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slashycassy · 6 days ago

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•TF2 SNIPER X OC

PILOT CHAPTER: "Rifles and Baccarats"

AN: There we go with the pilot of this story i hope you will enjoy it. This chapter is mostly to introduce the lady of the story but also to set up a plot that we will use later English is not my native language please excuse my mistakes Trigger Warning: none, just some very light suggestive description Word count: 2,100 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

March, 1987

The night is young, golden crescent moon in the sky, little to no cloud and a soft chill wind passing in the air. Chatter and laughs are heard from the main room of the casino, warming the place. Fizzy wines, soft jazz and the clicks of glasses and heels are the soundtrack from this sweet evening at the “Royale”.

Most of the people there are seated are the tables, playing cards and gambling. Tonight’s great entertainment: The Roulette. The tiny bead rolling over the red and black numbered tiles, gaining gasps of anticipations, groans of defeat and cheers of victory.

The other tables were busy too, masters of card games, especially Poker, were testing their most efficient strategy to ensure the most successful combination of strong cards.

The men were mostly the one gambling in the hot and glamorous atmosphere of the casino, wives and maybe mistresses around them, blinded my the money they could offer them.

Non-players were scattered around the casino, the bar counter almost full of fortunate guests, the smoking room less crowded but still allowing smokers to chat among themselves.

Tonight is a special night, it is the Casino’s fifth anniversary since the owner changed, Mann Co had finally conceded this old building in downtown Santa Fe, previously being the Builders League United weapon warehouse, leading the land to go on neutral grounds between the two teams, in theory.

Today, the “Royale” is known as one of the most prestigious casino of the southern states, after the ones in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, not only for the quality of the place but also because of its owner. That loud mouth, strong minded, landlady that made her way by herself in the game industry. She is as hated as loved by a lot of people, some idolize her, some envy her.

It was a rare sight. It was not everyday a young french immigrant woman could made such a journey through success this quickly, especially in those times. She had arrived in New Mexico five years prior with money, ambition and the will to become someone: a true believer of the American Dream who believed just right.

Her appearance might have helped a bit, some describe her as a “Siren for success, luring everyone that could be helpful to take her to the top”.

With a puff of tobacco-scented smoke, she is looking at the moon, leaning on one of the balconies’ railing. Her face shows nothing but indifference to the party going on inside her place. She’s too used to that, and it is becoming boring and uninteresting, but it’s also important for her to keep the casino busy with the elites having fun.

Well, the said-elites are the mostly the ones making those parties “boring and uninteresting”, all of them acting as snobbish as they can act, flaunting goods they don’t even need.

She maybe looks like them, by the way she dresses, the size of her house or by her net-worth, but she can’t help kind of despise them, because unlike them, she knows how to stay humble. She was taught to be.

She takes one final drag of her cigarette, dusting the last ashes in the nearest ashtray and sliding her stilettos heels back one before returning inside. The once muffled noise is now returning to her in full volume.

Carefully going down the stairs to the main room, she gets a few astonished looks from the latest guests. Taking in how her long sleeveless red velvety dress was hugging her skin, how her neat black hair was falling on her shoulders. The tattoos on her arms and back on display. She puts on her polite smile.

She grabs a flute glass of a purplish sparkling drink from a silver tray held by a waiter. Seeing him now holding an empty plateau, she kindly dismisses him, allowing him a little break. She walks in the crowd, smiling and waving at the guests. She’s heading toward a very particular room of the casino, where her ‘special guests’ were waiting for her.

On her way, she makes the time for small talks with a few polite people that interrupted her walking. One of them was a tall older woman in a purple suit, she had congratulated the red-wearing lady for how much of a success this evening was. With a thank and a handshake, they parted their way, but the landlady could still feel her eyes in her back.

The French girl finally arrived at her destination, a private lounge. A bar and a single bartender were stood at the end on the room. In the middle sat a large poker table, with seven men around it six players and one dealer, playing cards. Their wives were quietly chatting, drinking and now eyeing the European entering the room, they kind off keep and suspicious feeling about her, because of how close she was to their husband.

“Messieurs*”, she says, the french word rolling on her tongue, alerting the men of her presence.

“Ah! Here is our lady!”, one of the men shouts.

He had ditched out his suit’s vest, to be more comfortable. He passes his hand in his grayish hair to comb it a bit.

“Good evening to you too, Mister Richards”, she responds with a heavy french accent that she cant’ get rid of, going to shake his hand.

She then looks at the other men and greets them one by one. “Raileigh, Oswald, Sinclair, Salvador, Decaro..” They were the other Casino owners of the southern States, big bosses in the game industry, her included, being the only woman.

She then turns to the wives.

“Ladies”

They answer with a polite smile.

She looks at the dealer and dismisses him. He stands, nods and leaves the lounge. She then sits at his place.

“You don’t play?” Salvador comments.

“Please, sir Salvador, the owner doesn’t play in their place, you told me so”, she adds with a playful wink.

She distributes the card to them, playing the dealer for them.

The play was going on well, lots of money were dealt and lots of drinks were downed. She stays focused, arbitrating the business men. The seven of them were talking about work and some partnerships and maybe organize a tournament, maybe in Las Vegas.

She notices the suggestive looks she gets from her male associates, how one of them was discretely touching her feet with his own under the table.

“All in for Sir Decaro, any calls?”, she announces.

“Fold.”

“Fold”

Sinclair raises the bet.

The mind game between Decaro and Sinclair began as she examines the two men. One of them a good player, the other is only here by luck. Decaro reveals his cards.

“Three of a kind for sir Decaro”, she declares

Sinclair sighs, a mischievous grin on his lips as he reveals his own cards.

“And a Flush for sir Sinclair, making him the winner of this game”, she adds, while Decaro was starting a fight with Sinclair, calling him a cheater.

She kicks a the annoying foot under the table, glaring at Oswald for his disrespectful behavior, knowing his wife was behind him, so was his mistress in the main room of the casino. She swears this man’s only wish is to have her knelt before him, giving him an oral treat. He’s a perverted men. Like her other colleagues in the room, but they were more subtle about it. God she hates them.

Being a business lady was an incredible job, but her associates were.. let’s say.. pains in the ass, but it was the routine after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The moon is still fully in the night sky, but the scenery is not the same. The same wind feels cooler than before, no lights to be seen in the badlands. Some coyotes are howling their guts out to prove they exists.

Well hidden in a secluded plain area, some laughter are heard coming out from a building. Eight men are enjoying their victory from well-fought battle against competition. Here was the Reliable Excavation Demolition team, also known as the REDs. This team was composed of nine mercenaries, each of them an expert of their class, making them strategically balanced.

They were enjoying a nice game of card with a few beers, their chatter a symphony of multiple accents.

The youngest of them was throwing a tantrum against the wisest who had removed his construction helmet, blaming him for his obvious defeat in the card game, while the alcoholic one was drunkenly making fun of him for being a ‘cry baby’. Around the table were sat two other of the nine men, a tuxedo wearing one, smoking a cigarette and clearly annoyed by the young man's behavior, next to him, a gas-mask wearing one, they never really know who this one was, they just knew that he? She? Them? Whatever. This one liked to set things on fire.

In the same room, on the couch watching a quiet show, were sat three other men, the tallest and broadest one, a glasses wearing one, dressed in a white dress shirt, a beige vest and a red tie. They were pretending to listen to their loud colleague, his iron helmet covering his eyes but to the other mercenaries’ dismay, not his mouth. He was rambling about a certain Sun Tzu and how he said a lot of war-related stuff.

The eight of them.. eight? Yes one is missing.

The last mercenary of the team could be considered as an introvert or a loner, someone who enjoys his times alone. Even if every one of them had a room for themselves in the base, this one prefers to stay in the intimacy and quietness of his van.

That night, he had decided to trade the evening with his teammates with a tranquil wandering in the dark badlands. He had parked his camper next to a nice spot and had started a little campfire outside of it, to keep him a little warm in chilly weather.

He was cleaning his beloved rifle, piece by piece and humming a song by The Who, coming from his van’s radio. He had a solo mission coming up, the contract laying next to his sitting form as he looks at it from time to time. It was a simple elimination, nothing more, nothing less, something he already did a thousand times since his beginning as a mercenary. He knew how immoral this job was, his parents kept on reminding him, but at least he could win his life the best he could.

He brings a cup of coffee to his lips and sighs after taking a sip. The song changes to a Beatles song.

He starts to reassemble his rifle with precision and professionalism, he is after all, a professional. Once his rifle was back in one piece, he took his stuff and went back inside his camper van, closing the door and letting the campfire slowly die in the cold badlands air.

He locks himself inside before removing his boots and climbing up on his makeshift bed, laying on it and observing the ceiling of his van. A few photos were glued to the little walls of his ‘bedroom’, some of his teammates, his parents, one childhood photo of him holding a wooden bow, and some animal pictures he took in the Australian Outback.

He picks up his pack of cigarette, takes one and lights it, opening the little window over his head. Taking a drag of it, he looks at some magazines he had next to his bed, a lot of animal and wildlife magazines, some guns and rifles ones and a two or three.. private ones. Maybe he could peek into those later.

Finishing his cigarette and crushing the end in his ashtray he yawns. Maybe he should have stayed with his colleagues for at least one game and a beer. They aren’t mean to him, he actually enjoys spending time with them, but sometimes they are a bit too much, too loud, too annoying.. He was just used to loneliness, even in battle when he stays nested up on a tower for sniping, he stays most of his time alone. And he likes it.. right?

With a final sigh he removes his brown pants and takes off his red shirt, tossing them down the floor of his camper van, leaving him in his white tank top and boxers to be more comfortable of the upcoming night of sleep he will certainly oversleep.

Being an assassin was indeed a good job, but sometimes it gets quite boring, alone with his thoughts. It’s the routine after all.

(*messieurs = gentlemen)

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