Adapted into web novel format on Nov. 25, 2011 at 12:19 AM MST
With an annoyed yell, Pyro struck the inhibitor with his axe again.
PING. A song clip played on mental inhibitor #3: "I wanna know boy, if I could be your shorty - Pumba!" As if on cue, a clip of Pumbaa himself from The Lion King was shown on the inhibitor's viewscreen. Pyro grunted in slight annoyance.
Another song played. The line played was "Caught in a bad romance", but the inhibitor screen misinterpreted the line after that as "Wha jumpeh romance".
"Schweinhunds!" Medic was not pleased that the lyrics were muddy enough for such a clumsy misinterpretation, and neither was his Kristoph alias.
The Critic also wasn't pleased. He fired a shot into the air with his trusty pistol and aimed it right in front of him. "Now talk right!" he declared.
The inhibitor then played the Pumbaa clip again twice while "Pumba pumba!" was heard, followed by a clip of Danny saying one curse word.
Kshzt!
"Incoming!" Medic warned.
"Dammit!" Louis groaned.
"Uh oh, get ready!" Zoey braced herself.
Kshzt!
"DJ, turn it up--up--up--up--up" An infamous song began to play and repeat its own word.
"DJ, turn it up--up--up--up--up" The line repeated, but in an unnaturally low pitch. The Nerd was visibly shocked.
"Never do that again, for the love of God," the Critic warned.
"DJ, turn it up--up--Up--Up--UP" The line repeated again normally but began to increase in pitch, as if the thing playing it was on overload.
"Turn that sh*t down!" Danny cursed. He slammed his hand onto a table with a great big "P-----SSSSS!", causing his neckbrace to fall off. At the same time, on the floor located just between the stage and its concrete seating, many items fell right out of Demoman's and Heavy's possessions.
Demoman saw that his grenade and stickybomb launchers had fallen out of his body armor, as well as his bottle of scrumpy, a Bounty Hat tricorne with a miniature treasure chest on top of it, a circular wooden spiked Chargin' Targe shield, the white Dangeresque, Too? shutter glasses that Strong Bad took from Homestar Runner, and a frying pan.
Heavy could not prevent his minigun Sasha, his Sandvich, his red Killing Gloves of Boxing, nor his silver-blue Fists of Steel gloves from falling out of his large body.
Sniper could not help but laugh at the mess that Demoman and Heavy unwillingly made.
"Dummkopfs!" Medic yelled.
"That thing's on autopilot, son!" Engineer had arrived, carrying his toolbox on his shoulder. Pyro was caught by surprise with Engineer's warning about inhibitor #3.
"Well, well." A mad professor known as I.M.Meen appeared on inhibitor #3's viewscreen. "I'm surprised you don't give up."
Pyro had other things to worry about. "Oove! Oove up oove up!" he yelled, telling the Engineer to move up.
"All righty then!" Engineer replied. "Point going up!" He crouched and placed his toolbox on the ground beside the primary inhibitor.
Kshzzzt! But inhibitor #3 was not done yet.
"Those ones were my favourites!" Demoman cried about the weapons that just fell out of him.
"I forget how scary I am sometimes," Heavy told Demoman.
Azusa stood up from her panicked duck-and-cover crouch and saw a young man jumping into the air toward her.
"Whoop- wah- wah-hah!" Scout had mimicked Mario's triple jump and landed right beside Azusa.
" 'Ey! What's up?" Scout asked her.
Azusa asked, "What's going on?!" She then pointed at Sniper, who was onstage. Scout turned to look.
Sniper was displeased. He scoffed, "Ace reflexes, ya bomb-chucking waste of good scotch!"
Scout groaned.
"Dammit dammit dammit dammit!" Engineer shouted upon overhearing that conversation.
"Hudda hudda huh!" Pyro stated.
Engineer just could not believe what was happening. With his wrench in hand, he looked at Pyro and said, "Speak up next time!"
"Mmmphya harrgh mrgha hrghgph," Pyro muttered to himself as if to say, "Why do I gotta do everything?"
Engineer used his wrench to strike the primary mental inhibitor. WHACK! The inhibitor restarted with an electrical crackle.
"What in the hell have you been telling this girl?" Kagami angrily asked Konata in regards to rumours she told Yutaka. However, Kagami's voice was electronically altered in a similar manner to GLaDOS's voice.
"All right!" Francis cheered as his visual alias put a small lollipop back into his mouth.
"Ah, hell," Engineer muttered.
The Snob was still in his chair. "But I'm willing to bet that it's because the movie itself is one of the most confusing parodies I've seen in a while."
"Right," Zoey thought loudly.
Kagami was now talking to Konata, who was reading an anime magazine. She continued in her electronic voice, "Doesn't that magazine you're reading have any serialized novels in it? You know, besides the comics?"
"Two minutes left in the mission!" GLaDOS announced in her commanding human voice.
"Well, don't that beat all!" Engineer was delighted.
"Despite everything you say about how you love all things geeky," Kagami continued in her altered voice, "you don't really love that stuff at all. You just skim right past it."
"Ugh!" Konata gasped.
"But I still got some nasty tricks up my sleeve!" I.M.Meen warned as he teleported away.
"Wait a minute!" The Critic realized that Konata was reading a magazine featuring herself! His rant seemed to fire off at double speed: "It's like seeing Frodo in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings movies reading the book, J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings!"
"Enough," King Harkinian warned.
WHACK.
"Don't test my mettle, son!" Engineer warned.
WHACK.
Another song played on the inhibitor: "Across the block with a smile on your mouth and your hand on your--"
"Heart!" Ma-Ti interrupted while throwing a punch.
Pyro giggled.
"No no no no," the Critic told Ma-Ti. "It's cool."
Kshzt.
"How's about ya call it a day?" Sniper asked the nervous girl. The girl then threw the cat-eared headband she was wearing onto the ground, and put her hand on her chest. Then she spoke... but it wasn't really her voice.
"Please don't waste my time," the girl said.
"Nothing personal, mate. I'm just better."
"I don't like unnecessary fights."
"You shoulda oughta stayed back at your little campsite," Engineer warned, though it was unclear whether he was referring to Sniper or the girl.
BZZT! "Security warning!" announced GLaDOS in her authoritative voice. Engineer braced himself, as he knew that any security breach regarding the mental inhibitors meant that something really, really personal to superslinger2007 was about to be revealed.
"Go on, get!" He struck the inhibitor four times with his wrench.
Kshzzzt!
A heavily pixelated black-and-white clip began to play on the inhibitor's viewscreen. Engineer could just barely make out the shape of one person rushing over to hug another, and let go shortly after, with another person watching.
Pyro mumbled. He was delighted that a new clue was found.
"Heil, us!" Medic cheered after his long period of silence.
"Ugh! Dagnabit dammit!" The Engineer could not understand this clip one bit. All he could make out of this pixelation were female voices and the name "Hiiragi". He groaned. Text began to flash onscreen: "Attempting to decode signal".
"Sturm und drang!" Medic cheered.
"Well," the Snob said, "all right." He got up from his chair and walked away.
"Bloody hell?" Demoman's voice was heard from behind a color bar screen. The clip continued.
"Why have a competition at all? I didn't wanna participate!" Kagami spoke in annoyance. At least it sounded like Kagami. There were three people on screen and Engineer could not tell who was who.
"Bloody hell!" Demoman repeated, reloading his stickybomb launcher on the concrete seats. He looked to his right, shot a bomb into the air, and detonated it before it landed, taking out an oncoming green onion missile.
"And I don't want to become your 'bride'!" Kagami continued in the pixelated clip.
The Critic broke into a small laugh. He waved it away. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Nothing funny's happened yet. I'm just preparing for it."
The Snob returned and sat back into his chair. He crossed his right leg onto his left again in his usual pose.
The pixelated clip resumed. "It's not that!" Kagami shouted angrily. "Geez, I didn't want to come here because I knew this'd happen!" The text "Attempting to decode signal..." flashed onscreen again.
"Dammit, fellas," Engineer spoke. "If ya done it, it ain't braggin'."
The Snob shrugged. "I don't know who these people are!"
BLAM. CRASH! A rocket crashed into a green onion missile, destroying them both just above the city buildings.
BLAM! Another rocket exploded on the ground. Then, Soldier fell from the sky in a rocket-jump landing. A sickening crunch was heard, but he was fine.
"There he is," the Critic alerted happily.
"He-heh yeah!" Soldier cheered while pumping his fist into the air.
"Give him a round of applause, everybody!" the Critic continued while clapping to a background applause track.
Pyro booed as the viewscreen switched back to color bars.
"Don't go meddlin' in my business," Engineer warned. He hit the primary inhibitor with his wrench again.
WHACK.
[!] A loud blare sounded, inverting the color bar screen. Suddenly, the Snob reacted as if something pleasant suddenly went into his pants. Then, a man was heard making a reactionary noise as if he was spitting out a drink.
The inhibitor then showed the man talking to a girl with gray/purple hair. The man asked, "So, you like that stuff?"
The girl replied in a soft voice, "You know it!" Text appeared onscreen: "+involvement (Sorry, girl!)" It just so happened that the girl's name is Yuki Nagato. She was in the same +involvement classification as Tsukasa despite being created, supposedly, by a Data Integration Thought Entity.
The Snob recovered from his sudden reaction. Engineer was definitely ticked off. "Dispenser point, I'm gonna lay you out!"
WHACK!
[!] The blare sounded again. In rapid succession, the mercenaries reacted in shock.
"Gah!" Sniper yelled from the stage.
"Yeah!" Soldier cheered softly.
"Nyah!" Medic yelled in a Coldfront base.
"Daah!" Heavy screamed.
"Aah!" Pyro yelled as he turned around.
"Dah!" Demoman yelled beside Heavy.
"Gah!" Scout yelled.
"Aah!" Spy screamed just outside the Aperture facility.
It was clear what had happened: The Engineer became the last of the nine mercenaries to discover the STARKILLER case file #SK09-HM10-07XX, the very file connected to superslinger2007 the persona that remained unsolved since 2007 and controversially featured blatant fanservice to Heavy's disdain and Soldier's delight. Engineer was now laughing uncontrollably, while pointing at the screen with his left hand.
"Whoa! Careful!" a shocked Zoey shouted.
Danny let loose a curse, as if he had burned his hand on hot tap water. However, it was bleeped.
Kshzt.
"Time has been added," GLaDOS announced in her authoritative human voice as she gave a thumbs-up in a cute manner.
Kshzzzt!
"Love is sweet," Soldier proclaimed to Engineer. "That's where books get you, professor."
The nervous girl was still onstage, but she was not facing outward. She placed her closed fists to her chest in contemplation. "It's embarrassing..." she muttered. The girl's name was Mio. She was a shy but very capable bassist and backup vocalist. She was only part of the missions because, six months ago, Soldier had tracked her down and re-traumatized her with a claim of "Little miss, you have exposed your backside!" Mio had no idea just how to take revenge on a jerk like Soldier, but she was going to find out soon.
Azusa picked up the cat-eared headband that Mio had thrown onto the ground just a moment before. "Umm," she asked quietly, "what am I supposed to do with these?" Those cat ears actually belonged to Azusa, but she didn't feel like wearing them lately.
Pyro groaned again.
"F***, I don't know who they are either!" the Snob cursed.
"All right. Moving out!" Engineer had picked up his toolbox and was already on the move.
"Mhhph mh mh mhhp mh mhp mhpph mhhpp!" Pyro mumbled, disappointed that he had to do this on his own now.
