A Little Bit of Elbow Grease (Nosferatu and Sigma Octantis)

[Two Faced]

Three days he'd been here, and they were already sending him off to battle. He'd been given a week when he first arrived at his last base, but getting transfered from one base to the next probably wasn't as big of a deal as getting shipped in at first. Hell, in this case he'd hardly gotten a pat on the back before getting sent out-- he didn't even get anyone waiting at the train to check out the new arrivals.

He guessed that transferring wasn't as impressive, either, because when he showed up at the BLU base and sought out the captain, little more then a clipboard asking him to fill out his information was extended to him. Enzo Moretti, 36 years old, BLU engineer. Previous fields of study in biomedical engineering (although why he was hired by BLU as an engineer rather then a medic was beyond him,) and a few months of service with BLU Troop 266.

The paper asked absolutely nothing that they wouldn't already have on their record.

They have him new gear and a spare uniform, told him that he'd better keep his old rifle in his bunk, because sometimes the REDs around here got a little squirrely. He wasn't sure what that meant, but he figured it was some kind of warning or another, and he kept it in mind.

The only weapon he took on the field with him today was some small pistol he didn't know the name of, and (though it hardly counted as a weapon,) the wrench that all members of his class carried. He didn't plan on getting into combat anyway-- today, he'd focus on bringing the other engineers supplies, as he usually did at his old base.

Unfortunately for him, RED base and it's employees apparently hadn't gotten the memo.

[I told you I shouldn't start this. Here, enjoy your train wreck. ;D ]

[Nosferatu]

Morry'd been around the bend enough times to know the routine by now. This wasn't his first base and it certainly wasn't his first week. He made a point to stop by the kitchen on the way to the battlefield every morning, to grab a cup of coffee and perhaps chat with the few teammates that were up early enough for breakfast. It surprised him, really, how many REDs chose sleep over the most important meal of the day on such a regular basis. There weren't more than four or five individuals in the kitchen at a time before the fight.

This morning he'd forgone that ritual in favor of extra battle preparation. The train had come in a few days ago, and with it a fresh batch of transfers and recruits. It was about time to be seeing them on the field, and that usually meant he'd have to be extra careful with his equipment. The transfers weren't so much of a problem, they could usually handle themselves. The recruits on the other hand, someone may as well have unleashed a god of chaos on the base when there were more than four or five per team at any one time.

Hefting the beginnings of a dispenser over his shoulder and a toolbox in his free arm, he set off to greet the day's battle. Today's objective required him to set up a little further than his usual perch near the RED base, but that was what the dispenser was for. Once he got this baby up and running he'd be in business. It was a simple matter of picking a place that was defensible and had a good line of sight. This base was riddled with such places.

The dispenser and sentry combination hummed to life with a low whirr just as the siren rang out for the day's battle to begin. Morry tipped his hardhat back and grinned as the sun peeked over the top of BLU base.

The chaos of battle was not something that was particularly easy to get used to. One moment could be spent defending a valuable piece of territory, the next your life could be at stake. In this case it was neither. Morry watched in rapt fascination as one of his own teammates - a soldier - took a running leap over the side of a railing and barreled headlong into the very heart of the BLU defense. A succession of piercing BOOMs rang out as far as Morry's encampment as the rocket launcher fired its payload at the enemy engineer's sentries, dispensers and teleporters. Well now, that was fortunate. Would certainly make his job easier at any rate.

[Two Faced]

Enzo was ready for the stray enemy or two that managed to make their way past the central part of the battle and towards that back, but he'd expected the sentries to pick off anyone foolish enough to barge through the battle to BLU base. This train of thought came to a screeching stop as soon as the dispenser in front of him exploded into small bits and a bit of shrapnel nearly took his head off.

The he dropped the replacement parts in his arms and followed them to the ground, covering his head and trying-- trying to get away from the exploding machines. He ended up abandoning his escape when the shrapnel died out, and the engineer pushed himself up to glance around. Oh, hell, he didn't know what just happened-- or he didn't until he spotted the soldier. There were no more sentries left, no more dispensers-- and he was hardly armed. What was a pistol against a rocket launcher?

And what else could he do but run?

[Nosferatu]

And what could the soldier do but follow? With the nest of sentries and dispensers systematically annihilated, there was nothing for him to do but hunt down the lone engineer that'd escaped. Having never really stopped, it wasn't a difficult task to spin about on his heel and give chase to the fleeing BLU. The rocket launcher was replaced with his trusty shovel, and the distance closed foot by foot. That BLU was his today.

Morry watched all this with mild amusement from the safety of his own sentry and dispenser. That poor sod of an engineer was really having a terrible day already, wasn't he? His sentry trained its turrets on the form of the BLU engineer as he ran past, but was unable to lock on quickly enough to fire. Damn, that guy was fast. But it seemed the soldier was faster, and the BLU's valiant efforts were soon overpowered by an angry RED with a rocket launcher shovel.

Maybe he should help him? Morry shook the thought from his head. Where had that come from? Help a BLU?

But there was something about this one that didn't seem right. Maybe it was because most engineers, like himself, didn't make like a scout every time someone brought out the heavy artillery.

[Two Faced]

Now, Enzo hadn't expected the soldier to chase after him, and when no rockets went flying after him, he was pretty sure of that. As soon as he was sure, though, he hung around a large boulder and pressed himself against it, trying to catch his breath. The concept of 'catching his breath' was cut short when he heard the familiar beeps of a turret locking on, and he was once again running as fast as his legs could carry him.

Apparently that was just fast enough to avoid getting shot by the turret, and as soon as he thought he was out of range, the man glanced behind him-- and his luck be damned today, there was that soldier flailing his shovel around.

Looks like the REDs took their welcoming party quite seriously.

Well, back to running it was-- but unless he wanted to end up in the heat of the central battle, he'd have to backtrack and go past the turret and RED engineer-- not to mention the solder himself. Not like he had much of a choice, but it didn't stop him from bouncing awkwardly on his heels for a moment before doing his best to avoid attracting the attention of the enemy engineer. (Not an easy thing to do, considering he had no other choice but to run run straight in front of him.)

[Nosferatu]

The easiest (and probably most intelligent) thing for Morry to do at this point would be to step aside and let his sentry take care of the frenzied BLU. Between the two REDs, the other engineer was as good as dead. But he couldn't help but watch him with a certain fascination as he scrambled about; he could almost see the gears turning in his head as he looked between the soldier, the base and the sentry.

It was a split-second decision, to stick his arm out like that. He'd never know exactly what had compelled him to pull the BLU to safety, kicking a switch on the leg of the sentry to disable autofire the second before it locked on. It'd happened so fast even the soldier didn't notice, and ran past Morry's encampment in search of his prey. It wasn't long before he was distracted with other endeavors, the sound of rockets firing picking up in the distance again.

"Y'alright buddy?" Morry moved to the side to allow the other engineer to regain his footing. "He almost had you there." He had no idea why he was doing this, but he was this far now, and this guy didn't seem bad.

[Two Faced]

Enzo hadn't really expected the other engineer to step in-- sure, he'd have to worry about the sentry, but he didn't expect the man himself to do anything. When something caught on him and then he stopped moving but the world didn't, he wasn't sure what happened. He certainly didn't think he'd been wounded, because nothing really hurt-- and if the engineer had stepped in, he'd be dead right now. (Or hurt, to say the least.)

The beeping of the sentry cut off rather quickly, and that was enough to tip him off that something not normal just happened. It took a few seconds for his gaze to settle on the RED, and when he spotted the sentry a moment later, he grinned breathlessly back up at the man. "Well it wouldn't have been much of a problem if you'd just have stabbed him, spy." He went quiet for a moment and pushed lightly at the sentry-- "Never thought I'd say I'd be happy to see one of these get taken down."

[Nosferatu]

Morry retrieved the wrench from his belt immediately. He may have saved this man's life, but he wasn't going to let him fool with his machines, even if he was an engineer. "Might not wanna be touchin' that, there," he indicated to the sentry with a nod of his head, foot resting near the autofire switch.

He perked up at 'spy'. "Well I can't very well stab my own teammate now, can I?" He tightened his grip on the wrench, just in case the other man reacted badly. He imagined it would likely be a sizable blow to any man's ego to be saved by the enemy. "'Sides, what'd I stab him with? This?" He indicated the wrench in his hand. "No sir, engineers don't do much in the way of stabbing." 

[Two Faced]

Right, he probably shouldn't touch it anyway-- he knew enough about them to know how to repair one in case of an emergency, build one, even, if he really needed to-- but that didn't mean that he felt entirely comfortable messing around with them. He'd probably get them both blown up. Enzo chuckled humorously at that-- well, that'd just be awfully ironic, wouldn't it?

The chuckling didn't stop when the other made a comment about stabbing his own teammate, and if Enzo had known his teammates a little better he might've pat the other on the back. "I'm not falling for that one, spy. I'm fresh off the train, not fresh to the war. And unless it's done differently here, there isn't any reason for a RED to be saving a BLU." He reached out for a moment and considered grabbing at the other's wrench-- but then again, if he'd learned anything about how the spy's gear worked, that was likely his knife, and he didn't much fancy grabbing that.

"Short of you being the greedy type who wants the kill to yourself, you've got to be a spy."

[Nosferatu]

"Yer logic's irrefutable, I'll give ye that," Morry chuckled, giving the other man a sharp rap on the head with the wrench. "But by now y'should be wonderin' why I haven't changed back, or phased out, or whatever it is those spooks do when they're done pretendin' ta be you." Replacing the wrench at his belt, Morry took to dismantling the side of the sentry. Pulling some spare ammo from a crate near Enzo, he set to work reloading the turrets.

"You say yer not new t'the field." He remained focused on his work as he spoke. "So what're ye doin' runnin' around like a lame duck? Yer an engineer with the best of us, y'should know how ta defend against that kind'a thing." He looked up at the BLU after a moment. "And maybe I saved ya because I felt bad fer yer sorry ass."

[Two Faced]

Enzo cringed at the rap, even pushed a hand up under his helmet to rub at the spot that'd taken the brunt of the blow. "Well that's not--" He cut himself short when the other continued talking, and he couldn't keep the look of distress from his face. Well, yes, that was true, spies didn't stay in their disguises very long, and that tap on the head had certainly been a lot harder then the handle of a knife should have been able to deliver...

He scowled at his own wrench for a moment and flipped it in his hand a few times before shaking his head at the other. Yeah, a blow from that would probably feel like what he'd just felt...

"Never said I was much of a fighter, RED," Enzo muttered quietly-- "People didn't usually make it to the base back at my old station..." The engineer grabbed the free end of the wrench with his other hand and shook his head-- "Can't say I ever rescued a RED either, though. Guess the bases are a lot more different then I was told they would be."

[Nosferatu]

"I think," Morry closed up the side of the sentry and gave it a loving pat, "ye weren't told much at all then." He grinned at the other engineer and motioned for him to sit down on a crate. "This is my sixth, and it's not a thing like one through five." He pulled an empty crate over and took a seat, pushing his hardhat out of his eyes. They had some time to kill, and from here they'd be able to hear anything but a spy's approach from at least fifty yards. Morry leaned forward, elbows coming to rest on his knees. "I take it this is yer second. What was the first like?" He was always interested in hearing about the strange goings-on at other bases around the country, especially since he'd been stuck at this one for longer than he'd like to admit. "Did they allow women there? We have a couple here." He motioned behind him with his thumb, back toward base. He'd been to a couple of bases that hadn't seen any women in years. It was curious how regulation differed from region to region.

He gave Enzo a long, hard look after a moment. "Y'say yer not much of a fighter. I hate t'wonder how ya even got sucked inta this."

[Two Faced]

Enzo tucked his wrench into his pocket and sat when told to do so-- he didn't have much of a choice in the matter, with the sentry resting right there. And while the other engineer pushed his hardhat back, Enzo pushed his down further in slight semblance of shame.

"Busy, I guess. Battle didn't move quick, too much talk between the teams. Too much... befriending the enemy." He shot a sheepish grin at the RED, and was about to make a comment about it not being too different when he mentioned women. At that point he was pretty sure his heart stopped, and he hung his head a little. "We had women, yessir. Knew one pretty well. A pyro, and the best one I'd seen in a long time. She had nice legs, red hair. Liked to cook with me. At Christmas, one time, she--"

Enzo smiled again, and though this was obviously forced, he moved on to explain exactly why he'd joined the war.

"I was in the biomedical field, 'fore all this. I heard that the companies had developed things that would revolutionize the field-- guns that could heal, a system that could resurrect. Chemicals that could heal the average wound in a heartbeat. I figured that if I could study them, I could help get it de-militarized. Released to the public..."

[Nosferatu]

Morry nodded along with the other's story, listening intently and filing away the details as a point of comparison for later. "So they gotcha on the technology deal." He scratched the back of his head and looked down. "Me too. Had ta learn t'fight on the job, ta be honest."

He appeared particularly interested when he spoke about a specific woman, especially when he mentioned they'd been close. That wasn't common in his experience, the women tended to group together and keep to themselves. Perhaps it had been something... more? The way he'd cut himself off and how his entire demeanor had changed led him to believe that yes, indeed, something more had happened there. Unfortunate. He wanted to prod, but resisted. What if the cause of his reaction had been her death? He couldn't bring that up. But he could ask about Christmas. "She what? What about Christmas?" He nudged gently, happily ignoring the change in subject for a moment.

[Two Faced]

"Not a fighter. Never really fought. M'a pacifist," he uttered quietly, giving the other a nearly apologetic glance, "only ever really harmed one guy. Bastard deserved the things I did to him if anyone ever did." To be honest, Enzo wished that he could have done more to him.

"Christmas, though," Enzo pushed on, "Christmas was nice. I threw a party in BLU's spare war room. Cleared it out, invited both teams on the condition there weren't any team colors. She showed up, and... I guess I was too busy playing host to pay her any real mind, because she ended up dancing with this one spy. I was jealous, and I made a bit of a scene. Kissed her in front of everyone-- swept her off her toes, even. Ended up punching the spy."

The engineer scratched his chin for a moment and made a faint noise-- "Guess that means I've hurt two people, if a simple punch counts."

[Nosferatu]

Morry slapped his knee excitedly and gave a bark of a laugh. "Well I'll be damned!" He'd been right, there was something else going on! "What y'just described there doesn't make ya sound like much of a pacifist," he grinned and jabbed the other man in the shoulder lightly. He understood better than he let on, however. He would have done the same for his Susie, if such a situation had ever arisen. He still wished he could punch that asshole graduate student, in fact. But no, that was behind him now. Ancient history. "Kissin' her in fronta everyone. Takes guts. At least tell me you won her heart?" After a stunt like that she'd have to be a real piece of work to not see something in this guy.

He chuckled and shook his head. This engineer was turning out to be something else. His mirth was short-lived however, as he caught the telltale sound of a cloak falling nearby. "Git behind that crate. Now," he whispered harshly and waved to Enzo, hopping up to turn autofire back on after making sure he'd hidden himself from the sentry's sensors. "Spy," he whispered over his shoulder, carefully taking his wrench from his belt and standing ready.

[Two Faced]

Enzo hadn't expected a reaction like that-- because he was pretty sure he'd made it clear that they were involved, and that he was too a pacifist. Yep, that logic there was flawless. He rubbed his shoulder but grinned anyway-- "'Course I did. Saddest day of my life when I was told about--" The BLU fell silent as soon as he heard the cloak drop and he nearly tossed himself behind the crate without another word.

Spies. He'd have been grateful for one earlier, but now really wasn't a good time. Even if it was a BLU, they'd take out the engineer who'd bothered to save his tail, and that just wouldn't sit right with him. If it was a RED... well, he figured that depended an awful lot on how okay they were with the teams intermingling around here. He readied his wrench either way, though...

[Nosferatu]

Saddest day of his--- Morry felt his heart sink at the man's admission, but shook it off in favor of not getting shot by the approaching spy. He chanced a peek around the wall and his eyes lit up in recognition. Oh, he knew this one. He was a RED, and a particular sort of bastard that Morry had come to strongly dislike since arriving here. He only had a moment to think this over, as his teammate approached, and in the span of a second he'd powered the sentry down and thrown himself behind the crate next to Enzo. He gave him his best grin, pushing his hardhat out of his eyes. "This one's all yers, BLU," he said before giving Enzo a hearty shove out from behind the crate. "Let's see how y'do on yer first day."

[Two Faced]

Enzo's heart was slamming in his chest-- but he didn't want to look. Nah, he'd have to take action if he poked his head out from behind that crate, wouldn't he? He'd stay there until-- until the RED engineer came back around. The BLU gawked up at him for a moment or two-- at least until he was pushed out from behind the crate. Then it was a lot more of "Oh, no, no no-- Don't do th--" (This happened to be cut short when he nearly faceplanted.)

When he glanced up to see exactly what sort of lion Morry just threw him to, his stomach churned. A spy, of all things. And he should have known that from the sound, but... why couldn't have been someone a little more harmless? Maybe a scout?

The BLU took a few nervous steps back and pulled his wrench from his pocket. (This didn't seem to give him much confidence-- if anything, it seemed to put him more on edge.)

"Fine day, isn't it?"

[Nosferatu]

The look given the BLU was roughly the nonverbal equivalent of might you be speaking to me? RED's best spy (in his opinion, anyway, and that was the only one that counted) had been on his way to retrieve the intelligence after that lumbering oaf of a soldier had cleared out the BLU's last lines of defense. And judging by the smoldering carnage before him, he'd managed to actually not screw it up. He hadn't even had to draw his knife thus far.

Until a little BLU engineer came stumbling to a halt in his path. "Oui, I do suppose eet ees razher nice." The knife was pulled smoothly from the confines of his perfectly pressed three piece suit. And with a lack of transition that would have made Shakespeare weep, he was in the engineer's personal space, blade flipped open as he pushed him toward the wall. "Where deed you come from, engineer?"

[Two Faced]

The engineer gulped quietly and would have flat fallen onto his behind had there not been a wall. He was now gawking at the spy (with a few worried glances in the crate's direction.) "Good weather," Enzo spoke, doing his best to keep his voice from cracking, "Clear day. Good for... work. Killing and all that. Sunny, though. Not good for you, could get burnt. I was, ehrm... behind that crate. Trying to keep from burning."

Wasn't that a convincing story? He groped for his wench again when the knife flipped open and actually let it slip out of his hands-- and yelped quietly when it dropped on his toe. That was apparently enough to send the man into a frenzy, and the hand that had been holding a wrench a moment ago curled into a fist and went swinging around at the spy's face-- hard.

[Nosferatu]

Morry caught the backward glances and merely gave Enzo an encouraging thumbs up. Even if he didn't survive this, that's what respawn was for, and by the looks of things it certainly wouldn't kill him to experience it firsthand for once.

The spy gave him a spectacular sneer at the obvious lies and pressed him further to the wall, knife just beginning to dig into his rather... substantial abdomen. "I 'ave no time for your games--" he was unfortunately cut short by a fist connecting solidly with his face. The force behind the blow sent him staggering backward, grabbing at his balaclava and feeling the warm blood trickling from his nose. "You," he growled, flipping the knife shut and retrieving his revolver instead. The gun was leveled with the engineer's head and two shots were fired in quick succession.

He gave the corpse a solid kick in the ribs as a parting gift before stumbling off to find a medic (though his pride would take more than a medigun), though not before glancing over the seeming abandoned sentry nest and commenting on the engineer's incompetence.

Morry remained hidden behind the crate, watching with wide eyes as the spy summarily disposed of his new friend. Bastard. He'd stay put for now, perhaps Enzo would be able to find his way back here without too much trouble. He hoped.

[Two Faced]

Enzo hardly had time to be frightened after the punch-- he'd hardly even registered that the knife had been pressing into his stomach. Hell, he didn't even notice when it was pulled away-- because the engineer was inching steadily off to the side and was about to bolt. Still, the split second he had the worse headache of his life came as no surprise to him-- but waking up what felt like a mere second later was.

He first noticed how dry his mouth was, and that no matter how many times he swallowed that didn't seem to change. What he noticed next was the pressure on his stomach-- which looked a lot smaller then it should have. He began to heave a bit-- mostly out of worry that something had gone terribly wrong-- but didn't manage to bring anything up. It was no less then thirty minutes later when he finally crossed the doors out of BLU base, looking terribly nauseous but no worse for the experience.

It was another twenty until he backtracked to where the RED engineer had been-- and where he had died. His first reaction would have been to heckle the man for pushing him out there, but Enzo caught sight of his corpse before he got the chance.

And how could he not wander over to examine the mess? It smelled strange, and the crusted patch of blood around the bullet wounds (which had bits of skull and brain matter jutting out of them) was beyond fascinating. And how could he be standing here now, examining his own corpse? He groped for his wrench and found it no longer there, but laying right beside his body-- and he plucked it up and used the end to press down near the wounds until the bone made scraping noise and a new surge of blood was pushed out.

His jaw must have been opened, because he only just then that he was breathing through his mouth.

Sweet lord, that was his corpse, and it was most certainly dead.

[Nosferatu]

The hour or so Enzo'd been dead gone wasn't entirely uneventful. Morry's sentry had taken heavy fire shortly after by a heavy and medic combination, but a pyro fended them off long enough to allow him to make the necessary repairs before the whole thing simply fell apart. He soon found himself on the ground, back against the crate he and Enzo had been hiding behind. His wrench was on the ground by his leg and his hardhat was pulled over his eyes. It was just after one o'clock or so. Things were slowing down just before the afternoon rush. He just had to keep his ears open.

That was when he heard it. A shuffling and groaning that was either a zombie or a first-time respawn survivor (truthfully, either was entirely plausible when the respawn system was involved, and no he hadn't seen too many George Romero films). A quick glance would assure him that it was in fact the BLU, alive and well. Or, alive, at any rate. He felt a palpable relief wash over him. Okay, he might have been a little worried. The system here had never screwed up before, but there was a first time for everything and an hour seemed like a long time. But there he was.

Morry let him be for now, as he appeared to be examining his corpse and retrieving his weapons. The corpse-checking was something he'd find fascinating for about a day or so, and then it'd become part of the daily grind. Or not, as he remembered this guy's mentioned being in biomedical. Maybe he found looking at his own dead body interesting or something.

[Two Faced]

Enzo didn't notice Morry for quite some time-- he spent no less then half an hour oblivious of the world beyond a five foot radius, and it would have been several times longer if he had a knife on him. (He was curious to see what his insides looked like. Not just the insides of a human being, but his insides.)

When the half hour was over and the corpse began to reek to the point that he could no longer stand it, Enzo took to looking around.

It took him a bit to spot Morry, because he'd figured the other engineer would have run off by now-- and he actually grinned and waved over at the other man a little. Apparently his plans of telling the other man off had gone out the window-- he couldn't have looked more pleased to be sitting in front of his own corpse. "Hey, RED! Look at this mess, that bastard shot me in the..." He was reaching to retrieve his pistol from the corpse and put it away, but he stopped rather abruptly when he noticed the print of what must have been the spy's shoe.

He retracted his hand and pressed at his ribs-- and they certainly didn't feel even the slightest bit sore.

Strange, how respawn worked.