A/N: Long note at the bottom.


Why the fuck did everything hurt?

No, wait. That was a lie. His leg leg didn't hurt. Mostly because he couldn't feel his left leg at all. He opened his eyes. Damn, left eye only showed darkness. His bleary eye looked around. Rubble, and a lot of it. Right on top of his entire left side felt like a slab of concrete that fell on top of him.

He tried to call for help, but the stabbing pain in his chest and the gurgling of blood stopped him. Perfect, his lungs were pierced. Damn it all.

Gabriel Reyes would die here, alone, all because of a stupid fight.

He reflected on the things leading up to everything. The things he had done, the things he did wrong. He was jealous, jealous of his rival-friend for getting everything he wanted.

Funny how it was when he about to die that he saw how petty he was.

A soft chuckle brought his attention elsewhere.

"To think, I would find you here."

'Who the hell?' Command had said that his big mouth had gotten him in trouble more than once. Thankfully, he couldn't exactly talk.

"Now now, is that any way to think about someone who could help you?"

'Wait, what? What the fuck?'

"Language, young man."

Slowly, he felt the concrete on top of him be lifted away from him. Gabriel looked incredulously, or as incredulously as one can get with only half their body, at the person that did it. It was a petite woman of Asian descent, with black hair styled in pigtails wearing a red overcoat.

"Oh, you like it? Rin Tohsaka always did intrigue me. Shame she died a few years back."

'What the fuck are you talking about?'

The woman chuckled once more, "Nothing, nothing. Anyway, I don't think I ever answered that question, did I? 'Who the hell'? I mean, you could have been slightly more polite."

The woman crouched down and smirked at him, "I am what you humans call Alaya. I take it you haven't heard of me?"

'Nope. Can you hurry this up? This whole hallucination-while-dying is taking a long damn time.' Seriously, this was getting troublesome. He just wanted to go die in peace.

"My, is this what humans take for professionals nowadays?

'Cut the shit, get on with the show.'

Alaya sighed, "Fine. How would you like to have another chance at life?"

Silence. Then, gurgling laughter, 'Very fucking funny. Ask a dying man if he wants to live? Man, my brain must be fucked up. What's the catch?'

"Nothing. Well, when you're alive there is. In death, however, you shall serve me as one of my warriors." She said, smirk still in place.

'...Fuck it, even if this is just some figment of my imagination, it sure as hell beats dying.'

"I take that as a yes?" The woman raised her eyebrow, 'Yep.' She smiled, and Gabriel couldn't help but feel that he had made the worst decision in his life, "Excellent." She snapped her fingers, and instantly, she vanished.

"Hello?! Is anyone there?" Another voice called out, one he was more familiar with. The pain, which he had managed to ignore for the most part was slowly getting too much for him to handle.

"Gabriel? Gabriel!" The visage of Angela Zeigler, known throughout Overwatch and the world as Mercy, blasted into view.

The golden light he knew to be from the Caduceus Staff flowed into him. He internally scoffed. Not even that would be effective on a dead man. Still, Mercy persisted.

A few moments later, Gabriel took his last breath.

Mercy wasn't giving up, however, "Please work, please, please, please…" She pressed a button on her staff, and an even brighter light covered her and Gabriel's body. She prayed that it worked.

The light faded, "No…"

The sky turned dark as it rained, masking Mercy's tears. A few hours later, local authorities found Angela Zeigler kneeling in front of a black stain, wide eyed and unresponsive.

In an abandoned warehouse, it felt cold. He felt pain, but it was cold. He could feel his body, but it was cold. He could see, hear and smell, but it was cold.

It was cold. Cold. Cold. Cold. Cold. Cold. Cold.

Then it was gone.

He breathed in staggered breaths, wondering what just happened. His answer came in the form of his left leg suddenly becoming smoke-like. It was a strange feeling. He could feel the leg, but he couldn't at the same time. What's even stranger had been how calm he was about this.

As if a trigger had been pulled, he started to hyperventilate. What, the fuck just happened? He looked down at his body. He still could see out of his left eye, and his left lung was exposed to the world.

"Didn't you want to live?"

Her. Gabriel turned around, and there was the woman that called herself Alaya, "What the hell did you do to me?!" His voice came out raspy, as if it hadn't been used for a while.

The woman shrugged, "Nothing. I just pushed someone in the right direction, and voila, you're alive. Well, not really alive, per say. More on slightly more alive than a corpse."

She pretended to look at a non-existent watch, "Actually, you're missing something else. It should come in three, two,"

Pain, blinding pain. The pain of feeling yourself rot from inside out, the pain that came with having a gaping hole in your chest. Pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, PAIN, PAIN.

"...one."

He collapsed to the ground, the pain being too much. He wanted to die, but as if in response, more pain wracked his body.

"Oh, that simply can't do. You asked for life, so you're gonna have to live the rest of your natural born life like that, so no suicides, okay?" The woman talked as if she were lecturing a small child. He growled in response.

"Hm. Good enough I suppose. Well Mr. Reyes, it's been a pleasure, but I have other things to do. See you in a few years, I suppose."

A blink, the woman was gone.

He continued to writhe on the ground in pain, his left leg still smoke. He roared, his watery voice echoing throughout the warehouse. The previous thoughts of his actions in the past faded away, leaving nothing but rage.

This was all Morrison's fault. This was all Overwatch's fault. But most of all, this was all Zeigler's fault.

It was cold again, but the pain had dulled. Good. He looked down at his body. Black smoke. Yes, he could deal with this, anything to get away from that pain.

For now, he had to figure out how his new 'gift' worked. After that, Overwatch was going down.

On that day, Gabriel Reyes died. On that day, the Reaper was born.


Shirou sighed tiredly as they finally arrived at the wreckage. It took them a few days, and several hypnotized officials for them to access the destroyed Overwatch base. The reason for being there? Simple.

It was a Magus who destroyed it. At least, that was the theory. A theory that was looking more and more true as he used Structural Analysis on the area.

"Search the area, leave no stone unturned. Find anything, report to me immediately." He ordered his men, to which they just gave nods and went off to work.

He walked around the destruction, eyes gravitating towards pieces of what looked like pulse weapons. There.

A Heavy Pulse Rifle, designed for short to medium ranged combat. Ammo capacity of twenty five standard pulse cells. Specifically, this weapon was the weapon of one Jack Morrison. He shuffled through the last time the weapon was used. A week ago, against some rogue US military troops.

No answers there.

He continued to scan the area, this time looking at the remains of several pillars. Shirou's eyes narrowed. He recognized those burns, "Trace, on."

No doubt about it, the pillar was destroyed by a sudden explosion, one that was made by a Magus. Unfortunately, the pillar wasn't a weapon, which made discerning the identity of the person almost impossible. Still, something else must be here.

"Sir, you may want to look at this." He looked back to the Enforcer, Eric, that talked and nodded. He followed the man to a strange sight. A rune, whose size was larger than he was tall, was carved into the remnants of the underground area of the base.

"Crude, obviously hastily made. Whoever did this didn't have much time. Sir, if you may?"

Shirou nodded, and once more used Structural Analysis, "Hn. It seems that this rune was made to induce as much violence as possible via subtle coaxing within anyone in the vicinity. It only works for those who aren't aware of its existence. Impressive. As for its history…" His eyes narrowed as he focused.

"...nothing. It's as if it just appeared there." Everyone frowned. There wasn't anyone in the Clock Tower that hadn't heard of Shirou's prowess in the admittedly basic Mystery. If even he couldn't get anything, then something was definitely wrong.

"There has to be more. John, Philip, unearth the floor and transfer the rune out of here. Everyone else, keep searching."

The two Enforcers got to work as the rest left the area to look for more evidence. Shirou walked out of the underground and continued to scour the rubble. Again, there.

The Caduceus Staff, a medical instrument that was made by Doctor Angela Zeigler. Uses nanotechnology to stitch normally fatal wounds in a blink of an eye. That itself was worth the attention of even the most stuck-up of the Magus community, however there was something much, much more mind boggling.

The Resurrection Matrix.

It bordered on the realm of impossible. While the Staff repaired the physical body, it couldn't cure death, as the soul of the person would leave the corpse.

The Matrix was the solution to that. By some complex sciences that he couldn't understand, the Matrix could literally bring people back to life by pulling their souls back into the repaired body.

It was terrifying.

There was something wrong the Staff, however, "Trace, on." There. A simple loose wire, but that wire had devastating consequences. Had the Staff been used, it wouldn't healed the target, as that single wire was the one that allowed the remote activation of the nanomachines.

It just so happens that it was used. On one Gabriel Reyes, right on top of that black stain. He approached the stain, and he was greeted by the smell of something very familiar, something he swore to never interact with. You see, while most Magi used their eyes to perceive Prana, Shirou was different as he used his nose and sense of smell. Rin likened him to a bloodhound once, when she had learned of it.

What normally would bring a small chuckle to him served nothing as he was too focused on the familiar otherworldly smell.

Alaya.

Pieces fell into place. Reyes was injured, possibly fatally, and left here, going by the blood in the area. Alaya came and proposed a deal with Reyes, and he probably accepted, else his body would have been right here. Zeigler came and used the Staff. The Staff failed to repair his wounds, but Zeigler didn't know that. She used the Matrix, and forced a whole soul into a broken body, resulting in…this black stain?

No…

If only he could use Analyze the stain, however the last time he used his Magecraft on something touched by the Counter Forces caused him to fall into a coma for three whole days due to an overload of information.

Damn. Shirou sighed. That was an investigation for another day. He called over the nearest Enforcer and handed her the Staff for containment. She looked at him with furrowed eyebrows and asked what it was.

"Jenkins, what you're holding right now may be the difference between having one less True Magic or not."

Indeed, the Resurrection Matrix within the Staff could be the scientific equivalent to the Third True Magic, Heaven's Feel. That by itself was a jarring thought, as the soul wasn't something science can touch. Until today, that is.

Jenkins looked at the Staff in newfound awe. Shirou chuckled. She snapped out of her daze and quickly scurried off to do her job.

Shirou was once more left alone. He sighed to himself as the gravity of the situation settled on him. In the past, there had been many more Mysteries that could be considered as True Magic. Things like explosions and flight. Then came gunpowder and the airplane.

If things went on like this, then by the end of the millenia, there may not be any True Magic's left.

"If only you were here, Rin." He looked up to the sky, muttering to himself sadly. He could imagine her calling him an idiot for even thinking that the the rest of the True Magic's would fade away.

But she wasn't here. And she won't be here ever again.

That said, he made a promise, to never regret the path he took, even if it cost him everything.

"My body is made out of swords."

Thus was the life of the Wrought Iron Magus.


A/N: First things first, in response to rickyp01, and by extension everyone who thinks this: tbh, I never considered a mass crossover fic. You see, while my previous statement on "too many characters" still rings true, there is another reason why I write one-shots: if I were to make a multi chapter story, I don't know if I'll be able to finish it, and I think we can all agree that an unfinished story is one hell of a disappointment. That said, if I get to the point where the Overwatch-Fate archive is literally over saturated with nothing but one-shots, then I'll probably try to write and finish multi chapter stories, but that in of itself will focus on only a few characters, and not the entire Overwatch crew or something.

Now, with that out of the way, on to something that I didn't get to do because I was too busy with real life(cue very unemotional gasp): replying to reviews. Normally, I reply to them in PM's when there's a question, but again, I was busy, so I'll be answering them here. Note that this will only happen this one time, and on this fic. Don't worry though, there are only three reviews I want to address, not counting rickyp01's.

Im a guest: I don't mean to be rude, but you do know that Widowmaker is basically a reference to the black widow spider? Spiders which, mind you, popularized the idea of spiders killing/eating their mates?

Frank Horrigan: This Shirou is the UBW Shirou, and know that the Counter Guardian EMIYA, in Slipstream, is a completely different entity to Shirou, but both exist in the same universe.

reality deviant: ;)

Disclaimer: Saying that I own either Overwatch or Fate would mean my ass would get figuratively kicked.