Author's Note

Just a quick little TF2/MLP story - Might revisit this from time to time

Happy New Year

Fragments: Fortress

Scout and Rainbow Dash ran side-by-side through the battlefield. All around them, their teammates were providing covering fire. Scout felt the Medic’s Medigun beam touch him and he shot a thankful look at the doctor as they ran by.

Scout saw the telltale sign of a sniper rifle’s laser dot and he leaped to the side, wrapping an arm around Rainbow Dash as he knocked her out of the line of fire. At her angry look, he pointed to the place where she had been flying, and her rose-colored eyes widened at the sight of the bullet hole.

Dash smiled at Scout and they both turned to contemplate how they were going to get past the Sniper.

Scout motioned for his teammates to fall back and protect the intelligence. If there was a Sniper here, that probably meant the other team was going to make a break for the intel.

“Alright, what do you think?” Scout asked. The cyan-coated mare tapped a hoof against her chin. Her wings started flapping and Scout quickly pulled her down before her head rose above their cover. “Careful!”

She grinned sheepishly and sat down. “Well…hm…Sniper, eh?” she gazed around and then her grin widened. “Did you bring your Bonk Punch?”

Scout dug around in his knapsack and pulled out a can of the radioactive drink. “There’s not a lot left, unfortunately.” Dash carefully poked her head out to the side, since the Sniper was covering the other side of the pathway.

“Alright; I think I can fly up to him and distract him for a moment. Do you think you could take him out while he’s focused on me?”

Scout quickly poked his head out and looked up at where the Sniper was positioned. Idiot was still scanning the other side of the path.

“Oh, yeah, definitely,” he said with a nod. Dash took the drink and gave him a salute.

She drank the can and flew out from behind cover. As she did, Scout waited a heartbeat before following her. He ran towards a pile of discarded crates, jumped up then in a blur of movement then leaped towards the Sniper, his bat cocked back to deliver the mother of all homeruns to the Sniper’s face.

As he did so, his eyes caught sight of a body on the ground below the Sniper.

“Whoa, Dash, abort! Friendly!” he called out, flailing and crashing into the Sniper. They collapsed in a heap and Scout quickly got up and pulled the Sniper to his feet. “Sorry, Spy; thought you were someone else.”

The Sniper sighed and lifted a gloved hand to his face. His entire body shimmered and a thin man in a snappy striped suit replaced the Outdoorsman. “Just meant I was doing my job well, Scout. Nice idea using Bonk to draw attention away from the real threat.”

Scout nodded and looked around. “Where’s Rarity? I thought she was with you.”

Spy arched an eyebrow and shook his head. “She’s harassing the enemy team at the moment. It’s never wise to have two Spies working together. We work better alone, since it makes it all that more confusing to the enemy. Where’s Dash?”

“Here!” The rainbow-maned daredevil hovered into view, reloading her modified Scattergun. “There was a Pyro lurking around,” she grumbled, flicking her tail, which was smoking.

We have secured the enemy intelligence; RED Team wins the round

The voice echoed from various speakers around them and Scout grinned. “Aw, yeah; man that was fun! Time to go hang out with the others and BLU Team’s buying!” he said, looking at the Spy. “You coming?”

Spy almost looked like he was about to decline, but then said, “Sure, why not. It’s been a long day…”

Chatting about their match, they made their way to the bar.

-

“…and then Soldier saw the sticky bombs at his feet, but it was too late!” Demoman said as he gesticulated broadly, nearly knocking Pyro into Pyro’s soup. Nobody knew why Pyro ordered the soup. Nobody questioned the Pyro.

“You got lucky with that Crit Sticky,” Soldier said with a grin as he poured another cup of foul-smelling coffee. Demoman laughed and patted him on the shoulder.

Sitting off in the corner, Engineer strummed his guitar as he watched his teammates banter. They had adapted well to life in Equestria after being sent here after Soldier angered Merasmus yet again. The first time they had been sent here they had enjoyed it so much that Engineer had Merasmus enchant a teleporter that would take them there whenever they wanted.

After Gray Mann had bought Mann Co, from Saxton Hale, the Mercenaries had been out of a job. Not pleased with being pawns in some grand game between the Administrator and Saxton Hale, the Mercs had packed their things and moved to Equestria.

The sudden appearance of eight humans and a Pyro from another dimension had startled the residents of Equestria. After learning of who and what they were, Princess Celestia had given the Mercs free reign over the Badlands. They had surprised everypony by proceeding to build a mind-blowing sprawl of buildings that ran along a complicated series of tracks, which allowed the Mercs to re-arrange the land so that they could play their games any way they wanted.

Engineer and Medic had been intrigued by the natives’ use of magic and had worked with several unicorns in enchanting everything so that in case it got damaged, it fixed itself.

There had been talk about incorporating magic into their games; similar to how Merasmus created the spellbooks that allowed the Mercs to use magic during Full Moons, but Medic advised against it due to not having enough knowledge about Equestrian magic to be sure it wouldn’t affect them permanently. None of the Mercs were interested in being turned into ponies or something worse by a spell, so they eventually scrapped the idea.

There were cameras throughout the map that allowed pony viewers to watch the games and soon there was a betting scene set up.

The Respawn system that allowed the Mercs to be killed without fear of permanent death had confused many ponies and even the Mercs didn’t fully understand it; but it made their games all the more fun and nobody questioned it.

Over time, a few residents had approached the Mercs, curious about their games and wanting to play as well.

Rainbow Dash functioned as a Scout. She was the only one who could keep up with him when he really got moving and they worked well with each other.

Spike functioned as a Soldier. He had even gotten Twilight to enchant him so that he looked more like his grown-up self whenever he played.

Pinkie Pie functioned as a Pyro. The two were often seen working together both on and off the playing field and Pyro seemed fond of the pink party pony.

Applejack functioned as an Engineer. She found his buildings fascinating and the two often talked about complicated mechanical things that nobody else understood.

Big Mac functioned as a Heavy. They were both soft-spoken and a lot wiser than they appeared.

Zecora functioned as a Demo. No one was sure why the two got along so well; most attributed it to the fact Zecora was usually the odd one out, or it might have had something to do with her many brews that the Demo helped concoct.

Fluttershy functioned as a Medic. She wasn’t very good at direct combat, but she put her heart into her work to keep her teammates alive.

Twilight Sparkle functioned as a Sniper. She had surprisingly keen eyes and an uncanny ability to predict the movements of her opponents. She was absolutely deadly at long-range, but when someone got close to her she usually panicked and ended up in respawn.

Rarity functioned as a Spy. When Rarity played, she was like a completely different pony. She was a superb actress and she could pull off a very convincing disguise.

The recent match had pitched Scout, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Spy, Twilight, Pinkie, Zecora, Heavy and Medic against everyone else.

It was a good way to blow off some steam after a hard day and after a match, everyone went out to wind down and go over what had happened.

“I heard Celestia lost some bits today,” Rarity said as she sipped at a small glass of cider.

“Apparently she was betting on BLU for once, seeing as how they won the last…three matches, wasn’t it?” Applejack asked, looking at Spy, who shook his head.

“Last two matches and there was one stalemate,” he replied as he took a drag on his cigarette. Twilight’s horn glowed as she instinctively broke down the smoke before it be inhaled by anyone else.

Spy then proceeded to blow out a complicated series of smoke shapes that included Twilight’s Cutie Mark, Demoman’s Eyelander and Pyro’s Balloonicorn, much to the amusement of the other mercs and jaw drops of the ponies.

“Well, my little ponies, here’s to many more matches in the future and friendship and harmony for all,” Soldier said, raising his mug. Everyone mirrored the toast with the exception of Pyro, who lifted its soup to show that it had somehow managed to drain the liquid from the bowl.

Nobody questioned it.