#thinking so hard abt vsh game mode

[multiheadcanons]

MERCS VS SAXTON HALE

cw: gore and violence

we’re going to begin this with a general statement that really, it didn’t matter how the mercs felt about saxton before he forced this idea on them. after its implementation, every single one of them hate him. with a burn in their souls so bright that when hale gets the itch, the base is silent. everyone is preparing.

scout: initially— and frankly this goes for the whole team— he was incredibly excited for the idea of getting to beat the shit out of saxton. but that was not at all what happened. scout was incredibly easy pickings. overconfident. treating it like any other fight. he really didn’t even feel it happen. he just blinked and he was in the respawn room. and as he turned to look at everyone else, they had to come to the conclusion, as a team, that they lost. but as scout learned hale, he got very good at learning exactly what his role is to take the australian down. and it’s hard, but scout can outmaneuver him, if only for a moment. the first time scout cinched a win was when he chickened out and capped the point while his team got obliterated. by the time he capped it everyone was dead. it was a long walk back to base. it hurt to tell them they actually won. as it’s gone on, he’s gotten better. faster. more flexible. but there gets to a point where it’s still not enough. the first time he got the killing blow he stood there in shock. everyone did. but the uproarious cheers from the few survivors filled him with something unspeakable. he’s gotten hale once. he can get hale again. has a playlist for fighting hale.

soldier: soldier still looks forward to fighting hale. if only for those times when he gets the final blow and gets to watch his rocket blow that man to pieces. those moments are euphoric. he laughs and kicks the body parts around, feeling the squish of a monster under his boots as he steps in the viscera. but he can’t hold his own against him. he becomes even more team oriented, he calls everyone in for a strategy session, and everyone is there. the meetings are hushed, and serious. they are never laughing matters. he spends the night before cleaning and polishing his weapons. inspecting his helmet. and rises first in the morning. he can only stomach a couple of hits. and they hurt. if he wasn’t grateful for medic on the normal battlefield, he definitely is in that arena. kisses the doctor’s boots if he survives to the end. there have been many times they have rushed hale together and barely escaped to live for the next few minutes. they have trauma bonded over this now regular event.

pyro: pyro is never ready for what’s to come in the arena. and frankly, and has only ever made it to the end once. and the one time they made it to the end, out of the sheer shock that they were there to kill him, they unloaded the clip on the corpse. torched it. left for more ammo. came back. unloaded again. left again. came back. did it a third time. and a fourth. and a fifth. the team stepped in after the tenth time. they prayed he would not get up. they don’t get why he keeps coming back. they wish he would stop. tried to boycott the fight, and was physically dragged to the arena by hale. that was the day pyro absolutely torched his remains past the point of ash. they can’t outrun him, and they have to get too close to do damage. they just don’t make the cut. so it’s always a guaranteed death and the most stressful ninety seconds of their life. always tries to push medic to heal the others because they can actually do damage, and let pyro crawl somewhere and hide, or die.

demo: get his fuckin sword right now. immediately. it is increasingly less rare that he gets to get a good hit in on the australian, and every hit fuels him to kill that son of a bitch. regardless of whether they win or lose, he’s drinking himself into a stupor. it’s not even fun to win. he gets no joy from his final blows. he gets no joy from the news when he shows back up in the respawn room. he can’t wait for the day that man dies a bloody, painful death. or loses the company. both work for him, frankly. whatever stops these godforsaken fights. he’s well aware he can’t hold his own against hale in standard conditions. he certainly doesn’t try if he doesn’t think he’s up for it. and those blows… he’s grateful when he can’t feel them. it’s the only time he’s sober on the battlefield. he needs every wit about him to be of any use to his team.

heavy: you know, the first few times he won against hale… no. he got no joy from it. he just ached, profoundly. his body, his heart, his mind. most of the wins happened with three quarters of the team dead, and those who survived mainly wished they didn’t. as he’s faced off more against the australian, he has grown to hate that man so much every hit he lands is a blessing. every bullet is a prayer answered. always aims for his nose as they fistfight. he wants to absolutely wreck that man’s face. permanently scar it. hale’s punches hurt still, but now he just doesn’t even feel it. the burn of a broken rib, teeth knocked loose, his arm snapping, all of that is nothing to the utter burn of hatred in his soul for hale. he doesn’t even consider saxton a person anymore. that is a goliath he regularly has to fight and regularly loses against. but he’s getting better. and if hale doesn’t regain some sense and end this madness heavy is going to wipe him off the face of the earth, permanently. when hale tells them to get ready, his face is stone. in the arena, his face is steel. there is no more reaction to the pain. there is no more ache. only the resolve to hit back harder.

engineer: he wants to quit. genuinely a mental breaking point for him. he knows he’s got no chance. he can’t do much without his buildings, and taking a hit is a death sentence. he’s learned that aggression is his best bet, and careful consideration of where his machines go. he never lasts very long, unless hale is having a bad day. luckily, he doesn’t piss hale off as much as sniper does. but hale makes sure to keep engie humbled. there’s been a few times he’s been able to hold his own against hale, if only for a moment, but never long. sometimes he wonders if they killed him away from the arena whether he would come back. he’s very tempted to try every time hale tells them to get ready. a firm believer in capping the point and ending the carnage as fast as possible. he’s never lived to see the man die. hale hates when he tries to cap the point and call it a day. that’s not the point of him bringing them there. engineer does not give a single good god damn. but it does get him killed more often than not. when scout capped the point the first time he thought it was the smartest thing the kid had thought to do. they’ve ended a few battles that way.

medic: fighting hale is the only time medic genuinely considers if he’s cut out for this line of work. he never wanted to learn that he could survive more than one hit. the first time he experienced that, it sent him flying. he genuinely thought he died but it still hurt so much. he hit the ground limp, and frankly everyone thought he was dead. he laid there for a while, it took demo backpedaling and tripping over his body that he even registered he was alive. as he staggered to his feet, he immediately doubled over and vomited. and he throws up every time he gets hit. he’s had to learn to swallow it back down. the only time he is genuinely terrified is going against hale. hale makes him feel like prey. as he’s fought against hale, he’s found he is not powerless against him, quite the opposite, even. it has taken many, many deaths to gain the reflexes and the nerve to survive going toe to toe. his medigun has never been more viable, and never made such a stark difference. he’s killed him a few times. it never feels good. there is no urge to inspect the carcass when it’s done. the first time he got the killing blow, he just kept stabbing. the team had to drag him off, and he kicked and screamed. something in him is permanently altered every time they are face to face. something about the fact that he doesn’t even seem to care. it doesn’t frighten him on its own; but it stuns him.

sniper: snipes gets a good feeling he knows why he pisses hale off so much. frankly he’s glad for it. he relishes every successful shot he makes. fuck that guy, really. of course, the second hale gets a whiff of him there’s not many opportunities for escape, but also: sniper doesn’t care. because it’s worth every connected bullet. relishes in using jarate on him. he hopes he hits him with it enough times he can’t get the smell of piss out of his skin. more than prepared to die as the man barrels toward him. and he shoots the entire time. sometimes, rarely, snipes can see him coming and move just fast enough to get out of the way, but hale won’t leave him alone, and he simply can’t outmaneuver the man. the first, and only time he got the killing blow he almost blew a load. he achieved enlightenment with that final shot. he saw god, and god looked down upon sniper, and gave him the biggest thumbs up, and his ego imploded in on itself, causing a big bang that created a whole new realm of reality that sniper entered, fundamentally changing the way in which he saw himself. hale has never let him have that again. he is one of the first people picked off every time unless the team is giving him a hard enough time. having to track hale has made him vicious on the battlefield. he’s not missing shots unless he’s not paying attention.

spy: spy does not let it show that he a: hates that man, and b: can not outmaneuver hale on his best day and hale’s absolute worst. when they fight hale, spy takes every page he can out of sniper’s book with his own little twists here and there. he stays as far out of the fight as he can. his aim has only gotten better as he snipes hale from a distance. he knows sniper pisses hale off, and he can tell he does too, especially once he cloaks and hides. he’s actually pretty sure that pisses him off more. the dead ringer is his best friend. hale falls for it every time, but the second hale realizes spy is not dead it’s like a target on his back, and he can’t run long. it’s the only time he gets ubered consistently, and he’s getting addicted to tanking punches from hale as he fervently stabs into him. even though it hurts, he just doesn’t care. nothing beats stabbing hale over, and over, and over. when he fights hale, he almost gets why medic acts the way he does on the battlefield. there is something exhilarating taking on an opponent you know can kill you and having the wits to at least go down fighting.