Longinus

"Woooow!" exclaimed a ten year old boy, gazing upwards with a pair of dark hazel eyes. His lips remained in an exasperated 0-shape as he inspected the marble statue that towered in front of him.

Executives and scientists alike watched in amusement from afar as they either lounged or commuted through the expansive atrium of Romus Labs. The polished granite underneath their dress shoes and footwear reflected the perfectly blue sky that loomed above the glass ceiling overhead, barely pocked by a handful of clouds that had managed to form.

"Is that really dad?" the boy asked, keeping a gleaming eye on the stone bust of a middle aged man wearing a pair of glasses and a lab coat. He held a proud expression as he looked onwards, overtop the curly brown hair of his son.

"In the flesh and stone. Even got his height right." Came another voice, this one from a 17 year old boy that held more features in common with the chiseled statue than his younger brother. His hair was cut short on the sides and left only a short outcrop on the top, a style that prompted his mother to remind him how much he looked like Jack Morrison.

As if he could ever match up to a man of that caliber, he just wanted to graduate and continue playing sports, not lead a band of supposed heroes to their fates.

"Are we gonna go on a tour? I wanna see where dad worked!" the younger brother exclaimed, grabbing onto the fabric of his blue Overwatch shirt.

"Maybe tomorrow, Max. Suns starting to go down and I think mom should be getting her any minute to pick us up." Refuted the teenager, digging his hands inside of his khakis pockets and squiggling his black trainers on the floor. He too wore a blue t-shirt, but it carried the insignia of his rugby team rather than of an organization.

He ruffled his younger brother's mess of curly hair and turned to the sliding doors at the other end of the lobby, watching as a white hover-car floated into the pickup bend. The passenger window slid down, revealing the face of a brunette woman dressed in grey business attire, smiling at him with glossy-red lips and dark-brown eyes.

"Mom!" piped Max, grabbing onto his brothers arm and pulling him towards the entrance. "C'mon James! Let's go see mom!"

"Easy Max, don't run with all these people aro-"

A thunderous explosion broke into the teenager's ears as he looked up and saw his car flipping through the air, enveloped in an orange flame. He couldn't even mutter his mother's name as more explosions shattered the glass walls and ceiling around him.

What had once been pure excitement on his brother's face was now horror and confusion, incapable of comprehending what had become of his remaining parent. Lab coats and black suits ran in all manner of directions, men women and omnics trying to flee wherever they could, all the while he and his brother stood frozen before the statue.

Gunfire erupted from the entrance, barely grazing James's cheek as he ducked. More rounds pelted the marble of his father's memorial, taking off chunks of stone and spewing clouds of dust and rubble into the air. A final crack resounded through the atrium before both brothers looked up to see their father falling, watching as he landed on the floor and broke into thousands of shards.

"MAX, MOVE!" James yelled, grabbing the boy by his shoulder and running towards one of the open sliding-doors. More cracks and zips filled the air as the lab security filtered out, firing their guns towards whoever was shooting.

James pulled his brother through the door and began running through the halls, passing through cubicles and offices before he approached a reinforced door. It was continuously opening and closing, jammed on a steel cart full of spilled chemicals.

The brother ushered Max to slip through as it opened, taking one last look back to the end of the hall. A squad of soldiers, clad in black and glowing red goggles piled through the offices. One of them spotted him immediately and opened fire, sending bullets to ricochet off the door and shower the teen in hot sparks of metal.

He grabbed a corner of the cart and ambled over before kicking it out of the way, letting the door close with a reinforced click.

"Max! Max, are you okay?" the brother asked, picking himself up off the floor.

The curly haired child said nothing, only letting a stream of tears fall down his cheeks and moisten his shirt a darker shade of blue.

"Max?" repeated James, feeling tears well in his own eyes as he approached his brother. He dropped to a knee and took the boy into a hug, realizing what they had both witnessed was a reality.

"Where's mom?" Max asked, mumbling his words through the fabric that covered his brother's shoulder. James said nothing, only holding the boy closer.

"She's… Uh, she's gone Max. I'm, I'm sorry."

The moisture on his shoulder grew damper as he felt his brother begin to sob, not wanting to face the truth. James was about to fall into the emotion as well, but a pang on the door pushed him to pick up max and begin running further into the lab.

It was almost as big as the atrium, lined with tables containing everything from technology to stacks of reports and research. Some of the things he could identify he had seen in advertisements and concepts in the company videos that played around the city. A lot of it, he hadn't seen.

James jogged further into the lab, taking cover behind a line of command panels and computer terminals. The teen glanced towards the reinforced door, terrified to find an arcing white line tracing its way through the entrance. Whatever the soldiers wanted, it was in the room he had carried his brother into.

"Max! Max I need-" James paused, finding his brother staring through a glass panel into the next room.

"Look! Look at what I found!" Max pointed, prompting the teen to rise up and peek through the window.

Before them stood a tall suit of purple armor, clad in armor plating and mechanical pieces. Its helmet was sleek and reminded the boy of Reinhardt's glowing visage, only without the jagged crown. Above it was a nameplate, their fathers to be exact; Avery Tenbrook.

"That's dad's old project! They kept it?" James asked, confused why the company had hidden the armor to him even after his father had passed.

The hissing of the plasma cutter had stopped, leaving the room quiet save for the breaths of the two brothers. "Max get down!" he whispered, pulling the boy beside him.

The two of them hid in cover, fearfully waiting for what would happen next when a blast erupted from the door, blowing the carved panel through the lab and into the opposite wall. The door was covered in a wall of ghastly smoke, covering the operatives as they infiltrated.

"Move it! Reaper said the banks are on the right side of the room. You two get the download running! The rest of you are with me, anything moves and you kill it." The gruff voice of a black soldier bellowed, fanning out his squad.

James tried to hide deeper into the cover, hoping to whatever lived in the sky that the soldiers would leave with whatever they wanted and that he and his brother could go home, or anywhere that wasn't where they were at that exact moment.

Just when he couldn't find the situation any more unbearable, a familiar tune rang out, breaking the silence of the lab. James felt every gun in the room point towards their cover as he looked down, finding his brother holding his cellphone. It was the intro to their favorite cartoon show, one that they watched every Friday at a certain time of the day, right after they get home from school.

Of all the ways he could have imagined dying, the one where he was killed by his brother's favorite cartoon wasn't one of them.

The tune played for a few more seconds, finally ending with an awkward silence.

"Gar-"

A thunderstorm of gunfire filled the heads of both boys, sounding almost as if they were caught in the middle of a hurricane made of firecrackers.

One explosion rang out above all, this one from the ceiling as James watched a lone figure leap in. His blue rifle cleared the smoke as its rounds found their way into each soldier in the room, save for the two hiding beside the server stack.

The white haired soldier looked menacing, standing tall and built with muscle as he fired his gun at the two downloading the data.

"Soldier 76!" Max exclaimed, as if he were visited by god himself. The man made the mistake of glancing at the two kids as he suppressed the soldiers, unnoticing of the heavy mech lumbering through the blasted door.

"Lookout!" James yelled, pointing at the hulking machine before its pair of heavy cannons tore up the metal floor in front of the man. 76 ran and flew through the air as he was blown off the ground, bouncing off of the glass panel behind the two boys and landing in a heap on the floor. His rifle had been flung into the middle of the room, out of reach for the three.

"Grr… Shit." 76 muttered, picking himself up as James pulled him into cover. More soldiers had come through and began firing on the cover, drowning out whatever fear Max was exhibiting.

"What the hell are you two doing here?" he gruffly asked, trying to peek over the panel. He received a hail of lead in response.

"We were trying to get away from all that!" James responding shielding his head as a stray round bounced off of the floor in front of him.

"Why are they shooting at us!?" Max asked, covering his ears as more gunfire filled the air.

"There's a lot of encrypted data on these terminals, some of it Talon's gonna use to make a new WMD. It can't fall into their hands, no matter what." 76 explained, trying to figure out a path to his rifle.

"How come they haven't blown us up yet?" James asked this time, noting that the mech had switched to using its minigun instead.

"We're too close to another terminal. Can't risk hitting any part of the mainframe or else security'll drop the whole thing. I think." He confessed, pointing at the glowing panel across the exposed walkway to their right.

A bright red loading bar sat on the display, showing how close the Talon mercenaries were to extracting their package. Below it sat a large holographic square with the word "Cancel" on it.

One press and their plan would be thwarted.

This thought resounded a million times through Max's head as he gazed intently on the filling bar. It was now or never.

76 was an old soldier, but even in all his years this was a sight he had never seen before. A young, curly haired boy gripping the Overwatch symbol of his shirt running into the fray of gunfire with the intent to press a button he hadn't noticed until now.

"NO!" He yelled, muffled by his mask as James stood to chase his brother. The soldier watched as a round went through the young boy, sending a spray of crimson onto the wall as he fell. At the very last moment, his hand landed on the holographic display, pressing on the cancel override.

James reached towards his fallen brother, running across the platform before a brilliant white blast engulfed the two.

"MAX!" the teenager screamed in his head, slowly opening his eyes. Everything was a blur to him, put into a state of vertigo so bad he could have sworn he was on the ceiling rather than the cold hard metal grating of the floor.

James made to say the word this time, but a mouthful of blood emptied itself onto the floor instead as his head recoiled at the blast. He had been thrown and everything… everything hurt.

The teenager barely payed attention to the glass window he had been blasted through, instead realizing that the arm in front of him was much too small to be his own.

"MAX!" he finally mumbled, finding it difficult to breathe as he traced the length of the arm and found it disconnected by a bloody splotch. His own hand reached out to grab it, only feeling immense pain in response as the scorched limb flopped on top of his brothers.

James felt his heart begin to pulse faster as his head cleared, noting the blank feeling on the right side of his face. His arm was fried and covered with slices from shrapnel, almost as if he had dunked it into a deep fryer made of razorblades. Pain was the only thing he felt, searing his skin and aching his muscles as he tried to prop himself up on his left arm.

The appendage failed miserably, causing the boy to fall onto his side. He no longer looked at the lost arm, but rather the face familiar to him, no longer covered by a menacing mask.

Sounds began to filter into his mind, slowly losing their distortion before he could make out proper words.

"…id you really have to use the cannon? They were just a couple of kids." Came a sympathetic voice from one of the Talon soldiers. It wasn't very far away, but James could tell it was coming closer.

A series of beeps responded, likely from the mech as it clanked forward and ignored the operative.

The teenager could only see Soldier 76, unconscious before him with a deadly threat on approach. There was nothing he could do. Nothing but lay there, feeling sorry for his losses before some guy with bad intentions put him out of his misery and took whatever they were looking for.

No.

They killed Max. They killed mom.

James felt a spark of anger burn into his gut, driving his body to fall back. He looked at the ceiling only for a second before turning his gaze right, spotting the gleaming suit of armor standing before him.

Dad was a strong man. He wouldn't have asked him to take the easy way out. He would have told him to fight. Do what's right. Serve justice and be hero, if not for him and the people then for his brother.

The teenager felt more anger grip his body as he turned once again and slowly began crawling towards the purple suit, gritting his teeth to bear the pain of living as he made his way.

"They killed her… They killed him..." James seethed as he crawled, dragging his wounded frame across the floor. A smudge of blood trailed from where he landed, up to the armor as he sat upright in front of the towering display.

He had never known the purpose of the project, but when the suit slowly opened like a blooming flower at his touch, ready to accept him, James knew he would find out.

"Son." It softly murmured, almost as if it was his father's voice coming from out of thin air. The teenager dismissed the words as a part of his shock induced delusions and carried on, painfully grappling with the armor as he placed himself within.

It only took one nod of his chin before the suit closed around him, filling the boy with gentle warmth and soothing his pain. James knew he would find out its purpose very soon.

"Where'd the other kid go? I only see 76 and the tyke the mech blew apart." Asked one of the mercenaries, keeping his gun leveled at the door as he and his squad mates approached.

"Dunno, but he aint getting back up. Not after fucking our op, I'll make sure of that." Replied another, likely the leader of the team. The mech behind them gave an uncaring beep as it followed, monitoring the space for any more unmarked heat signatures.

A small blue laser pierced the space of the lab, landing gently on top of the bipedal machine's central plate. The beam itself had no effect, but none of the talon soldiers could warrant a reaction before a magnetically-accelerated tungsten slug traveling at Mach 10 tore through the dense armor of the mech and turned it into a standing hunk of shredded scrap metal.

"The FUCK!" screamed one of the mercenaries, scrambling off of the floor as he had been blown off of his feet by the blast.

All of the glowing red eyes in the room turned towards the origin of the beam, finding a single figure emerging from the doorway. It held a heavy rifle, the barrel split into opposite rails of electricity lined metal and a thick cable leading from the stock into the back of the armor.

James lifted one arm and pointed it at the squad of stunned soldiers, letting them watch as a pair of barrels emerged from underneath plating, lining up with his forearm and aiming straight at the Talon agents.

None of them had the reflexes to dodge the hail of lead that the arm-mounted chain gun delivered next, quickly shredding the black-clad operatives into crimson mounds of mincemeat and lost limbs.

The teenager clipped the railgun to his thigh and stuck out the other arm, letting a similar weapon appear before he opened fire on two scrambling soldiers and painted the chrome walls with their blood.

The tirade went on briefly, James realizing he couldn't kill them any further as he lowered his arms and turned to the left. The teenager, driven by adrenaline and anger only lowered to a knee and flopped Soldier 76's unconscious body over his broad shoulder, making sure he wouldn't slip off before turning to the other subject that he really didn't want to face.

Max lay idle, with a calm smile pursed along his lips as he watched his big brother pick him up and cradle him. The boy was covered in copious amounts of blood, his once blue shirt stained with splotches of red. James knew he couldn't fix what the boy had lost, nor could he save him. A heart monitor popped up in his HUD, showing his brother's weakening pulse.

"M-Max…" James shuddered, feeling tears well down his bloodied cheeks as he watched the boy's pulse fall.

"Shhh…Haha… I'm proud of you brother. Dad's proud of you too." The child rasped, his voice hoarse.

"No! Max NO! NO NO NO!" James began to yell, physically feeling his brother pulse wean through the armor. The teenager didn't have the heart to shake his brother awake.

"Please Max! you're all I've got left bro! Don't leave me Max!" he cried, trying to cradle his brother further and taking his remaining hand within his own.

"Don… Don't worry. You're strong James. Really strong… I wan-"

The boy shuddered as he coughed a heap of blood onto his shirt and gasped for air, returning his hazel eyes to gaze upon the hard mask of armor his brother adorned.

"Be.

Be a hero.

Be a hero for me…"

With that, James felt his younger sibling give one last gentle breath of air and whither within his arms, slowly closing his eyes and peace and loosening his grip on James's finger.

The arm slumped and hung limply off to the side, swinging alongside the draft as the teenager stared at what he had just lost. The ECG on his HUD silently went flat before disappearing, leaving James with a clear image of peace on his brother's face.

"Max… no."

The hulking suit of armor rose from its knee and turned, making its way down the path. He would bury him, somewhere nice. A place he liked to visit often with Max. The boy would like it.

James stepped through the mulch of talon soldiers, feeling bones and flesh crack under his feet as he continued walking forward, pointing his gaze straight onwards.

Behind him, a small fire had begun to flare, catching on quickly as explosions began to wrack the labs and engulf the space. James didn't care. All he cared about was going, and if more Talon soldiers were going to get in his way then so be it. He would deal with them accordingly.

James had already extended his arm when he emerged into the office space, quickly adjusting his aim as he marched on. A red hue filled his overlay, highlighting heat sources within the space as hostile and threatening. The teenager reacted by sending a burst of his chain gun through the cubicles, watching as contacts began to fall.

Some of the black soldiers stood to fire at him while he marched, but James was not impeded. He let the gun go fully automatic, shredding the office apart along with its intruders.

He didn't care whether he got them all. He just wanted to get out.

One of the Talon mercenaries jumped at the suit of armor, brandishing a deadly knife aimed directly at the chest. James grabbed the man by his face, lifting him into the air at arm's reach and slowly closing his fist.

The soldier scrambled, trying to remove himself from the grip while finding the knife futile against the armor. It wasn't the pressure that killed him, rather the concrete wall that the teenager slammed his skull into later, sending a splash of brain matter and blood over the room.

James dropped the corpse and continued into the atrium, finding it engulfed in flame and advancing mercenaries, both of which he disliked.

The teen stretched his arm out and began to sweep the space with a cone of obliterating gunfire, perforating the scores of soldiers as if they were made of Styrofoam and blood. James continued to march through the fire, not feeling any of it touch him as he exited the building and found himself in the cool night.

More Talon dropships had arrived, sending troops rappelling down to meet the boy head on, but the intervention of a thundering Overwatch ship halted any further advance as it landed in the lot.

A beige colored robot hopped out of the exposed hatch, landing onto the asphalt with a clank before transforming into a turret and unleashing a beam of lead towards the firing mercenaries.

There were a lot. James wasn't sure why there were so many, but a warm feeling erupted in his chest followed by a change in his vision to a golden inlay of the world.

Pharah took a few extra huffs of air as she stepped off the platform of the ship and fired her thrusters, launching into the air. She knew it was a target-rich environment, as Soldier 76 had often said but things were a bit worse for wear when the only cover you had was a sky.

Fareeha was immediately caught off guard by the presence of a golden being slowly walking across the courtyard, similar to Zenyatta's transcendence during battle. It was viciously firing at Talon mercenaries and holding a familiar body over its shoulder, making it a non-target for her. The woman paid it no heed and turned to do her own job, letting loose a storm of rockets into the lot.

Genji had emerged when the ship landed, hopping out at the last second to eliminate nearby operatives with his smaller blade, keeping an eye out for Bastion's core.

At this point, Talon mechs had begun to seep out of the burning building, sending a storm of cannon fire into the air and lot as they approached. One shell managed to make a beeline for the teenager, only to ricochet off of his armor and zip off into the sky like a shooting star.

"Those walkers are bad news for the ship! Pharah get them off of us or we're not going to be able to leave this place!" Winston barked through the comms channel, garnering the woman's attention.

She weaved through the sky, barely dodging the suppression as she unloaded her own payload, only managing to eliminate a few of the many.

Even bastion was beginning to take heat, requiring Reinhardt to hop out and provide a shield to ward off the incoming shells. Genji tried to deflect what he could, but it proved fruitless as he scampered back onto the ship.

James had finally reached the vessel and stepped on, prompting the rest of the group to pile in. Bastion reset his turret and continued to suppress the remaining Talon mercenaries, pelting them with lead as Winston fired the craft's thrusters and started to take off. Pharah arrived at the last moment, skidding to a halt on her landing as she entered, barely dodging a shell beforehand as it pinged off the side of the ship.

"We're good! Let's go!" she yelled, prompting Winston to slam the boosters and leave the airspace. The ship rumbled as it barreled through the sky, farther and farther away from the burning lab.

Things had calmed quite a bit, but now it was time to acknowledge the purple, armor clad elephant in the room. James had felt his vision clear and the warmth in his chest wean when he had stepped on the ship, indicating that whatever barrier he had carried was now gone.

"Is that… Oh mein gott… Soldier 76!" came a gentle voice from the back, stealing James's attention. A slim woman, clad in white and gold rushed forward, folding her wings and dropping the long staff she carried. The teen reached up with his free hand and peeled the limp body from his shoulder. 76 had been knocked unconscious, suffering from a few more scars along his body but luckily had survived well unscathed compared to… him and his brother.

The teen did what he could to lay him on one of the hovering medical beds before Mercy intervened, taking the man from his grip and laying him down herself. She barely looked at his face, instead tapping a series of commands on the panel of the bed before letting a green shield of energy fabricate overtop.

"Good, good… he is well. Now what about your other…"

"Oh."

The good doctor turned to rest her teal lenses upon the child that James cradled within his arm, disheartened to find him in such condition. She reached a hand out to touch him, only for it to be gently blocked by the armored backside of the teens other hand. She looked up to the emotionless mask that he wore, finding him staring back at her before he turned his gaze down at his brother and slowly walked to an adjacent medical bed.

The brother took a knee and gently laid his sibling onto the bed, loosening his cradle and letting the passed child rest his head within his palm. Whatever it took, he would find those that hurt him. Those that hurt his family would pay greatly for their actions, he would make very well sure of that. With or without help.

James stared at his brother's soft expression a moment longer before quietly ruffling his damp head of curly hair one last time. The young man looked down at the control panel of the bed and selected the snowflake icon, letting a blue shield of energy slowly form over the body. Frost accumulated under barrier until he couldn't see his brother anymore. At that point James dipped his head and gave a deep and long sigh, finding himself gravely tired and worn out.

Fareeha Amari had been watching the scene unfold itself as she leaned on the wall of the ship, watching as the towering suit of powered armor froze a child within one of the medical beds.

"I am sorry. Were you close to him?" Angela asked, carefully placing a hand on his shoulder plate. They all waited for a brief moment, watching as the armor turned its head to the woman.

"He was… my brother." James calmly stated, his voice modified by the suit's voice system to be much more robotic it texture.

The doctor let a small gasp escape her mouth, covering it with a palm as she watched the being rise to height.

James barely turned around before he met Pharah and Reinhardt's scrutinizing gaze. Bastion simply gave a series of beeps that meant nothing to the young man all the while Genji sat watching, interested by the man in the armor.

"What is your name? I must ask that of such a valiant hero." The hammer welding tank asked, raising his palms in the air as a gesture of good will.

The suit took another step forward.

"I am-"

James paused, unable to finish his sentence as a fit of coughing overcame him. The group of Overwatch members watched in horror as thick blood began to sputter and seep out of the mask, painting the deck of the ship with ugly splotches of crimson. Angela rushed forward, readying her staff and trying to support the suit with a hand on its chest.

Pain began to seep back into the teenager's mind as he felt the suit stand up to height and begin blooming, slowly unfolding its plates of purple alloy to let the injured boy inside fall onto his knees before crumpling in a heap on the ground. A pair of gasps came from both Angela and Fareeha as they watched, realizing that their new ally was not a man, but just a boy.

Once again, the doctor dropped her staff and rushed to James's side. She could easily tell that her tools would be of no use to such prolonged wounds. He would need immediate care.

"Winston! We have critical injured! Please, get us to Grand Mesa as fast as possible!" Angela ordered, trying to pick up the teen. He was bleeding profusely, covered in burns, cuts and internal hemorrhaging.

"It is a miracle he is still alive. Fareeha, please get me a medical table! Reinhardt, help me put him on!"

The towering Knight abandoned his hammer and gently picked the crumpled boy up, guided by Angela at every moment. He laid the teenager down on the floating bed before coming away with bloodied gauntlets, the same as Angela.

Genji approached, carrying a red medical chest. Angela barely thanked him for it before digging in and grabbing a multitude of tools she would need. Her day had become much more stressful than intended, and there would be many questions to answer.