Battle by the Blades

"A plus knife work there. Truly BLUs best merc," the scout called down to Claude from the ledge above. It was a refreshing change in pace to encounter a teammate outside of the luxury of the base. Of course, normally she wouldn't be willing to leave the base either, but it drove her up the wall to be cooped up inside all the time. Eric hopped down the stairs, coming to a stop near the spy. "Anything out of the ordinary down here?"

With his rifle attached to his back, ready for any unpleasant encounters with the enemy should they arise at this time, Gordon sat on the walkway that connected the respawn building to the building housing the RED intelligence. He kept a sharp eye open for any intruders but refrained from shooting anyone immediately especially without backup. He sighed as pulled his rifle out and held it in front of him. There were numerous scratches on the gun, mostly from previous battles and encounters with the enemy.

"Wonder what BLU is up to. They've been rather quiet now." He said with a low voice.

Eric let out a short laugh. "Please. Pass up an opportunity to fuck with them? Obviously you know very little about me." In seconds her feet carried her past the spy and into the entrance facing the REDs side of the battlefield, a pistol already being twirled in one hand. "These RED guys are incompetent enough stopping me when I'm by myself, with the two of us here they'll probably just give up and go back to hate fucking. Or whatever it is they do in their spare time."

Of course, that was a complete lie. Almost every time Eric had tried to steal their intel, she had been killed at least once. And that was when no one was expecting her. Odds were, at least one of their members would be waiting to greet them in the intel room. With a spy handy though, perhaps things could go more in their favor. At least, that's what she hoped. Turning to survey the battlefield, she fingered the trigger of the pistol thoughtfully before commenting to the spy, "yoooou should probably go in first. Y'know, scout the room out, make sure nobody's waiting for us."

Hearing a metallic clang, Claude pears down the lane leading to RED's spawn room. What he sees is a woman in a medical coat and a man toting a sniper rifle. Glad I found them first, he thought Otherwise I'd be a brand new corpse for Christmas, with a nice hole through my head to hang me from the tree.

"Eric it would seem we've got two dashing little playmates just waiting for our attention." Claude exclaimed "Shall we then?" He says in an bestial tone, grinning like a demon fresh out of hell. Without waiting for reply he begins dashing down toward the base. Claude draws his revolver, cloaking en route and making his way around toward the two new enemies.

All the while Zacharie had made himself at home in RED's intelligence room for the day, making regular checks around the perimeter of the building as time went on. The spy found himself in a rather out of the norm defensive strategy that day, he hated it. He stood in the caved-in back entrance, his back to one of the crumbling walls as he watched the main entrance. Zacharie made sure to be ready for the long haul that day, his usual gator skin shoes replaced with slightly less stylish boots and a scarf had been tucked into his coat

With his revolver at the ready he kept a careful ear out for footsteps, gunshots, anything hint that a friend or foe would be near by. More or less he was waiting for Gordon to take a shot, it usually meant that he had spotted someone in the distance. It always gave him ample time to get ready for the encounter if the sniper didn't already pick them off.

Through the sounds of the usual deary weather he swore he could hear footsteps, they were outside and extremely faint. Reflexively he reached for his cloaking device on his wrist and waited.

Claude sprints up the logs and leaps onto the side of RED's Intel room. Claude then leaps down under the small room within seriously close proximity of the Sniper.

He positions himself uncomfortably close to the sniper, his massive height making it near impossible to get around the sniper undetected. In a matter of seconds the makeshift ambush pans out near beautifully. Flipping his knife open in one hand and Revolver in the other, Claude uncloaks pouncing on Gordon, wrapping his knife arm around Gordon's neck and pointing his revolver directly at Fran. "The call us spooks for a reason you know." He finally says, chuckling over the rifleman's shoulder.

Farther away from the action, Achille and Ian were making their own way around the battlefield, the medic trailing slightly behind the sightless Pyro as he made his way along the edge of the battlefield. Achille had had ample time to get a feeling for most of the battlefield before the day so he was confident that he could avoid making a complete fool of himself for the most part. He had opted to keep his hood on for this outing, if only to keep his coughing fits down while he worked. After all, the hood didn't interfere with his hearing all that much so there was little point in not wearing it. Achille could clearly made out the sounds of Ian trudging along behind him, something the standard issue suit would have most likely muffled.

Achille had asked Ian to accompany him for a multitude of reasons aside from his medical abilities. Ian didn't seem to talk all that much so the chances of him distracting Achille were slim, he seemed to have a calm head on his shoulders thus allowing him to make intelligent decisions (something Achille felt Eric lacked), and (probably the biggest reason), Achille felt that Ian was in need of some time in the field with someone who'd been around the block more than once. So to speak. If Achille couldn't shape Ian into a mostly heartless syringe stabbing killing machine than he wasn't sure anyone could.

They had just made their way across a gangplank into the shack on the right side of the actual sawmill part of the compound when Achille stopped to lean against the wall, trying to see if he could pick out any noises of interest nearby. Unfortunately the whirring of the saws made it too difficult for him to tell. Shaking his head he adjusted his grip on the flamethrower he held and turned his head slightly toward where he had heard Ian come to a stop.

"I can't hear anything. Too much noise caused by those goddamn sawblades. Why do we keep them on all the time again? I mean, it's not like we even cut anything with them. It just seems rather arbitra-" He stopped mid sentence, chuckling to himself and scratching the side of his hood to try and reach an itch. "No. Nevermind. Nothing good ever comes of complaining about this shit. Administration always finds out somehow. Let's just move along and find some REDs to deal with. You got any ideas where to check Ian?"