A/N: This is not a A get badly wounded so B has to stay by A's side or whatever, just in case you were wondering.
The Infinite Fight
It all began with a low rumble. It always did. Alarms rang around the city, and reached their loudest in the military base. D. va woke up with a start, her heart beating loudly in her chest. She knew what those alarms meant, and she dreaded their sound every second of her life. She took in a deep breath, and reached for her bodysuit in her wardrobe. As she dressed, the alarms were temporally replaced by an order:
"All MEKA pilot in hangar 3 in five minutes."
D. va huffed as she zipped her combat suit. It felt too tight, compressing her lungs as if she was trapped in a metal armor. She grabbed her headset on her desk, and ran out of her room.
The hallways were full of people running to and fro, and D. va had to zigzag between the soldiers, engineers or simple civilians working there, and heading toward the bunker for safety. She quickly made her way to the large hangar, were all of the MEKA tanks were stocked. Half of them were already gone, running inside large air carriers to be launched closer to the giant omnic. She ran to where her tank had been parked last, and joined the seven other soldiers forming the squad she was part of.
"Streaming again, Hana?"
The question had been asked by the leader of their squad, Hyeon-Jeong, the only one to be a real soldier. The others were all like her, gamers and streamers, high ranked champions, now serving their country the only way they knew, with a joystick in each hand and a headset on their ears.
"No, I was just sleeping."
"Alright, everyone, hurry up, we need to leave in two minutes top!" Hyeon yelled loud enough to be heard over the sound of last minutes check-ups and systems booting.
D. va climbed nimbly in her MEKA and turned it on. She had done her last check-up the previous night, right before she had gone to sleep. Less than a few hours, she realized. As the screen in front of her eyes turned on, she noticed the bunny head dancing in the corner of her screen. It meant she had received a message.
"Read message." she declared.
The interface on her window changed, and her view was obstructed by the unread text. It came from 'Baby'. She would kill her if she knew what her phone nickname was, but Hana kept it for herself.
Baby "I just heard about the giant omnic. How are you?"
She sighed, and with a move of her fingers a keyboard appeared on the screen.
Hana "Just about to leave. I'll be careful. Love you."
She barely waited before an answer appeared.
Baby "Love you too."
Hana couldn't hide her smile, but it was quickly erased when she heard Hyeon's voice in her ears.
"Team Gamma, to the aircraft!"
She made everything disappear with a swipe of the hand, the keyboard and the conversation, the love, and focused. She followed the rest of her squad to the aircraft, and she let out breath she didn't know she was holding when the door closed behind them.
There was nothing more uncomfortable than an airplane taking off while she was stuck in her tank. D. va could only hear her heart beating like a drum in her ears. She had to remind herself to breath. The adrenaline pumping through her blood prevented her tired eyes from closing. She wanted to get out of her tank, to stretch, but there wasn't time for that, not anymore.
"Didn't see you at diner last night."
Hana looked to the side of her screen, where she saw a dark MEKA similar to her own. Inside she saw Eun-Ji waving at her with a smile.
"I was checking on my suit. And talking to my GF."
"Of course you were."
Hana smiled. Somehow, even in the middle of her anxiousness, Eun always found a way to calm her down. They had known each other for a long time now. Not only did they go to the same arcade since they were high enough to reach the controls, but they also went to the same school, and had been once or twice in the same class.
"How come I've never met her? If you didn't spend so much time talking to her I would almost be tempted to believe that she's not real."
"Oh wow, gee thanks! She's real alright. She just doesn't like to be around a lot of people."
Eun gave her another smile, but before they could continue their conversation Hyeon declared:
"Launch in thirty seconds!"
Eun's hands flew to her controls, and she gave one last smile to Hana.
"Alright, see you on the other side, Bunny!"
Hana playfully took her tong out, just as the trap underneath the aircraft opened, bringing cold air inside. D. va took a deep breath.
"You too, Foxy!"
As D. va's tank sank threw the air, she finally had a good grasp on the situation. The giant omnic was walking out of the water, it's four enormous legs still half-sunk in the deep waters right outside the harbor. There was already four teams deployed around it, like so many flies barely bothering it. D. va frowned. It was still autumn, too early for the water to freeze over, and give them a good platform to fight from. Her boosters would have to do.
"Team Gamma, deploy on the right front leg of the target."
"Got it!"
As six other messages of approbations came through her headset, D. va launched her MEKA toward the target. She flew over the sea, then took a sharp turn to gain altitude, and fired. Her shots landed on the joint of the omnic, but didn't even seem to bother it. She continued anyway, as others joined her, or aimed at the second join. A few slid between its moving legs and shot it from underneath. Still, with all of its legs assaulted, and its head constantly being fired at, nothing seemed to stop it, and it kept on walking closer to the coast.
"Damn it! It's not working!" Eun shouted.
"Keep going!" Hyeon commanded.
There was a sudden loud explosion, and Hana's gaze fell on the top of her screen. From her position, she could barely see the head of the omnic, but saw smoke coming from there.
"What is going on?" someone, Jun, asked.
It took a good minute for Hyeon to reply somberly.
"One of team Beta took a rocket near the head. It's not the target. I repeat, it's not the target, keep firing!"
D. va obeyed. She had never fire that many rounds at the same spot, she thought. It had reinforced itself, to counter their fire power.
Soon enough there was another loud explosion, and the omnic stopped moving. It seemed to sank on one side. This good news was followed by a message from the leader of Team Delta.
"To all teams, this is Delta. Target lost use of its back left leg. I repeat, target lost use of its back left leg."
"Keep going, everyone, we're almost there!" Hyeon completed.
Hana smirked. This monster wasn't as hard as she thought in the end. She took in a deep breath, and engage in combat once again.
"At this rate we'll be done in no time!" Eun commented.
As soon as she had spoken, there was another explosion, and the omnic sank completely on its left side. Large waves rose suddenly, and a few MEKAs had to disengage quickly to avoid them.
"This is team Alpha, target lost its left front leg. I repeat, target lost its left front leg."
Hana let out a happy yell. Finally, maybe they could put an end to this eternal fight once and for alls.
"To all teams, aim for the head and body."
The order came directly from the higher ups back at base, and every pilot was more than happy to oblige. All the tanks flew upwards, toward the large flat head and body of the monster. D. va aimed for the neck, like a few others.
A barrage of shots assaulted the giant omnic in a thunderous ruckus. Hana felt her eyes burning under the sight of so many green lights in the dark night sky. She smirked. This was it. The moment she'd been waiting for since the omnic had first attacked her country. An end to an endless battle. Just a few more shots, she knew, would be enough.
There was a loud alarm sound, so sudden half of the pilots jumped in their seat and stopped attacking. The giant red eye of the monster began to flash. All at once, hundreds upon hundreds of hatches opened all over its body. While they seemed small in contrast with his overall size, they were in fact half the size of a MEKA tank.
Everything seemed to fall quiet, and the next second, hell was unleashed. Like the sparks of already exploded fireworks, rockets rained on the pilots.
"Disengage!"
"Eject! Eject!"
"Disengage!"
Lost in a sea of panic, everyone suddenly forgot about their target, only to focus on what mattered the most. Them. D. va maneuvered nimbly out the way of the first few rockets, and deployed her shield just in time to prevent another one from falling on her.
"Hyeon, what do we do?" she yelled.
No answer.
"Hyeon!"
Still no answer. She flew as far away from the monster as she could, like many others, but suddenly found that the bombs used a tracking device to spot them. She barely avoided another one, but knocked into someone else who was maneuvering out the way. They destabilized each other, and Hana had to pirouette out the way of another bomb, which she barely avoided.
"To all pilots, eject immediately! I repeat, eject immediately!"
D. va didn't have to think it over twice. She pressed the button, and as soon as she felt cold air hit her back, she let herself fall backward. She hit the water quicker than she had thought she would, and swam to the surface just in time to see her MEKA explode in mid-air. Small pieces of it fell in the water, but they were so small it barely mattered. Her MEKA tank had been blown to smithereens.
"D. va!" She turned around, only to see another one of her teammate, Sang, swimming toward her. She noticed that there were actually quite a lot of pilots around her, and it almost reassured her. There weren't as many casualties as she would have thought.
She lightly swam toward Sang until they reached each other.
"I'm so happy to see you!"
"Me too! Any news from the others?"
He shook his head.
"No. You?"
"Hyeon wasn't answering..."
Before either of them could worry, though, his voice rang through their headset.
"Don't bury me so soon!"
"Hyeon!" Hana let out a relieved cry.
Before their leader could reply, orders from the base came in.
"To all pilots, stay where you are. As soon as we are in the clear, we'll send air support to pick you up."
D. va looked over at the giant omnic still half-sunk in the sea, and now smoking from the many rockets it had launched. Slowly but surely it turned around. Now that it had gotten rid of the flies which used to swirl around it, it could freely attack the city. But it didn't. It was too damaged. It slowly crawled away into the deep sea. Hana watched him go bitterly. Once again, as they were so close to destroy it, it had found a way to counter them. She realized it could have been worst, had it not been for the very good reflexes a lot of them possessed, but it was still far more than what anyone would have wished. In that moment, as her target crawled away, she wished she still had her suit, wished she could follow it, and destroy it once and for all. She promised herself she would, as she always did when the omnic retreated back into the murky ocean.
It took about half an hour after the omnic had retreated for an aircraft to come pickup those around D. va's location. She could barely feel her body anymore, all of her warmth stolen by the cold water. She had just continue to flap her legs until one of the rescuers had tied a rope around her, and towed her into the airplane. There, a set of multiple towels had been wrapped around her, and she had shivered in one of the seat, and kept on shivering while the rescuers kept towing more pilots up. One of the soldiers holding a tablet suddenly stood in front of her.
"Name please."
"Song Hana."
"Sign name?"
"D. va."
He quickly found her and checked her from the list.
"You're in Gamma squad."
She nodded, her lips quivering as her teeth chattered.
"You're good."
With that, he moved on to Sang, who had taken the seat next to Hana. Once they had towed out of the water all the pilots close to them, the hatch was closed, and the aircraft flew toward the base.
They arrived only a few minutes later, and one of the soldiers with a tablet declared loud enough to be heard over the engines:
"As soon as you're disembarking please go to your team's parking place, meat with your team captains, and wait there for more instructions."
The door opened, and a slightly less shivering D. va walked out, Sang beside her. Both of them walked to their team's meeting point still wrapped in their towels. Somehow, while they were not the last be fished out, they had been some of the farthest to base. As they reached their usual parking spot, they found it oddly empty. Sure, at least half of the team were already there, but what were four people against eight MEKA tanks? Hyeon was standing in front of the three others, which, although they were as drenched as her, Hana recognized as Jun, Yeong-Ho and Min-Ji. Hana's heart stopped when she noticed that Eun wasn't there. She took a deep breath, and hid her sudden anxiousness. Everyone seemed relieved to see Hana and Sang join them. Hyeon ticked them on his list.
"It's good to see you're okay."
"You too. Where are Eun and Kyung?"
Hyeon's eyes seemed to darken for a second. He shook his head.
"We don't know."
Hana only nodded, as she felt her throat tightening. She silently sat down, her legs crossed, and tightened her towels around her. She wished she had her phone with her right now. Surely, her girlfriend had seen what had happened. She must have been in such a panic. Who knew, maybe she even quit her mission just to come see if she was okay?
They waited for what felt like hours. No one dared to talk, and when neither Eun nor Kyung joined them, even after every rescuing party had come back, it became obvious what had happened to them. Still, Hana had hope. Maybe Eun had been wounded, and she was in the infirmary. Maybe, just maybe, there was still one last party circling the harbor, looking for stranded survivors. Only when one of the higher ups, whose name Hana couldn't remember, stood before them, she knew this was the end.
"Team Gamma, I'm glad to see so many of you made it out alive. Unfortunately, Rhee Kyung was wounded during the evacuation, her tank exploded too close to her. One of the other pilot managed to keep her out of the water, but she has yet to wake up, and we don't know if she'll wake up."
Hana swallowed hard. Now was the time for the General to announce that Eun had suffered the same fate. A coma from which she may never wake up. And she waited, prayed even, that she was right. The General pursed his lips.
"I'm sorry to inform you that Kim Eun-Ji did not make it. She was underneath the omnic when it launched its attack, and we regrettably lost all of the pilots engaged there. I am truly sorry. We will organize a ceremony for all of the good pilots we have lost tonight."
If the General said anything after that, Hana couldn't tell. Her head was spinning so fast she threatened to faint. She may have sat there for yet another hour there, on the concrete floor of the hangar, wrapped in her towels and still as drenched as she'd been when they had pulled her out of the water. Her heart had stopped beating, and she'd stop breathing completely. Her brain couldn't, wouldn't understand the words falling out of the old man's mouth. Only when the others stood up she followed. When they walked, cress-fallen and crying, through the corridors, she followed, silently, like their shadow. Hyeon said something about changing, about meeting in the rec room, about crying together. Why would they be crying? Hana asked herself. She stood still in the corridor as everyone left, until someone grabbed her shoulders, and shook her lightly.
"Hana? Hana?"
Slowly, she looked up in Hyeon's eyes. The man was at least ten years older than her, or so it seemed. He had seen twice as many battle, lost twice as many comrades. Still, his eyes were full of unshed tears, ready to roll down his cheeks.
"Hana, you need to change. If you stay in those clothes you'll catch a cold."
She nodded, and walked away. Where was her room, anyway? She had left it somewhere around...
She stopped in front of door 682. She knocked. Usually, when she had lost something, Eun knew where she had put it. But Eun wasn't there. She was dead. A dreadful shiver ran down her back. Eun was dead. There had been nothing she could have done to save her. Nothing. There were miles away, in the air. Eun had ran into a death trap without even knowing it. They all had, to a certain degree. Only Hana was good at avoiding traps. Eun, not so much.
Hana finally felt something. Her heart beating. Her breath catching in her throat every time she inhaled, turning into a sob. Tears feeling her eyes, ready to spill. No one was suppose to see her like this. She ran at the end of the corridor, to room 694. Her room. The door opened automatically, and closed behind her. There, she was ready to cry. She would have, until she saw who was seated on her bed, with hopeful eyes and a relieved smile.
"I... wanted to make sure you were alright."
Sombra had discarded her attire. Her usual jacket rested on Hana's desk chair. Her gloves on the desk. It would have almost made Hana smile to see her in her pajamas.
"I was so worried I stole the first plane I could find..."
The first of many tears rolled down her cheek, and Hana launched herself in Sombra's arms, tackling her. They both fell on the bed, and Hana hugged her girlfriend as close as she could, and cried, and sobbed. It didn't even matter anymore. Sombra tried to hug her girlfriend back, but their position was uncomfortable, and her elbow was twisting under Hana's weight.
"I'm happy to see you too, girl, but right now you're killing me!" she joked.
It turned out to be the wrong words to use, as Hana's crying double in intensity. Sombra sighed, and managed to wriggle until they were in a better position. Then, she gently caressed Hana's hair, and rubbing her back.
"I... I heard about the bombs... I really thought I had lost you..."
"She's... she's dead..."
Sombra felt her heart stop. This was not good. While Sombra was used to working on her own, Hana loved to work with others. No matter how often she denied it, she was a team player. And losing a member of that team always weight on her frail shoulders.
"Shh, it's okay."
"She... was under it and..."
She sniffed, unable to finish her sentence. Sombra kept on rubbing her back.
"It's okay... breathe babe..."
She heard her own voice braking. When she had taken that plane to Busan, she knew there was only two ways this could go. Either they would end up hugging, happy that Hana had been unscaled, and that she was safe and sound. Or Sombra would have been crying on her own, in a corner of the military base, probably until someone found her, and even more probably put her in jail. She had never excepted both to happen.
"Shh... You're okay, babe... let it all out..."
Hana must have fallen asleep at one point, as her sobbing stopped. Exhausted from her lack of sleep, from the battle, from her draining emotions, she had forgotten to cry, and had fallen asleep. Sombra still held her close, even though the dampness of her girlfriend's outfit was slowly but surely being absorbed by her own. She erased the two rivers which had been digging through her cheeks, and waited. At one moment or another, Hana would wake up, and she would start to cry again. And Sombra would be there for her. Unless she got caught in the meantime. But Hana was worth it through and through.
Sombra almost fell asleep herself, as she longly watched her girlfriend. Her features had smoothed, and all the sadness was gone. She passed a hand through her damp hair from time to time, or pressed a feather like kiss on her face. Still, Hana didn't move.
They could have stayed like that forever, Sombra thought, under the late moon's gaze, before dawn, and the sun, which would probably wake Hana up. But she became agitated before that. Her eyes squinted, she frowned, and Sombra wished she could have smooth it away. She knew she couldn't. If anything, she knew what would follow, because it had happened to her before, after the death of her parents. Hana began to whine, as if she was being hurt. Sombra knew she wasn't, and she was almost temped to wake the girl up.
"Hana, hey, it's okay. Wake up."
There was a knock on the door, and Hana awoke with a start. She would have sat, but Sombra was holding her so tightly she found she couldn't.
"Hana? Can I come in?"
She recognized the voice of Hyeon. She sent a panic look to Sombra, who only smiled lightly and let go of her, just enough for the young girl to sit, straddling her.
"Hum... Actually, you can't. I'm... naked?"
"Oh, okay. Hum... I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"Yeah, I am, don't worry. Actually, I was sleeping..."
"Sorry for waking you up then. If you want to join us to the rec room, we're all there and..."
He let out a sigh.
"I think I'm just going to sleep for now. Thank you."
"I'll come check on you in a few hours."
"Okay."
"Have a good nap, Hana."
Hana let out a sigh, and finally looked down at Sombra. Her tee-shirt and sweat shorts were obviously damp from being in direct contact with Hana's bodysuit, but the older woman didn't seem to mind. Her dark eyes found Hana's.
"You're feeling better?"
"Not really but thank you for being here."
Sombra sat up and hugged tightly Hana.
"Everything for you."
"Maybe I should change, before I start crying again."
Her heart and throat tightened at her words.
"Why? You smell all salty."
Sombra inhaled longly, her head nested in the crook of Hana's neck.
"Yeah, that's what happens when you spend half an hour in the sea. I'll take a shower."
"Got anything for me to change? I'm afraid my pajamas got all wet from holding you..."
Hana let out a tired chuckle, her throat still raw from all the crying and sobbing she'd already done, and she escaped her girlfriend's grasp to stand up on still wobbly legs. She opened her wardrobe and smiled lightly.
"Well look at that, you left a few things from the last time you came snooping around her."
"My oh my, could I have done this on purpose?"
Hana rolled her eyes, and threw a purple shirt and shorts to her girlfriend's face.
"I'll go take a shower. Don't you dare come in from some sexy shower time." Hana warned fiercely.
"Like I would do such a thing!" Sombra replied in pretended indignation.
Once again Hana rolled her eyes, and closed the door between her bathroom and bedroom. She stopped in front of the mirror. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, something which her nap hadn't quite erased. She unzipped her suit and stripped easily. Her long brown hair was a mess of sticky locks. She turned the shower on, and barely shiver when a stream of cold water hit her. It warmed quickly. She rested her head against the cold tile walls. Every time she closed her eyes, she always saw the same thing. MEKAs exploding left and right. It was like fireworks. Only it had been a twisted show, were the blast had been so great that not even a body could be recovered. Her thoughts went back to Eun. What had been her last thought, when all those first bombs had gone off, and she was stuck under the belly of the great monster?
Suddenly tears rolled down her eyes again, invisible under the boiling shower stream. Slowly but surely, she crumbled to the ground, her legs suddenly too tired to hold her up. She sat against the corner of the shower, in fetal position, her arms wrapped around her legs. She sobbed, and cry, her back rapping against the small tiles of the wall.
She barely noticed when the door to her bathroom opened, but raised her head when she heard the concerned voice of her girlfriend.
"Oh... Conejita..."
Through the mist Hana saw Sombra undressing as quickly as she could.
"What are you doing?" she asked between two sobs.
"Well, I know I said I would do anything for you, but if those are my last dry clothes, I'd rather like they stay that way."
On that, she walked under the smoldering stream and sat next Hana. Hana instantly leaned into her, and Sombra gave her a side hug.
"Who was she? The girl who died?"
Hana took in a shaky breath.
"Eun-Ji. She was my best friend, probably."
Sombra felt her girlfriend's body being agitated by sobs.
"She was under the omnic when it..."
Another sob. Sombra held her closer.
"No one under survived."
"I'm sorry. I mean, I'm glad you weren't under there but... I'm still sorry."
"Every time we come so close to destroying it, and every time it just..."
Sombra nodded the bitterness in Hana's voice. She knew Hana, in her short life, had already fought twice the monster. Actually, three times now. And that wasn't counting the many times it had appeared during her childhood. Sombra might be much older than Hana, like her girlfriend loved to imply so often, but neither of them had ever seen a world without the omnic crisis.
Sombra passed a hand through Hana's hair.
"Next time, you'll get it."
"I won't. But thanks for believing that I could."
Sombra pressed a kiss on Hana's temple, and Hana leaned even more on her.
"It's weird. Eun really wanted to meet you. She almost believed you didn't exist."
"I don't."
Hana smiled lightly.
"What do you think would have been her reaction, when she'd learn you were dating an international wanted criminal?" Sombra asked.
"I don't know. She would have freaked out, probably. Then we would have laughed about it."
Sombra chuckled. She caressed slowly Hana's arm.
"What do you say we go and hug somewhere where I don't risk to burn my skin from overheated water?"
Hana laughed and nodded, her long hair falling like a curtain around her face. She looked at Sombra, whose haircut looked even more ridiculous now that her hair was wet. She detached herself from the Latina just enough to part her hair in the middle, hiding both of the shaved sides. Sombra let her do with a grin.
"I'll let this one pass, but just this one. You are a terrible hair dresser."
Hana laughed wholeheartedly.
