Radioactive - Chapter 8

A/N. I MIGHT be starting a CATS the Musical fanfic too. No promises. CATS is a kind of on-off thing for me so I might lose interest so… no promises. Also, check out my Borderlands fanfics, 10 Days and the sequel Missing Piece (which is a collab with Chocolateypony, by the way).

DISCLAIMER: If you don’t like reading people’s spins on the Pyro under his mask, SKIP THIS CHAPTER.

And did I put the disclaimer last chapter? Yes? No? I’m too lazy to check/update.
Horst and Schnaps (who didn’t show up last chapter) belong to Derwen on DeviantArt (CHECK HER OUT. SHE IS AMAZING.)
TF2 belongs to Valve
Terri belongs to me. No stealing any of the above.


Arena was hard. A lot harder than expected. In normal games she could take risks and just Respawn if needed but here, with the knowledge that the dead didn’t come back till the game was over, it really drove her to her Survival Instinct. She didn’t want to be the first to die. At least both teams were together, now all attacking the Saxtoner, Horseless Headless Horsemann. The violent pumpkin-headed warrior chased them with his giant axe, laughing maniacally.

There was only two ways to go down with this game: Kill the Saxtoner or get killed.

Arena Lumberyard wasn’t the best of maps to play Saxtoner on, with most of the teams crowding on a rooftop with sentries everywhere. Terri camped up on the roof next to a dispenser, an arrow slack, but she herself was wary of the Horseless Headless Horsemann. She hadn’t seen it kill anyone yet, though the size of that axe told her the process probably wasn’t very pleasant.

Out of her own morbid cruelty, Admin had made the Saxtoner less lethal, so it’d take at least two hits to kill someone. That was worse yet better for the mercenaries. They’d have a higher shot at survival but they would suffer.

Already the BLU Scout had come crawling without a leg back to Horst, and a second time the RED Medic had to go down to find Heavy, who had returned armless. “Jesus,” Terri breathed, drawing her bow as the creepy freak ran by, chasing Scout around. Pyro crouched next to her, holding his flare gun out.

“Mmph hmm hpphmmh!” Pyro said, firing the flare gun. The flare hit the ground just next to the Horsemann. “C’mon, Pyrocracker,” Terri breathed, drawing another arrow. The arsonist fired again, this time hitting the Saxtoner in the foot. Angry, it turned it’s grinning pumpkin head towards them up on the roof. “Hmmh!” Pyro cried, grabbing Terri by the arm and yanking her aside as it leapt up onto the roof.

Instantly Engineer panicked, the sentry doing all it could to fend itself, while Engineer grabbed his Dispenser and ran. The rooftop exploded in action, anyone who was up on it leaping onto the ground and running.

Pyro dragged Terri into a shed on the opposite side of the map, slamming the door shut and sinking to the ground. “Hmhh huuh!” he snorted. Terri felt round the walls. “Hey, firecracker, mind making some light?” she asked.

Pyro stared at her for a second through blanket eye sockets, then opened a palm, a small ball of energy forming in his palm. He closed his fist, finger by finger, and picked up a stick on the ground. With a small puff of fire from the tip of Pyro’s index finger, the stick lit up, becoming a small torch. He handed it over to her.

Terri watched with amazement, suddenly aware of where her hands lay. She kept them on her lap. “Whoa… you know magic?” she asked. Pyro nodded, then pointed a finger at her. “Hmm hmmph?” It sounded vaguely like “Can you?”. Terri wasn’t sure if she should tell the firebug about her little ability, then she nodded too.

“Yeah, I can.” Pyro took back the little burning branch as Terri sifted for something metal on the ground. “Eh… there’s nothing that’s made of metal here, and I don’t wanna damage your flamethrower,” she sighed, leaning back. Pyro stroked the flamethrower, when suddenly, light exploded in the little shed as the Horsemann ripped open the roof of the small hut.

“Shit,” Terri hissed, leaping aside and making a run for it. Pyro followed her. “Split up!” she cried, turning away from Pyro. Behind her, the storming of the freak didn’t fade. It just got louder and louder as he chased her, slowly catching up, raising his axe.

Pyro heard the shriek on the other side of the map. He was the last one standing. Raising his flamethrower, he let the Horsemann advanced on him. He squeezed the trigger, spraying fire at the Headless warrior before he went down too in glorious flames.

Terri opened her eyes in Respawn. She was lying on the floor, her back propped up against the bench. Everyone else (which was pretty much her entire team) was also just getting up from death. Oh, the joys of technology.

It was around three in the afternoon when the team left Respawn to return to their own forts. Not a reasonable time to go out to see Horst or Pyro, not that it was ever reasonable to see Pyro. She left her bow and kukri on her bed, heading to the arsonist’s door.

She paused outside the door. It was damaged, dark patches of wood where fire had blazed and deep incisions where Pyro had smashed his axe into before. Creepy as hell, but nonetheless she knocked on the door.

“Mmhhmm hmm,” Pyro called from inside. Terri opened the door with her arm, not wanting to destroy anything that belonged to the Pyromaniac. Inside was bright and colourful, drawings of unicorns and rainbows and balloons littering the floors and decorating the walls. It looked like possibly the exact opposite of Spy’s room.

“Wow… that’s nice,” Terri said, wandering in. Pyro sat on the bed, decorated with fluffy pink sheets and a pink unicorn plushie sitting by the pillow. She closed the door behind her as Pyro invited her to sit.

“So uh… I was supposed to show you my magic, wasn’t I?” she asked. Pyro nodded, and Terri reached for the scrap metal bundled in paper she had taken from Engineer in her pocket. She unwrapped the package and laid it out on the bed, taking a deep breath.

She reached out for a piece of the metal, but Pyro raised a hand. “What?” Terri asked, but Pyro just stared at her for a moment, then raised a hand to his mask. “No, you’re not gonna-“

With a swift move, Pyro ripped the mask off his face, dropping it on the bed. Terri’s eyes widened as she stared at it, not daring to look up from the mask, not daring to look at his face. But yet it killed her to find out what he looked like. And here he was, sitting right there in front of her and she couldn’t take her eyes off the mask.

“Well?” Pyro asked. Well, he sure as hell was a male, no female voice could ever hit a pitch so masculine. She closed her eyes and raised her head, leveling her eyes with his face. She opened them.

In front of her sat a man, a pretty good-looking but messy man, still in the asbestos-lined suit but without the mask. He had a slightly sharp, angular face with messy brown hair that just fell in every direction. His eyes were bright orange, and she couldn’t help but stare into them.

“Oh- what, my eyes? They’re not natural. I’m wearing contacts,” he explained. Oh. Slight disappointment but it didn’t matter as he stuck out a hand. “Axel Bigarsky, nice to meet you,” he said. Terri took the offered hand.

It was surreal, how his hand felt like one of a psychotic pyromaniac, but his face said otherwise. “You… are you even allowed to show your face?” Terri asked, her eyes dropping to the mask again.

“Didn’t say I could in my contract, but then again,” he said, a small glimmer to his orange contacts, “didn’t say I couldn’t.” Terri smiled. “Makes sense,” she said. Axel leaned forward. “So uh, you wanted to show me magic?”

“Right! Uh… yeah. Swear not to tell anyone else. Not Medic, not Sniper, not Spy, no one,” Terri demanded as her hand crawled towards the metal. Axel nodded. “I swear.”

With a fist, she grabbed the whole pile of metal, feeling it soften and disappear under her palm, a small pile of dust collecting on the paper. Axel leaned back, looking surprised but not shocked. “Corrosive touch, eh? Nice. Wanna see mine?” he offered, getting off the bed.

Terri turned to watched as Axel faced the burned door. With a circular motion of his hands, he produced a spurt of fire from his palm in a Hadouken move. The fire brushed the door and faded into the air. “Thing is, you can control yours. I can’t,” Terri said, brushing the dust off the bedsheet.

“And why pink, of all colours?” she asked, prodding the bedsheet. With a small smile, Axel picked up his mask and slipped it on again. With a shrug and a happy whistle, he left the room.

A/N. Okay so most people won’t like what I just wrote but I’ve always wanted to write my own spin on the Pyro under his mask. So here it is!

If you don’t like it, don’t read it. Simple as that.