Prepare to attack.
Angela Ziegler, known as Mercy to her teammates, was seated in a large airship that was zooming though the sky at unmeasurable speeds. She and her team members were preparing for an attack at the Temple of Anubis in Egypt, where their enemies had set up a base and were conducting raids on the neighboring towns and then retreating back into the sacred temple.
"Come on, come on, come on! I hate waiting!" Jamison Fawkes, also known as Junkrat, pounded the door of the airship and yelled at the machine with his face pressed up against the window. He had always been…unstable, and his thirst for explosions was quite dangerous to the other members of Overwatch, the international task force formed after the omnic crisis. Luckily, the enemy attacks gave him plenty of opportunities to satisfy his needs for blowing things up. Mercy looked at him and smirked, as his mechanical arm rapped against the window as the airship began to land.
Since the attacks were concentrated in this small space, the Overwatch team didn't have its entire force on the airship. It was only a group of 6 people to take down the group behind everything. Along with Mercy and Junkrat, they were joined by Fareeha Amari, Hana Song, Aleksandra Zaryanova, and Jesse McCree. Their aliases were Pharah, , Zarya, and McCree. A small, mobile, powerful group of soldiers, easily capable of completing this mission.
McCree sat across from Mercy, chatting with and idly spinning the barrel of his pistol. Zarya was polishing her weapon and making sure it was working properly, and Pharah was in the back, running a systems check on her suit of armor. As the airship landed, they all stood up and gathered by the door, waiting for the onboard computer to clarify the safety of the area. The terrorist group was concentrated deep in the temple, and they had defenses set up all along the path to their location.
Mercy looked outside the ship and conducted a final check on her weaponry. She had a caduceus staff in her hand and a small pistol in her belt in case of emergencies. Pharah came up and stood next to her, helmet tucked under one arm.
"Hey, Mercy. I have a plan for this attack. Would you be willing to stick with me?" Pharah bent down slightly to talk to Mercy in a hushed whisper. Mercy raised an eyebrow at the request.
"A plan? You mean, a different plan than what we normally do?" Mercy kept nervously glancing outside the window of the ship as the timer counted down and the doors prepared to open.
"Yes. I've been to this temple many times, and I know a back way. If I use my rockets and you keep up with me, we can take down the enemy in half the time." The four other teammates were preparing to exit the vehicle, gesturing at the two who were still at the back of the ship.
"Well, I guess…"
"Good. Now, follow me." Pharah grinned and put on her helmet.
The doors to the airship opened. Gunfire immediately attacked the group, ricocheting off of their armor and weaponry. Mercy ducked behind Pharah as she fired up her rockets, shooting into the air. Activating her yellow, glowing wings, Mercy followed her into the sky, keeping a healing beam on her and protecting her from any scattering bullets. Pharah changed course of her rockets and bolted towards the side of the temple, far away from the enemy, who had not seen the two yet, and instead were focusing on the four attackers with pistols, bombs, and concentrated beams firing back at them.
Suddenly, Pharah's rockets halted for a brief moment. Without their boost, she plummeted downwards before regaining the momentum. Gasping, Mercy darted to her location.
"My rockets won't hold out forever," Pharah shouted over the wind whipping through their ears. They cut out again, bringing the two closer and closer to the ground below them. Pharah attempted to regain control, but to no avail. With Mercy close by, she aimed to land at one side of a small, broken bridge.
When she touched down, Pharah was breathing heavily and fiddling with her rockets. "This has been happening more and more. I really need to fix these." Shaking it off, she gestured for Mercy to follow her. Mercy's ears picked up the sounds of her teammates capturing a control point amidst the gunfire and yelling. She checked a small timer on her staff. 84%. She was close to being able to activate her ultimate, Resurrection. Keeping her healing beam on Pharah, she kept an eye on it in case a dire situation occurred.
As Pharah and Mercy crept through the temple, they heard robotic whirring in the distance. "Bastions…" Pharah said. Checking her own ultimate, she was at 95%. Flying with her rockets and being healed by Mercy had boosted its charging time. "If we can just wait a bit longer, I can take them out without them even knowing we're here." Pharah stealthily moved through the temple, Mercy following close behind.
Suddenly, a hoard of soldiers rushed towards the center of the temple. Mercy recognized that their teammates had captured their first objective, and were heading towards the heart of the enemy's base. had activated her shields as multiple Bastion robots fired straight at them. Their teammates hadn't seen Pharah or Mercy, and were intently concentrating fire at the Bastions.
Pharah's ultimate finished charging with a small pinging noise. She gestured for Mercy to follow her as she snuck to the side opening, giving a clear view of the enemy base. In a hushed whisper, she turned to Mercy.
"My rockets can take out that base easily, but I can't have you following me. You'll be an open target."
"But what if they shoot at you while you're firing your rocket barrage? You'll have to be revived back at the ship, and our plan will crash." Mercy had concern in her voice, but kept it low, as one of the Bastions was close to the exit they were camped in.
Pharah put a hand on Mercy's shoulder, the cool metal meeting warm fabric of Mercy's uniform. "I'll be fine. If anything happens, you'll have your Resurrection. You won't be able to use that if you're the one being taken out."
Mercy nodded. "Alright, I trust you." Looking down at the hand on her shoulder, she reached up her own hand to seek comfort from it, smiling at Pharah. But just then, one of the Bastions switched from its sentry configuration to its mobile form, stomping over to their hiding spot. Pharah quickly whipped around and fired an explosion that knocked it back, alerting both the other Bastions and her own team as well.
Mercy gave Pharah a final boost of extra damage before she activated her rockets. The healer ducked behind the entryway but still looked out to see Pharah, in the air, her rockets activating.
"Justice rains from above!" Pharah shrieked, aiming her line of fire for each of the Bastions in front of her. She destroyed them one by one, until there was only one left. She aimed at it, but then ran out of rockets, falling quickly to the ground and rolling to break her fall. The Bastion saw her and her teammates charging towards the objective to take it, but the robot switched into its ultimate form, the tank configuration. Mercy put her hand over her mouth as she watched the tank fire rockets back at her whole team, and quickly checked her ultimate. It was at 98%. If the Bastion took out any of her teammates, she couldn't heal them. But she had to stay put. She couldn't risk being taken out with them.
The robot fired at each one of them. McCree rolled out of the way and landed on his back on the sandy floor below, ducking under a bridge, bruised and battered from his previous attacks. put up her shield, but it only lasted a moment. 's mech was quickly destroyed, and she was close to follow. Zarya was also directly hit, and she and were quickly teleported back to the airship to revive them. Pharah used the last rocket she had to boost her up into the air, firing explosions at the robot. They simultaneously fired a projectile and destroyed each other, the Bastion blowing into pieces and Pharah being launched to the ground, landing in the sand and remaining still.
With the Bastion gone, Mercy sprinted over to Pharah's body and prayed for her Resurrect to finish charging before her body was moved back to be revived. But it stayed at 99%. Without anyone to heal it wouldn't charge any faster. Pharah's body disappeared and Mercy knew it was back at the ship.
McCree pulled himself up from the bottom of the bridge, partly successful in his attempt to survive the Bastion's ultimate. He had many bruises across his face and body and blood was trickling from his mouth. Mercy darted over to him and focused her staff on him, and his breathing turned from shaky to steady and his wounds began to disappear. He cracked his back and wiped the blood from his face, tipping his hat to the medic.
"Much obliged, darlin'." He said, walking towards the objective and staking certain machines into the corners, capturing it as Overwatch's territory. Mercy followed, with a glaze in her eyes as she thought about Pharah. McCree noticed her solemn figure and put his human hand on her shoulder. "You okay there?"
Mercy shook her head. "Yes, it's just that…Pharah trusted me to resurrect her if she died during that, so her plan wouldn't fail. She believed I would save her, but…I didn't. What will she think of me now?"
The objective recognized its capture with a ding. McCree patted the medic's shoulder with a smile. "I'm sure she'd think pretty great things of ya, given that you just completed our mission where she couldn't." Mercy looked at the objective and chuckled at the fleeing enemy, her eyes lighting up.
"I hope so."