Disclaimer: The following story was rated T for violence, adult themes and the use of strong language in intense and frustrating situations and occasionally within casual dialogue.

I also don't own Team Fortress 2. Valve, please don't sue me.

November was coming to a close, and the winter chill was slowly creeping in. The air was becoming rather frigid, leaving Scout thankful he had upgraded his typical attire to longer and warmer pants and a red sweatshirt. The team had been stationed in Gold Rush to defend against the BLU's, who were trying to blow their base up. Considering that his class was more meant to capture initial points and not really keep others for doing so, Scout was less than enthused about the week he was going to spend getting his ass kicked.

Though this didn't stop him from getting a smug grin on his face when he heard the Administrator announce that the setup time had begun. There was one thing he'd always look forward to when battling on particular maps. He shot straight out of the respawn, zipped right past the first checkpoint, and kept sprinting until he was standing in front of the gate that had separated the BLU's spawn from the battlements. He couldn't help but smile as he pulled out the Atomizer, a sleek aluminum bat with a black ribbed grip, complete with the Bonk! logo plastered on it and begun to continuously bash it against the gate.

"Need a dispensah here!" He yelled in the most obnoxious way possible. The enemy soldier taunted him by standing by and saluting him with his hand in an L shape. This actually got a slight chuckle out of Scout and he started beating on the gate more forcibly. "Need a telepotah here!"

His heart skipped a beat when he saw his rival, a young man of similar physical stature as Scout, ran toward the gate with a titanium baseball bat in hand.

The two had a certain ritual they always preferred if the mission and environment allowed each other to face each other like this.

"Mission begins in thirty seconds," the Administrator announced.

Scout cracked his knuckles, "Ya ready to get yo ass dominated, pally?"

"No, are you?" His rival wasn't quite the best at making the most original comebacks. The two then continued on in beating the crap out of the gate.

"I'm gonna beat ya head in so hard, you'll feel it in the next respawn!" Scout sneered.

"Well, respawn's not going to be able to fix your face when I shoot that dumb smile off it!"

"With what aim, pally? Bonk!" Scout's could feel his heart pounding excitedly in his chest. Other members of both teams began to join in the beating of the fence, and hurling insults and threats at each other. Pyro madly smacked his ax against the gate mumbling incomprehensible words, along with Demo and the BLU Engineer shouting jeers at each other. Scout was beginning to feel the rush of adrenaline course through his body. He's rival had a crazed look in his brown eyes. They both couldn't wait to kill each other.

"Need a dispensah here!" Scout yelled out in his mad frenzy.

"Need a sentry here!" His counterpart screamed back.

"Mission begins in ten seconds!" Scout's teammates begun to back away from the gate along with the BLU team getting out of sight of the spawn entrance by pressing close to the walls. Except the two scouts stood their ground and continued to beat the gate. They both nastily grinned at each other.

"Five..." The Administrator began counting down. His rival replaced his baseball bat with his scattergun to get ready for his attack, but Scout kept the Atomizer in hand though he was no longer beating on the gate with it.

"Four..." Scout planted his feet apart firmly on the ground. He pointed the Atomizer to the far wall of the BLU's respawn like he was predicting where he'd hit a baseball that was being pitched to him. His rival cocked an eyebrow.

"Three... Two..." He brought the end of the bat over his shoulder and bent his knees and quickly adjusted his arms to be in the perfect batting position.

"One..." The gate doors opened. The rival had aimed his Scattergun at Scout but before he could pull the trigger Scout swung the bat with as much force as he could. It struck his rival right in the temple and Scout could see his skull beginning to shape around it, and then released it as his body flew across the room and hit the far wall.

Scout couldn't help but break out into laughter after watching his rival fly through the air. "You su-" Was all he got to say before the enemy sniper sent a bullet through his brain.

A strong shiver ran throughout his body as he found himself standing in respawn. He shot straight out of the doors, still feeling ecstatic about his amazing kill. Once he had reached the heat of the battle he felt ambitious enough to rush the enemy medic from behind while he was healing the BLU heavy. This didn't go too well, though; he missed his first shot which had alerted the medic to defend himself. He immediately turned around and slashed Scout's guts open with his bone saw, and the heavy finished him off with his mini-gun. The second time he was taken out by a mini-sentry that he didn't see in time. The third time a pyro scorched him to death.

With every death he's adrenaline rush was whittled away and was completely diminished when he was trying to bait out his rival from behind the cart so he could be taken out Engie's sentry only to have his rival get the better of him and shot him in the face. He sighed as he left respawn for the fifth time and moved towards the fight in a much slower pace.

"The cart is nearing a checkpoint!" The Administrator announced frantically. This didn't motivate Scout to pick up his feet at all, though, he knew that he wasn't going to be much help especially once that cart got in that choke point just past the checkpoint. As he headed towards the fight he tried to assure himself that his team was holding them back and that the Engineer probably still had his sentry up, so they were still doing fine. As he approached the choke point he was just in time to see a red level three sentry explode and the Engineer's body falling from the second floor of the building he had set up in. Scout was now frantically looking around as he realized that no one on his team was left on the battlefield.

"Ah crap," Scout muttered. The BLU pyro began to rush him with flames spurting out of the end of his flame thrower. Not wanting to be sent to respawn so soon, he took off running but not before the tips of the flames had gotten a lick of his clothing and decided it liked the taste as it went on to completely engulf him in flames. He howled in pain as the flames were eating away at his clothes and skin. He was running frantically to the nearest health pack but at the rate, he was burning he wasn't certain he could make it until he saw Heavy, Demo, and Pyro barreling towards him.

"Help!" he yelled. Heavy and Demo ran past him, quickly shooting down the pyro and unleashing hell on anyone who got near the cart. Pyro took a moment to put out his burning teammate with a quick compression blast from his flamethrower and then ran off to join the fight.

Scout sighed in relief and hollered a "Thanks" to the pyromaniac. Most of his hair had been singed off and his skin was painfully blistering. He made his way to the health pack that he had been sprinting towards which was located in the nook of the hallway that was right next to the end of the choke point. Picking it up had brought some relief to his burns, but it being one of the smaller ones he was still in no condition to join the fight. There was a larger one upstairs that would certainly make him feeling like new and Scout set out towards the stairway in search of this wonderful resource.

The second level had a few openings that overlooked the battlements which made them very good sentry placements. Scout suspected that the Engineer would be making a rush to get up there once he recovered in respawn before the BLU engineer did.

The health pack was in the room farthest from the stairs. As Scout walked towards the entrance he heard a small rustling sound and careful footsteps coming from it, making him feel slightly unnerved. His thoughts quickly raced through the possibilities of what it could be. Perhaps one of his teammates had come up here to catch their breath from the fight, or maybe some scared little animal had gotten stuck up here though he knew it was more than likely to be an enemy spy. He tried to keep his breathing slow and calm and took carefully measured steps as he neared the entrance way so that whatever was in the room, especially a spy, wouldn't be alerted to his presence.

Though he as approached the entrance of the room he was stunned by a rather confusing sight.

There was a figure standing in the room. It was faced away from him and seemed to be timidly peeking out of the opening that overlooked the rest of the battlements. It was draped in a red jacket and wore green headwear which had registered in Scout's mind as Soldier, one of his fellow teammates. Scout immediately felt a wave of relief but that was quickly replaced with apprehension as his demeanor was quite suspicious and was most likely a disguised spy. Scout was about to rush him and take him by surprise but then other things about this character began to register.

As he looked closer, the jacket had no class symbol and the head wear that Scout first assumed was Soldier's helmet, looked to be a filthy green cap. The jacket also seemed to obscure his body, but it seemed to fit loosely on him, and from what he could tell compared to the Soldier he looked so... Small.

He'd never seen this person before in his life.

Scout straightened up, not quite sure what to do. Typically the team usually just killed strangers that showed up on base but mostly all the time they were messengers from the Administrator, and she's not real happy about that. Scout had nothing against the Administrator, but he doubted that it had less to do with her value on human life and more of that most of the time they had small televisions surgically placed in their torsos, and that wasn't exactly cheap. Except this person didn't act like a messenger. It wasn't like one to waltz right up on the battlements, especially when there was a battle going on! People couldn't be that stupid though then again most smart people probably wouldn't agree to have a mini-TV surgically placed inside them.

Scout very quietly took one step into the room. The stranger didn't take notice. He seemed to be wearing shoes that had been worn down to the soles and the laces were almost completely deteriorated. Scout saw a sleeping bag that was unbundled and partially unzipped that had been hastily pushed into the corner, along with a backpack with a couple of canteens attached to it.

A hobo, huh? Scout thought to himself. It wasn't necessarily unheard of wanderers stumbling upon Team Fortress Industries but it was an exceedingly rare occurrence considering that most of their bases were located in the middle of the Badlands, a not so person friendly environment.

He had an idea of what he had to do now. Trespassers were not welcomed. He took a deep breath, almost like he was preparing himself for what he was about to do. He readied his gun and took a couple steps towards the intruder. His back straightened, clearly alerted to Scout's presence, but before he could turn around Scout instinctively pinned him to the wall, drawing out a surprised gasp from the hobo.

"Please, don't hurt me! I- I didn't know!" His voice was a lot higher than Scout expected it to be which forced him to take a moment to take a few breaths because he really didn't want to laugh.

"Sorry, pal," he said trying to hide any amusement that may try and work its way into his voice, "but we take trespassin' very seriously." He took a moment to readjust his arms, which meant not holding down the intruder with as much force, to get the gun in the proper position to take him out. It was at this moment the hobo saw his opportunity and somehow managed the strength to press off of the wall. Before Scout could pin him back down again he spun around and expertly placed his hands on Scout's wrists and before he knew it Scout's face was smooshed up against the wall. "What the -?!"

"Oh shit..." the trespasser could barely whisper once he noticed the gun in Scout's hand. "Okay, okay..." he took deep breaths," Just hear me out! I've been kind of lost for a while and I was getting low on supplies. Last night I saw lights coming from here and I thought someone here could he-" As he talked Scout could feel him going for the gun, making the same mistake as he had before by not applying as much force as he moved his arms. Scout mirrored what the hobo did before and with ease pushed off the wall and had almost sent them both tumbling over each other with how much force he used. He grabbed the intruder's wrist and the stranger caught his hand that was holding the gun.

The trespasser's hands were trembling and he was panting heavily. For a moment, Scout was consumed by his large, brown eyes as he looked into his in search of some mercy. "I'm sorry, but please... I didn't mean to-"

Scout cut him off by driving his foot into his stomach. They both let go of each other as he doubled over in pain, and Scout kicked him again sending him stumbling back until he fell to the ground and hit his head on something. Scout smiled to himself. "I'm really sorry, pally, but there's just certain things we gotta do." He pointed the scatter gun right at the trespasser but as he looked up his smile had quickly disappeared.

When the intruder hit his head, messy, light brown hair had slipped out from beneath his filthy hat and fell down to his shoulders. Scout felt some color come into his cheeks as he could see that the intruder's chest slightly curved out through his loose-fitting jacket and it struck Scout like a fist why his voice was so high. This wasn't a guy...

He stepped closer towards her, with the gun still aimed at her. She didn't even move from where she landed, she was just frozen there. Her whole upper body moved as she breathed. Scout watched her eyes shift between him and the two barrels of the gun, trying to register what was happening, what was about to happen. Her eyes finally locked on his with a frantic flame of life dancing behind them, and he found himself unable to break away from that gaze.

He slowly inched forward, not realizing that his whole body was shaking, and he stopped when he was towering over her and the double barrel was pointed right between her eyes. She held her gaze with him for just another moment until she broke away to look down the barrels. He watched as the flames die way, and with a heavy sigh she looked down to the floor and closed her eyes. Her shoulders sloped downward, almost like every muscle in her body was suddenly relaxed.

Scout breathed in slowly, feeling as cold air fill up his lungs until it got to be so painful he swore they were going to burst. He could hear the words screaming in his mind, "Just pull the trigger! Just pull the damn trigger!" but his hands couldn't do it. The fingertips twitched as his hands resisted the orders of his brain. He felt his fingers getting stiff and the gun was getting heavier in his hands. Did she really just give up?

"Gawd, you're pathetic," he muttered very quietly under his breath as he lowered the gun away from her. She looked back up at him forcing Scout to quickly avert his gaze and roughly bit down on his lower lip. What the heck am I doing? He began to uncomfortably scratch the back of his head. "I- um..." From the corner of his eye, he saw her get up on her feet and she began to make a run for the exit. "Wait! No, no, no, doan go out there!" He holstered the gun and immediately ran up behind her, seizing one of her arms with both his hands before she could run outside the room and presumably get her head blown off. "Listen to me!"

She didn't pull back like he expected her to. He felt her arm tense up as grabbed her, and her body instantly took to an intimidating battle stance. "You tried to shoot me!" She practically yelled exasperated.

Scout frantically held a finger up while shushing her before replacing it on her arm. "I- I did," He said breathlessly, "but the impohtant thing is that I didn't, and I doan think I can say as much for the guys out there." The panicked flame was dancing in her eyes again. "So if you wanna get outta here alive, you gotta listen to me."

The floor beneath them rumbled, followed by the dying screams of the heavy. "OUR CONTROL POINT HAS BEEN CAPTURED!"

The two of them exchanged nervous looks. "And it's about to get very hectic up here."

Her arm became more relaxed in his hands, and her stance had become much less fierce throughout this exchange. With a shaking voice, she uttered, "Okay... What do we do?"

Scout's eyes quickly scanned the room until his eyes fell on a large crate where the top was not fully closed. "Here!" Scout dashed over to the crate and dug his fingers in between the cracks until the lid finally gave. How fortunate it had been emptied a long time ago. "Get in, and try to stay here until I get back," he ordered as scrambled about to grab the things she'd left in the corner and tossing them in the crate. She stumbled toward it timidly and placed her hands on its ledge. It was a fairly large crate; its height went up barely past her waist. Scout begun muttering for her to hurry up as the sounds of war drew closer. She managed to hoist her waist over its ledge and quickly swung her legs over.

"Thank you," she said as she dropped down, "This is- this is very kind."

A slight grin began to work its way onto Scout's face as her gratitude caught him off guard. "Ah well, you know... I'm-" Another explosion rumbled the building and made him remember that this was not the time to be pumping his ego, "Nevah mind." He grabbed the top and begun trying to put it back.

"My name's Lyra by the way," she quickly spoke up, but Scout's mind was too busy panicking about what was going on right outside and how the lid wasn't going on correctly to fully register what she said.

"Uh, Scout," he quickly replied. The lid slipped from its position which led him to have to restart putting it back on.

"Scout..." she said rather thoughtfully to herself. Scout gasped excitedly as the lid finally fit into the ridges. She spoke up a bit, "That's a nice nam-" Scout had slammed the lid on her, sighing in relief that that was over for now.

That's not even my real name, he thought to himself. He grabbed the health pack that he had come up there for, and ran out the door. On the way down the stairs, he passed Engineer, who was carrying a red metallic box.

Scout felt his stomach turn inside of him. A whole world of possibilities and consequences was pouring through his mind. There were small bits of his mind that entertained the ideas that he could gain something from helping her, but those thoughts not only conflicted with his feelings for a certain green-eyed woman. They also did not compare to consequences he may have to face up to. How would his teammates react if they found her? What would happen to his job if the Administrator found out?

He felt his fingers twitch as he took out his scatter gun. He felt an urge to run back up there and just shoot her before this became too much of a problem. But he didn't. He just kept running. Running away from something that he felt certain was going to blow up in his face.

Author's Note: I didn't mean for this chapter to go for so long, but I really hope you guys enjoyed this. I have a clear idea of where I want this story to go, but it's going to take some time for this story to gain enough momentum to get there smoothly. So please! Review! Constructive criticism, advice, and suggestions would really help me grow as a writer and really push this story in the right direction! Thank you so much for reading!