Mannhattan; the former trading hub of Reliable Excavation Demolition's resources and the main source of its income during the pre-merc days. Now it was a rotting corpse, with towers of rusting crates with RED scrawled all over them as a reminder of who came before. Silence loomed over the area, as the factory was shut down many years ago, leaving this place devoid of life.

Until now, that is. Starlight, Sunset and Spy were heading towards the specified meeting point in order to formulate a plan with the remainder of BLU. For some reason, communications with the other group were down and as Engineer was there with them, couldn't be fixed.

"Honestly," Starlight noted, looking around the decrepit ruins. "this place could use a bit of a clean. Looks like this hasn't seen any action in years... Which leads to the further question of why?"

"This was an important strategic location for RED back before the days of throwing mercs at BLU," Spy explained, a cigarette dangling from his mouth as he spoke. "It would only make sense that Grey Mann and his army would take this back in order to produce robots at a faster pace."

"Makes sense," Sunset interjected, "seems that these robots are powered by money. I took a few bundles of notes from the ones I killed and they are very much the universal currency of the Great British Pound, according to Solider anyway.(1)" She gave Starlight some bills with a woman's face on them. "So by taking back this financial stronghold, they'd be able to create even more robots in order to overwhelm us, and possibly Mann Co too."

Starlight inspected the notes. They seemed to be legitimate, which raised the question of why in the first place. Before she could ask, however, they arrived at a strange building on the outskirts on Mannhattan.

"Upgrade?" Starlight questioned aloud, glancing at the weaponry inside.

Spy smiled deviously. "Of course, how else would we use all of this money? Go on, see what you can get."

Starlight walked forward and sat down on one of the many stools available, before a menu descended from somewhere and offered her a variety of choices.

All Out Offense

Jill of All Trades

Sideline Supporter

"Hmm, I've never been offered this before," Spy noted, before sitting down next to her.(2) "Must be because you've never become a specialist in anything. Up to you, I guess." he noted, before looking at his own menu and picking some options.

"Personally I'm going for Sideline Supporter," Sunset casually mentioned from Starlight's left. "Just feels right, you know?" before a Medigun which had been painted to suit Sunset's colour scheme was pulled out from the other side of the counter and given to her, along with a crossbow and a strange looking bonesaw. It also came with a free medicinal coat.

Starlight shrugged. "Guess I'll go for Offense?" before picking the option. Before she knew it, she was gently shoved to the floor by the automated options giving her a rocket launcher, very similar to Solider's. However, this was simply painted in a very candy-esque aesthetic, rather than being painted for Starlight's colour scheme. To compensate however, it did have a bit of a sheen to it.

The young partially mechanized woman pulled herself off of the ground, letting the rocket launcher sit naturally on her right shoulder. It seemed to be made for the right handed person too, which was semi-convenient.

"Guess this'll do." Starlight muttered, before the automated machine threw a shotgun at her, smacking her in the stomach and knocking her over again. Not long after she was thrown a frying pan too.

"This has got to be some sort of joke."

Some time later, the trio of mercenaries headed down the deserted depot to meet up with the remaining members of BLU. Scout, Demoman and Pyro were all sitting around, doing nothing.

"So that's how I saved Boston from Zilla!" Scout finished to his very bored looking audience. Whether this was due to repetition or poor storytelling wasn't exactly clear. Hearing the steps of his friends, Scout turned to face them, his helmet straps dangling freely. "Oh hey, Glims! The other chick!... Spy."

"Scout." Spy noted with a hint of malice as he sat down on a crate. "So, we all know what the plan is?"

The six mercenaries nodded, leaving the floor open to another topic. "Aye, so I tried contacting the rest of BLU... They're not comin' in." Demoman noted sadly. "Do ya think-"

"Yes." Spy bluntly stated. "We all knew that there was risk involved with becoming mercenaries. This just means we fight harder, until our last breath."

A resounding cheer came from the remaining mercenaries, encouraged by their fallen comrades to fight on. Sunset meanwhile, decided to pull out her phone and send a message out, the slightest murmurs of worry crossing her face.

Twilight Sparkle carefully examined her notes. Limited as they were, the technology that Starlight had on her arm was fascinating and far more advanced than anything that had ever been in her own world. She could single-handedly advance robotic prosthetic technology by years! Wiping her brow, she frowned, however. She couldn't exactly say that it was acquired from another world. That talk leads to never being seen again, or just exiled from scientific communities for being crazy. Building these notes to make her findings look legitimate was proving to be a hassle, though.

A vibrating sensation shook her from her contemplation. She had left her phone in her pocket. Probably a good thing, considering the circumstances. Taking a look at it, it provided a start contrast to the dimly lit shed turned science lab. (3)

Direct Message - Sunshine#2661

Sunshine: Hey, how's the science going?

Sparkplug: Good. Forging scientific discoveries feels a bit wrong, though.

Sunshine: It's more reverse engineering. Anyway, I'd hurry up a bit and start contacting the girls. Seems like most of BLU got wiped out in Coaltown.

Sparkplug: Oh. That's terrible.

Sunshine: We'll have time to mourn later. Now come on, let's make sure nobody else dies on our watch.

Sparkplug: Alright. But what about the other girl?

Sunshine: Just make up an excuse about extra credit. I can't afford her knowing about this when I'm not even here.

Sparkplug: Duly noted. See you on the other side, Sunset.

Swiftly getting up, Twilight grabbed her backpack and ran out of the door. The rest of the girls were still in school anyway, so meeting up by the statue would be a lot less painless.

Still though, she had some worries about her. Keeping secrets from people was never a good thing, but Sunset insisted on keeping this matter private until it was done. Hopefully this wouldn't cause issue in the future.

(1) Due to some political turmoil and extremely outdated but not voided contracts, England ended up taking ownership of Australia after the discovery of Australium, singlehandedly making them the sole economic force in both the European and the Australian region.

(2) Because of not having any specific skills, the Upgrade Station had no idea what to do with them and gave them some options.

(3) It was either this, or being sent to a boarding school. After the last 3 catastrophic failures, the Sparkle family decided that the shed was a worthy sacrifice for science.

Author's Notes:

Oooh, intrigue! Who is this other girl? Will BLU fight until the last man? WILL SPARKPLUG FORGE SCIENCE FOR SCIENCE?

Maybe.