#we Conaghers do not claim them

[fixatedonfandom]

Aw, Hell

this is a pre-EngieScout fic :3 idea shamelessly stolen from @hanktalkin in this gorgeous post about ol' Engie's legendary temper, and the one thing proven to cool it off

This is the lightest and brightest thing I've ever written it made me feel like skipping through a field of daisies

I don't claim this to be the pinnacle of my writing but I do claim it to be darn cute and self-indulgent. If it reads strangely that's because I wrote this as a message from the divine. Thank you <3

~~~~

After four long hours of battle, and round after round of humiliating RED Team losses, the klaxon wailed and hailed the end of the work day for the poor fellows down in Teufort, New Mexico. The BLUs marched out with high heads and gloating smiles, and retreated to their locker rooms to count out bet money and crack open some beers. The REDs trudged through blood-clotted sand puddles to their lockers and scraped their heels in the door frame, with uniforms lousy, torn, and sweat-soaked beyond the good of washing. No blistering smiles, or cheerful banter, and not really much noise at all save for the slamming-open of the locker doors and the clatter of guns, hats, and accoutrements to the benches and the floors.

It was an ugly series of rounds, and an uglier loss overall, made worse with some faulty equipment (Scout’s headset had been acting up the whole day, Sniper’s best scope had a scratch), bad calls, and plum poor luck. Not a man in that room was happy, but none more pure and pissed than the good Engineer Dell Conagher.

He stomped his path to his standing locker and ripped the door near off of its hinges, and hurled his favored pipe wrench into the wall with a cantankerous CLANG.

“Dammit!” The man bellowed, tearing the canary-yellow hardhat from his head and throwing that to the concrete as he bitched. “God-dammit! We had them bastards on the goddamned ropes!”

It was true. Their losing rounds had been consecutive, frustrating, and downright embarrassing at times, but they hadn’t all been hopeless. The midpoint of round 10 had given RED a crucial break in the BLU’s push for the second point. RED Heavy begot a dead BLU Heavy, RED Sniper begot a dead BLU Soldier, and a pissy RED Medic begot a dead (and grossly dismembered) BLU Demoman. With that much space to breathe, and that much time for the Engineer to rush-upgrade his ballistic turret, they could’ve held that point much, much longer.

But that damn BLU Spy, and his damn BLU sapper. That solid hold they'd had fell apart about as hard and as fast as Engie’s turret had when he turned his back at the wrong time.

“Damn Spies…” Engie muttered through his clenched jaw. He was grinding his teeth together so tightly one could imagine he was trying to make corn flour in his molars. “I’m so damn mad I could spit.”

It wasn’t an often sight for the other 8 men to see the Engineer so hot. He was American, a people who could be known for their flaming tempers, and he was a Texan to boot, but Engie was cool-headed at the worst of times and could even be downright tranquil at the best. Never one to holler, shout, or scream at his fellow teammates in anger even in the thick of a losing battle, even if any one of them was being an obvious flaming idiot. He was a quick-witted, level-headed, stoic sentry of a man. That’s likely why his anger wasn’t much like a firecracker, but more of a pressure cooker left to stew for too-little too-long.

He radiated anger like heat, and one could hear his developing migraine beating a pissed-off rhythm in his skull from down a long hallway. It was the kind of slow, rough, abrasive anger that killed people for breathing too loud too close.

The last time he'd gotten all up-in-arms like he looked right then, the team had elected to ignore the bellows and crashes coming under the base from his workshop, only realizing the extent of the damage when they'd found a mangled experiment tossed out by the dumpster, scorched and twisted beyond recognition or repair.

So, lest he be compelled to show the rest of the boys what his old pipe wrench was good for beyond sentries and dispensers, it was silently agreed among the rest of the RED men that the best course of action would be to stay out of the Engineer’s way when he was stewing. 

The sticking point of a silent agreement, however, was that it wasn’t much good for a man who was as tone-deaf and emotionally unobservant as a fart in a funeral. The good RED Scout happened to be one of those sorts of men.

When Engie’s tight-lipped curses became mutters and huffs, Scout, who had been undoing his hand wraps, looked up and said, “Hey, Eng."

Shoulders tensed and hands stilled across the room, though Scout didn’t seem to catch any of that. Engie inhaled and bit out, “What, Scout?”

“Whaddayou call a mix between an elephant and a rhino?”

Immediately, the other REDs shuffled away from the scene, doing what they could to get cleaned up and get out of there before the pot boiled over. Scout was annoying; everyone knew this. He could try the patience of a saint. He seemed to know intrinsically the buttons of everyone he met and exactly how to push them. They’d seen him send people from zero to pissed in a few short sentences. None of them thought he’d be stupid enough to try and antagonize the Engineer, though. Not even Pyro played with that much fire.

Engie shook his head, then dragged his hands real slow down his face. “What?”

Scout chuffed, snorted back at him, “‘El-if-I-know!”, then hunkered over in choked off giggles that turned into the loudest sound in the room.

Engie didn’t chuckle, didn’t hardly smile, just pushed his lips together and started shucking his toolbelt to put it away.

When Scout collected himself he started on his left hand wrap, glanced mischievously over his shoulder, and said again, ”I got another one”

“Lad.”

That was Demo on the bench across from Scout a little ways away. He fought to catch Scout’s eye and, when he did, shook his head very slowly to warn him off.

Scout shrugged, like he was saying, ‘What?’.

Demo shook his head again and nudged it in the direction of the Engineer, trying to draw attention to his drawn-up shoulders and the steam practically coming out of his ears.

Scout just looked between him and Engie, he did it a few times, then shrugged again. ‘What?’

While Demo tried to come up with the most intelligent way to go about getting Scout to see what was right in front of his damn eyes, Scout went back to Engie.

“Whaddayou call a cop that’s asleep in a bed?” Scout got the last of his wraps off, and he turned a little further in his seat on the bench. “Huh?”

Everyone in the room had their eyes on Engie- Scout in mischief, the others anxiously. Engie worked his goggles off his face and rubbed his real hand over the indents they left under his eyes. He sniffed, then said, “What?”

The stupid smile on Scout’s face grew ten sizes. He managed to hiccup, “an undercover officer,” before losing himself in laughter once more and hunching over, just short of collapsing in his giggles.

He didn’t hear Engie sigh, didn’t see him shake his head tightly, or flex his jaw, but the others did. They glanced amongst themselves with obvious trepidation, obvious to all but two.

“Scout, lad.” Demo scooted further down his bench. “Read the room.”

“What?” Scout responded when his laughter calmed down. “Fuck you, that was a good one. Not my fault he don’t have a sense’a humor.”

Demo shook his head, then turned back to unlacing his boots. “Your funeral, laddie.”

Scout just scoffed at that. He fixed his hat on his head, and took his headset off and tossed it in his open locker, seeming not to care if it broke. He was getting a new one before the next match. 

“Wait.” He suddenly perked up and turned his head back over his shoulder. “Hey, Eng.”

Engie pinched the ridge of his nose.

“Engie! Hey!” said Scout. 

Demo leaned back over, about to hiss at him to shut his trap, but Engie grumbled before he could. “What, Scout?”

“This is the last one, I swear.”

“Damnit, Scout-” Engie mumbled.

 “C’mon, last one.”

When Engie said not a word, Scout persisted.

“Whaddayou call a solider whose survived mustard gas and pepper spray?”

Soldier’s head popped up, but Pyro was quick to wrap a hand over Soldier’s mouth and pull him back down before he started shouting in the tense atmosphere.

Scout scooched back and nudged Engie with his elbow. “Huh? Whaddayou call ‘em?”

Engie’s gloved hand tightened on the door of his locker. A creak was heard coming from it, and Engie was slowly and surely forcing five finger-sized divots into the metal where he gripped it.

A painful silence came and went before he responded, “What, Scout?”

Scout muffled a snort, and took just a second to compose himself, then answered.

“A seasoned veteran.”

Scout’s giggling started up again. Engie breathed in deeply. His eyes closed, and the Gunslinger tightened its grip like a pneumatic clamp. Then he exhaled.

As he did, though, his shoulders started shaking, and his door-grip faltered. The tight lines of his face loosened like uncoiled wires, and his breath…

He was laughing.

The rest of the REDs watched in shock when Engie threw his head back and released a bark of laughter that shattered the tension in the air like glass.

Scout whooped and hollered when he heard it, and leapt up from the bench and threw his arm over Engies shoulder with his other fist raised in victory. They were both laughing harder than that stupid joke called for, but they cackled and chortled like it was easier than breathing. Engie’s face was turning redder and redder, and soon he was bending over to lean on his knees while Scout leaned right on him.

“I knew it! I fuckin’ knew I’d get you!” Scout howled. “I fuckin’ told you!”

Engie shook his head and rubbed his hands down his face for the last time, but they came away to reveal a shameful, resigned, yet bright smile on his face. He leaned right back up against Scout when he straightened out and jabbed him in the ribs to get him to lay off.

“Aw, hell, boy,” He said through light chuckles. “Those were damn awful. Damn awful. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Hey, look who's talkin’, chuckles,” Scout said right back. “That one wasn’t even a good one!”

“You’re damn right about that.” The laughter had begun to calm, but the vestiges of it remained on both of their faces. 

Engie slammed the door of his locker shut (not minding the handprint-shaped divot that kept it from closing properly) and Scout kicked the door of his to do the same. They made identical clangs. Engie sauntered towards the door of the locker room with both hands in his back pockets, and Scout sidled up next to him and started to go on about how he ‘couldn’t believe that stupid soldier joke was the one that made him crack’.

Engie chuckled and nodded along, but stopped them both when he sniffed and Scrunched his face up.

“What?” Scout asked.

“Christ alive, boy.” Engie huffed hard through his nostrils like he was trying to blow to smell out. “You need a shower worse than I do. That’s sayin’ somethin’.”

Scout shoved his shoulder. “Hey, fuck you. I’m starving, dude. Food first.”

 “Not a snowball’s chance in Teufort I'm lettin’ you be near me smellin’ like that, roadrunner.” Engie shook his head, and nudged him back with his own shoulder. “I’ll tell you what: You shower, I’ll cook. That way you won’t kill everyone in this base and we won’t have to put up with your bitchin’.

“Fine. Whatever.” Then Scout nudged him right back, and they found themselves in a tiny shoving match where they kept pushing back and forth with their shoulders. “Breakfast for dinner?”

The remaining six REDs watched in silence as they left the room, joyful and tame. It was only when they were gone, hearing Engie’s voice echo down the hall saying something about sausage gravy, that any of them spoke up.

"The hell was that?" Sniper muttered.

“‘m I jus’ drunk off my ass…” Demo ventured, and dropped his foot off the bench to lean on his knees and stare down the empty doorway like everyone else. “Or did any of you lads see what I just seen?” 

“If you mean the fact that Scout had attempted to annoy our Engineer, yet we’re not currently picking his remains off the floor,” Spy responded, his smoldering cigarette hanging from his lips. “Then yes. We all did.”

Medic and Heavy, who had been standing near each other through the whole exchange, glanced at each other, at the empty doorway, and back again.

“I see…” Medic murmured, mostly to himself. “Very interesting.”

No one asked him what he was thinking. Most every man in that room was thinking the same thing.

“They will tell us when ready,” Heavy said, sagely, and turned to close his locker door. 

That was a good enough answer for the rest of them, too.

~~~~

Thank you so much for reading!! I didn't really edit this so if you notice any glaring issues feel free to point them out. Still debating whether or not I wanna publish this on ao3 but I probably will so don't panic if you see it there too

The engiescout in this was not intended to be overt. I wanted to stay close to the spirit of the og textpost and make it seem like maybe Scout and Engie themselves don't really realize their own connection and everyone else sees it before they do, but I also didn't wanna make it too subtle.

This is also partially for just_mebs for dragging me into this hell ship so thanks to him

[hankwritten]

Angels and Ministers of Grace Defend Us

Day 1: SAVE (Napoleon Complex)

“Your earpiece.”

“I’m fine Spook. Nothing ever happens at these things.”

“Your earpiece, Conagher.”

Dell sighs, but holds out his hand for the microphone Marcel has been trying to nudge onto him. It’s a small relief. There are still a million other things Marcel has to do before the conference starts in full, not to mention Dell’s speech itself, and he has no time to quibble over such basic safety protocol.

“I don’t even see how it’d help in an emergency,” Dell continues, “what am I going to do? Start yellin’ oh no, someone help! Gettin’ assassinated over here!”

“Hopefully you would provide us with a bit more useful information than that: your current location, number of attackers, etc.”

“Number of attackers? Partner, this bunch a’ eggheads are about as docile as a herd of a’ electric sheep,” Dell says. “They ain’t coming at me in any great numbers. The way these fellers vent their frustration is by writing snide academic papers that claim I wouldn’t know a true isotopic configuration if it was making love to my mother.”

“Sounds scathing. Best not to offend them then. And keep your wits about you while you’re up there.”

“You always say that, and nothing’s gunna happen to me, just like it always never happens.” He smiles. “Honestly, with how little goes on, I don’t know why we even keep you around.”

Marcel stiffens. “If that is how you truly feel, then you may take it up with our employers.”

The corner of Dell’s mouth twitches downward. “I was just teasing you Spook, you know I like having you here with me.”

You wouldn’t if you knew the extent of what I’ve done for you, Marcel thinks, unbidden.

“Sometimes I don’t get you.” Dell sighs and shakes his head. “You don’t have to keep such distance with me, you know.”

Instead of replying, Marcel checks his watch. “Almost time. Go now. And remember what I said.”

“Yeah yeah,” Dell waves, smiling fondly as the opening speaker finishes introducing him. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

Marcel waits. One breath. Then two. Just to make sure Dell is truly out of earshot; he then takes off at a dead sprint.

The common perception of a bodyguard is that of an intimidation factor: a large man, usually bald, always in a suit, who stands behind their charge and glares at anyone that gets too close. But that often isn’t realistic. The more visible a bodyguard is, the easier it is to plan for him; to dodge quickly, to know where his blind spot is. And indeed, there are many famous tales of celebrity escorts absolutely failing to take down a single overzealous fan who comes barreling out of the mob. The Hollywood-version of a sunglass’d stranger is useful as a deterrent, but nothing more.

It is much better to be the one with the plan than the one who needs to improvise.

Marcel’s footsteps do not clang as he takes them two at a time up the catwalk, as though he were a stagehand who’d toed them his whole life. The information fed into his earpiece during their conversation let him know that he is still where he should be, that everything is going as it should. The assassin is still fumbling with his gear when Marcel crashes into him with a knife in his throat and a hand around his mouth.

The struggle is brief. So much safer to eliminate threats before they happen. So much easier than the alternative, which would no doubt involve rushing onto stage and knocking Dell out of the way of an incoming bullet. Now, he simply has to pull himself upwards on the rail, straightening out his shaking legs. There is quite a bit of blood on him, yes, but none of it has dripped on the heads below. The conference goes on with none of the attendees the wiser, and Marcel takes a moment just to take it all in. Dell is on stage, in front of a projection with graphs and strings of numbers Marcel cannot even begin to fathom, but the audience is writing in their little pocketbooks and nodding along. Dell is so…perfect up there. In his element. A true genius at work. The best of both worlds then, that he got to stay and continue his speech. Safe, yet going about business.

Marcel glances down at his hands, wet with blood. They’ve left shiny collections where he’s been gripping the rail, distracted as he’d stared down breathless at the man he is meant to be protecting.

God forbid you ever find out how many times I’ve ended a life like this, Marcel thinks. Then you would understand why I keep my distance. We’re in different worlds really. You have the chance at a somewhat normal life but I…I am too far gone.

He allows himself a minute of fading adrenaline and deep, bitter shame.

Later, Marcel is there with fresh gloves as he helps Dell down off the stage.

“How’d I do?” Dell asks, though he knows very well how he did.

“The brain trust seems entertained.”

Dell smiles at him, and oh if that doesn’t just make Marcel’s heart flutter. As though they are equally comfortable in their old song and dance, gently ribbing each other while they begin the walk back to Dell’s hotel room. Well, that’s not too far from the truth. Trying to maintain a conversation with Dell while there is still the buzz of death at the back of his mind is almost normal at this point. The routine certainly isn’t like his early days as an agent, when time could be sorted into either ‘mission’ or ‘time off’—now that division is too blurry to let his vigilance lax. Corporate assassins do not wait for one to come back from one’s smoke break, after all.

Yet, even knowing that, times like these are probably the closest he will ever get to contentment: simply walking, chatting with a friend.

“I don’t know,” Dell says. “When I brought up my evidence on single-state teleportation, I thought the crowd was going to start throwing things.”

“A simple scatter plot got them so riled?”

“Oh so you were paying attention when I put those slides together,” he smirks.

“Of course,” Marcel says. “I pay attention to everything you do. It’s my job, mon ami.”

“Well, it puts you one up on those folks. I swear, if they’d just listen this whole project could revolutionize transportation as we know it. But, I got a feeling they’re just gunna want my head on a pike, ask the TF to strip my position or something like that.”

“Tch,” Marcel says, suddenly feeling an impetuous anger. “What do they know anyway? The smartest man alive has just deigned to speak to them in their dingy little conference hall; they should be begging you to come back.”

Instead of replying, Dell abruptly looks down at his shoes, a deep smile crawling at the edges of his face.

Is he serious? Marcel wonders. Such a small compliment has him acting so pleased? It’s not like he doesn’t know what a genius he is.

“You’re sweet,” Dell says eventually.

And there, Marcel’s heart rate spikes right up again, almost as wicked as when he was fighting for his life. Damn him for ever taking this job, for ever letting these unprofessional, inconvenient feelings fester. Ones he can’t act on. They would require honesty he knows he’d never be able to muster, not when he fears that if Dell looks past the surface of his affable bodyguard, he’d recognize the true monster within.

A shadow follows him. One he can’t shake, even during these moments of pretend.

That shadow steps into the literal when an assassin dressed as a janitor levels a pistol at Dell’s chest.

Marcel does not think. Simply because he prefers to eliminate preemptively rather than reactively does not mean he can’t, and his body gains a life of his own. They had just been rounding the corner of the stairwell, side by side—it is just enough time to step in front of the shot.

The world goes a blazing bright, a cosmic white hole in his stomach. The second spent not-thinking-only-reacting buys Dell a moment of his own; he reaches for his belt radio, draws, and is suddenly firing a round into the janitor’s head.

Marcel collapses at the same time as the assassin.

“Shit,” Dell hisses, rushing down after him, trying to keep him upright.

If Marcel weren’t going into literal shock, that scene might have done something just about equivalent. “A gun?” he mumbles as Dell rips open his button-up to get a better look at the wound. “I didn’t clear you for that.”

“I’ve been working for the TF my whole adult life, Spook,” Dell says, a deadly focus as he begins applying pressure. “I was dealing with all ‘a this long before I had you, you know.”

“Still, I did not realize…”

God this hurts, Marcel thinks. Been far too long since I’ve been shot. I’m out of practice.

“I simply…never wanted you to see me like this,” he continues babbling for some ungodly reason. Blood loss, perhaps.

“I never wanted to see you like this either, goddamn bleeding out in my arms-”

Dell’s irritation is mounting as he tries to stem the blood flow. He glances around, but they’re alone in the stairwell, no help in sight.

“I meant,” Marcel says. “I did not want you to. To see me as a killer. To know the…the ugly side of what I do.”

That gives Dell pause. He looks down, thoughts connecting on his face, and Marcel would feel shame if he had the ability to feel much of anything right now. To know what a fool he must look, confessing his feelings minutes before his untimely death.

But after a moment, Dell says, “I ain’t blind to what you do, Spook. And I ain’t scared of it; fact I appreciate the hell out of it. ‘Preciate you. Which is why I need you to stay with me, you hear?”

“I am not going anywhere,” Marcel says, lazily waving a hand.

“Not funny.”

“Well, I assume you appreciate me for dedication and preparation, and not my humor.”

Dell’s eyes widen. “Preparation…that’s it.” His palm reaches up and clumsily slaps his earpiece, the one he had complained about only an hour before. “This is Conagher, emergency on the first floor, west stairwell. One assailant dead, but we need immediate medical assistance. Do you copy?”

Marcel marvels, distantly, glad one of us remembered. Though I do hope Mundy is actually monitoring the radio lines and not just napping in the surveillance van.

But, after two seconds of wretched silence, a crackling confirmation comes through over the wire. Dell’s shoulders sag with relief.

“Hear that?” he asks. “Help’s coming. Now you got no excuse to go slipping away on me.”

“Understood, Monsieur Conagher. Since apparently you ‘need me here’— your words.”

“I do. But it ain’t,” he says, “because you took a bullet for me.”

“No?”

“No. I just need you. That’s all.”

And, as Dell holds Marcel’s face in blood-covered hands while they wait for paramedics to arrive, he relaxes and thinks, of all the times I’ve been shot, this one is almost pleasant.

[karuuhnia]

Misc. things about Chapter 6

When Heavy and Scout join the fight, Scout does not try to make his ridiculous advances to Miss Pauling for once. He compliments her in a quite charming way (at least for his standards) and then says this:

And then he just hugs her. She isn’t like the Fried Chicken Tramp to him who he only “wooed” to get laid. He really, genuinely loves and cares for Miss Pauling and her well-being. That is really adorable if you ask me. And makes it even sadder that she will most likely never return his affection. :(

Apparently, in the TF2 world it’s common that men give the woman they want to marry a necklace of human ears. It can’t be an American-only thing because, after all, Heavy immediately knows what’s going on when he sees it. Who needs engagement rings when you can have necklaces of human ears, am I right? :D Also, this panel here is probably my favourite of the whole chapter:

There is so much wrong with this, I just can’t stop laughing! XD

Now for something more serious: Miss Pauling has worked for the Administrator for at least 10 years (in the last chapter she claimed she had worked for her her whole life). And then she says this:

It’s very obvious that her only attachment figure is and has probably always been Helen. And she desperately wants to stay with her. Does that mean Miss Pauling is an orphan or an outlaw? Has Helen her taken in and turned her into her puppet raised her? There are also speculations that the two may be related or that Pauling is a clone of Helen. But no matter what, Helen has certainly made her her loyal, obedient little pet that will do anything for her.  I already fear the conclusion of this...

C!Engineer Fred is canonically Dell’s father, right? I found this scene here really weird:

Since the Conaghers have been working for the Mann family for generations it’s kind of odd that Fred doesn’t seem to know anything about the immortality machine and the Australium stuff. 

Does he not possess the same genius that his father Radigan and his son Dell have? It seems like Blutarch skipped Fred and went straight to Dell for advise. Another thing I’m still wondering about: What is Dell’s current relationship with his father? What would he do if Fred got killed by his, Dell’s, comrades? And if Dell is really part of the (RED) TF2 crew we’ve been following on this adventure... WHY IS HE WEARING BLU?! 

(I also noticed there are two Engineers on the cover of this issue: The bearded one without the helmet we know as Dell Conagher  and the “normal”, bald one with the helmet we saw in the MvM comic. 

It doesn’t look like Engineer on the right was thrown in there the way fantasy Sniper and Spy were. According to Jay Pinkerton there are no clones in the official canon. So who is this other guy? Does Dell have a twin brother we haven’t heard about so far, but who has actually been the RED team’s Engineer all this time? Does that cover even mean anything and can be considered canon?)

In any case, I really hope C!Engineer somehow made it out alive, just because I want to see him interact with his son. I highly doubt it, but maybe Sniper and Spy knew he was Dell’s father and spared him if he gave them valuable information and promised to stay out of the following fight? Who knows?

Engie’s role and character have been neglected so much, he better gets the bloody screen time he deserves in this last chapter! D:<

[tf2community]

@a-virtuous-pyromaniac submitted:

The Administrator, the Debt and the End: A Theory From Reddit

Hello! I saw this on r/TF2 and I don’t think it’s made its rounds on Tumblr. It’s well written and well-thought-out, so I thought I’d share. 

THIS IS NOT MY ORIGINAL WORK. IT BELONGS TO REDDITOR AVTHEMARSUPIAL. 

Original post can be found HERE.

*******

HUGE SPOILERS FOR ISSUE #6. SERIOUSLY, GET OUT IF YOU AIN’T READ THE COMIC YET.

Issue #6 of the post-MVM comics has come out, and boy, what a doozy.

Over the last five years since Blood Brothers and the Mann vs. Machine update, we’ve had lore trickle out at us in small pieces at a time. I’ve got some theories on what’s gonna happen next, but to get a handle on things, let’s recap.

I AIN’T KIDDING, MAN. SPOILERS AFTER THIS. THE COMIC’S LONG. IT’S WORTH IT. GO READ IT. YOU’LL BE GLAD YOU DID.

Our story starts on September 2nd, 1822, with the birth of the Mann Triplets to wealthy landowner Zepheniah Mann and Bette Mann (née Darling) during the Great Eagle Scourge of London.

One of the triplets, Grey, is a genius. The other two, well, are not. Grey is abducted by an eagle, and Redmond and Blutarch are raised to believe they are the only sons of Zepheniah Mann.

Over the next twenty-eight years, Zepheniah remains wealthy and successful, presumably by selling munitions across the British Empire.

In 1849, Grey resurfaces, and threatens to blackmail Zepheniah for all his Australium.

Around 1850, Zepheniah, Redmond, and Blutarch traveled to the United States, where they had purchased large areas of land in New Mexico hoping to expand the munitions business. Zeph contracts an incredible amount of sicknesses, and dies shortly after.

After his death, his Last Will and Testament is read.

Elizabeth, Zeph’s maidservant, was left the entirety of the Mann Estate, including what was left of his fortune.

Barnabus Hale, grandfather of Saxton Hale, was left complete control over Mann Co.

Redmond and Blutarch were left the lands of New Mexico to split evenly between themselves.

Finally, Elizabeth was left the entirety of Zeph’s “miracle gravel”, or as it was really known, Australium.

The Brothers Mann immediately begin fighting over the land, each hiring a team of 9 mercenaries to seize the land from the other, beginning a century long stalemate.

Barnabus Hale took over Mann Co. and even got into the coal mining business thanks to the Mann Brothers selling him a coal mine for 5 cents.

As for Elizabeth, that’s where things get tricky.

In 1890, Blutarch Mann hires Radigan Conagher to build him a machine to prolong his life indefinitely.

Radigan goes back to his workshop, where a mysterious woman is waiting for him. We’re never told who the woman is, but an obvious conclusion is that she has some connection to the present day Administrator Helen, and Zepheniah’s maidservant Elizabeth. The TF2 Wiki, going off of an old “printing” of Loose Canon names this woman as Emily, differentiating her from both Elizabeth and Helen. The Catch-Up comic, however, names this woman as Elizabeth, although with a different appearance than the previous Elizabeth. For purposes of simplicity, I’ll continue to call this woman Emily.

Emily gives a halfhearted attempt at convincing Radigan to not build the machine, and when that fails, attempts a counter-offer. Since 1880, Emily has been hunting down 100 pounds of Australium, which she offers to Radigan if he’ll build a second machine for Redmond Mann as well. Radigan accepts, naturally.

The 1st Life Extending Machine (LEM) is finished on July 17th, 1894 for Blutarch.

The 2nd LEM is finished on August 3rd, 1894 for Redmond.

But as we know from Loose Canon, Radigan built a 3rd LEM, which he finished April 14th of an unknown year.

Blutarch tells Dell that he’s had possession of Radigan’s notes for 60 years, so its assumed that some time around 1900, Radigan dies and is buried with his notes, only to be exhumed by Blutarch.

Time marches on, and the brothers hire a new team of mercenaries to fight, the Classic Mercs, presumably one of many teams hired. After a time, the modern day mercs are hired and organized under the team name of FORTRESS, to continue the same fight that has been going on since the 1850s.

Then everything changes when Grey Mann shows up, killing both Brothers, forcing Saxton Hale to give up his company, and forcing Helen to run away.

Grey, having discovered that the Mann Co. vault containing 200,000 pounds of Australium is empty, hires the Classic Mercs to hunt down the Fortress Mercs and lead him to Helen.

Miss Pauling goes on a mission to reassemble Team Fortress, burning Helen’s geneology records along the way, while Saxton Hale goes to see about getting his company back with the help of his old friend Maggie, and Charles Darling.

Darling, upon meeting Hale, requests Australium in exchange for getting Mann Co. back, and tells Hale that the Administrator has been “playing two old gravel magnates against each other, establishing thousands of shell companies, filling entire coal mines with bodies, and over the course of a hundred and fifty years, stockpiling the largest supply of Australium in the world.”

The Administrator later meets with Pauling, telling her that there are 89,000 tonnes of Australium in existence, and she has been collecting all of it in the six months since Grey took over Mann Co.

Engineer has been revealed to be in hiding with the Administrator, keeping her alive with the use of a LEM, one much more modern than even Grey’s.

The model on her arm is nearly depleted, and Engineer replaces it with a newer one, which he believes can run on a quarter of the Australium that the previous Mark 4 did.

Dell then confesses that they’re just kicking the problem down the road, and that when the Australium in the Mark 5 runs out, the Administrator will likely die for good.

She dismisses it, claiming

Your family has already given me more time than any of us deserves, Mister Conagher. I don't need much more. Just enough to settle an old debt.

The Classic Heavy then betrays Grey Mann, who confesses to Miss Pauling;

Whatever despicable things you think I would have done with that power…you’re right.

And I promise you, what she’s planning is worse. Stop her.

Grey’s deathbed confession makes little difference to Miss Pauling, and she continues on with the mission regardless.

After Heavy and the Cheavy fight, Grey Mann’s LEM is destroyed, and Cheavy becomes a weak, frail looking old man before he dies, presumably due to Australium withdrawal.

The Administrator, recovering from being dead, is informed by Engineer that only a small vial of Australium remains on Earth. The Administrator dismisses this, simply vowing to find more.

Engineer explains that due to the Mark 5, even the small vial of Australium can give the Administrator six months of life, but that her life, and her plans to settle her debt, are at an end.

Administrator makes peace with this, and uses the entirety of the remaining Australium to reverse her aging, giving her only an hour left to live, which is where Issue #6 ends.

Now that we’re done with the backstory, let’s get on with the theory.

The TF2 lore really begins with Loose Canon, and it’s incredibly weird that Blutarch just has possession of Radigan’s notes for the greater part of the 20th century before he decides to call up Dell and ask him to fix his LEM. We know that the Mann Brothers were born on September 2nd, 1822, that Blutarch recieved his LEM on July 17th, 1894, and then dug up Radigan and his notes sometime around 1900, in his late 70s.

Blutarch goes onto say that he’s “barely cheated death out of a half-century” which would put his first Death at around 1910, which makes sense, since Blutarch is nearly 150 years old by 1968.

But we know that Emily and Helen have been working to keep the War going, so why allow Blutarch to get the original notes at all?

We know that RED and BLU are subsidiaries of TF Industries, founded by Redmond and Blutarch.

At some point, the properties of the Mann Estate not given to Barnabus Hale or Redmond and Blutarch were turned into TF Industries. It seems incredibly likely that RED and BLU were initially founded off of Elizabeth's generosity and Emily continued that practice by keeping Redmond and Blutarch alive, with Helen continuing the work of her mother and grandmother to keep their perpetual stalemate going. This type of grand strategy isn’t uncommon historically, with the best example being the Carolingians, who slowly take control over Western Europe over four generations, and fictionally, the Lannisters and the Tyrells of A Song of Ice and Fire, who plot for their grandchildren to eventually become Kings in their own right.

The Administrator family has a vested interest in keeping the Mann Brothers alive, if only to be subservient to them. Blutarch obtaining the notes in secret has to be something that would tip the balance in his favor, and allow him to end the War.

I think the Administrator knew but didn’t care, and that’s where the story kicked off.

Like we’ve said, the Mann Brothers are idiots. Blutarch tells Dell outright that Radigan’s notes have been the bane of his existence for sixty years, and Dell seems to be the only one who can do anything with them.

Had Dell fixed Blutarch’s LEM without fixing Redmond’s, it’s likely that Redmond would have died before Blutarch, ending the war. The solution then was simple. Much like her mother did, Helen would hire Radigan’s grandson to fix Blutarch’s LEM, but to also fix Redmond’s.

What about the Australium, though?

From Loose Canon, we know that Dell looked over Radigan’s papers and found a list of Australium caches.

Dell seems really interested in the Australium, and even though he could try and get to the caches without alerting anyone, given the reach and the influence that Helen has, I doubt he could get far without her killing him. Instead, it makes much more sense to hire Dell to work for her in secret, allowing him access to the Australium in exchange for keeping her alive by upgrading the third LEM, built by Radigan for the Administrator family before his death.

In Blood Brothers, we see that Dell must have succeeded in his task, and upgraded the Brothers’ LEMs.

These Mark 2 LEMs are sleeker, portable machines, unlike the large bulky Mark 1 that Radigan built.

Now, in Blood in the Water, we learn that the Mark 5 only uses up about a quarter of the Australium that the Mark 4 did.

In The Naked and the Dead, Dell says that the small vial of Australium left on earth is enough to get Helen anywhere between five to six months of life.

Helen however, decides to use the Australium to reverse her aging, presumably to her 20s or 30s, cutting her down to only an hour of life.

So if we extrapolate on this, we can guess that each later iteration of the Life Extending Machines used less Australium than the model before it. If we take the Mark 4-5 transition as a benchmark, the Mark 5 would only need 1 pound of Australium to do what the Mark 1 needs 256 pound to do.

That is, in my professional opinion, a metric shitton of Australium being lost for no real benefit.

Helen says there’s only 89,000 tonnes of Australium in existence, and that she owns all of it by 1972.

Grey and the Australians have some in their bodies, but besides them, there’s no more Australium left on the planet, presumably because most of it was all used up to keep two idiots alive.

So if Australium is so necessary to stockpile, as well as incredibly limited, why the hell would you waste it keeping two idiots alive to babysit, when you could kill both of them and spend your time elsewhere?

The Brothers really don’t contribute anything to the intellectual fields of society, and the gravel fields they’ve been fighting over are useless. The only thing of value the Brothers did inherit, the coal mine, was sold to Barnabus Hale for five cents. The graveline that powers the world’s steam engines is coming from the Hales, not the Manns.

Speaking of Barnabus, he and Elizabeth aren’t shown to have any real interactions, but given how the only thing Mann Co. does is sell guns and mine coal, if Elizabeth and her descendants are the true antagonist, there’s no real benefit to killing Barnabus and the Hales.

The only things the Mann Brothers have managed to achieve are founding RED and BLU, and as I’ve assumed, Elizabeth helped them start their companies anyway. The Mann Brothers really don’t need to be kept alive, but there’s no real point to getting rid of them either.

What’s the Administrator’s Deal?

Helen clearly has the same reason most humans would in wanting to live forever, but there’s also a second component. She tells Dell that extending her life isn’t just for her, referring to the “old debt” she’s been settling.

When Dell tells her that her life is at an end, Helen says

I’ve tried to keep this going as long as I could. I…

I even thought I was done once.

I still crave it…as much as I did when I was a little girl.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop wanting it. It’s become…everything.

But you’re right. It’s over. And if I’m going to call an end to all of it…well…

Well.

Why not look my best?

This is incredibly cryptic. The obvious guess is that she’s referring to immortality, but I think it means something more than that.

Zepheniah Mann, a man of a prominent English family, was married to the daughter of William Darling, esquire, another man of a prominent English family.

We don’t really know anything about Bette Darling, but given that a man who fights with cougars for fun like Barnabuscries over her death, she must have been quite the charming lady.

On the other hand, Zepheniah seems like kind of a dick to his wife, ignoring his wife’s death in favor of hearing about his children. It doesn’t sound like a very warm marriage, and Bette would probably get tired of Zeph fairly often.

In England, a lady-in-waiting, or maidservant, was typically a noblewoman or a relative who would be part of a royal consort or noblewoman’s court.

Bette Darling, being from a prominent family and married to Zepheniah Mann, would most likely have her own lady-in-waiting to provide her with some much needed companionship. Given how Zepheniah seems to not care about Bette, who better to serve as a companion than her sister, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth as Bette’s sister makes a lot of sense. We know that Zepheniah ends up partitioning his assets off to her, and it sounds like Elizabeth ends up getting the biggest inheritance out of the recipients. Redmond and Blutarch are idiots, sure, but at the very least Zeph could have left his inheritance to Barnabus if he was that worried about things. After all, Barnabus did manage to run Mann Co. fairly successfully after buying the Brothers’ coal mine. Giving the bulk of his Legacy to a random maidservant makes a lot more sense if that maidservant is actually his dead wife’s sister.

So after Bette’s death, Elizabeth stays on in Zeph’s service, probably as a favor to her sister and her nephews. Then Zeph dies, and Elizabeth is left with a fairly substantial fortune, as well as a cache of Australium that her brother-in-law entrusted to her to keep away from his son.

Elizabeth could have walked away from the Mann Family Drama at any point, but out of loyalty to her sister, she ends up overseeing the conflict between Redmond and Blutarch in order to keep her idiot nephews alive.

And then Elizabeth dies.

So wait, what’s all this shit about genealogy?

Helen’s statement that she’s been stockpiling Australium for 150 years as of the late 1960s suggests that Helen has been alive since around the 1820s, coincidentally close to when the Mann Triplets were born, but the timeline here doesn’t really make sense.

Elizabeth looks to be in her 40s to 60s around 1850, and we know that smoking and age contribute heavily to infertility. Emily looks to be roughly the same age range in 1890, and Helen (who cheated) looks to be roughly the same age in 1970.

Here’s where I’m going to take a guess and say that Elizabeth is 100% dead, and that the old woman we see in the Naked and the Dead is actually her granddaughter Helen.

But in true fashion, I’m gonna go on a tangent to do it.

When Cheavy gets Grey’s LEM ripped out of him at the end of The Naked and the Dead, he looks old. Like, unreasonably old.

According to the Catch-Up comic, the TFC mercs were hired in 1930, and they look to be around their 20s to 40s by this time.

So if we guess on that, and say that Cheavy was born in 1890, he looks great for being 82 in 1972, which is to be expected for a man of his physique. Arnold Schwarzenegger was born in 1947, and he also looks great for being 69 years old.

So why does Cheavy go from looking like the picture of health to Ebenezer Scrooge not five minutes later? Australium withdrawal.

Australium is pretty special. Regular exposure to the stuff can extend your life and increase your vitality, and enough of it can reverse your aging entirely.

We know from Blood in the Water that Australium withdrawal is an actual thing, and that Australians who aren’t exposed to it become pretty normal. The reason the Australian soldiers don’t look like they belong in the grave is because they actually are in the peak of their lives, and aren’t keeping anything at bay by being exposed to Australium.

Cheavy, on the other hand, is basically coming back from the dead to fight Heavy. The Australium is the only thing keeping him alive after Heavy did quite a number on him.

Helen is the second person we’ve seen using Australium to sustain her youth and vitality, and the Australium is definitely taking a toll on her. When it isn’t being used to keep her looking young, she looks every bit the old crone she should be.

So coming out of that tangent with all this information, there’s just no way Elizabeth and Helen can be the same person, and that Elizabeth is 100% dead.

Elizabeth looks to be in her 50s by 1850, and would be at least 94 by the time the third LEM is built. Factoring in all of the smoking, Elizabeth’s body would probably about as healthy as a 150 year old’s by 1895. Even if Radigan could build the LEM in time to deliver to Elizabeth, Australium isn’t meant to prolong life. Helen, a woman who looks to be either 100 years old, or on the wrong side of 80, is able to punch a solid glass window and then shrug it off.

Speaking of the timeframe, Dell keeps making improvements to the LEMs, making 4 different models in total between 1968 and 1972, each more efficient than the last. When we get to the Mark 4, Dell replaces it with a more efficient model, ostensibly because the supply of Australium is slowly running out.

But I don’t think that’s the only reason. After all, there isn't that much improvement between the two, so why bother?

I think that the more you try and prolong your life, the harder it gets to rejuvenate your body, and the more Australium you need to do so. Australium exposure clearly screws with your biology in a massive way, and a 94 year old Elizabeth would be lucky to even survive the surgery necessary to install a LEM, let alone use it for 150 years.

So if Elizabeth is definitely dead before Radigan even builds the LEMs, we need to figure out the time-frame for the three generations of Administrators.

Guesstimating, we can assume that Elizabeth was born around the same time as Zepheniah Mann, probably around 1800. Even if Elizabeth became pregnant with Emily as late as 1850, that would make Emily around 40 years old in 1890, and anywhere from 45-50 when the third LEM is commissioned.

If Elizabeth is definitely dead sometime before or around 1880, that would give Emily the decade she needs to “acquire” her Australium without having to dip into her inheritance.

The third LEM then, is built for Emily.

So if Elizabeth is born around 1800, and Emily is born around 1850, the next logical leap is that Helen is then born around 1900. That’d make sense, as Helen would be in her 60s-70s as of 1972, but she definitely doesn’t look that way.

The answer lies in Australium withdrawal. If we assume that Emily and Helen are different people, and that Elizabeth lived until her 80s, Emily most likely voluntarily died around 1940 after a half-century of watching over the Mann Brothers and not wanting to deal with their shit anymore after a century of life. We’ll give her an extra decade for good luck, giving Helen possession of the LEM and her inheritance around 1950.

Even if Helen didn’t start using the LEM until 1968, that’s still 4 years for her to be constantly exposed to Australium, and if she uses it to reverse her aging just a small amount, she’d probably end up feeling the effects of 6-8 years of exposure.

Going back to the timeline, Elizabeth is dead by 1880, and Emily steps in to fill her mothers shoes, when Blutarch decides he wants to live forever.

Emily then contracts Radigan Conagher to build three Life Extender Machines for her and the Brothers. Radigan dies, and Blutarch takes possession of Radigan’s notes, but can’t do anything with them.

Emily lives through the Second World War, and then decides to pass the torch to her daughter, Helen.

Helen takes over TF Industries, and hires Dell Conagher in 1965. To keep the stalemate going, she hires 8 other Mercs plus Dell and assigns them to fight in the Brothers endless war, probably against other merc teams.

Then Grey Mann resurfaces after nearly 125 years, claiming Mann Co. and killing his brothers for being idiots.

At this point, Helen’s failed her grandmother and grandaunt. Bette Darling’s sons are dead, ironically killed by their own brother. The only duty Helen has left is to continue her grandmother’s job of protecting Zepheniah’s Australium from Grey, and she does a damn good job of it.

Enter the Darlings.

In Unhappy Returns, Saxton’s clearly at a low point, willing to deal with his old rival in order to get his company back, and Charles only wants one thing in return, Australium.

But how does Charles FUCKING Darling know about Australium?

Charles and Helen apparently have history, since Darling clearly knows more about what the Administrator actuallydoes than seemingly anyone else connected to the Mann Brothers and the Gravel Wars.

We know from Bidwell’s Big Plan that Charles Darling and Helen not only have history, but that the two don’t like each other.

If Bette Darling was really friendly, and the Administrators are at the very least, capable of expressing emotions, Charles Darling is at the opposite end of the spectrum.

Charles Darling, by all accounts, is fairly sadistic. We see in Unhappy Returns that Darling plans to gather every animal on Earth and put them in a zoo. Oh yeah, and he makes nearly extinct animals stand on boxes in a wall all day. For fun.

The man is also arrogant, too. The next time we see him after his introduction, he’s standing in his rather large manor, reading a book he published with his face prominently displayed on the back, standing underneath an incredibly large portrait of himself, which he helpfully labelled with a golden plaque bearing his name. Did I mention this is his own house?

Charles explains that he wants Australium to keep his animals alive forever, and Saxton seems rather fine with this. After all, he’s got 200,000 pounds of the stuff back at Mann Co., what’s a few thousand pounds here or there? Darling tells Saxton that all of the Australium is gone, and that the Administrator was the one who took it, questioning what the purpose of doing so is.

Except, there’s no reason Charles should know what the Administrator’s been up to, let alone the existence of Australium at all.

Darling isn’t Australian, he isn’t part of the Mann Family, and he’s wealthy enough in his own right that he presumably doesn't need Australium, so what’s the point of gathering it?

Grey Mann tells us that whatever Miss Pauling thinks he was going to do once he had beaten the Administrator, she’s right. He then goes on to say that what the Administrator’s planning on doing is worse. That still leaves Darling, though. If Helen can hire Miss Pauling and Dell Conagher to work for her and have them apparently be fine with what Helen’s doing, can it really be that bad?

Back to the point, in Pyromania we get a hint of who Helen is, and what she’s capable of.

Not only is Helen clearly capable of blatantly stealing the entire United States Australium supply, she goes before the United States Senate and basically ignores them, until we get to the really juicy bit, after which she simply excuses herself.

Speaking of the juicy bit, we don’t learn much from it. Piecing all of the lore together, we learn the opening sentence, and that’s about it.

Very well. For one hundred-fifty years I have been stockpiling Australium to… Helen reveals that she’s trying to prevent something, in order to do something, and her plan involves eighteen perfect idiots.

We know that she’s carrying out her plan in order to fulfill her old debt, and that at the very least her plan involves the nine mercs, but that’s the best guess we can make. Given how in the comics, there are only nine Fortress mercenaries, we still need nine more perfect idiots.

In this scenario, there’s still no indication of what the plan is, but Charles Darling seems like he’s being set up as the main antagonist to our favorite chain-smoking protagonist, by virtue of being the only contender left.

Redmond, Blutarch, and Grey are all dead, meaning that Helen has no obligation to keep the Brothers alive, or defend the Australium from Grey, and the only thing Saxton seems to care about is being able to fight things, leaving only Charles Darling. Oh, and Olivia.

Olivia, in her first appearance, looks remarkably similar to Helen as a child. Olivia is presented to us as Grey’s daughter, but I don’t think that’s true, given how Grey is nearly a hundred and fifty years old by then. What makes a lot more sense is that Olivia is Charles’ daughter.

Grey and Charles could easily set up an alliance of convenience, at least until their mutual enemy Helen is out of the way. Charles could allow Grey to use his daughter to win control of Mann Co., and Grey could allow Charles to take control of some Australium.

Of course, this would break down when the two would have to split the world between themselves, but given that Grey is dead, the point is moot. Grey’s death also leaves Olivia and Charles in a really great position. Olivia, as the supposed daughter of Grey Mann, would inherit Mann Co. with Grey’s death. If Charles really is Olivia’s father, the main Darling branch is well on their way to inheriting all of the Mann Legacy.

Helen, as the granddaughter of Elizabeth Darling, who is the sister of Bette Darling, is a relative of Bette.

By 1971, Helen controls both the original third of Zepheniah’s Legacy that was partitioned to Elizabeth, as well the third shared between Redmond and Blutarch under TF Industries, since Grey seemingly has no interest in the worthless gravel pits, leaving only the Hale’s third independent under Saxton.

If Elizabeth really is Bette’s sister, and Helen is Elizabeth’s granddaughter, this means that two-thirds of the Mann Family Legacy is under the control of the Administrator’s branch of the Darling Family.

If Helen is a Darling, she’s the only one standing in the way of Charles inheriting the entire Mann Estate, and apparently control of the entire planet’s governments under RED and BLU, respectively. To keep the Mann Family Legacy (and the world) out of the hands of the Darlings, I believe that Helen is going off to confront Charles Darling, and presumably kill him and Olivia.

With Charles and Olivia dead, the Mann Legacy would be entirely reunited under Helen, at least until she gives Saxton his company back. Mann Co. can continue on as just a regular company, and Helen’s death will finally bring an end to the Gravel Wars.

TL;DR / RECAP;

Zepheniah Mann married Bette Darling, died, and gave his Estate and Australium to his wife’s sister, Elizabeth Darling.

Elizabeth, her daughter Emily, and her granddaughter Helen have spent the last century repaying Bette and Zepheniah by financially supporting Redmond and Blutarch, keeping them alive, and keeping Zepheniah’s Australium out of the hands of Grey Mann.

Grey killed Redmond and Blutarch, and allied with Charles Darling and his daughter Olivia to take control of Mann Co.

Originally, Helen planned to simply outlive Charles, outwit Grey, and keep the Brothers alive indefinitely, but Blutarch hiring Dell to fix his life-extending machine caused her to include Dell in her plans. The arrival of Grey and murder of Redmond and Blutarch, disrupted these plans, and forced Helen to have to devote all of her resources to keeping the Australium out of Grey’s hands.

With Grey and the Darlings working together to bring her down, Helen is overwhelmed, and has to flee to a remote location, bringing Engineer along to keep her alive until she can defeat Grey and the Darlings.

Grey ends up ironically being killed by his own employees, so control of Mann Co. passes to his “daughter” Olivia, giving the Darlings control over one-third of the Mann Legacy.

Helen, having failed to keep the Mann Brothers alive, succeeds through a pyrrhic victory in keeping Zepheniah’s Australium out of Grey’s hands.

On her deathbed due to the worldwide exhaustion of Australium, only Helen stands in the way of Charles Darling inheriting the entire three parts of the Mann Legacy, as well as control over the entire world with the resources of TF Industries.

In order to finally bring the conflict started in 1850 to a close, Helen has to use her considerable resources to kill Charles and Olivia before she herself dies at the end of Issue #7.

*************