Till Death Do Us Part

(Map: Badlands)

Three days.

It had been three days since he had last seen a living, breathing human being. All the others he had seen were dead and currently obsessed with trying to eat his face. Not exactly a comforting thought.

Leon was huddled in a watch tower, the sounds of the growling zombies outside his door as natural now as the sounds of gunfire and explosions. Those had been the norm, just four days ago- before the undead had swarmed the place and killed a lot of people. A lot. He saw a few of them now, shambling below the window three stories down. A Scout, a Heavy, an Engineer. There were more, walking around somewhere. They'd come into sight eventually.

Three days, and Leon was coming to the realization that he was slowly starving to death. He wouldn't respawn, either, so he couldn't just kill himself and start fresh. How did things come to this? He didn't even know.

He sighed, hugging his Sniper Rifle to his chest and closing his eyes, ignoring the zombies as they pounded on his door. He didn't know if anyone else was alive or not; maybe, but the odds were against it right at this moment. He was getting worried that he'd never see another human again- funny since he had been so antisocial before. Most Snipers were. But now he was itching for some kind of human contact. Being completely alone was driving him to insanity. Things changed so quickly, didn't they?

But then there was a gunshot, and it wasn't from him. He sat up quickly, listening hard as the sound faded away, his heart hammering in his chest. The window was flung open and he peered out of it, his keen eyes scanning his surroundings. So far, nothing.

"HEY!" he yelled in a hoarse voice out the window, desperate to get the attention of something other than the zombies, which were now pounding harder on the door in a desperate attempt to reach the prey inside. "HEY- SOMEONE THERE?! HEY!"

The door shuddered from the weight of the undead pressing against it, but Leon didn't care a lot at this exact moment. He was too busy trying to pinpoint the sound, not sure where exactly it came from. Dammit- where were they?

What he didn't see was the sniper rifle that stuck out of a high window of a nearby building, nor the woman behind the gun. She moved her sights to the open window, and the man hollering like an idiot within its frame. "Where'd I put the Huntsman..?" she muttered, entirely to herself, as the rifle retreated back behind the wall.

Hurried hands searched for a pen and paper, quickly scribbling down a message before she got the 'Huntsman' bow and an arrow. A la Looney Tunes, she wrapped the note tightly around the arrow. "Weight'll set my aim off... 20 centimetres lower. Adjust for discrepancy." Once again, all this was to herself. "Wind is..." She looked out to the flag she set out earlier, back when her only enemies were the living. "Still no wind resistance." All that in mind, she drew the bow, aimed according to calculations, and fired.

If the idiot down below didn't move his head, the arrow would whiz right by his ear, without hitting him. The note attached to it said as follows,
Do you want to get eaten? No? Close the window and shut up, you fucking idiot. -Your Friendly Neighbourhood Sniper

The BLU switched back to the rifle as soon as she was sure she sent the message. Another gunshot burst through the cacophony of moaning of the undead. "Boom. Headshot." Yes, she knew that ammo was short and that noise attracted more of the damned buggers, but eh. Shooting things was fun.

Leon flinched back instinctively when the projectile whizzed past his head, ducking behind the window frame again and waiting to see if anything else came through the window. When nothing did, he crept over and pulled the arrow out of the door, carefully taking the note off and reading it.

Just his luck. A BLU. Sniper, too, so that didn't exactly help matters, although he supposed it was better than a Scout. With a sigh he went back to the window and peered back outside, his eyes narrowed against the bright desert light. Now that he knew what to look for and where, judging from where the arrow came and the angle it hit the wood, it was easier to find the Sniper up in her perch.

He paused for a minute, not sure if he should try to make contact or not, but he was getting desperate. Yeah, she was a BLU in a really crappy mood, but she was still a human. A living, breathing human being who wasn't trying to kill and devour him. That was his impression, anyways. He could be wrong, but he preferred not to think about things like that.

Eventually his instinct to socialize kicked in (heh) and he offered a wave to the Sniper. Nothing else- now that he knew where the sound was coming from, there was no need to try to yell anymore. It would only attract unnecessary attention and he didn't honestly know how the door would hold up against more zombies. He wasn't keen to find out, either, so he'd stick to a wave. Friendly enough, right? Peaceful? Not seen as an act of malice that could earn him a bullet in the brain?

He hung back a little over the window frame, just to be on the safe side. You never could tell with BLUs.

Tiptoeing as quietly as he could he had somehow managed to sneak around some zombies thus far. Mostly by running but he'd been lucky. Too lucky it almost seemed. He had climbed his way up to the roof of a neutral building, looking over the mid area. Well now what? he could see zombies walking, stumbling and staggering across the area and he back away from the edge of the building and went to stand at the top, looking around. Hooking that bloody frying pan back to his belt he sat down and decided to catch his breath. Kurt growled lowly to himself looking down at his uniform. "Tch. My uniform iz so damn dirty. So fvilthy these things are, I svear to god." The blonde whispered to himself as he attempted to brush down the dust from his coat that he loved so. Looking up, he gazed around curiously. He had heard a yell of a familiar voice earlier whilst he was running and he wondered where it had come from seeing as he didn't hear anyone yelling now. Maybe they were dead? Or maybe he was going crazy. "Vell.. Vouldn't be zhe first time I thought I vas crazy.." he muttered to himself. The dove he loved so, sat on his shoulder fluffing it's feathers at the whole experience. Kurt seeing the frazzled dove, he scratched at the dove's under belly with one now glove lacking finger and it cooed. "It's OK, Kestrel. I smashed a few..."

Leon was starting to regret the yelling he had done earlier, and the BLU Sniper's gunshots weren't exactly helping matters. The zombies were getting louder behind his door, and the door itself was starting to creak.

It was time to get out of here. The only question was how.

RED Spawn 3 was about to get overwhelmed, and as far as he knew there was only one way in and out, unless he bailed out the window. That was probably what he was going to have to do. He peered out the window cautiously, frowning down at the zombies milling below one of the BLU control points. Dammit- the Sniper had them all bunched up under her window since she was shooting them like a lunatic. That was either going to make things really easy or really hard for him, and there was only one way to find out.

Clutching the windowsill for support, the rifle was slung across his shoulder and he grabbed one of the poles that ran along the side of the building. Using this like a fireman's pole, he slid down as quietly as possible, trying to make little noise. When his feet hit the ground, he ran.

About half of the eighty million zombies (okay, maybe only seventy-five total) saw Leon dashing away and followed; the other half were still preoccupied with Rose. This was both good and bad for Leon: good because some were still with Rose, bad because he now had a pack of zombies on his tail.

Crap.

He needed to get to his camper, which was naturally parked all the way on the other side of the RED Base, and fast.

The world came back to Oleg in much the same way it had left: a gunshot.

Oleg heard the telltale report of a sniper rifle when he sat up. The control point that had been his impromptu resting place for three days was uncharacteristically dark. It still had a scorch mark from the rocket that had put him into this rather compromising circumstance.

Then it came back to him: gunfire, explosions, the raw chaos on which Oleg thrived, the heft of Anastasia in his hands when she spun, the laughter that would burst from his thick stomach at the sight of smaller people turned to mincemeat. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to win, it was more that he was having too much fun to let their team lose.

Of course, a BLU soldier had other ideas. One rocket jump and a crit-rocket and Oleg thought he was done. Not unusual: the re-spawners would have had him up again in fifteen seconds tops, but it was annoying, being dead. That was, of course, unless the unthinkable had happened, that the darkness that embraced him wasn’t the familiar chill of death. Oleg rarely made decisions based on personal safety, but landing on a full health kit would have seemed more than sheer coincidence.

Oleg pushed himself from the control point. His ears hurt. It was quiet. Quiet like waiting in the spawn, quiet like the brief intervals between jobs. Quiet like death.

“Where are little baby men?”

The thickly proportioned Russian glanced toward RED battlements. The point overlooked a bridge and the brutalist, bunker-esque construction of RED base. The doors were jammed against something, smeared with blood. Oleg couldn’t fault the enthusiasm of his team mates, but that the form caught under the shutter was still struggling troubled him greatly. Especially considering it looked suspiciously like himself, sans arm and lower torso.

The bridge had several of them, staggering and moaning. Thankfully for Oleg, unconsciousness made relatively little noise compared to gunshots. That and the control point was situated at the top of a 'natural' spire, a small, spiraling path the only means up, or down. This further assisted by the fact that these shambling baby men had rather poor co-ordination, as punctuated by one of them falling off of said bridge and losing their head, rather literally.

Oleg frowned.

“This is sad day.”

Now just coming to hear the clustered amounts of zombies he slipped his glove on and hurried to the edge of the building with haste looking around for the source. He first saw the zombies bunched up around the window where a BLU Sniper seemed to be but he couldn't make out who. However he did recognize the RED Sniper running with half of that pack of zombies behind him. The medic swore to himself and looked to his weapons. His Blutsauger, Kritzkreig and a Frying Pan. This wasn't good. He wasn't able to take down any zombies at this point. What use was he now? Sure he could heal him but he doubted that would help when running away from a pack of zombies. Well the least he could do was shoot them and get their attention. Without saying a word he took out his Blutsauger and started shooting down on the zombies, hopefully drawing their attention. It wasn't good for killing so he didn't care much for loosing ammunition for it.

Leon had just pulled out his Submachine Gun when a zombie before him fell with a needle in its head. A few others were getting barraged with needles and slowed their progress down a little. Slightly confused at this odd turn of events, he glanced up quickly enough to catch a glimpse of a RED Medic on a building close by. This was comforting, considering the only other person he had seen was a rather hostile BLU, and he'd be up there in a little bit. Right now he had a problem to deal with.

He quickly started gunning down the undead, wincing at all the noise it made but not having much choice. Aim for the heads; he had learned that a couple of days ago. It wouldn't help if he hit everything but the brain and he'd just waste precious ammunition. He only had a few more clips for the Submachine Gun in his jacket, two at the most- there were maybe ten more in his camper, but that was in his camper. He needed to deal with that next, after he got with this Medic and they figured something out.

He stopped shooting when he ran out of ammo in his first clip. At this point there were only about fifteen left so it was sufficient for now, and he bolted to the side of building the Medic was on. There was another pole here, and he used it to scramble up the side like a squirrel. He had gotten good at doing this during the time he had been on the RED team. He took a moment to breathe when he got the top, stuffing his Submachine Gun back in his belt and smiling slightly at the Medic.

"Now you are a sight for sore eyes," he finally stated, shaking his head. "I was getting worried me and Annie Oakley over there were the only ones left. Nice to see a fellow RED."

Kurt smirked seeing he took down a couple of the zombies and at least slowed a fair amount. Seeing Leon escape with ease though the sub machine gun's sound was likely going to draw more near the building they were on. Lowering his blutsauger he turned to Leon as he got on the roof, the shorter medic waving. "Ja, ja ,ja, well..." Kurt didn't really look like he knew what to say, he himself was a little distant with others despite being the medic. "Have you found anyone else yet?" He asked glancing back down at the zombies bunching around the building. He backed a few steps away from the edge of the building and his dove fluttered around him, cooing.

Oleg was not in any particular hurry, more just trying to find out who his enemy should be. Were these new, shambling baby men on their team? Several wore RED uniforms, but didn’t seem to attack any that wore BLU uniforms. This was an oddity that puzzled Oleg greatly.

Then he spied a medic and a sniper several roof tops over. They were also baby men, but they were wearing RED uniforms, and thus were not people he should shoot. Oleg’s thick face brightened into a smile. He would try not to make fun of their size. His massive hand waved and he laughed in his nigh maniacal fashion as was his trademark.

“I am very happy to see you! Why are you so small?!”

He then notes the small group of shambling baby men in front of the bunker turning towards him. Oleg watched their milky eyes and rotten fingers turning in his direction, bumping ineffectually against the bottom of the point’s spire. They moaned and reached for him, pawing with the rigor-mortis limbs and hissing, gurgling, punctured lungs. They were strange, unlike any baby man he’d seen before.

And then he knew. It flashed across Oleg’s thoughts like a lit match, it burned behind his eyes until he saw red:

“They want to touch my gahn!”

Anastasia was revved in a second. The thick muzzle flare of her shots belched out of each barrel as his huge fists barely shook from the recoil. The heavy chug of firing was only matched by his enraged bellowing. Bullet casings flew while the bullets themselves were mulching the zombies below him, turning several into a pile of meat and relieving several others of deteriorating flesh. Of course, where several were pulped, more came to fill their places. Oleg was no longer amused.

Leon had been about to reply to the Medic when there was a rather familiar kind of shout not far from them. After a quick look around he spotted the Heavy and waved back. "Well, there's another one. Besides the BLU, you, and the Heavy, I haven't seen anyone else. It's a bit disconcerting since there used to be so many of us before."

He then noticed that the Heavy was now unleashing his powerful gun on the undead below him; this was somewhat helpful as all the zombies in the area were attracted to that one spot, including the ones below the building Leon and Kurt were on. The Sniper took a deep breath and looked around, trying to see if he could see his camper from here. He knew where it was, yes, unless someone had moved it. He doubted anyone would do that, though.

He wasn't at the right vantage point to see the camper itself, but he could see the building it was parked behind, and that was close enough. "Okay, look," he said to the Medic, pointing in the direction of the building, "behind that building there is a camper of mine. That's our getaway ticket- it can hold all of us, even the Heavy over there." Granted, it would be a little squished, but that was a minor technicality. "That's where I need to go. You wanna come with or stay here? If you stay, that's fine, I'll swing back around for you, but if you wanna come, I won't say no to the company." He peered off the edge of the building to make sure it was absolutely safe. There wasn't a single shambler near the building, as they were all too busy swarming around the Heavy's spire. He'd come around for the Heavy as well, not wanting to leave the large man behind. He had been valuable before, when things were normal, and he'd be valuable now. He just needed to be shown how things were now, since it appeared he thought they wanted his gun. That wasn't entirely accurate, but that could be fixed.

He turned back to the Medic with a questioning look, shouldering his rifle again to make sure it didn't fall off on the way down.

Hearing the shout, he turned on his heel and looked around to the direction of the heavy. From the roof they could see where he stood on the spire. Blinking Kurtwaved back acknowledging they had heard him and sighed slightly. Well at least another was alive. He listened to the Sniper's plan as he watched the Heavy closely. The blonde however turned to look at the Sniper when asking for his decision. BAH DECISIONS. Not something he was good at on a turn of a dime. "Uhm..." He fidgeted slightly indecisive and after another moment he motioned to go. "Camper now. Let's go, I'll cover your back." He said, really hoping Heavy wouldn't die because of his decision to go with Sniper.

Anastasia still bucking, full auto, her thick drum growing ever so slightly lighter in Oleg’s ham-shaped fists. As many shots were making short work of the undead by sheer volume, the dead were growing closer by a similar method. Eventually one or two by sheer luck or some barely retained reflex had made their way up one of the spiral loops before being shredded.

Oleg was unfamiliar with the term ‘conservation.’ He was convinced it would just take a little run to the spawn room or a well-placed ammo box and his beloved gun would be full again. If not, well, it would just be another trip to the re-spawner and he would chalk it up to experience. He was sure it would take them a while to get to him anyway, the zombies seemed dull to Oleg, and Oleg did not consider himself a terribly smart man.

Though every one bullet for Oleg may as well have been four for any of the little men on either team, he would be out soon. It would take something truly shocking to cause him to stop before then.

Leon nodded, glancing over at the Heavy before sliding down the pole and shrugging the rifle off his back and into his arms. They needed to move fast if they wanted to save the Heavy; maybe the BLU too, if she came down.

They'd deal with that when they got there. After a moment's hesitation of waiting for Kurt, Leon bolted in the direction of his camper. They were lucky in that all the zombies had been attracted to Oleg and his immensely loud gun; there were a few on the way, but a quick whack from the butt of the rifle knocked them down and rendered them incapable long enough for them to get away.

It took maybe ten minutes to get there, since there were no distractions and no other enemies trying to kill them. A faded little camper came into sight, and although it was a bit battered and bruised, it was quite honestly one of the most beautiful things Leon had seen in three days. He quickly hurled himself into the driver's seat, the rifle on the floorboard at his feet; keys retrieved from the center console and shoved in the ignition. The camper sleepily sputtered to life, coughing a few times before finally humming in a placid, if somewhat annoyed, manner.

"In," was all Leon said, jerking his head at the passenger's door. Once they were out of here he'd pull over and rummage around for ammo. He knew he had a Huntsman in here when he went on his camping and hunting trips, so he'd probably switch to that to conserve ammo and also to remain silent. The zombies appeared to be attracted mainly by noise, so the quieter he stayed, the better. But he shouldn't get ahead of himself, he still had a Heavy to rescue and a fort to escape. The camper was a bit on the small side so he doubted he'd be able to force his way through a large swarm of zombies at once, unless he was going really fast. He'd have to be careful not to get them stuck somewhere, because that would most definitely be bad.

First things first. Account for the Medic, then pick up the Heavy, snag the Sniper if she was there, and then get the heck out of dodge.

Kurt swore to himself quietly and constantly as he ran behind the Sniper, making sure no zombies attempted to follow them, he hoped those who were alive, that they would stay alive long enough for them to get to them. As soon as they reached the Camper, Kurt obeyed hopping into the passenger's side of the Camper ,letting his dove nest in shelter itself in one of the pockets on his belt. Come on, come on... He thought to himself as he pulled out his blutsauger, reloading and groaned to himself as much as he had never handled a real gun, he rather wished he had one right about now.

Leon revved the motor to finish waking it up before backing out of the space he had parked it in and zipping in the direction of the Heavy. He blew through more than one barricade to get to the battlefield, wincing as the wood bounced off the windshield rather dangerously, mentally trying to remember where exactly he had been on the map. He was pretty bad at directions in general but luckily he had been at this base for a while, so he had memorized the entire layout by heart. Now it was just a matter of picking out a landmark and basing his directions off that to get them out of there. There was an entrance/exit somewhere on the premises- how else could they get the supplies in? He had a good idea where it was, it was just actually finding it and getting out in one piece.

Whatever. He'd worry about it later. He finally managed to find the spire the Heavy was stranded on, mostly following the sounds of the huge man's equally huge gun. Now, how to get him in... Hmm.

"Hold on a sec, I'll be right back," Leon told the Medic absently, climbing out of the driver's seat and scrambling to the back of the camper. There was a ladder on the outside that he could use to climb to the top and get the Heavy's attention. In a matter of seconds the back door was wrestled open and shut again and Leon had skittered like a squirrel up the ladder, adrenaline aiding his frenzied flight. He stopped on the roof, clutching the Submachine Gun to help the Heavy if he needed a way to the vehicle.

Flinching slightly from the loud and rapid sounds of gunfire (he was always a little gunshy about a Heavy's Minigun), Leon waved frantically to Oleg, trying to get his attention. "HEAVY!" he called, trying to make himself heard over the din of the weapon and the snarling of the zombies. "HEAVY! C'MON! WE NEED TO GO!"

Oleg heard someone screaming for him. ‘Heavy,’ it was practically his second name. Anastasia stopped firing at once and Oleg’s lamp jaw led his gaze to Leon and his camper. The zombies had made some progress in the time it’d taken for the sniper’s vehicle to plough through parts of the map. They were on about the second of the four rungs it would take to get to their prize.

Oleg’s face lit up in a moment. The camper was so small, but it stirred something in Oleg’s distorted memories: the tiny wheels, the boxy shape, a team mate standing on top of it.

“LEETLE CART!”

What others called ‘payload’ was Oleg’s favorite job. Escorting the pear shaped explosive that was the game’s namesake whilst delivering an infinite hail of bullets to any who would stop him simply made Oleg’s day.

Oleg glanced down at the zombies. Most of them had swarmed on one side, attracted to the sound of gunfire as moths are to flame. This left the other oddly pristine, a few stragglers and the occasional stray body part were all that awaited him. Oleg decided to replace his beloved minigun with his killing gloves so they would not touch her. Where exactly Anastasia went when he switched weapons, Oleg wasn’t sure, but he did know she would be safe.

Oleg dropped several rungs in a moment, then jumped with his little legs and came down fist first onto a zombie. The thing’s head flew off with a thick ‘snap’ of vertebrae about the neck and the boxing gloves glowed a bright red. It made Oleg desire to pump his fists, but rather than indulge in a taunt, he decided instead to rejoice in a left hook to another nearby zombie as he sprinted toward the vehicle.

The horde of shambling baby men were starting to take notice, namely of the sound of a roughly idling engine and the critically charged boxing gloves of their formerly elevated prey.

Kurt had watched from the window of the camper for a minute, listening to Leon yelling up to Oleg who had just pulled out his gloves, the medic went slightly pale at the near misses that Heavy had avoided while beating zombies to death with his fists. He cringed slightly, swearing he could hear, almost feel the snaps and cracks of the bones. Though after putting the mini-gun away, he had noticed the zombies that directed their next attention to the vehicle. Kurt went wide eyed a moment before turning to stand up from his seat to yell up to Leon. "Sniper!" He didn't know his name unfortunately so he made do. "Hurry up!" he said before he looked up to the Heavy as he made sure his Blutsauger was fully loaded.

Leon's bright green eyes went wide as the zombies started to shuffle in their direction, the corpses moving a little faster now that they had a larger target and more prey to chase. Leon gunned a few down with a couple of well placed shots from the Submachine Gun, and he gestured at the Heavy to hurry up.

"GET IN!" he called before darting across the roof of the vehicle, sliding down the ladder, kicking a zombie away from the back door to the camper and slipping inside. He closed and locked the door behind him, skittering back to the front and opening the side door for the Heavy. He backed off slightly so the large man would have some room to get in (provided he could fit through the door; that would be awful if he couldn't, hopefully they wouldn't have any issues with that), watching the advancing swarm of the undead out of the corner of his eye.

They needed to get out of here, and fast.

The cart, from the change in perspective that came with being on the ground, was much larger than what the heavy weapons guy had expected. Oleg considered briefly that it might be his fellow REDs had been considerate enough to finally get one he could ride in. Oleg’s little legs carried him through another solid punch to a zombie nearer Leon's camper and he laughed as its head bounced across the sandy path, soon to be overtaken by the more bodily of the corpses. They were slow, as one might expect, but there were many of them, even those downed by manic gunfire were mere drops in an encroaching tidal wave.

Oleg made it to the door, his head and shoulders smacking into the doorframe. The precious seconds between the zombies being close and the zombies being closer were characterized by the crunches and metallic 'thumps' of Oleg jamming his massive shoulders into the frame sideways. The camper groaned and nearly bounced on it's axles when the heavy finally pulled his gut through. Thankfully it seemed to support his weight without too much protest.

Oleg then grabbed the door and slammed it shut quickly, because as his mother might have said, he was not raised in any barn.

Oleg looked to the RED sniper and grinned his great, toothy grin. Surely he must compliment his host:

“Hello little comrade, this cart is big!”