“So Pinkie, you said you could help me find a job?” I asked. It’s been a day of sweet, sweet, relaxation after all that’s happened, and I got around to checking my little quest menu to see what all I had to do lately. Getting a job was one of them, and it reminded me Pinkie had made the offer to help with that. So that’s what I went off to do today. It was easy enough to find Pinkie, I just had to stop by Sugarcube corner and wait for her to meet me.

“I did! I gotta know what you can do first, though.” Pinkie replied.

“I was a good cook back home, I could probably work at a restaurant or something.” I replied with a shrug.

“Maybe you could work at the Red’s Quickburger? It’s a really good restaurant, though most ponies go there for their hayburgers. And sometimes Hamburgers too, but those mostly get served to gryphons.”

“Alright, I’ll check it out. I’ve got nothing against meat. I used to be an omnivore, so I could eat whatever. Will you show me the way?” I said. Pinkie happily nodded.

“Sure! Come on, it’s just down the street.” Pinkie said as she started leading the way. I just followed along, looking around absently now that I didn’t have anything vital to be focusing on. When I got there, though… I started regretting asking Pinkie to help me with a job hunt.

“Oi! Get yer bloody arse in the kitchen, and finish that damn hayburger!” I heard a scottish accent shouting when the door to the place opened. Looking towards the source, I almost could have sworn I was staring at a gryphon version of the damn demoman from TF2. He had the whole eyepatch thing going on, though he wasn’t wearing any explosives. Thankfully.

“Order up!” I heard what sounded like the Scout shout as well, completely ignoring the Demobird. Shooting the voices owner a look, I saw a red pegasus with a baseball cap and mic set on his ear, coming in with a note pad.

“Got new shipment of meat here. Should keep stocked for next week or so.” A russian accent sounded out as a minotaur came in with a big box. He just went on into what I guessed was the freezer.

“Keep your voices down!” An australian voice called. Looking, I found a zebra approaching me. “You’re all scaring the lil sheila over here.” Of course that actually called attention to me.

“Danke, Scope. I vas going to point zat out, too.” At this point, as I turned to the Medic’s voice, I was starting to thing the whole cast of TF2 was here. To my surprise, the Medic was a Thestral.

“That’s right… Didn’t Pinkie say something about a new employee yesterday? It better not be that backstabbing changeling from the other place again…” I heard a slightly muffled voice from by the grill. Probably Pyro.

“Yes… It was a shame our own changeling was reduced to a soulless husk…” a gruff voice said grimly. As I looked at Soldier, the one that spoke, I sensed grief fall over them all as that one guy was mentioned, but only for a second, before it lifted. Soldier was just an earth pony, and still had his hat on, but he definitely looked tough enough to take a rocket to the face.

“Could you close that door there, miss? Kinda hard to keep the Soundproofing on with it open.” I heard the Engineer ask. He was a unicorn, and stood out as the only one without a hat, though he did have a tool belt on him. As I turned to do so numbly, I noticed Pinkie was already gone. She’d left me alone with the TF2 Mercs… I’m gonna get her back for that.

“Much obliged.” the Engineer said with a smile. “Mah name’s Tinker. Mah friends around here are Heavy Load, that minotaur with Delivery, Quick Scope, our zebra working the phones, Fleet Step, our pegasus waiter, Manic Flame, our dragon chef, Crocket Vigil, our head of security, Crimson Mercy, our… butcher, though he does more than that, and finally, Captain Degroot, the owner of this establishment.” Tinker introduced everyone. I blankly waved.

“Ve used to have another. A changeling by ze name of Switchlock, who acted as our intelligence gatherer, to find… trends, and ze like.” Mercy added. I froze up at the name.

“Wait… Switchlock? And Crocket said something about…” I trailed off as I put it all together. I noticed a dragon head peaking out of the kitchen as I thought, and it sent a shiver down my spine.

“Guys… I’m gonna need to know what happened. Because I think I’m in your Spy’s body.” I said before dropping my disguise. Mercy gasped upon seeing what I was.

“Z… Zis is amazing...Your personality is already having a drastic effect on ze host body…” he said as he got closer, examining me. The other mercs were just staring at me, caught somewhere between shock, and confusion. I kind of was too, what with Mercy being all caught up in physical changes rather than the fact that I was a different person in a familiar body.

“I guess you weren’t very close to Switch…?” I muttered as he started running his hooves through my mane and tail… wait, when did it get that long? It felt about medium length. I guess that’s what Mercy was talking about, with the surprised statement…

“Very interesting…” Mercy said, ignoring my prodding question.

“Uh, don’t take that the wrong way, pal. Mercy always puts things like this before anything else.” Fleet said. “But uh… what exactly… happened? And how do you even know our line of work?”

“Well, that answer involves a lot of explanations involving time travel and the multiverse.” I replied.

“Try me. Switch has done a lot of explainin in the past, and if there’s any part of him left in there, you can too. I might not get it, but you can at least try. We got two geniuses here that can catch it all.” Fleet challenged. I rolled my eyes.

“Well alright. Thing is, I’m from another universe. Back home, we’ve got shit tons of advanced video games, and I’ve got one called Team Fortress 2. You guys are the stars of it. Online, multiplayer only, objective based First Person Shooter. Until recently, there’s honestly been nothing else in the market that could compete with it. And a lot of people called it a hat simulator.”

“Pfft, hehe. A hat simulator, good one.” Fleet said with a laugh as he now suddenly was wearing the Bonk Helm… the rest of the crew was wearing different hats too, laughing as well. I was kinda scared when I saw that Manic had on the Pyrovision goggles and ghastly gibus.I blinked though as I felt something on my head too. Looking up, I saw the same gibus on my head… but there was something strange about it I couldn’t quite think of off the top of my head.

“Ooookay….Well then, moving on.” I said, dismissing the hat thing for now. “I also knew about this world from a cartoon that was supposed to be marketed toward little… fillies, but it attracted a lot of adults too. Got a whole fandom and community going.”

“And I take it you were part of that?” Fleet asked accusingly. Proudly, I smirked at him.

“That I was. And knowing what I did thanks to the show and fandom, I helped kick Nightmare Moon’s ass.” I said, tapping my Element. Nightmare scoffed in my head.

Oh please, I nearly killed you. If it weren’t for Batman, I’d have your head. She shot back. I ignored her.

“So yer sayin ya know tha future, lass?” Degroot asked. Then he pointed at Manic, gesturing for him to get back to the stove again. I nodded in response, getting the feeling that this guy was an absolutely epic multitasker. “Ya wouldn’t happen ta know any good opportunities to make some cash, would ya?” he asked with a grin. I was a bit intimidated by that grin.. But I did have a few ideas right on the spot.

“Maybe at some point. The timeline’s a bit screwed up from the original, but there’s still some events you could get into. It could be a while, but I’ll give you a heads up when it gets close.” I said.

“Alright. Fair enough, I supose. Still, we owe you Switch’s story still, don’t we?” Tinker said.

“Yeah, still wondering about that. Especially because the deal I made to get here landed me in this guy’s body.” I replied.

“Ay, it was a grim, bloody tale… It was one of the rare days BLU and RED joined together to fight. Both of our teams had lost our spies, captured for an experiment of some kind. The rest o’ us gathered up to take back our teammates…”

~3rd Person~

It had been a week since any of RED had last seen their teammate Switchlock. Degroot kept the businesses he ran going as best he could, though some of the time he seemed even more drunk than usual. Switch was the main one that kept Degroot from going overboard, so that was the first big tip RED had that he was even missing. The second was when he missed the appointed intel sharing day. Things pretty much went south from there. RED was forced to start searching for their missing teammate, and it was a quick process thanks to Tinker’s ingenuic mind. Tinker managed to track the unique signal Switch’s invis watch gave off to help the team find him, and they found the watch… but without the changeling it was attached to. Strangely, the BLU spy’s watch was there too. Tinker was quick to contact BLU’s engineer.

“BLU, Ah think we have a problem. Our spy’s gone missin, and we jus found his invis watch… Your spy’s watch is here too.” Tinker told them when they picked up.

“...We’re on our way.” the BLU engineer replied. The signal began crackling a bit as someone else picked up the signal.

“Hello? Am I speaking with mercenary groups known as RED and BLU?” A deep, kinda scratchy voice said over the radio. Tinker hesitated out of caution, and that let the BLU Scout answer instead.

“Yeah? What of it?” he asked snappily. Evidently, he didn’t much like the frequency jacker either.

“Good, I was worried I got the frequency wrong. Now, let me tell you a few things. I know where your missing comrades are, and I will tell you where that is, but there is something me, and the organisation I work for needs from you.” The voice said back. That immediately sent both teams into a frenzy, demanding this guy give their spies back. Most assumed that was a ransom, but Scope and the BLU Medic managed to calm their teams. Somehow.

“You might want to clarify what you mean, mate. That there sounded an awful lot like a ransom.” Scope told the mysterious speaker.

“Wait, it did? Sorry for that, no, we didn’t kidnap the Spies, but we are after those who did. There is a group conducting illegal and unethical research, we were gearing up to storm their facility, but the defences there aren’t something you can just go around and it would take us too long to do it by ourselves. We have an operative near the site, I need you to rendezvous with him and raid the facility, once you are inside you will be able to rescue your teammates as well. There really isn’t a reason for us to not work together.” The speaker clarified, which somewhat calmed the teams.

“Ay, ‘tis true. Havin’ our spies back is a good enough reason to fight, but can we expect any… compensation?” Degroot asked. The other teammates chuckled. Good al’ Degroot. Always looking at opportunities for cash. There were a few seconds of silence before the speaker replied.

“...well, there are a lot of very dangerous devices and information in that facility. Too dangerous to exist. Since you will be helping us get it locked away I’m sure there will be some… reward for the services you do. Depending on how much you manage to haul off site, and to us in case we will be unable to take the facility, you will be rewarded accordingly. However it will take a few days to sift through all the stuff, so expect a delay of 2 weeks max. Is that acceptable?” Came the reply, the speaker sounding a bit uncertain, but strangely concerned as well. Degroot grinned.

“Yes, tha’’ll do, mate. Now, can we get a name?” he asked. Tinker was particularly interested to hear that answer.

“I have a few, but you may call me Alpha, I’m sending you coordinates of our operative, get to him and he will work with you on getting inside the facility. I’m also sending you contact information, so you can get in contact with us in the future. Out operative is a green dragon named Hidden Fang. Do you need anything el--crap. I just got a word that something is happening inside the facility, you need to move now, if you want to get there in time!” Was the reply, sounding a bit panicked at the end. The whole team shared a glance, before Fleet gave a single, short reply.

“We’ll be there. Just tell us where.” he said. BLU scout gave a similar reply. Alpha didn’t reply, but a beep on Tinker’s device told them he sent all the information he said he would. A similar beep was heard over from the BLU team a second later.

“So, what happened when you got there?” I asked when Degroot finished that part of the story. My GUI flashed a bit, highlighting “Batman” in the Allies list and added “Alpha” as another alias when they mentioned him.

“Well, we at least got there quick enough. Scope’s truck can be real reliable when you gotta get places quick, especially with Tinker’s new engine.” Fleet replied. Before I could question how the hell a truck existed in Equestria, he continued with a grim frown. “But the minute we got there, things started goin crazy.”

Scope hit the brakes, hard. He had to stop, for the shock of what he saw at the facility. Once he’d stopped, a similar screeching of breaks was heard beside them. Fleet had fallen over and hit his face against the wall, but he was quick to get up and check out what was wrong.

“What the hell is your-” Fleet started to yell, but then he saw what Quick had stopped for. “...WHAT?! Where the hell did they get Grey’s bots!?”

“Did you just say…” Vigil started to ask as he went to look as well. “...Damnit. Where’s Marasmus when you need him?”

“Well I’ll be… Hey boys!” Tinker called out to BLU as everyone got out of their respective team’s trucks.

“Yeah, we see ‘em.” BLU Scout said as he hopped out of the blue truck. He looked radically different from Fleet, mainly due to having a mane. White as snow and tied up in a ponytail.

“We don’t have an upgrade station this time, lads.” Degroot noted as he glared down at the two metalhead snipers guarding the front doors. One of those snipers looked like it was holding a Machina, a weapon that struck the fear of god into the Heavies.

“No respawn either.” Heavy Load added. Mercy dug out a Kritzkreig from the RED truck, doing a quick maintenance check on it before turning to the others.

“Does everyone have a Dead Drop?” he asked, holding up his own. BLU Scout nodded.

“Yeah, I thought ahead, made sure to grab ‘em as I went out. I knew we were going without Respawn.” he replied.

“Good thinkin, Blur. We got ours too.” Fleet said.

“Where’s Fang?” Manic asked, looking around for him.

“Right behind you.” said dragon spoke, a shrub nearby suddenly fell apart, showing that it was just a collection of branches being held together by him. He was green, just the right shade to blend in with the bushes. He was wearing a belt with pouches and with what looked like a button in the front, on his head was a helmet with a visor protecting his eyes and his hands were protected by fingerless gauntlets with some kind of a gem on the top side. “So you are mercenaries that I’m supposed to be working with?” The two teams shared a quick look, before Mercy stepped up to answer.

“That’s correct, freund. Though zis could prove to be very difficult…” Mercy said, looking back down at the mechanical snipers.

“Good thing I brought my Hitman’s Heatmaker.” BLU’s Sniper said. “No offense, I know how much you love the Huntsman and Classic, Scope, but they won’t be good for gettin us in. Not without calling attention to us.” Scope sighed, before rolling his eyes and gesturing for the other Sniper to take the shot.

“Whatever your plan on getting us in is, you better act quick.” Fang interjected and pulled out a beeping device. “There is some kind of energy buildup in there, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to let it do what it’s supposed to.”

“Agreed…” Both engineers replied as the BLU sniper got into position. In quick succession of each other, he shot both of them in the head. However, as soon as they were both down, an alarm system sounded, shocking the mercs.

“Ach! NOW what?!” Degroot shouted as the front doors locked down.

“How about we get some more gun?” BLU Engineer said with a smirk as he held his Jag. “Or in this case, more bomb.” he added, pointing the wrench at the BLU Demoman’s sticky launcher. Tinker smirked as well.

“Mighty fine idea. Let’s do it.” he said. The owner of the sticky launcher grinned as well, handing it over.

“Only ever did this once before. This is going to be a blast…” Degroot scoffed.

“Oh, fine. You lads go ahead and blow it up, Tavish… but me an my Zatoichi’ll get the most kills ya know.” Degroot replied, hoisting said weapon with the Charg n’ Targe in his other tallon.

“I’m guessing it was pretty tough to get through.” I said. Mercy nodded.

“Ya, it was indeed. Zhe dumkopfs had so many Soldier and Demo bots… it was a nightmare just keeping everyone alive.” Mercy replied. “I had to turn off zhe Übercharge Limiter at one point. zhat left my Kritzkreig basically damaged for the rest of the mission…”

“How damaged?” I asked, a little worried. The Kritz was a good medigun. Losing it altogether would mean one less healer for the team for that mission. Though I knew the worry was unjustified, because they stood here before me now.

“No more Übercharge. It could still heal, but I wouldn’t be able to Charge anyone.” he replied. I sighed in a little relief.

“For my part, I brought the Pain Train.” Vigil continued. “I had a feeling we would be capturing a point at some point, and I turned out to be right. The Black Box saw very much action that day as well.”

“Go Go Go!” Vigil shouted as they entered the first main room. The engineers were in back, picking up scraps the robots left as the two soldiers charged at the front lines. Tavish and Degroot were laying waste to any of the mele classed robots that got too close, working surprisingly well together, especially at one moment when Tavish whipped out his Claidheamh Mor out and threw it like a javelin through a Knightbot’s head that was about to take Degroot’s.

Vigil smirked upon seeing a capture point. Scope fired an arrow ahead at a Brass Beast bot standing on the point, freeing it up for capture. “Nice shot, soldier.” he complimented briefly before pulling out the Pain Train and rushing to the point. With the BLU Soldier covering him, he made it to the point with the two scouts, and helped the two capture the point.

“Hey wait… how does the point capturing thing even work? I always passed it off as video game stuff in my world, but…” I asked, interrupting the story a bit.

“Ah, well that’s a bit complicated… See, all of us always carry a little hacking tool, works automatically whenever we get close to something it can work on. Like a terminal for instance. My buildings are protected by a firewall, so it wouldn’t work on them, but you get my point.”

“Snrk…” I chuckled at the pun, and Tinker smiled.

“That’s refreshing… Switch always hated puns.” Tinker said with a chuckle.

“That’s interesting… anyway, carry on?” I prompted.

“Gearbox, let’s get a Dual Sentry up!” Tinker shouted as the point started capping. Tinker put away his Widowmaker real quick as he set up his part of the sentry, though seeing a scoutbot’s legs nearby, it gave him an idea. “Gear, I’ve got an idea. Keep the sentry up.” Tinker said as he took the legs and started working with them.

“You got it, Tink.” Gearbox replied, setting down his Pompson to work on the sentry. As they worked, the Pyros stood ready near them, Manic wearing the Phlogistinator attachment over his muzzle and wielding a Powerjack in his claws.

“Men, watch your backs. You have spybots on the loose.” the team heard on their coms. The heavies were quick to look around and check their team real quick. Thankfully, every member was accounted for… for now.

“Pyro! Watch entrance!” Heavy Load shouted as he revved up his Tomislav, watching one himself. The BLU Pyro nodded and ran over to one of the entrances with an Axtinguisher ready, and a flame broiling in his mouth.

“ALERT! SECTOR A SECURITY BREACHED! SECURITY PROTOCOL FOR SECTOR A TERMINATED!” A voice came in on the speakers. “A SUICIDER BOT HAS BEEN DEPLOYED.” In the next moment, they all heard the familiar ticking and beeping of a Sentry Buster. The team looked back and saw the engineers were only half done with what they each were building, which was looking increasingly like a walking sentry. Mercy and the BLU Medic quickly got to work.

“Shoot zhe bomb!” Mercy called out as he aimed his medigun at Vigil. The two set off, but the BLU Medic was still working on his own Ubercharge, using the original Medigun.

“Oh, crap! That thing’s got a frikin MINI NUKE!” Blur said when he caught a peek at it. “We gotta stop that thing before it blows!” he shouted as he took a few pot shots at it. Absolutely nothing happened to it though.

“Charge me, Doc!” Vigil called as he took aim at its legs. Mercy obliged, shouting a battle cry in german as the Kritz did its work. However, even the crit rockets hardly did any damage. But Mercy noted they at least worked… An idea formed in his head as he switched the medigun to another setting.

“I’m overclocking zhe Über!”

Vigil felt something different happen as the overclock took effect, and as he fired, he was amazed. Rockets flew from his Black Box as if he was using the Air Strike with the parachute, and yet he wasn’t even reloading. However, that proved effective and necessary when the first five overclocked crockets only left a small dent in the legs.

“Grace! Is your Uber ready?” Mercy shouted back.

“Nein!” the other medic replied. “I’m only at 80%!”

“Ve need it faster!” Mercy warned. Another ten rockets, and the bot was starting to limp. Metal was starting to crunch as Vigil kept up the assault.

“Mercy, is this overclock even safe?!” Vigil asked as more rockets rained from his Black Box.

“Probably not!” Mercy replied. “But ve need everything ve have!” Finally the bot’s legs broke under it thanks to the barrage. Mercy quickly cut off the Uber, and took his medibeam’s pack off to check it.

“Nuke bot down!” Vigil announced. “Tinker! Gearbox! Shut it down!” The engineers quickly got to work together, rushing to the downed bomb. They backed off when it started threatening to go off though, and thankfully it worked to stop it.

“We need it blind!” he called out.

“Heads up!” Scope said, letting everyone know he was using Jarate.The sounds of the bot shorting out came soon after, and the engineers started their work.

“...Wow. I am utterly speechless.” I muttered. “And you know what? We’ve been focusing on the mission, rather than what happened to Switch. You guys have a knack for theatrics, or are you just trying to stall so you don’t hit the bad memories so soon?”

“Theatrics, I guess.” Fleet replied. “Bad memories ain’t so bad since Switch is… kinda back.” I chuckled and rolled my eyes.

“Heh, alright then. So, what exactly happened to Switch? Can we get to the part where you found him?” I asked.

“When we captured final point, mission started falling apart. Had to split up for intelligence, and rescue.” Heavy said, with a sad shake of his head. “BLU went to take intel, while we went to save spies.”

The path to the holding cells was surprisingly linear. It was also surprisingly easy, considering all they had to do was group up behind Heavy and let him borrow Degroot’s shield for a very effective charge. The corridors were that small, and Heavy could easily use a broken off iron door as a bullet shield as he charged. But when they got there, Switchlock, and the BLU spy, Swapkey, had some pretty bad news for them. The first bit of it was that Switch wasn’t even awake. He was knocked out cold, visibly starved. The second…

“Oh thank Celestia you’re here! ...Never thought I’d be so happy to see RED’s mercs… Still, it’s good you’re here. Any longer, and there’d be nothing left of Switch’s soul.” Swap said.

“What? How could this happen?” Heavy asked.

“They’ve been observing our souls while we change… but since Switch cannot feed here, for whatever reason, he’s been chosen to be observed more since he’s dying anyway. They don’t even know how to look at our souls without taking a chunk…”

“...I will kell them all.” Heavy vowed.

“Amen to that, brother.” Vigil agreed. “Tinker, can you get these doors open?”

“Observing...souls?” I asked hesitantly. Tinker nodded solemnly.

“And that wasn’t the worst thing they were doing. BLU managed to get all the intel back to Celestia’s agents, so they’d know more than we do… but we did find out that they were trying to find a way of transferring one’s soul into somewhere else.” I felt nauseated from that revelation. Nightmare retched in my head, clearly feeling as sick as I did.

“I… I guess I didn’t make a deal to get here… did I…?” It was just all too confusing. I just had to question my memory. I remembered making a deal to get here… but was it real? Hell, could it even be possible that I was never human? At this point, I was starting to think anything might be possible.

“Who knows what happened on your end? Still, things went pretty bad for us after ah got the doors open. Though Heavy made good on his promise, it wasted too much time.” Tinker said.

All across the facility, things had started exploding in the middle of Heavy’s killing spree, evidently some sort of self destruct sequence. Degroot had started carrying Switch, but then Fang showed up at a moment, seemingly appearing from nowhere in a tight locker space, and actually helped carry the unconscious changeling out.

“They’ve started up the Spectral Manipulator. If we don’t get out now, all our souls could be ripped out in an instant.” Fang said as the RED team lead the way.

“Where’s BLU?” Swap asked.

“They are using a different path than we do. There was so much stuff to collect, it had to be put on a cart to move it, so BLU are escorting it to the train exit.” Fang informed. “That’s also where this path is headed, so we’ll all meet up at the exit.”

However, when they all met up at the exit, they found the doors to be locked tight. BLU team was completely stuck there, unable to move forward.

“Locked in? Not for much longer. Medic, Switch needs to be woken up. He and I shall go and hack into the systems to get this door open. We’ll be needing our Dead Ringers.” Right after Swap declared that, both medics used their mediguns on Switch. The holes in his legs closed up after a bit, and soon enough, he began stirring.

“WARNING: 3 MINUTES TO SELF DESTRUCT.” a computerized voice called out. That woke Switch up in a hurry.

“WHAT?! ...Oh, merde…” Switch muttered in horror when he realized what was going on. He was quickly pulled out of his thoughts when he was presented a Dead Ringer by a black hoof.

“You will be needing this.” Swap said, determination ringing from his voice. Switch was taken aback by that, but took the Dead Ringer. “Come. Let us hack the system.”

“Je suis avec toi (I am with you), my friend.” Switch replied after a pause, sharing in the determination. With that said, the two of them set off.

“Hey, you two! I’ll meet up with you along the way!” Fang shouted after the two Spies, before suddenly diving into the nearest ventilation shaft, somehow squeezing into a space too small for him to normally fit.

However, when they finally returned, the three that had gone were sprinting back at speeds Fleet and Blur found astounding. Then, an explosion was heard deep in the facility.

“Shit!” Fang acted fast, grabbing Swap since he was running next to him and giving him his belt, he threw him fast at the waiting teams. “Bunch up together and hit the button!” he yelled as a visible wall of energy appeared behind him.

Switch and Fang sprinted as fast as they could, but it was clear they couldn’t make it in time, neither were they close enough for Fang to throw Switch as he did with Swap. Fang turned around and raised his left arm, the gem in his gauntlet glowed and a shield-wall appeared in front of him, facing the energy wave. The shield held for a few seconds before it started cracking.

“I said hit that button!” Fang yelled again, as Swap was just picking himself from the ground. Switch was still too far when the shield broke and the energy passed over Fang, who immediately slumped to the ground like a puppet with it’s strings cut. Seeing Swap was not going to press the button on Fang’s belt, Switch lit his horn and sent a blast straight at it.

The belt lit up and a rather large bubble-shield raised around the teams, cutting Switch off either way. Switch raised his hoof to salute his team.

“Farewell. It has been an honor working with you all.” He said as he accepted his fate. After he was too subjected to the same thing as Fang was, the energy hit the second shield, hard. It too started cracking after a few seconds, but before it could break the energy dissipated.

“Switch…” Manic muttered.

“Damn… that was really emotional…” I muttered in awe. Degroot nodded.

“Ay… when we got back home, we all spent our time greifin for im. His soul… It was gone. No trace of it left.” he said. “We took his body and brought it to the Everfree to bury it, but… well, embarrassingly, we had to get out of there before we could be turned ta stone by a bloody cockatrice.”

“Though uh… I s’pose it was a good thing, considering how ya turned up now.” Scope said sheepishly.

“... How come you had to run from a cockatrice?!” I asked in disbelief.

“I don’t fuckin’ know las. It was some kind of bloody super cockatrice or somethin, not even my loch’n load could kill the bloody thing!” Degroot snapped.

“... So, what? We have an übercharged cockatrice running around the forest?” I asked after thinking on it, coming up with reasons the thing would be invulnerable. Mercy blinked, and facehoofed.

“Dumkopf… I knew I shouldn’t have just tossed that broken Uber Core into the forest…” Mercy muttered. That was followed by a facehoof/palm from EVERYONE present, including Nightmare. In the back of my mind, the little muse that helped me as an author was laughing his ass off. Who knew the Medic could be this stupid? At least he wasn’t like the one from Rise of the Epic Scout. What a nightmare that would have been.

At that moment, I just noticed that somehow, the crew had been keeping the restaurant going even as they told about what happened to Switch. Off to the side where Fleet was usually leaning in, I noticed a small, dark grey unicorn filly with BonBon ordering something from Vigil. I took a moment to appreciate the filly’s grumpy face, since I was in need of something to uplift my spirits. I spared her a chuckle though, not wanting her to feel any worse.

“Say, since you’re takin’ Switch’s place in more than one way, do ya think ya could head over ta BLU’s place in Canterlot, ‘n let them know? They might be our rivals, but they should know what happened.” Degroot asked me. Smiling, I gave him a salute.

“Aye aye, captain.” I said with a smile. Figured I should lighten the mood however I could. Degroot smiled back at me, apparently liking my attitude.

“Hah! I like the lass, she got a better sense o’ humor than the ol’ bug ever did.” he complimented with a smile. I giggled at the praise, before putting my standard disguise back on.

“Alright, I’ll head out then.” I let them know before turning and heading out. Once I was gone, they all returned to their positions in the restaurant, running it as usual. Still kinda surprised a merc group would be running a restaurant. With a drunkard at the head....

Just before the door closed though, I heard Degroot shouting something particular. “Ka-BEEEWWWM!” Shortly, it was followed by an explosion of some kind, but the noise was canceled the second that door clicked shut. I stood stunned for a second… before just walking away with wide eyes. I ignored Diamond Tiara laughing at me as I passed her, and just kept walking.

Author's Notes:

Yeah, kinda skipping the clop chapter for now. Apparently my more regular co-author is a bit squeemish averse to it... But don't worry, it'll come out sometime.

Here's the team's names here in case you missed anything. I know I missed some of them.

RED

Scout: Fleet Step; Pegasus

Soldier: Crocket Vigil; Earth

Pyro: Manic Flame; Dragon

Demo: Captain Degroot; Gryphon

Heavy: Heavy Load; Minotaur

Engi: Tinker; Unicorn

Medic: Crimson Mercy; Thestral

Sniper: Quick Scope; Zebra

Spy: Switchlock Summer; Changeling

BLU

Scout: Blur

Soldier: Direct Charge

Pyro: Inferno

Demo: Captain Tavish

Heavy: Power Lift

Engi: Gearbox

Medic: Saving Grace

Sniper: Steady Aim

Spy: Swapkey