The Nucleus Incident

So, Team Fortress 2 players, you know that map, Nucleus? You know that spinning, glowing machine in the center of the map?

You ever wonder what it does?

Well, one fan came up with a theory, and thus we have The Nucleus Incident, a fanfic that explores what happens when the RED team is exposed to a blinding light the machine gives off one day. Each team member wakes up some time later to find out they've acquired strange superpowers. Eventually, they not only learn to use their abilities in battle, but also that their powers are actually evolving. And, what's more,

A rather popular fic that's inspired Fan Work of its own. Word of God on this very wiki indicates it will no longer be worked on, and the journal the fic was on has been deleted. However, every chapter that was written can be downloaded here.


 * Animorphism: Pyro
 * All of the Other Reindeer: Sniper's backstory-.
 * Applied Phlebotinum: Australium, even more so here than in the source material.
 * Ascended Fanboy: Scout's a big comic book reader, and while he does freak out about his powers as much as the rest of the team, he still gets pretty excited about them.
 * Baleful Polymorph: Engineer, who turns into a half-man, half-fish thing.
 * The Cassandra: Demoman's the first one to notice, but seeing as he's been turned into a kid, no one believes him.
 * Dead Fic: Sadly.
 * Disney Death:
 * Dreaming of Things to Come: The RED team all have very vivid and symbolic dreams pertaining to which power they'll eventually develop before they wake up to discover their new abilities.
 * Fan Nickname: Enjawneer for Engineer.
 * Fauxreigner:
 * Fish People: Engineer
 * Flight:
 * Fountain of Youth: Demoman
 * Gravity Master: Scout, sort of. He can only control his own gravity, and it takes him a while to really master it.
 * Green Thumb: Sniper
 * Heroic BSOD: Soldier
 * Medic, Sniper and Spy all get one, too.
 * Heroic RROD: Their powers do have limits, as shown when Scout passes out, and Sniper almost does so as well.
 * I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!:.
 * An Ice Person:
 * I'm a Humanitarian: During an encounter with the BLU Spy in Teufort's sewers, Engineer discovers his mutation's given him a shark-like attraction to blood. Naturally, he's horrified.
 * I Just Want to Be Normal: Everyone wants their powers reversed at first. Slowly, however, many of them ( particularly Sniper) grow used to their abilities.
 * Light'Em Up: Spy. Actually, his is a rather creative use of this trope, as it's shown that controlling light means he has control over color as well. Now, consider how this would help a character whose job is basically dependent on being able to disguise himself...
 * Mass Super-Empowering Event: The titular incident.
 * Mind Rape:
 * Official Couple: Heavy and Medic.
 * Omniglot: Soldier
 * Precision F-Strike: How do you show the RED team's really on edge?
 * Psychic Link:
 * Rubber Man: Medic
 * Shout-Out: When a swarm of bees (courtesy of Heavy shooting the hive) attack BLU Heavy and Medic, the latter's initial reaction is a German-translated version of a certain infamous line about bees.
 * Heavy's dream contains quite a few lampshaded references to Alice in Wonderland.
 * Scout, while commenting that Spy would make the worst superhero or supervillain ever, compares himself to Spider-Man and Sniper to Poison Ivy
 * Also,
 * There's a reference to the Kill Screen in old video games, when Engineer mentions Scout asking him exactly 254 times for a Dispenser.
 * Sizeshifter: Heavy,
 * Speaks Fluent Animal: Soldier. Engineer even references the former Trope Namer when he finds this out.
 * Squick: In-universe, the sound of Pyro changing between forms.
 * Wall Crawl: Scout, due to his gravity being reversed.
 * What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: While his teammates' powers are quickly evolving, the only change Demoman's gone through since the titular incident is that he's a kid, and he gets pretty frustrated about not having any special abilities.
 * Would Hurt a Child:
 * Your Mom: Spy pulls a rather underwhelming one of these towards Sniper.
 * Speaks Fluent Animal: Soldier. Engineer even references the former Trope Namer when he finds this out.
 * Squick: In-universe, the sound of Pyro changing between forms.
 * Wall Crawl: Scout, due to his gravity being reversed.
 * What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: While his teammates' powers are quickly evolving, the only change Demoman's gone through since the titular incident is that he's a kid, and he gets pretty frustrated about not having any special abilities.
 * Would Hurt a Child:
 * Your Mom: Spy pulls a rather underwhelming one of these towards Sniper.
 * Your Mom: Spy pulls a rather underwhelming one of these towards Sniper.