel like the boy wasn't the only being down there. "That's what yah get for not following orders! Why didn't yah take some water from your canteen anyway? Get up, yah sheila! We're leaving the place!"

That made the young soldier wake up from his shock. "Hey! My canteen was for ammo! It can't help me with this damn heat!" And after a few buffering seconds… "Really? Them robots ain't coming?"

The stressed looking man rubbed his temples. "Don't think so. I feel loike there's some weihd system that makes them sense the number of people in the area. There needs to be at least three of us to, uh well… let the clock start tickin'."

The young lad's dusty face beamed instantly, starting to feel quite energetic again. "YES! Man, this hell hole's getting on my nerves! Come on Snipes, help me up! We gotta get away from this oven fast! Too bad though, I finally got good upgrades on my soda poppah!"

"Yeah, yeah, stop talkin' and more movin' kid! Here, grab my hand!"

He reached for the semi-gloved hand of his senior, grabbed it, and pushed his weight away from gravity's grasp. But before he was totally out of the dusty hole, something made him jerk like a wild animal.

"OUCH! WHAT IN THE HELL?!... HOLY…!"

A rather large serpent crawled away from the newly wounded Scout. It had blue-black scales, and it swiftly made its way deeper into the desert hole.

"OH SHIT A FRICKIN' SNAKE! Aw man! Aw maaaaaaannn! Awmanawmanawmanawmanawman!"

The Sniper, being the wild and nature camper guy he is, did not worry much. He has already encountered this kind of snake at least 5 times in his life, and he knew that the Indigo snake, or the Drymarchon corais, despite its size, was a docile creature and a nonvenomous foe.

The Scout on the other hand was an entirely different situation. The boy began shaking all over, feeling venom go through his blood (there was none though, it was all psychological). When he was six years old, a tiny yet aggressive and venomous snake attacked him on his left leg, for he and his brother "accidentally" disturbed the reptile but he was not able to run fast enough. He was hospitalized for a week after the incident. This experience was one of the reasons he trained himself to run as fast as he could.

Calm as he ever was, the Sniper reached again for the Scout's hand. "Come on, yah bugger! Thah' thing's hahmless; don't get bloody intimidated by its soize!"

But it was too late, for the Scout passed out right on the spot.

"Awh frickin' freckles…", murmured the Sniper.

Stay still, Spy told himself.

He was currently situated inside the medical bay, where the Medic was repairing an old and forgotten machine used to stun patients by projecting rays that could access the patient's brain and shut the nervous system off temporarily. It was such a brilliant step for the history of medicine and surgery.

Of course, the Spy knew nothing about the machine. He had another mission, and it involved that wretched sly fox of the rival team.

The BLU Spy. While passing through the halls of the building this morning, the Spy caught a glimpse of a faded blue entity roaming around the place. He had no idea how that fool got past their defenses, but he sure won't last long here in the RED base.

Medic, having no knowledge of the Spy's presence, worked peacefully on his machine while humming some German songs to himself. He chuckled darkly, catching the Spy's attention. "I may be no Engineer, but zhis contraption eez fantastic! Zhis vhould definitely make my vhurk easier!"

What a crazy man, thought the Spy. But no, he could be the BLU spy, acting out a crazy charade to fool him. He had to keep a close watch on his teammates – one of them may actually act strangely.

"Just a little more…"

The Medic fiddled with the many wires that were attached behind the human-sized contraption. Colorful cables of different sizes and designs were scattered across the floor, each playing a small yet important role on the machine's function.

"Wunderbar! Now just a flick of zhis svitch…" His bloody finger reached for the glowing red button.

Rattling and buzzing sounds filled the medical bay in an instant, and electrical sparks wheezed through the wires. Both the Medic and the cloaked Spy did not expect the invention to respond within a split second, making them jolt suddenly.

Merdé!

Spy's cloak slowly faded, but he halted just in time for it to recharge.

As the doctor studied the machine's reaction, the door to the bay opened with a loud bang. An annoyed Sniper carrying an unconscious Scout stormed inside. "Doc, we have a bloody problem."

But the Medic was in no mood for patients. "Can it vait? I'm a bit busy here Herr Sniper."

"I just need yah to bring him back tah consciousness. The poor wanker fainted at the sight of a hahmless snake." The Sniper placed the limp Bostonian on the operating bed.

The Spy chuckled at the thought of Scout's fear. Snakes? Ha! He's scared of snakes?

"So I just need to vhake him up? Did he get bitten or zhomething?" asked the Medic. He looked at the possible places of a snake bite. Sure enough, he found one near the Scout's left foot. "Vhat bit him?"

"An Indigo snake, but it was just a young'un. Them bloody snakes get bigger than some tree logs. They don't have any venom though, so Scout only suffered the pain of being bitten."

Medic nodded slightly, and went to his medical box. He took out a syringe filled with a faint blue liquid. "Vhud you mind if I test out zhis new drug?"

"New drug?" The Sniper threw him a skeptical look. "Have you tested it on lab rats or monkeys, doc? Doesn't look quite safe tah me."

"I am zhe doctor here, Herr Sniper. Trust me. Besides, this drug doesn't have any dangerous side evhects."

"But it does have soide effects."

The Medic smiled sheepishly at the syringe, then looked at Sniper. The Spy was able to read him right away. He is embarrassed of something, thought the Frenchman. The way the doctor was acting was totally normal, and he was starting to think that the BLU Spy was not disguised as the Medic.

He then turned most of his attention to the Sniper and the Scout.

"Vhell, zhere are side effects, but zhey… how do I say zhis… are just plain ridiculous."

Sniper cocked an eyebrow. "Ridiculous soide effects?"

"I tested zhis on vhone ohv my patients years ago. He vhas unconscious zhat time, but after I injected zhis drug, he immediately vhoke up."

"So… wot about the soide effect?"

The silent Spy shifted his attention back to the doctor, becoming interested on the current topic. The doctor rubbed the back of his neck, and looked shamefacedly at the Sniper. "He vhasn't able to open his eyes for halv an hour." The Medic said it as if he were announcing to a couple that their first born just died.

Silence filled the room for about 10 seconds.

"That's it?"

Merdé! I thought it was something serious!

"Vhat do you mean zhat's eet?! It's the greatest embarrassment for such a highly honored doctor like me to make drugs vhich are not perfect having… silly side evhects! Das finde ich blöd! Eef you give me a little more time I could probably improve and omit zhe side evhect, but it vhould –"

Sniper gave a friendly pat on Medic's back. "Calm down doc. No need for improvement, I need that little kiddiewink up and running an hour from now. We have an intel to get a hold of, and he's best at that."

"Okay, fine… fine. Let's see eef it vhurks correctly on him." With care and accuracy, the Medic injected the syringe on the Scout's right shoulder.

A few moments into the future, the doctor would realize that what he had done was the worst thing he'd done in his whole medical career. A series of fast yet unfortunate events followed afterwards.

The Scout woke up with a twitchy and frightened expression on his face. This startled all three men in the bay. Realizing that he had no control over his eyelids, he started screaming: "Hey who turned off the sun FRICKIN' SAUSAGES I'M BLIND I'M BLIND I'M BLIND!" The Sniper immediately told him to calm down, and explained that he was in the medical bay, being treated for the snake bite he acquired.

And this was the Sniper's mistake.

"A SNAKE? THAT FRICKIN' SNAKE THAT COUDA BEEN AN ELEPHANT'S TRUNK?! WHERE OH MAN WHERE THE HELL IS IT I CAN'T SEE!"

Scout rose from the bed and started to run uncontrollably at every direction, knocking down most of Medic's stuff.

"SHIT WHERE'S THE SNAKE?! GET ME AWAY FROM HIM!" "Calm down, dummkopf! Zhere are no snakes anyvhere here! Stop shooting, you might hit my vonderful inventions!" "Woah there mate! Look out at where you're going or you'll tear the whole bay down!" "WATCH WHERE I'M GOING? HOW THE FRICKIN' HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO WATCH WHERE I'M GOIN' WHEN I CAN'T SEE?!"

The Spy then concluded that none of the men in the bay were the BLU Spy, for he knew how his rival would act under certain situations. These people are idiots, nothing like the BLU Spy. Escaping this problem was his next mission. He cursed inwardly as the Scout came running towards him.

"AW MAN WHERE THE HELL AM I?!"

The Frenchman followed his reflexes and grabbed his butterfly knife from his pocket. He did not want to harm the Scout, but he needed it just for defense. The Scout bumped into him with such a great force, knocking the Spy towards the Medic's renewed invention.

"Putain!" cursed the Spy.

The butterfly knife accidentally cut some wires, and inserted into a metallic slit, which caused it to spark. Their collision with the machine caused it to emit a low drone which started to slowly become loud bangs from within.

"Ah, my vonderful machine! Vhat have you done?!"

"Oi, is that a Spoy?"

The medic shot an angry look at the frantic Scout and the now decloaked Spy but then instantly ran towards his machine. He tapped buttons multiple times and even tried to rearrange some wires, but every move he made seemed to make it worse. The Scout lay on top of the slightly unconscious Spy who was slowly recovering.

Sniper tried to help the Medic but he knew that he had no knowledge about things like that. The noises coming from the metallic invention got louder and louder, and sparks became more frequent. After several seconds, the racket stopped. So did the Medic.

Silence filled the air once more.

"Oh… Phew…," huffed the Medic. He looked at the faces of his teammates and smiled slightly. "I zhought it vhas going to -"

BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

An ear-splitting explosion occurred, and machine parts flew everywhere. Black, foul-scented smoke filled the bay's atmosphere. Both the Medic and the Sniper fell backwards violently, and crashed on the cemented floors of the bay.

Everyone now lay knocked-out on the cold surface.