Team Fortress 2 - The Mercs Get REAL Jobs

Soldier - Librarian

“Sir, do you have the book ‘Joy Among the Daisies’?”

“Try looking in the weakling section, right next to Failure and Disappointment!”

“Excuse me?”

Soldier frowned angrily at the woman in front of him, saying “You heard me. Trash like what you requested belongs in the section I ordered it to go in! Now move, cadet, move! The enemy could approach us at any time!”

The woman hurried off, looking stunned.

Soldier was a librarian, and not a very good one, obviously. He never sat at his desk; he stood at attention next to it. Any book he deemed ‘unfit for human reading’ was thrown into a pile behind him labeled ‘Pansy Pile’. Though he enforced the rule of keeping quiet in the library, he was the loudest one there.

Another librarian walked up and gave him a load of books, saying “These need to be filed accordingly, Mr. Soldier. All of these need to go to the first-grade classes and kindergarten.”

Soldier frowned down at the books as she walked away and immediately began chunking books into his Pansy Pile. “The Wizard of Oz, Gulliver’s Travels, The Swiss Family Robinson…who reads all of this trash?! Much less to their children! I have better things in mind for these lucky little ones.”

He grabbed several books he had been flipped through and sorted them into the pile. Biggest Bloodiest Bullets, Great Wars, and Tanks That Maimed were a few of the books added. “Now if that’s not guaranteeing our children’s future, I don’t know what else is,” he said proudly.

Before he could continue on his rampage through great works, a teacher walked up to him. “I’m looking for a Mr. Soldier?” she asked.

“You are looking at him, cadet,” Soldier said, saluting at once.

The teacher eyed him skeptically, then said “…Right. Well, that means you’re our reader. Come along.”

She started to walk away, but Soldier shouted after her. “A reader? What in General George Washington’s blazing underpants is a reader?!”

“A reader means you will read a story to a group of children,” the teacher said, looking a bit fearful. “Just a simple story, that’s all.”

“Read? To CHILDREN?” Soldier shouted. “What nincompoop thinks of garbage like this?! But orders are orders, and I will comply. C’mere, cupcake, and lead me to the innocent little children.”

The teacher looked as though she would rather not, but she sighed heavily and did as he asked.

Soldier was led into a room with several bouncing, chattering boys and girls, all of whom were eager to hear a story. “Alright class,” the woman started. “We have a very special-” She was never able to finish, of course.

“ATTEEEEEEEEN-SHUN! All of you maggots sit down and shut up or I will personally enlist you in the next war against all things frilly, pink and overrated!” Soldier bellowed, brandishing his collapsible shovel menacingly.

The children all froze at the sight of him, then hurried to find their seats.

Once everyone had sat down, Soldier took his place in a small chair at the front of the class. “Does anyone know why I am here?” he asked.

A little boy raised his hand and said “To read a story to us?”

“NEGATIVE!” Soldier bellowed, making him flinch and sit back down. “I am here to read, yes, but it will be a story of truth and passion, of blood and guts and the backbone to get things done! A story that strikes fear in the hearts of the bravest men! The story of…” He grabbed the storybook off of the table and stared at the cover.

“…Little Red Riding Hood?”

He scoffed, then opened the book and started reading. “Once upon a time there was a little girl named Little Red Riding Hood. She loved her dear grandmother very much. One day, her grandmother fell ill and Little Red’s mother told her to take a basket of cakes to her to make her feel better.”

He stared at the pages with a frown on his face, then shouted “This book is total and utter TRASH, meant to fill your lives with ruin and hatred! I will now read it to you in a way that will make you better understand the harsh truth called life.”

He opened the book again and started reading. “Once upon a time there was a little girl named Little Red Gunslinger. She worked in the Mafia under Great-Granny, who was a world-renowned crime lord. One day, Great-Granny ordered a basket of the finest grenades to be brought to her, and Little Red Gunslinger was picked to deliver them. So she headed off into the deep, dark forest, on the other side of which Great-Granny had set up her base of operations underneath an abandoned taco shop.

“As Little Red Gunslinger walked through the deep, dark forest, an evil wolf called ‘Big Ugly’ approached her. Big Ugly drew his Winger Pistol from his back pocket and pointed it at Little Red Gunslinger, but she was too fast for him. She whipped out her Force-A-Nature and blew Big Ugly into fuzzy, blood-soaked chunks!”

The children gaped at him, looking terrified.

“Then Little Red Gunslinger continued on her merry way, until she got to Great-Granny’s, where she found she had been caught in a set up! Guns blazed, bombs blew up, and people fell in screaming, bloody messes on the floor! Little Red was a whirl of guts and grenades as she took down mob-man after mob-man!

“Before they knew it, the Mafia had been destroyed! Everyone ended up dying in the line of duty, laying down their lives in order to protect their country!” By the time he had finished, Soldier had made all sorts of gestures and poses, trying to convey the entire story through himself. At the end, he stood tall and gave a stalwart salute, standing stiffly by.

“And that, children, is the true story of Little Red Riding Hood,” he said, then promptly walked out of the room, leaving a bunch of children to rock back and forth in the corners, horrified.

He headed back to his front desk and went back to throwing books into the Pansy Pile. When he was finished with the stack there, he went through the isles, throwing half of the library’s contents onto the floor.

By the time they fired him, the library was in a panic.

“Sissies,” he said over his shoulder as he walked out. With nowhere else to go, he headed towards the familiar foundation of Mann Co, wondering about everyone else. And if he could get his hands on more grenades soon.