Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sniper was stalking a very peculiar creature.

It had all started when, some hours ago, he’d heard a thunk and went outside to find a large spike of some sort sticking out of his camper. Of course, he was pissed about having to repair the dent in his van, calling over Engineer to fix it up, but it intrigued him to no end as well after he pulled it out and studied it. Some kind of hollow organic material with a brittle thread at the end of it, too big, strangely shaped, and isolated to be the bone of some abominable bird. It wasn’t a one-off thing, either; as he looked around, he’d seen strange quills sticking out of the ground or a wall- sometimes even stabbing a dead critter with it.

So, he’d been keeping an eye out for those strange spikes all day, and even began tracking whatever was making them. Collecting the blackened barbs, he’d followed a trail of them into the desert of dead grass. And finally, he saw what was making them, in the middle of nowhere through the scope of his rifle.

It was bright purple, an unusual color under the New Mexico sun, with two tall, rounded ears, white eyes, and a little pale nose on its flat face. It boasted a large, spotted tail, a scarred chest, and it walked on its back two legs like a little man. Sniper didn’t know what in the hell this thing possibly could be, but it kinda looked like a weasel, or maybe a cat. But far too large to be either, and hairless too.

It was stalking a hare from behind a bush, perfectly still, a sharp white quill in its hand as the bunny grazed- identical in all but color to the various spines Sniper had seen. He’d never known an animal could use a weapon; he’d assumed they weren’t smart enough for that. Maybe this was one of Medics weird creations? But the purple thing didn’t seem particularly… his style of horrific stitched-together experimentation.

Its arm shot forward, and with frightening accuracy, the spike impaled the hare, a shrill screech accompanying it. Hopping out of the bush, it jogged over to the swiftly dying jackrabbit and picked it up, jabbing another spear through its head as the other swiftly darkened. Something darkened the veins connecting the quills to the purple weasel as it flowed, and Sniper assumed it was a poison of some sort.

“Lil mongrel’s a sharpshooter!” Sniper muttered, staring as it stood there, rabbit in hand. But it wasn’t eating the rabbit. Possibly it was hunting for sport, or…?

Oh. He saw why it wasn’t eating.

Bloody thing didn’t have a mouth.

Sniper turned and sat against the rock he was hiding behind, his mind racing. What was this thing? There was no way this little hunter could be natural. It was Medic’s fault, he should blame Medic for this abomination. He wanted to turn back and be done with this bizarreness.

He only looked up when he saw something nudging his foot.

The little weasel had found him.

The Spearmaster was very, very confused.

One moment they had been on top of Seven Red Suns’s superstructure, fighting off a lizard clamping them in its maw and being dragged into its den, and the next, they had emerged in a desert far too flat and wide to be contained on top of an iterator. Stranger still, the den entrance along with the lizard had vanished from behind them, leaving them effectively stranded. This wide wasteland looked devoid of water but seemed like prime vulture territory- which meant Spearmaster had to get out of here, and fast.

Worse still was that what little food there was had barely enough sustenance to provide them with a good meal. Small furry beasts with large ears, like tiny rain deer unadorned with antlers, scurried across the sand. Minuscule brownish lizards too small to be good food perked up and stared at the Spearmaster, which would almost be cute if not for the low-lying fear that bigger parent lizards were lurking right behind them. In fact, there was nothing worthwhile that they could eat. Not even a vulture descended from the sky.

The Spearmaster was hungry and lost.

And then they saw the walking iterator. Or whatever the tall thing was. Far away, watching them consume one of the tiny pathetic rain deer. They had no idea how it was outside of the maze-like structure all iterators were trapped within, but on closer inspection out of the corner of its eye, it didn’t seem very iterator-like at all. It appeared gaunt and skinny, and lacked a hard metal shell, soft and pierce-able skin replacing it. It had none of the vibrant colors or regal robes most iterators boasted, instead colored the modest hue of a very pale orange and wearing a brown, tight cloak(?) with a red garment underneath. The only thing resembling antennae were small strange nubs the color of its skin on the side of its face. It had fur under its hat, and colored glass covering its eyes. It seemed more like a scavenger, without its fur or hunched spine.

But it was the only potentially helpful thing out here. If it really was an iterator, it could possibly help them get back home. If it was just another predator, well, it was certainly large enough for the Spearmaster to get its fill.

So they waddled over, wary with a quill in their hand, and poked the tall things leg- and they were almost immediately met with a strange, long and almost rectangular weapon pointed at their face.

The iterator grumbled something in a language Spearmaster couldn’t understand. It brought back memories- memories of a time before the Mark of Communication was given to them by Looks to the Moon, when all that iterators murmered was gibberish, when the only form of speaking was with radio signals and their hands. A few quick gestures with their free hand was fruitless, as the iterator simply stared with a quirked eyebrow, one eye still covered by that tool with the hollow cylinders adorning the end pointing at the slugcat. If that was a spear, it’d be mighty useless with no sharp end.

Spearmaster reluctantly set their spear down into the sandy ground and began signing with both hands free now, careful to go slow, and yet the beast still didn’t understand, though it lowered its strange weapon.

With a frustrated noise hissing out of the holes in their tail, they turned- and were caught off guard as they sported a large building in the distance, grey silhouette shrouded by dust. It was nowhere near the size of Suns’s can, absolutely not- but it was a start, at least. They pointed towards the blocky building and began walking towards it, preparing to bid farewell to this rather useless scavenger-iterator amalgamation, before they heard the shuffle of standing up. More muttered words it couldn’t make out met their ears, and as they glanced over, the beast was upright and walking besides it, its twisted spear hung across its back again. The Spearmaster trotted on, and found that they didn’t mind the company.

Chapter Text

The Artificer, for one, quite liked this new place.

It was like Metropolis; hot and arid and dusty, stretching out for as far as they could see, lacking the barely-solid ground, puddles of mud, or suffocatingly humid moisture in the air that defined the world below the clouds. But unlike Metropolis, there wasn’t a scavenger in sight. A noticeable improvement.

The Artificer had fallen here, somewhere along the way down the Exterior of Five Pebbles. A poorly timed explosive leap sending the slugcat tumbling off the Wall, and they had expected to soon see the insides of their last shelter- but they’d woken up on the cracked dirt instead, in some miraculous way not dead.

Leaping into the air and whipping their tail in that specific way, the Artificer launched with a crack, landing on their feet back on the sand. They needed to find food. Who knew if this land, as dry as it was, gave way to rain too? But lizards seemed scarce here, and though far-away vultures circled above, fueling both anxiety and hunger, none seemed interested in swooping down any time soon. They launched themself forwards again, and felt the bitter taste of smoke rise from their throat. Too much. Maybe they’d sit and rest for a while.

Unfortunately, they realized too late their explosive stunts had drawn the attention of something else.

With the four-legged stature and long snout of a lizard, yet the scraggly dull fur and long skinny  limbs and tapered tail of a scavenger, an entirely new creature growled at the Artificer. The maroon slugcat made a loud, crackling hiss in response as the beast panted, snarl exposing its sharp teeth.

The Artificer’s eyes narrowed. This was a predator.

Two could play at that game.

Scooping a rock out of the dusty ground, Artificer shoved the gritty stone into their mouth and swallowed it whole with a grimace. They felt their stomach growl as they immediately threw it back up, the newly-turned explosive covered in smoky saliva.

The Artificer turned tail and they heard the creature cry out, its powerful legs beating against the ground as it finally gave into the chase. Artificer leapt and cracked their tail, spinning through the air, landing a distance away and turning around to see the beast approaching rapidly- and followed by two others. They were faster than they’d thought they’d be on those long legs. They’d taken the lumbering of some lizards and skittish gait of scavengers for granted.

Without a second thought, they hurled their new weapon.

The rock bashed its muzzle, and blew up.

A (not-so) far off explosion caught the Demoman’s attention, who was busy trying to enjoy a cold bottle outside on a sweltering day.

“What in the…” Looking up, Demo’s eye narrowed at the sight of a dust cloud some distance away, blocking a small section of cloudless sky. If the BLU team was trying to launch an attack, they weren’t very good at it. Typical.

Standing up and grabbing his stickybomb launcher, he slugged it over his shoulder as he headed out. Respawn would bring him back if they killed him before he got the chance to blow up their sorry arses- he had nothing to lose.

Another explosion only whipped up more dust, although this time a shrill, almost animalistic screech came with it. Great, that BLU Scout must’ve been there too. And if the screamin’ was anything to go by, their lazy excuse for a Demoman probably blew the poor lads bloody legs off. When the wind blew the cloud of dust away, Demo was pleasantly surprised to find no trace of the BLU team. Seems they had some brain matter left in their skulls after all. But even incompetent enemy teams would be more explainable than… whatever was laid out before him.

Two coyotes on the ground, dead, limbs and shrapnel laying here and there, and flailing about, a third coyote and a feral cat fighting to the death.

No, not a cat. Cats weren’t dark red n’ slimy with white eyes. And they typically couldn’t kill 2 coyotes in one go.

The coyote bit at its tail, but missed as it spun out of the way. It dodged the biting of the wild animal, scampering underneath its legs, jumping backwards at the last second and backflipping over the canine. Demo didn’t know cats could backflip.

It whipped its thick tail and a loud crack came from it, launching the cat further into the air. Raising a red and black rock glowing in its hand, it hurled it below, and the stone- no, the bomb- detonated on impact. Demo swore and covered his face as the ringing in his ears slowly died, finally opening his eye after coughing out dust.

The cat- that apparently could lob explosives- had grabbed the corpse, baring sharp little teeth and immediately digging in, first ripping out veins in its neck before moving on to the more meaty places. Demo could only watch the little lad in shock. It’d just wiped out three coyotes in a matter of seconds. His first thought went to the bottle in his hands, and he checked the label to make sure he hadn’t been drinking somethin’ else. No change.

There was no way this thing was natural- yet the horrific experimentation Medic put his lab rats (or pigeons, or monkeys, or humans) through didn’t exactly align with the appearance of this… thing. It was too smooth. Too cute. Not nearly enough stitches.

He made the mistake of stepping too close and staring for too long, and the cat’s ear-thing twitched. Looking up, it locked eyes with him.

An instant crackling hiss met him as it jumped back, standing on its back two legs instead of four. As it bent to pick up a rock, Demo quickly held his hands up by his face.

“Aye! Dinnae aim that at me! I only got one good eye left!”

The cat seemed to disregard his words, instead… swallowing it.

“…Dun’ think that’s food, lad,” he said, his hands lowering.

The cat took a good look at him, the eye on the unpatterned side of its face flickering around him. Taking a step closer, it sniffed, its eyes narrowing further. It was definitely analyzing him. But for what?

As it took careful steps around him and looked up to his face, Demo realized the dark red marks on its left side with its perpetually squinted eye wasn’t a pattern- those were burn scars. And a thick cut ran down that side of its face and across its eye, too. This little cat was a demolitions expert, if that fight was anything to judge it by, and it was missing an eye. It was like looking in a short, slimy mirror.

“Aye, you’re like me! Got no eye either.” A surge of empathy welled up in his chest as he flipped up his eyepatch, showing off his empty socket. “You lose that to somethin’ goin’ kablooey a lil’ too close, eh lad?”

The cat seemed to almost relax, and shimmied forwards, now right at his feet. Winding around his legs (and spending a long time looking at his back, for some reason), it eventually let out a soft, crackling noise that didn’t sound like a meow in the slightest, but Demo wanted to think of it as a meow anyways.

“Won you over, eh?” He chuckled. “Well, I gotta get back to me base.” He pointed towards it as he began to trudge back where he came from. “You’re welcome to come with.”

The cat looked in the direction he was going and to his surprise, began to trot towards the building, dead coyotes forgotten. Demo stared down at it, before shrugging and downing his bottle. May as well happen.

Chapter Text

The last thing Heavy had expected to come from today was for a small beast to come up to him as he sat outside with his lunch.

And yet, here he was on the bench with three sandwiches on a paper plate, the fattest little creature he’d ever seen slowly but surely waddling up to him and staring at him with shiny round eyes.

It was pale orange in color, and slimy. Its tail was thick, and dragged across the ground as it walked on its back legs. His very first thought was that it was a cat, or a raccoon, or a very large rodent, but none seemed true to its nature.

And it was fat. Very, very fat. Heavy had not known a little creature could be so fat.

It had appeared from around the corner of the grey building, running along when it caught sight of the Heavy. It dove back around, a dust cloud in its wake, before a pair of ears and large curious eyes poked around the corner. The little creature seemed to be observing him as he methodically ate his meal, savoring each bite.

Slowly and carefully, it began to waddle towards him. With every bit of progress, it seemed more and more relaxed, more certain that the goliath of a man before it would not hurt it, before finally it sat at his very feet.

Staring at the sandwich, it reached out a little paw-hand, as if to say “please give your food to me, I am so hungry.” It made little motions with its fingers, grabbing nothing but air.

“…lucky. I have more,” the Heavy rumbled, picking a sandwich off its plate, splitting it in half, and tossing one side to the round creature.

Snatching it out of the air, Heavy expected it to devour it with ferocity and disappear into the bushes, never to be seen again. Instead, it carefully broke off a piece, sniffing it before raising it to its mouth. It bit down, and its eyes widened with awe.

It relished its meal, closing its eyes with each bite. A wild creature probably was not able to do such a thing that often. Heavy brought the other half of his sandwich to his mouth, chewing the soft bread as he shared a meal with the round animal.

“Little man enjoyed his sandvich?” Heavy inquired as the rodent-like thing wiped the crumbs off its face. In response, it made a low “waa” noise, and grabbed the side of the bench, hoisting itself up with some difficulty and sitting down besides the Heavy with a little huff. Breaking off half of his final sandwich, he handed it to the small thing, who again grabbed it and began to munch as Heavy did the same.

As the two of them leaned back against the bench, the Heavy and the visitor closed their eyes, and enjoyed the simple contentment of eating a sandwich on a nice day out.

The Gourmand had gotten very lucky today.

Before, it was a disastrous cycle. They had been swimming as fast as they could, away from the hungry salamanders of the deep subterranean lakes, when they suddenly realized they were running out of air. Swimming upwards brought no relief as the salamanders snapped at their swishing tail and everything began to get blurrier. Their limbs were too exhausted to continue moving, it became too much effort to hold their breath, and with an underwater scream the salamander’s jaws had shut around their sides-

And then, they had fallen onto the gritty sand below.

Their first thought was that they had passed out and the lizard had dropped them onto dry land, but they’re quickly found that wasn’t the case. There were no pipes around, nothing remotely resembling the dark underground. In fact, the sand and the beaming sun made them think of being on top of the giant maze that pink god was stuck inside. How high up were they? Was the drowning a dream?

Whatever the case was, the Gourmand had decided to explore whatever this dry place was, picking a direction and sticking to it, scouting for any food available along the way. They were mildly successful- they’d found a few small fruits and an incredibly tiny lizard to fill their stomach, munching on the tiny berries and feeling a slight pang of satisfaction.

And then, they had seen the giant.

Investigating a grey building in the middle of nowhere, they had quite the scare when they’d rounded a corner and a huge, hulking beast was sitting quietly on a chunk of metal propped away from the ground. Its eyes had met theirs, and out of instinct they had recoiled back.

They waited a fair minute, before sneaking around and getting another peek. It hadn’t moved, and… it seemed to be enjoying a meal?

The smell wafted towards the Gourmands nose, and their eyes widened with the sheer amount of things they smelled, all foreign to them and all so incredibly delicious. Hopefully, this thing wasn’t hostile. They began to waddle closer- and the further they got, the more assured they were that this strange scavenger-resembling thing wasn’t going to hurt them. Staring at the peculiar triangle shaped food, they reached out a hand.

They were surprised when it actually placed half of one in their grasp. Inspecting it for its ingredients, the Gourmand carefully took a bite.

And its entire world changed.

The taste was incredible. They took slow, methodical bites, savoring the flavor and texture. It was so many foods layered on one- meat, plant, and more they couldn’t even identify. Gourmand savored this. This was a gift to be remembered. Even if they’d died right now, they’d savor the taste of this for every cycle to come afterwards. They’d spend the rest of their days figuring out how to recreate the taste.

The scavenger-thing rumbled something in its deep voice, and Gourmand gave a peaceful trill in response, hoisting itself up onto the ledge it sat upon. Offered the gift of another piece of this incredible food from its giant hands, Gourmand gratefully accepted, munching the triangular meal. They were forever in this scavenger-things debt now. And they were okay with that.

Chapter Text

The Rivulet was running, fast fast fast over the dusty dry ground. It had no idea how it got here and frankly it didn’t care it just wanted to explore! But fast! Because it had to go back to Moon and tell her about this place and also go get some food because it was hungry and the weird tiny tiny tiny not very colorful lizards it had caught hadn’t been very tasty or filling and the sky was clear like it had been on top of Five Pebbles but who knew when the rain would come again??

One foot after the other over and over and over, it should probably look where its running, it glanced forwards and almost tripped over its own feet as it looked up and saw a giant grey building. Rivulet was already planning its new route in its mind, jump up on that box and swing from the pretty dangly thing and up into that opening where the clear wall was slid open and see where it went from there. Fast fast fast, Rivulet had to see this new place, maybe there was food maybe there were bigger lizards maybe there was a shelter!

Rivulet dove into a roll and pounced out of it onto the box, running forwards only to spring backwards and gracefully backflip high into the air as the world began spinning spinning spinning-

It grabbed the silver dangling thing and was promptly met with a pretty noise, a snap, and the sudden tug of gravity.

Rivulet sprang away from the falling noisemaker and scrambled on top of the box, wincing as it made a loud crash before immediately leaping back down to investigate. Bapping it with a hand and making another pretty clatter, the Rivulet began to play an impromptu little song, clatters and shiny noises and a ring ting ting-

Rivulet jumped a few feet in the air as a rectangular part of the wall swung open right in front of it. A high pitched scream followed closely behind, and Rivulet was about to turn tail and run and abandon the building when it noticed what opened the wall.

It was like an iterator, if an iterator was very very tall and kind of squishy-looking, and with a face that wasn’t rounded off and a mouth filled with blunt teeth and two small eyes, an iterator that stood up and walked like a slugcat or maybe a scavenger and didn’t have that big arm on their back that let them float but trapped them to the wall in those tiny tiny rooms that- this iterator wasn’t trapped to a wall. Rivulet had to go tell Moon about it right now- but she couldn’t understand it so maybe it should draw it out or bring the iterator with it and maybe she and Pebbles could be freed too!!

But those thoughts didn’t last long as out of the corner of its eye, it saw something bright blue wriggling, and without hesitation the Rivulet pounced towards it as it let go of the thoughts as quickly as they had came and began chasing its tail in front of the squishy iterator. The rain wasn’t coming any time soon, after all. Rivulet had all the time in the world to tell Moon.

“What the…”

Scout could only stare at the animal outside the base, currently running in circles after its own tail. Everyone, of course, ignored the crashing noise outside except the Scout (because everyone else was dumb) and he’d opened the door to find a knocked-down wind chime and the weirdest thing he’d ever seen.

It was like a fat cat- or maybe a demented one of Soldier’s raccoons?- if those were bright blue with weird pink feathers on its head, could stand up on its back legs, and boasted the widest, wettest eyes somethin’ could possibly have.

“ENGIE! THERE’S A WEIRD FREAKIN’ CAT OUTSIDE!” He yelled, refusing to tear his gaze from the freaky little thing as it tumbled over onto its back and looked back up, weird pink eyes locked on him. Flipping over onto its feet, it suddenly hunched low to the ground, its already ginormous pupils getting so large its eyes were almost entirely black while its back arched, wiggling.

“Nonono, you stay away you little freak-“

It shot forward like a speeding bullet, and Scout again screamed as it plowed right into his stomach, successfully knocking him over.

His head hit the floor and all went hazy for a few seconds- before the Scout awoke to something really heavy  on his chest. Sputtering, he looked up, and froze as he saw the cat on his stomach oh god it was on his stomach.

“Wh- hey! Get off!” He wheezed out, shuffling backwards on his elbows while it climbed on his chest and began swatting at his dogtags.

“Leave those alone, you dumb frickin’-“ he was cut off as it reached forwards, grabbing the brim of his hat with its hands- paws?- and yanking it off effortlessly. He could only stare in dumbstruck awe as it hopped off his chest and darted away, getting a running start through the hallways.

“Hey- HEY! GET BACK HERE!” Scout yelled, pushing himself up. The thief, which had already rounded a corner, was fast- very fast- but he was fast, too.

And so began their race throughout the base.