Hello, all. May be a bit late for a Christmas story (still counting this as a holiday piece due to OW's Winter Wonderland event still going on. :p), but I still wanted to share this story with you all. This takes place between chapters 11 and 12 of the main story, "Ripple Effect", so if you like what you read here and you're interested in seeing more, please feel free to check out that one as well.
(WARNING: this starts out as a feel-good Christmas story, but becomes progressively heavier. Should still be safely T-rated, though.)
Side Effect #1: Looking Back
He had what he needed. There was nothing particularly outstanding to do now.
It was time for a break.
With a stretch and a groan, a silver-and-black metallic humanoid leaned back in a chair that seemed to be made entirely from pipes and robotic skulls. A green cape was draped over the chair's arm, and an old-looking winged helmet sat somewhat precariously on top of it. When one had simple desires, it was easier to find what one wanted. And this Omnic had everything he needed.
He had an army of custom-made soldiers, ready to kill and die at his command. He had elite mechanical warriors fashioned from the world's finest technological blueprints. And, most importantly of all, he was alone with his machines, the way he had always dreamed of.
The three crimson dots on his forehead burned brightly as he glanced to the ceiling with his slit-like eyes. His new home was dark and cold, lined with steel and all manner of mechanisms, but it was home. As far as the world knew, this place was abandoned; no one investigated anything here, which meant no one bothered him. It was perfect.
Or, at least, it was until the muffled sound of singing reached his audio receivers.
"Ugh, really?" the Omnic groaned, pushing himself out of his chair. He snapped his fingers, and a pair of white spheres, each bearing a crimson eye, appeared in a burst of light above his shoulders. "I was supposed to be taking a day off from killing and plundering today."
He pushed the massive front door open, and was immediately greeted with something white and powdery falling on his feet.
Snow.
He looked up and saw more of it. Snow fell over the city of Detroit, Michigan, coating the buildings in a layer of the purest white. Citizens bundled in coats and hats as they strolled the streets, exchanging friendly waves and even the occasional hug and kiss.
A small crowd of people sang their hearts out as they patrolled the city, handing out small gifts to any fellow civilians who so much as passed by. With smiles on their faces, the carolers belted out their songs at the top of their lungs, their voices carrying throughout the city. They may even have reached the highest floor of the tallest skyscraper.
The Omnic just stared as the carolers passed by him. Some of them waved; he awkwardly waved back. The two spheres floating by his shoulders simply looked at each other. One of the carolers, a little girl in pigtails bundled in a pink coat that looked too big for her, broke away from the pack and approached him.
"Hi!" she said in a rather shrill voice. "What are you doing here? Mommy says no one's lived in there for years!"
Had the Omnic any eyes that could move, they would be twitching uncontrollably.
"Well, I live here, now," he grunted. He repeated one phrase over and over in his head: she's just a kid, she's just a kid, she's just a kid…
"Oh, okay!" the little girl said. She tilted her head at his accent. "Are you British?"
"Yes," the Omnic sighed. She was going to be an annoyance, wasn't she?
"What are you doing in America?"
"Living in this Omnium."
"Why?"
"Because no one else is."
"Are you from London?"
"No."
"Where are you from?"
"King's Row."
"Where's that?"
"England."
"Like London?"
"Yes."
"Is it cool there?"
"No."
"Oh."
"Shouldn't you be getting back to your singing friends?" the Omnic asked with a sigh.
"Oh, yeah!" the little girl gasped. "Here!"
She held out her tiny hands, and in them was a small box wrapped in red-and-green with a cute little bow on top. He carefully took the present, looking it over as if it were some foreign object. The spheres above him stared at it.
"Merry Christmas, Mr. Omnic!" the little girl said as she ran off to rejoin the carolers.
"Yeah…happy Christmas and…all that," the Omnic said slowly. With a sigh, he went back into his Omnium and closed the doors behind him. "Right…what do we have here?"
He tore the wrapping paper off of the box and pulled it open. A small glass sphere was visible inside. With a tilt of his head, he pulled the sphere out of the box, revealing it to be a snow globe.
The Omnic held the snow globe away from him like some diseased object as he examined it. Within the orb was a simple display of a young woman prancing through snow, with a green-and-gold pistol in each hand. She was dressed in a green elf-like outfit, with a brown harness reminiscent of a Christmas wreath strapped around her chest. On the harness was a glowing blue center over her chest, and over her eyes were green-tinted goggles. The Omnic looked further down, to the base of the globe, and saw one word carved into the wood.
TRACER.
The lights on his forehead began blinking violently as his free hand clenched into a fist.
"OXTOONNNN!" he roared, driving his fist through the snow globe. Shards of glass scattered across the floor, water spilled on his feet, and the tiny snow-like particles sprinkled down. The small figure of the Overwatch hero Tracer was sent flying across the room. "…ow."
He paused at what he had just done, then looked at his hand. It was now covered in pieces of glass. He shook his hand, scattering the glass about, then looked around. The figure, somehow in pristine condition, had landed by his throne.
"Always working your way to where you aren't wanted…aren't you, Oxton?" the Omnic asked the figure as he approached it. He picked it up and rolled it around in his hand so that its eyes faced him. "Why is it always you, every bloody time?"
He sighed.
"It wasn't always this way, was it?" the Omnic remarked. He looked at his throne. "Well…I suppose the Christmas season is as good a time as any."
He set the figure down on one of the arms of the chair, then seated himself. He leaned back and stared up at the ceiling.
"Memory file number one-point-six-point-zero-point-two-dash-three-three-four-zero-three," he said. "Begin playback."
The lights on his forehead faded, and his body froze like a statue.
Inside the Omnic's mind, a world took shape. The cobbled stone of King's Row, England appeared, coated in just as much snow as Detroit had been in the real world. A school bus rumbled down the streets, preparing to deposit its passengers for their winter break.
The bus stopped before a tall and narrow townhouse, its door opening and allowing a small ten-year-old boy with short blonde hair to step out. The boy hefted his backpack higher onto his shoulder just in time for somebody's juice box to bounce off the back of his head.
"Happy Christmas, Omnic lover!" one of the other passengers spat just before the door closed. The boy glared behind him for a moment, but sighed as he pressed on.
He reached the front door of the townhouse, slipping in a key and turning it. With a shove, the door swung open, revealing a fully-silver Omnic with two blue eyes waiting for him.
"Eli!" the Omnic said cheerfully, greeting the boy with a hug. "How was school today?"
"Same as always, Sarkven," Eli replied, rubbing the spot on his head where the juice box had hit him. The Omnic nodded.
"Well, I've heard things might be different this year," Sarkven said, taking Eli's backpack and setting it aside.
"You say that every year!" Eli whined.
"I know, I know, but—let's just say I have a good feeling about this year!" Sarkven told him excitedly. Eli gave him a weak smile in return.
"Eli, honey, you're back!" a woman came out into the foyer, clad in a flour-doused apron and carrying a tray filled with what seemed to be cans of oil. "Could you take these upstairs for me, please?"
Eli had no chance to actually respond before the tray was in his hands, but he nodded and went up the stairs, his Omnic friend Sarkven in tow.
"Oh, by the way," Eli's mother called up after him, "we'll be having someone over for dinner tonight!"
The boy's eyes went wide. He hastily handed the tray to Sarkven before rushing back down the stairs.
"Mum!" Eli cried once he reached the foot of the stairs. "Why?!"
"Oh, don't worry, you'll love her!" his mother insisted.
"It's a girl?!" Eli shrieked, suddenly barreling right into the kitchen. "Mum, you can't be serious! I told you I don't want a girlfriend!"
"Calm down, Eli, it's not like that," his mother laughed with a dismissive wave of her hand.
"You said that the last time!" Eli yelled.
"Yes, we know you didn't like Donna, but this one's different," his mother replied with a sigh. "We're not playing matchmaker, she's actually much older than you. And, this time, your father and I made sure to actually meet her before introducing you, and she's just wonderful."
"Mum! I don't care how 'wonderful' you think she is!" Eli cried. "You know I'm bad with people!"
"Well, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try and make friends, dear."
"I do!" Eli shot back. "And they all hate me because of what we do!"
"Oh, sweetie," his mother pulled herself away from her cooking and threw her arms around him. "Believe me, I get that it's rough believing in Omnic rights in the one place that hates them the most. But there are still good people in the world, you just…need to look a little longer to find them, that's all."
Eli just pouted.
"Everything will be okay, I promise," his mother smiled and turned him around toward the stairs. "Now, go and give your friends their oil."
"All right," Eli sighed. Sarkven was down at the foot of the stairs, waiting for him with tray still in hand. The Omnic balanced his cargo on one hand while he offered Eli the other one.
"Don't worry, partner," Sark said as Eli took his free hand, "I'll be right there to help you out if things go wrong."
Eli smiled. Whenever things were difficult in his life, at least he could always count on the Omnics his parents sheltered. Sarkven, in particular, had gone out of his way for the boy; Eli remembered one instance where the Omnic had driven him to school. And it was dangerous for an Omnic in King's Row to be seen at street level.
"So, who's first today?" Sarkven asked.
"Mmm…let's do Ottron first," Eli suggested. "He likes his oil well-stirred."
"Sounds like a plan!" Sarkven agreed, and the two set off.
There were a number of Omnics taking refuge in the Dror family's home, and Eli was on a first-name basis with each of them. Nui, a recent convert to Shambali ways, took his delivered oil in diluted amounts. Wrenz was the local mechanic, fixing the heat and air conditioning whenever either malfunctioned. Span was an unusual Omnic with only one eye, but he happily took his oil once it entered his sight.
"Looks like we're out," Sarkven reported, showing Eli the empty tray. "Dinner should be pretty soon."
"Yeah," Eli frowned. Sarkven looked to him.
"Don't worry, you'll be fine," the Omnic assured him.
"How do you know?" Eli asked.
"I can seeeee into the futuuuuure!" Sarkven said with a dramatic wave of his hand. "The Iris has shown me everything that happens…in the next, uh…fifteen minutes!"
A laugh escaped Eli's smiling lips, but a doorbell's chime quickly silenced him. He paled as he latched onto Sarkven's leg. The Omnic laid a hand on Eli's head as a number of sounds reached the boy's ears: his mother's quick footsteps, an opening door, and two voices—one of which seeming to have a cockney accent—greeting one another and periodically laughing.
"Sounds like our guest of honor is here," Sarkven pointed out. Eli only clung tighter to his leg. "Hey, don't worry, I've got you. Everything's going to be okay."
"Sark, I don't wanna!"
"I know, I know, just—trust me, all right? Let's just get it over with."
Sarkven limped out into the hall and down the stairs, Eli still hanging on for dear life. His eyes were squeezed shut, and his face was buried into the cold metal of his friend's leg; the steel skin was actually comforting to him.
Eventually, Sarkven stopped. Eli squeezed his leg even tighter.
"Oh, hey guys!"
Eli hesitantly opened one eye to peer out at the owner of this cockney-accented voice. Then, his eye went wide.
Their guest was none other than Tracer, one of Overwatch's famed heroes and its British representative. She was easy to recognize, due in no small part to her rather distinctive outfit: brown flight jacket underneath a strange white harness with a glowing blue center, yellow skin-tight leggings, white crocs, and orange-tinted goggles. She blew one of her spiky brown hairs out of her face before giving Eli a smile, but the boy could only point a shaking finger at her.
"Y-you're…you're real?" he gasped, lip quivering.
Tracer quickly patted herself down, examining her own form, before she replied.
"Yup! Looks like it!" she smiled. She then squatted down in an attempt to get eye-level with the boy. "Are you Eli? Your mum and dad told me a lot about you!"
The blonde child only buried his face back in Sarkven's leg. Tracer only laughed.
"It's okay!" she reached out a hand. "I don't bite, love!"
Eli paused. He slowly looked over at her.
"W-what did you call me?" he asked. At his age, all he knew about the concept of love was that it was a strange feeling that made people do even stranger things.
"Huh? Oh, I call everyone 'love', don't worry about it! It's just a thing I do," Tracer smiled. She still held out a hand, but Eli remained hesitant. "Come on, Eli, don't leave me hanging!"
"He's a little shy," Sarkven laughed. "Especially when there's a celebrity in his house."
"Aw, I'm no one special!" Tracer said with a wave of her hand. "Weeelllll, except maybe for this."
Then she whizzed past them in a flash of blue light.
"Whoa," Eli gasped. Tracer suddenly shot up the stairs, then vanished in another burst of light, reappearing right back where she started. Eli finally pulled away from Sarkven. "You're like a superhero! How'd you do that?"
"It's my superpower, love!" Tracer giggled. "I can do a little bit of time travel and go wicked fast!"
"Wow," Eli breathed with an awestruck stare.
"Well, I should probably see if your mom needs help with anything," Sarkven said, kneeling down to face Eli. "You know what to do if you need me, right?"
"Yell really loud?"
"You got it!" Sarkven laughed. Tracer also added in a giggle. "I'll let you guys get acquainted. See you both at dinner."
Eli's Omnic brother left for the kitchen, allowing Tracer to squat back down to Eli's level.
"So!" she said. "You like superheroes, Eli?"
"Y-yeah?"
"Awesome!" Tracer pumped her fist. "Who's your favorite?"
"W-well," Eli began, reaching into his discarded backpack.
Tracer watched with baited breath as he pulled out a single comic book. On the cover was a scene depicting four characters surrounded by a horde of zombie-like Omnics, with what looked like a giant-sized mad scientist looming above them. One of the four heroes was a man with skin as chalk white as his hair, dressed in a blood red coat and wielding a massive rifle. Beside him was a feminine figure whose face was shrouded in a hood and a grinning mask, a sniper rifle in her hands. Accompanying these two were a cowboy in a black poncho and domino mask and a ponytailed man with a bow and arrow and a devil-like face printed on the shoulder of his kimono.
"Junkenstein's Revenge?" Tracer read the rather boldly-printed title with a raised eyebrow.
"Y-yeah, it's…it's an old movie," Eli explained nervously. "And I found this at the store...so I bought it."
"Okay, cool!" Tracer smiled. "What do you like about these guys?"
She pointed at the four heroes on the cover.
"Um…well…I think they're cool," Eli said slowly. "They had to live underground because everyone was mean to them, but when Dr. Junkenstein did his evil plan, they…went out to save the day."
He looked into the kitchen.
"I…kind of think of the Omnics when I read this," Eli finished.
"I gotcha!" Tracer smiled, ruffling his hair. He winced and clumsily tried to smooth it back out. "So, you like Omnics, huh?"
Eli froze. His heart stopped. He quickly grabbed his backpack, hastily stuffing his comic back in.
"I-I gotta go!" he blurted, but before he could rush past Tracer, she put out a hand to stop him.
"Whoa-ho, easy!" Tracer exclaimed. With nowhere to run, Eli slumped down into the floor and buried his face in his hands. His houseguest could hear a few small sobs coming from behind his hands, prompting her to kneel down to him. "Hey…hey, what's wrong?"
She gently pried his hands away from his face. Tears were running down his cheeks.
"Everyone at school hates me," Eli choked. "Because I like Omnics."
"Aw, that's not a bad thing," Tracer assured him, putting a hand on his shoulder. He turned his face away. "I like Omnics, too, actually."
Eli slowly looked back over to her. "Really?"
"Yeah!" Tracer smiled. "In fact, I met your mum and dad at one of Mondatta's speeches. I love going to those! He's been a huge inspiration to me!"
"Yeah…me, too," Eli sniffed, wiping his tears away. Tracer ruffled his hair again, this time more gently.
"Feel better?" she asked. Eli nodded. "That's good! Last thing I want is to make you feel bad."
"Really?" Eli asked.
"Yeah," Tracer nodded. Her expression then became more serious. "So…when I met your parents at that one Mondatta rally, they talked about you. Said you didn't have a whole lot of friends."
"What about it?" Eli gulped.
"Well…I was wondering if, maybe, you and I could be friends," Tracer smiled. "What do you say, love?"
"R-really?" Eli gasped. "But—why would you want to be friends with me if you're not an Omnic?"
Tracer looked around, then back at him. "Can you keep a secret, Eli?"
The boy nodded.
"You see this thing I'm wearing?" Tracer asked as she put her hands on either side of her clock-like harness.
"Yeah?" Eli replied. "What is it?"
"My friend Winston made it for me—you know Winston, right? He's a real animal!" Tracer said with a giggle. "It's my chronal accelerator."
"Your…what? Huh?" Eli blinked.
"Don't worry if you can't pronounce it, love," Tracer giggled. "Short version is, this thing I'm wearing is the source of my powers. But, I can't take it off for too long…or else I turn into a ghost!"
Eli's eyes went wide. "Really?"
"Yeah," Tracer nodded. "Then I start floating through time forever, and I might not ever be able to get back here to the present."
She smiled as she stood up.
"So, what I'm getting at is…I might be human, but I got a little bit of machine in me," Tracer said, knocking on her accelerator several times. "We're all a little different, but I don't think that means we can't be friends."
"…wow," Eli breathed. Tracer smiled her biggest smile yet.
"So…friends?" she held out a hand.
Eli looked at the offered appendage for a second, then smiled.
"Sure, Tracer!" he said as he took her hand. "Friends!"
"You can call me Lena if you want," Tracer giggled. "That's my real name: Lena Oxton."
"Lena?"
"Yeah!" Lena nodded. "Short for Helena, but I don't let anyone call me that," she added with a laugh.
"Hey!" Eli's mother poked her smiling face out of the kitchen. "How are we doing?"
"Doing just fine, Mrs. Dror!" Lena smiled, putting an arm around Eli, who nodded.
"Oh, how wonderful!" Eli's mother almost squealed. "Dinner's ready whenever you are!"
"Wicked! I'm starving!" Lena grinned. "Come on, Eli, let's dig in before all the good parts are gone!"
She practically dragged the boy in, but Eli didn't care. He was grinning from ear-to-ear, happy at having made his first human friend.
"Memory file number one-point-six-point-zero-point-two-dash-three-three-six-four-eight. Begin playback."
The world morphed and shifted. Time passed at the speed of light. Snow thawed to reveal the green of spring, only for that to give way to the fallen leaves of autumn. Again and again this repeated until four years passed.
Eli, now taller and sporting slightly longer hair, made his way down the stairs, stopping to admire the falling snow outside. Christmas was his favorite time of year now, and not simply because of the presents or the trees or even the snow. It was the time of year when the person who had improved his life so dramatically always came by to visit.
"Eli!" his mother called. "Phone for you!"
With a knowing smile, Eli went into the kitchen and took the receiver his mother offered.
"Hello?" he said.
"Hey, Eli!" a familiar cockney-accented voice said from the other end. "Guess who's coming to town?"
The doorbell rang.
"Oh! Seems the door is also for you, Eli!" his mother smiled.
Eli sighed and shook his head, but failed to hide a smile as he hung up the phone and opened the front door.
Lena was there, clad in the same outfit featured in her future snow globe.
"Tracer's coming to town!" she cried, throwing her arms outward. Eli immediately took the invitation and hugged her. "Aw, dude, look at you! You're huge, now!"
"Yeah, that tends to happen around this point in life," Eli smiled. He looked up and down at her costume. "What are you wearing?"
"Oh, this old thing?" Lena replied, gesturing to her outfit. "I just came from a Christmas costume party. I was one of Santa's elves!"
"Huh," Eli backed away and let Lena inside, shutting the door behind her. "I actually would've pegged you as a Rudolph."
"Yeah, I've gotten that a lot today," Lena snickered. She gave his mother a wave. "Hi, Mrs. Dror! Mind if I borrow Eli for a quick shopping trip?"
"Oh, don't worry!" she said with a wave of her hand. "This is the moment he looks forward to every single year!"
"Muuum!" Eli sighed. "You don't need to actually tell her that!"
"Ah, it's fine, love!" his friend laughed.
"You're still calling me that?" Eli asked with another sigh. "It feels weird."
"It's only weird if you want it to be," Lena said with another giggle. "Now, come on, we're going shopping for my present to you!"
"Oh, really? Nice!" Eli smiled. He quickly grabbed a coat off the nearby hanger and threw it on. "Thanks, Lena!"
"Hey, it's all part of being the best friend I can be!" Tracer smiled as she pushed the door open. "Off we go!"
King's Row looked its best, Eli thought, during winter. The dusting of snow seemed to make the town more peaceful than it did during the rest of the year, and the people's efforts to avoid being seen as Scrooges pushed the tensions between human and Omnic to the side. Friendly waves could be seen all around, though the quiet Eli usually gave only small nods and gestures in response to being greeted.
The outgoing Lena was a different story.
"Dashing through the snow!" she sang at the top of her lungs as she pranced along, Eli following behind at a more casual pace with his hands in his coat pockets. "In a one-horse open sleigh—come on, Eli, sing with me!—o'er the fields we go! Laughing all the way!"
"Bloody hell, Lena, how much coffee did you drink before coming over?" Eli asked, shaking his head but still smiling.
"Ha! Believe it or not, I don't drink coffee," Lena laughed. "I do like myself some sugar, though."
"I figured most people slow down when they get to be adults," Eli said. "Not you, though."
"Not me!" Lena grinned. "Ooh, here we are!"
She leaned on the wall of their destination, a shop titled "DARKEST NIGHTS". In spite of its name, the shop also partook in the holiday cheer, hanging a wreath upon the door and lining its poster-bearing windows with lights. Eli's face couldn't help but break out into a grin.
"Aw, Lena," he smiled. She came over and put an arm around him.
"You did say this was your favorite place to shop for comics," Lena pointed out, looking over the entrance alongside him. "Seems a tad dark for my tastes, though, even with the Christmas cheer on top."
Eli shrugged. "What can I say? I like a little edge in my life."
"Well, let's go find you some more, huh?" Lena smiled.
Before the two could enter the store, however, a small group of four jocular teenagers pushed their way outside. They stopped at the sight of Lena and Eli.
"Oh! Uh—Eli, right?" one of them sputtered. His eyes darted back and forth between Eli and Tracer, while the eyes of his friends looked to one another. "Good to see you! Happy Christmas!"
"Friends of yours?" Lena looked to Eli. But her friend was not smiling.
"No," he said coldly. "We should go."
"Aw, don't be like that, mate!" another one of the teenagers pleaded. "It's the holidays!"
"He's got a point, love," Lena added. "Tell you what, how about I let you guys get acquainted for a bit—"
"Lena, no!" Eli suddenly cried. "They're from my school's rugby team! You know why I hate the people at school!"
"Aw, just give it a shot for me, all right?" Lena said. She gave Eli a light shove in the direction of the teenagers. "Don't worry, I'll be right back!"
Eli reached out a hand to her, but she was already inside the store. His heart sank, and his blood ran cold.
"So," the lead teenager began, "on a first-name basis with Tracer, are you?"
"Look, I know what you're planning on doing," Eli sighed. "Just get it over with."
The rugby teens looked to each other, and shrugged. They complied with his request.
Moments later, Lena came out of the store with a comic in hand. The teens were gone. Eli was sitting on the sidewalk, propped up against a lamp post. His nose was broken, and he had a black eye amongst other bruises.
"Eli!" Lena gasped, dropping the comic and rushing to his side. "What happened?!"
"What do you think happened?" he snapped. "Those guys you wanted me to hang out with? They did the same thing they do every time I get stuck with them in school."
Lena's oft-exuberant face finally fell into a sorrowful frown. She pulled Eli into a tight hug, burying her head in his shoulder.
"I'm so sorry, love. I'm so, so sorry," she said. "Ohh, your mum and dad are gonna kill me! I'm really sorry, Eli! I really should've listened!"
Eli just sighed and put an arm around her. He opened his mouth to speak, but she pulled away from the hug and held up his face.
"Look, let me make it up to you," Lena said. "There's a new Glitchbot movie at the Meridian. Let's go and see it, okay? We'll call it a second present—oh, wait, that reminds me!"
She scrambled back for the fallen comic and handed it to him. He looked down at the cover; it was the latest in the Dr. Junkenstein series, namely Son of Junkenstein.
"Well…okay," Eli shrugged. "Should probably call my mum first, but knowing her, she'll be all right with it."
"Yeah, let's do that," Lena nodded. "And then we're getting you patched up. After that, it's off to the movies!"
Eli nodded and forced a smile. Lena's impulsiveness was sometimes troublesome, but she was always true to her word. After a quick visit to the local doctor and a trip to see HAL-Fred Glitchbot's latest film, Eli forgave her.
But he never forgot.
"Memory file number one-point-six-point-zero-point-two-dash-four-zero-five-one-six. Begin playback."
The world changed again. Four more years passed. This time, the memories were not in winter, but much earlier in the year. Eli was a legal adult at age eighteen, now favoring darker clothes (preferably with a skull or spike-related motif). It was the evening of a Tekharta Mondatta rally, an event Eli's family highly anticipated. The residents of King's Row, no matter who or what they were, all packed around a well-guarded stage.
"Oh, this is going to be marvelous!" his mother almost squealed. "Look how many people are here!"
"Human and Omnic," his father added with a smile. "This could finally make the relations better."
Eli smiled, but didn't respond. He wanted to believe peace was possible, but the longer he lived, the farther away that ideal seemed.
"Hey, Eli, look who showed up!" Sarkven nudged him. Just then, Eli felt a poke on his shoulder.
"Hiya!" Lena grinned as she came into his view. The Christmas costume was gone, replaced by her usual uniform.
"Lena!" Eli smiled, exchanging a quick hug with her. "You here for Mondatta?"
"You betcha!" Lena nodded. She gave his parents a wave, which they returned in kind. "Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Dror! Glad you guys were able to make time for this!"
"We wouldn't miss it for the world," Mrs. Dror nodded.
"I have a good feeling it'll be worth haggling for enough time off from bus work," Mr. Dror added. "Will you be joining us, Lena?"
"Aw, sorry, I can't," Lena replied sadly. "I might not be official Overwatch anymore, but I've got to be ready for anything going wrong at an event like this."
Eli frowned, but nodded.
"Hey," Lena whispered, putting a hand on his shoulder. He looked up into her smiling eyes. "I won't be far. Just give me a shout if you need me, all right?"
"…all right," Eli nodded.
"Hey, don't worry, you know her," Sarkven assured him. "She might be far off now, but she'll be there for you in a flash."
"Yeah," Eli smiled. He tried to ignore the nagging doubt in his heart.
Lena moved her way into the gathering crowd, finding herself in the center. Eli frowned; they were already separated by a mass of human beings, leaving her little to no way of actually contacting him (though she did have his phone number, so he supposed that was an option). He pushed it out of his mind as he accompanied his family to one side of the crowd, listening to the audience chant Mondatta's name.
"Listen to this crowd," Mr. Dror smiled. "This is going to be wonderful!"
Eventually, the monk himself stepped onto the stage, fully clad in white robes. The splendor of his golden parts reflected the many lights upon him. Eli could barely believe his fortune, being able to see one of his idols in person. The crowd's unified chanting broke into scattered cries of his name, echoing Eli's joy.
Then, the cries died down as Mondatta quietly held his hands together. Silence fell over the night. The crowd waited.
"Human. Machine," Mondatta began, grandly gesturing to two sides of the crowd. "We are all one within the Iris."
The crowd exploded into cheers.
"Before me, I see the future," Mondatta continued, gesturing to the crowd as a whole. "Humans and Omnics standing together, united by compassion."
Eli glanced around as Mondatta spoke. The crowd was indeed surprisingly diverse, with humans intermingling with Omnics; some even held one another like lovers. He smiled, but it vanished when he noticed one of the human guards seemingly receive information in his earpiece. The guard looked up, and seemed to be examining the rooftops. Almost immediately, Lena carefully slipped out of the crowd, dashing out of sight.
"Lena!" Eli called, but she was already gone. He reached out a hand to her, but it fell when he realized that she hadn't heard him.
"Don't worry," Mrs. Dror smiled with a shake of her head. "I'm sure it's nothing."
Eli frowned, but looked back to Mondatta's speech. The Omnic monk continued for a few moments, but one of the guards seemed to receive another message. He seemed to hiss a rather agitated reply, but eventually went over to Mondatta and whispered something to him. Another guard came, and the two began to lead Mondatta away. The monk made no protest, but the crowd pleaded for him to stay.
"So much for nothing," Eli muttered bitterly. He looked up to the roofs. "Come on, Lena, where are you?"
Then a fiery explosion burst from one of the rooftops. Eli's eyes went wide. He broke from his family and ran in the explosion's direction, standing out in the street. From where he stood now, he could see Lena careening away, pursued by another figure with a long-barreled rifle and a long ponytail. The presumed assassin took aim at Lena and fired a single bullet, but the time-hopper vanished in a burst of blue light. The bullet continued onward.
Right into Mondatta's skull.
"NO!" Eli roared. Similar shouts of dismay erupted from the crowd, but Eli could hardly tell what was going on anymore. His eyes were already blinded with tears as he fell to his knees.
Eli rolled over and collapsed into the fetal position. He gasped and choked on his sobs as he cried. Sarkven came and collected him, but his Omnic brother's usual encouragements were nowhere to be heard.
Even his family was beyond words. His mother hugged him. Sarkven embraced the both of them. His father had gone to speak with the police.
"We should go," Mrs. Dror suggested. "We should go home."
Hours passed. It was dinnertime. Eli only stared at his food for a moment before he excused himself and went up to his room.
He silently sat on his bed and stared at his surroundings: his collection of Junkenstein comics, his alien-themed poster declaring "YOU'VE JUST BEEN PROBED", his old robot figurines, and a small replica of a Shambali focusing orb. He sighed; the presence of his hobbies no longer interested him. He felt like a part of his soul had been ripped out.
His phone began to vibrate, announcing an incoming call. Eli looked at the caller ID.
It was Lena.
"Lena?!" he gasped into the phone once he had answered. "What happened? Where did you go?!"
"Eli—look, I'm really sorry, I don't have a lot of time!" Lena said. "I found the assassin, and I fought her, but…my chronal accelerator got busted, and—and she got away!"
"Wait, back up," Eli interjected. "Your chronal thing? Isn't that what's keeping you…"
He trailed off.
"I just—I got back in touch with the guy who built it earlier today! He'll fix it back up!" Lena said. "Then…then he and I are going to try and fix Overwatch back up. You saw what happened, right? The world needs its heroes."
"But…isn't that illegal now?" Eli asked.
"Well, what I did back there was probably illegal, too," Lena admitted with a slight laugh, "but I did it anyway. I had to do what I thought was right, no matter what anyone else thought."
Eli paused. "Lena…"
"Look, I'll be back to see you as soon as I can, all right?" Lena said. "I've gotta go; it's a long run up to Gibraltar, where Winston is. Take care of yourself, love!"
A click. The line went dead.
"Still calling me that, huh?" Eli sighed bitterly. "Even now."
He left his phone on his dresser and rolled over in his bed. One more tear escaped his shutting eyes as he fell asleep.
Eli awoke to a crackling sound and the smell of smoke. There was a flickering light behind the door out of his room. Dread and panic welled up within him as he scrambled out of bed and pushed the door open.
His home was on fire.
He looked around fervently for any sign of his family or his Omnic friends, but the smoke was blinding. Eli got down on his hands and knees and crawled down the hall, coughing all the way.
"Eli!" he heard Sarkven call. His Omnic friend and brother tore up the stairs and lifted the young man up. "Oh, thank the Iris! We need to get out of here!"
"Wh—" Eli tried to ask him something, but he choked on smoke again, and his answer was drowned out.
Cradling Eli in his silver arms, Sarkven hurriedly barreled down the stairs, crashing through the ruined front door shoulder-first and into the street. Eli's face was racked with horror at what he saw outside; his house was not the only one on fire. Several homes burned, with vandalism running rampant throughout King's Row. Riots were taking place, and without Mondatta, there was no one to inspire peace.
"Oh my God," Eli coughed.
"Yeah, you said it," Sarkven replied gravely. "Are you okay, Eli?"
"I will be," Eli said with another cough, though it now seemed to be fading. He suddenly gripped Sarkven's shoulders. "What happened to everyone else? What happened to Mum and Dad?!"
Sarkven was silent for a moment. "The other Omnics and I were together in prayer for Mondatta when this…bottle or something came through the window. It was what set the fire. I managed to get out, but the other Omnics…"
He put his hands over his slit-like eyes. Eli's breaths became ragged and nervous.
"…what about my parents?" the young man asked.
"I…I found them before I got to you," Sarkven replied. "They…they told me they wouldn't make it, so…I should see to you. And…they…well, you can…probably guess."
Fire engines arrived on the scene. The fire was eventually put out, but the house was little more than a charred monument now. The ambulances were busy pulling the injured off the street, to the point where so many were already full to bursting. But Eli and Sarkven stayed by their lost home, the latter with an arm around the former.
"Hell of a night we've been having, huh?" Sarkven asked. Eli remained silent, staring at the scorched wreckage before him. "What do you think we should do now?"
"…I don't know."
Sarkven thought for a moment. "Think maybe we can go down to the Omnic town? They might take us—"
He was cut off by an uproar of angry shouts. The four rugby team members who had bullied Eli before were now stumbling by with pipes and empty alcohol bottles in their hands. Eli grabbed hold of Sarkven.
"We need to go," he said. Sarkven nodded.
"Oi, Dror!" the lead rugby member called, a bit of slur in his words. "Look what me dad got me!"
He lifted a gun out of his pocket. It was aiming at the two brothers.
"Look what happens when I do this, huh!?"
Eli squeezed his eyes shut before he heard the bang. He expected a sharp sting to his flesh, and for darkness to overtake him. It never came.
But a mechanized groan did.
"Sark?" Eli gasped; his brother had put his body between them. "Sarkven! Oh, God, hang on!"
Slowly, Sarkven put a hand on Eli's shoulder.
"Run, pal," Sarkven said weakly.
Then the blue lights on his forehead faded into nothing. His body went limp.
"Aww, did we break your toy?" another part of the rugby team sneered, brandishing a pipe. "Let me fix it for you!"
He shoved Eli aside, knocking him to the ground, and began striking Sarkven's corpse with the pipe. Eli stared in horror as the others joined in, kicking and beating his friend.
Then the horror gave way to something darker.
Eli stood up and stomped over to the bullies, ripping a pipe out of one of their hands. Then he swung with all his might. A bloodied face slammed into the pavement.
The remaining bullies swore in shock, but Eli was on them before they could fully react. More swings. More bodies fell.
"YOU FILTH THINK THIS IS FUNNY?!" he roared between primal screams. "HUH?! IS IT?!"
The last thug, the one with the gun, dropped his weapon and tried to scramble away.
"YOU'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!" Eli bellowed. He picked the gun up. He fired. The last bully hit the ground.
Silence lingered in the night once more. Eli's enraged pants slowed to normal breathing. With fresh tears streaming down his face, he dropped the weapon and went over to his fallen friend. He took hold of Sarkven's body and cradled it in his arms. He stayed there and cried for as long as he could.
Hours turned into days. Days turned into weeks. Eli refused to move from the front steps of his destroyed home, or to let go of Sarkven's body. Sometimes a kindly passerby offered him food and shelter. He only accepted the former.
Sometimes, his thoughts drifted to the face of Lena. Over time, this happened more frequently. Eventually, it was all he could think about. She was his best friend. She was a hero. So, where was she when he needed her?
Why hadn't she saved Mondatta?
Why hadn't she saved his parents?
Why hadn't she saved his home?
Why hadn't she saved his brother?
Where was she when he needed her the most?
"Found one."
Eli was pulled from his bitter musings when a figure in black-and-grey stood before him. The soldier wore what looked like a black-and-silver helmet with a skull-like pattern and gas mask pieces on the front. In his hands was a large rifle.
Soon, this soldier was joined by a few others. Eli clutched Sarkven's body protectively.
"Relax, kid," the lead soldier grunted. "It's not the Omnic we want."
Then he knocked Eli out with the butt of his rifle.
The final memory faded away. The Omnic that had once been Eli Dror lifted his head up and made a neck-cracking motion.
"Thanks, Oxton," he said to the Tracer figurine, snatching it in his hand. "I needed that."
He walked back over to the door and opened it. Night had come in the time since he had reviewed his memories.
"Look at all these filthy meatbags," he said to the figurine, holding it up and pointing its face outward. "Christmas is the time of year when all of them put on their best happy faces and try to pretend that everything is fine. Then they laugh and party and fake being nice to each other; but I know better now."
He looked back to the figure and began squeezing it in his hand.
"You weren't there when I needed you," the Omnic growled as the figure buckled and bent in his grip. "You were off having a jolly good time with your big dirty pet while I lost everything! Everything I've suffered, right up to the day Talon put my mind in this Omnic body, is ALL YOUR FAULT!"
He punctuated his statement by slamming the figurine into the doorway, shattering its body. Then, with a sigh, he glanced back out to the lighted windows and wreathed doors of Detroit.
"Happy Christmas, meatbags," Omnirex growled. "All goes well, it'll be your last."
He went back inside his Omnium and shut the door behind him. Tomorrow was a new day.
That would be the time to further expand his new family.