Angela took a deep breath and gripped onto her caduceus staff. It was only her third mission with Overwatch, and she was still getting used to being on the frontlines-it was quite different than working in her lab. While she saw the benefits to being a part of Overwatch-the access to state of the art labs, and the ability to create real positive change in the world was great; but being around so much gunfire and war was incredibly taxing on her spirit. The world was still dealing with the after effects of the Omnic Crisis, and Overwatch was being sent all over the world to both repair damage done and quell minor uprisings on both sides. Angela, or Mercy as she was called in the field, couldn't help but wonder if there weren't more diplomatic methods they could use instead of all the violence that seemed to break out.
Mercy looked over to her teammates, Jack Morrison, Gabriel Reyes, and their Captain, Ana Amari. She admired the courage of her captain, and sometimes sincerely wished that she could be more like her. She was only pulled from her thoughts when Captain Amari spoke. Hoping that none of her teammates noticed that she was completely spacing off, Mercy straightened her back and perked up.
"We'll be dropping in two separate zones. Jack and I will drop off near City Hall. Angela, Gabriel, you'll land near the hospital. I want you to make sure the hospital is secure. We've gotten reports of a rogue group of rebels, known only as "The Order," who are not happy that we made peace with Omnics. We're to locate the group and settle things before they escalate any further. The group seems to be targeting both Omnics, and anyone they consider to be an Omnic sympathizer. They aren't above using violence, caution is advised," Captain Amari explained.
Upon hearing this, Angela's blood started to boil. She couldn't stand anyone harming other people for no reason, and what's more, she couldn't understand why people would want the war to continue. Both sides took heavy losses, and it was one of the bloodiest conflicts in world history. She lost her own parents in the war, and was now dedicated to stopping conflicts before they start. That work meant constant vigilance, and keeping neutral to both humans and omnics. It was never easy to be impartial, and Angela already feared that the neutrality wouldn't last. When she developed her Valkyrie suit, her superiors asked if it could be weaponized-Angela said no, but she was certain her superiors didn't believe her.
"Verstanden," Angela nodded, eager to be visiting a hospital. It would be pretty heartless to attack a hospital, and she liked to believe that even misguided people had some good in them.
"Once you check the hospital and confirm everything is alright, you two will report to Jack and I, who will have hopefully located and established surveillance on at least a few members of The Order. According to intelligence, they aren't exactly inconspicuous," Captain Amari instructed.
Angela sighed softly to herself. She was somewhat hoping that on this mission she would just be doing hospital work. The thought of being on the battlefield again so soon, really vexed her. She must of visually shown her discomfort, because Captain Amari gave her a sympathetic look and gave her a reassuring squeeze on the knee-which warranted a not too subtle scoff from Commander Reyes. The two had gotten off on the wrong foot, and often had disagreements when it came with how to deal with missions. She wasn't exactly pleased that she was going to be partners on this mission, though she had the sneaking suspicion that Captain Amari had paired them together on purpose. Something about team unity or something. Angela just didn't believe that she and Reyes would ever get along. Too many ideological differences. Still, Doctor Ziegler would give her best on the field-Captain Amari would not accept sloppiness from her.
Moments later, their jet flew over Edinburgh, Scotland. She sighed when she saw the destruction in the city. True, society was on the upswing now, but the effects of the Omnic Uprising were all too apparent to see. It wasn't hard to understand why some would not be willing to make peace with the Omnics. So many were killed, displaced, and have lost everything that they had ever had. That was why Angela was so determined to help rebuild society, and to help bridge relations between Omnics and Humans. There was no way the world could sustain another massive conflict, which meant that it was going to take constant work and understanding to maintain the currently fragile peace. These extremist groups, both human and omnic, posed a direct threat to their efforts.
"Approaching Royal Edinburgh Hospital now, Reyes, Ziegler, prepare for departure," Captain Amari stated, loading up her own sniper rifle.
Angela sprung up, and tucked in her Caduceus Staff and Pistol. Thankfully, she's never had to draw her pistol much less fire it. Her other teammates were much more comfortable handling those situations than she was. For her, going on these missions were a chance for her to preserve life, not to extinguish it. She took her Hippocratic Oath extremely seriously, and would only take someone's life if it were under extreme circumstances. Reyes, on the other hand, seemed to have no problem with doing what he deemed necessary to complete the mission.
Upon landing on the roof of the hospital, Angela and Gabriel quickly exited the aircraft after quickly confirming that they were to rendezvous with Captain Amari and Commander Morrison as soon as the hospital was confirmed to be secured and under no further threat from members of The Order. Most of the patients in the hospital were those who were attending a pro-human-omnic diplomacy rally held just a few days ago. The remnants of the Scottish government requested Overwatch's help with finding and clearing out The Order.
Angela and Gabriel entered the hospital and Angela almost gasped at the condition. The medical facilities here were severely inadequate to deal with the amount of patients in the hospital. Thankfully, she remembered to bring extra canisters of her biotic tissue for her caduceus staff, as the people here seemed like they were going to need a lot of help.
"Doctor Ziegler from the Overwatch Initiative, nice to meet you," Angela smiled to who appeared to be the head nurse. Angela could tell that she was overworked, and probably hadn't slept much, if at all, since the attack. "If you could please, take me to the most seriously injured first," Angela followed up with a small smile.
"Nice to meet you too, Doctor Ziegler. I'm Renee MacTaggart, Chief Nursing Officer. We were hit hard by the attack. Over eighty people are in severe condition, with another sixty or so with varying degrees of injuries. These people are lucky, twenty five people lost their lives either from the attack or from their injuries.." Her voice was polite and professional, but that did little to conceal the strain and sadness in her voice, "The most severe patients are on level three, you may want to start there, I really hope you can help them, I don't know if the staff can take another loss so soon,"
"I will try my best, Nurse MacTaggart," Angela gave a sympathetic smile, "My research has had excellent results. I'm not promising anything, but don't give up hope. I know that it can be hard, but we have to be strong for our patients," She tried to reassure the nurse, but knew that her words would mean little without results to back them up. Of course, Reyes gave another one of his scoffs at her reassuring words.
"I'm going to go see if any of these people have anything useful to tell us," Reyes said while pushing past them.
"Don't stress any of them out, that could be dangerous for them. Stick to the ones who aren't seriously injured!" Angela called after him, getting nothing but a grunt in response. Turning to Nurse MacTaggart, she gave an embarrassed smile "I'm sorry for my colleague. He's not exactly a people person,"
"It's quite alright, but we should get to the patients, some of them are in very severe condition," Nurse MacTaggart responded.
Angela wasn't surprised to get such a trite response from the nurse, so she simply nodded and walked toward the elevator. She made sure that her Caduceus Staff was properly loaded before taking a deep breath. She would have liked to have done more tests with her staff before using it on such a wide scale, but Dr. Ziegler knew that this had the potential to help people on a grand scale, and some on the field data needed to be collected.
Arriving on the third floor, she was taken aback. The rooms were full to capacity, and the place was adorned with holes, peeling paint, and Angela could feel the cool breeze from a shattered window at the end of the long corridor. She knew that the United Kingdom had been hit hard by the crisis, but wasn't expecting it to be this grim. It was a wonder that the hospital was even somewhat functional in its current state...but she figured that people had to make due with what they had.
Over the next hour, Angela began to treat the patients. It was going surprisingly well, with her caduceus staff able to patch up most severe injuries, even pushing out shrapnel from some of the wounds. It was working much better than she expected, and the rate of tissue regeneration was astounding. Within that hour, she was able to bring over a third of the patients out of critical condition and move them to other floors. Freeing up some space on the level, really seemed to elevate the mood on the third floor.
Resting her staff and hooking it up to a portable power source, Angela was approached by Nurse MacTaggart, who had finally gotten a few moments of rest.
"I can't thank you enough, Dr. Ziegler," Nurse MacTaggart said with a small smile, "You really are a miracle worker,"
With a slight blush, Angela shook her head "I'm just happy that I'm able to help," she said honestly, "And don't worry abou-" Angela was interrupted by a loud bang, and then yell from Reyes.
"Perimeter breached! Five assailants! Mercy! Get to the ground level!" Reyes shouted, the sound of gunfire and screaming coming from the radio.
"We've got a problem, keep everyone up here until we secure the hospital again!" Angela told MacTaggart quickly and sprinted down the stairs, grabbing her caduceus staff. It was only at half power, but hopefully it would be enough to last through the conflict.
As soon as Reyes was in sight, she activated her Valkyrie suit's guardian angel function, which gave her a burst of speed, allowing her to zoom to Reyes with ease. "What's the situation?!" Angela asked frantically.
"They have pulse munitions, and gravity grenades, class four. These weapons are way too expensive and advanced for some small group of rebels. Something ain't right around here," Reyes mumbled, "Captain Amari, requesting backup at the hospital, looks like The Order isn't done with these people,"
Captain Amari's voice responded almost immediately "Negative. Morrison and I are pursuing a trail. I've radioed for any available background and Reinhardt and Genji are coming up from Gibraltar. We'll have to hold them off until then,"
"Great," Reyes grumbled and quickly rolled to the side. In an instant, his shotguns were drawn and firing.
Angela saw him take down two of the fighters like they were nothing, which made Angela cringe a bit. Still, in this case, it was them or these patients, and there was no way she was going to let her patients suffer any more. Activating guardian angel, she zipped over to Reyes, narrowly avoiding a spray of bullets. "Just three more! I've got you!" Angela yelled out and patched up the small flesh wounds she could see on Gabriel's body.
"I need more power! Damn it, Ziegler!" Reyes called out as he shot at the insurgents again.
Angela took a deep breath. She had recently upgraded her caduceus staff with a biotic beam that would allow her to overload her comrades' body systems in order to drastically increase their performance. The only downside was that it hadn't been tested outside the lab yet, and Angela wasn't exactly sure what would happen, She was about to protest when she heard boots on the ground and angry shouting.
"Ziegler, what are you waiting for?!" Reyes yelled out "Four more targets, incoming!"
Angela took a deep breath and flicked the switch on her caduceus staff, activating it's biotic enhancer. The blue light sputtered a bit before connecting to Reyes. Within seconds, he jumped over the desk and began firing at the members of The Order. Angela almost had to shut her eyes at the sight of the bodies hitting the floor. It never got any easier. The only somewhat positive thing about this, was that her biotic enhancer seemed to be working. Reyes was performing like she had never seen. The battle seemed to be turning in their favor! Perhaps they wouldn't even need Reinhardt or Genji's help! Angela sincerely hoped none of the insurgents actually had died, as any loss of life was still a loss.
With only three of their foes still active, Angela assumed that this would be over relatively soon. Reyes rolled to the side, and shot at the final group. Angela's staff began to vibrate, and the biotic enhancer suddenly increased its intensity at an extremely rapid rate. Reyes' body couldn't handle the sudden overload, and for the first time since meeting him, she heard him yell out in pain. He managed to shoot one of the men in the chest, being so biotically/mechanically overcharged that he blew a hole clean through the man's chest, causing Angela to scream. There was so much force that it had severely punctured the other man's chest, rendering him unconscious. She attempted to switch to the caduceus staff's healing function but it was stuck in the biotic enhancer function. She hurled the staff away from Reyes, causing the link to break, and Reyes to double over in pain. Angela used guardian angel to fly toward Reyes to care for him, but as she approached, she heard the rapid beeping of a grenade "Reyes! Look ou-" She was cut off when the gravity grenade exploded.
The force of the grenade flung both Angela and Reyes in different directions. Lucky for Doctor Ziegler, her Valkyrie suit absorbed most of the impact, and she was just disoriented. Reyes, on the other hand, was not as heavily armed, and severely injured. It took her a few moments to realize that Captain Amari was yelling into her receiver.
"Mercy. Report! Report! We heard a blast and are on our way!" Captain Amari radioed, "Mercy, I repeat, what is your status? Genji and Reinhardt are minutes away!"
Angela took a few deep breaths before responding "Reyes is down, caduceus staff is offline, need back up immediately!" Every word seemed to set her lungs on fire. It would take a minute or two before her valkyrie suit would begin to restore her health. The suit also seemed to be damaged from the blast. The only remaining insurgent walked up to Reyes and grabbed one of the shotguns that Reyes was using so skillfully only moments ago. The world seemed to be moving in slow motion. The man pulled back the shotgun, and brought his finger to the trigger. Seemingly controlled by forces outside her body, Angela ran toward the insurgent.
When she snapped back to reality, she was holding her caduceus blaster in her hand, smoke leaking from the front of the barrell. Her hand was shaking, and her eyes wandered down to the now writhing insurgent in front of her. Angela dropped her pistol and ran to get the caduceus staff. Hurrying back to the wounded man, she tried to get the healing function to work, but it was completely out of power. When she attempted to put her hands on him to stem the bleeding from his neck, her hands were swatted away.
"Don't touch me! Tra...Traitor!" He yelled out. The man was young, not more than twenty. Angela could see that he was fading fast, but each attempt to help him was rebuffed by the dying man. "We'll never stop...there will be no peace," He slurred out before his eyes went cold.
Tears streaked down Angela's eyes as she swiftly moved to shut the man's eyes. Being a doctor meant that patients sometimes died, but Angela Ziegler had never killed a person willingly before. She had never even drawn her gun on the battlefield, and now she had removed someone's life. Someone so young. Was this the price of "keeping peace?" Being forced to take lives in order to stop the fighting in the world? Something about curing fighting with fighting didn't seem right to her. Peace should be attained through peaceful methods, shouldn't it? The means should justify the end, shouldn't they?
Angela quickly moved to Reyes' side and began to tend to him. The work helped distract her from her thoughts. Reyes had a few broken bones, and Angela set them as best she could. Once he was stabilized, she felt her thoughts wander back to what she had done, and the tears began to roll from her cheeks again. It wasn't until she heard Captain Amari call out to her, that she returned to reality again. She was accompanied by Genji, Reinhardt, and Morrison. It was a slight comfort to see her comrades again.
"What's the situation here, Mercy?" Commander Morrison asked while Captain Amari and Genji helped to support Reyes so they could move him to a hospital bed that had been knocked through a hole in ceiling from the concussive blast of the grenade.
"There were five, at first, but they sent in reinforcements shortly after the conflict began. They had pulse munitions and gravity grenades, which is what caused the explosion," Angela noticed the surprise on her teammates faces.
"There's no way that The Order could have obtained these by themselves. We determined the group to be no more than about thirty individuals, none of whom seem to be rich or well connected. They had to have outside help," Captain Amari remarked, "Examine the bodies for any sign of outside help,"
They fanned out to examine the now deceased members of The Order. Angela, on the other hand just sat quietly near Reyes, blankly making sure that he was stable and not on the verge of death. Angela could not believe that she had taken another life. She could already hear the voices of her comrades telling her that it was different, and it was in the defense of your fellow teammate, nothing Angela hadn't already considered. It wasn't good enough for her. As a doctor and as a member of Overwatch, she should have found a solution that would have preserved both her teammate's life, and the misguided youth's.
"Captain Amari, we've got something here," Jack signalled for the team to come over to the person that Angela had shot.
Having to go back there was almost too much for the doctor, but she needed to find out who had armed this near child with war-grade weaponry. There was a difference between an angry group of misguided fools, and something like a terrorist group. She joined her teammates around the body, and frowned when Jack held up the pin that had been affixed to the inside of the man's vest.
"Talon," Captain Amari confirmed with a sigh.
The entire atmosphere of the room changed. Talon was an international terrorist group whose motives weren't always clear. There wasn't any obvious reason that Angela could see for Talon to finance and traffic weapons into "small fish" groups like this. Angela's blood was really boiling now. Talon was taking advantage of people's fears, but for what aim?
"Probably working to cause instability. Distract us from focusing on them and try to take advantage of people's, and honestly probably omnic's, hatred," Captain Amari proposed, sighing and shaking her head, "We're going to have to start focusing our efforts on Talon directly. Perhaps even infiltrate it. Should be up Gerard's alley,"
Angela wasn't exactly keen on the idea of sending her comrade and friend to one of the most dangerous organizations in the world, but she knew that he would accept without question. Gerard really believed that they were doing good, and that was a refreshing mood to have around Overwatch, which seemed to be growing increasingly pessimistic. No doubt this new information wouldn't help anyone's mood.
"Alright team, we need to go back to headquarters," Strike Commander Morrison sighed, "Reyes needs help, and we need to inform everyone about this new information. Hopefully we can launch a counterterrorism taskforce to extinguish these problems before they escalate again,"
Angela nodded and went to inform Nurse MacTaggart that more supplies would be on the way, as well as what they could spare for security. She would make sure to comeback to check up on this place again soon. Maybe someday she could make amends with any family that this guy may have had. Just before she was to leave, she made one last visit to wear the body of the person she had taken from this world. In the man's pocket there was a wallet, and a dogtag. Believing that she was alone, she pocketed both after looking at the name on the dogtag.
Ethan Campbell.
His date of birth, and hometown, were also inscribed on the dogtag. He was only 23, and was from Aberdeen. Angela took another shaky breath before looking up. She was shocked to see Captain Amari watching her from across the room. Her Captain approached her and placed a hand on her shoulder-which caused tears to flow from Mercy's eyes again.
"Does this ever get easier?" Angela asked, her voice cracking.
Captain Amari shook her head and sighed "Never. And if it does ever get easy, you'll have lost what it means to be human. Come on, let's go home, Angela,"
Angela nodded slightly "Right. Thank you, Captain," She gave a soft smile, and stayed close to Ana as they made their way back to the jet that would take them back to HQ.
Ethan Campbell.
She would never forget that name. And one day, she would make things as right as she could. Nothing would bring him back to his family, but she could make sure that Talon never did this to another impressionable, misguided youth. She would never forgive Talon for what they have done. This was low even for them.
Like a valkyrie, she would graciously defend and protect what is right. She would bring the peace that the world so desperately needed.
She would never forget the 23 year old boy who laid cold before her.