Author's note: Greetings! And welcome to the first entry of what I hope becomes a long story to span out over the upcoming months.
Before I begin, I must emphasize that this story is a sequel to another fic I have published (the one called "Believe" in my profile), and while this does not continue directly from the events of that story, reading it will get you properly acquainted with the protagonist, aside of introducing you to some important bits of Destiny's world, just in case you're unfamiliar with it.
But regardless, thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it! Feel free to let me know what you think of the result, don't be shy! Cheers!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned here.
This story was made only with entertaining purposes and is not intended to be taken seriously in any social, political or religious context under any circumstances.
"Destiny" and its characters belong to "Bungie".
"Overwatch" and its characters belong to "Activision" and "Blizzard".
Fiat Lux
I
Terra Incognita
By the time we discovered that we were fighting for the wrong cause… none of our actions could be undone.
On our defense, I'll say that we were left no choice.
The first thing I can recall… was a blizzard.
Beneath a gray, cloudless sky, a chilling breeze blew across the white plains seizing the horizon.
Snowflakes swirled through the raging winds like a swarm of angered wasps. Neither buildings nor mountains populated the barren, ivory land.
It was cold, devoid from flora and fauna, seemingly untouched by civilization as well.
But then, a small sign of life manifested amidst the hostile environment.
A faint movement below the thick ice-crystal layer blanketing the soil, unveiling a dim, cerulean light projecting upwards.
A Ghost.
Ascending from the soil into the air, spinning its shell like a whirligig to shake off the remnants of frost covering it.
"G-Guardian?" the construct mumbled, glancing at the endless expanse of freezing whiteness surrounding it, searching for its companion.
"Oh no…"
During its stationary exploration, the Ghost caught the glimpse of a brown spot lying nearby, which turned out to be a worn cape buried under a small snow-pile.
The construct immediately hovered towards the finding, and began casting a blue light-beam from its flickering eye upon the ground.
"Get up, I am not losing you h-here…" the Ghost whispered, its voice faltering like a corrupted sound-file. "We've be-en through worse and s-survived… Get up, p-please…"
Numerous filaments of sapphire energy sparkled above the soil, expanding and swirling amongst each other until a cohesive shape was formed.
A slender, female silhouette lying prone in the soft marble-blanket.
Seconds later, the construct shut down its light, withdrawing, its eye fixated expectantly over that piece of land, waiting…
However, the stillness endured, while the cerulean bolts faded as fast as they appeared.
Yet, out of the blue, a few, gritty noises were heard. The snow-pile started falling apart.
Thus came to sight the image of a Guardian, a human huntress rising off the ground.
"Rapunzel? Eyes u-up, can you hear me?" Ghost said, hovering beside her.
"Ugh… G… Ghost? Is that you?" she said feebly, folding her legs underneath her thighs, heel-sitting in the snow. She pressed a black-gloved palm on her forehead, blinking repeatedly to clear her unfocused vision.
"Wha… What happened to you!?" she unexpectedly cried, swiftly cupping her little companion in between her hands, holding it protectively against her bosom upon noticing how its previously pristine shell was now tarnished, scratched, even dented.
The construct looked as if it was forcefully chewed and spat by a wild beast.
"I was g-going to ask you the same t-thing," Ghost replied. "You look awful… And your hair… I-It's brown again! Just l-like it was when I first found you-u…"
Rapunzel frowned at the response. Instinctively, she released one palm from her grip around her tiny companion, moving it upwards to take a single, loose hair dangling before her freckled nose.
She quickly tore it off, lowering it to her face.
Her emerald-green eyes went wide while she looked down her trembling hand.
A cold shiver traveled across Rapunzel's spine when she realized that indeed, the thread-like strand tangled in her fingers had a chestnut coloration, instead of the bright-golden it used to be.
"Ghost… What happened? … Where are we?" she asked on a shaky whisper, dropping the lone hair, unconsciously letting the construct escape her grasp.
"I… I don't know," Ghost answered, floating above her shoulder. "I can't send or t-transmit anything… I can't remember anything…"
"Is the signal jammed?"
"No… There is no s-signal, not even static."
"I… I can't remember a thing either…"
In that moment, Rapunzel started rubbing her temples, clamping her eyes tightly shut.
Once the malaise plaguing her diminished, she placed her palms over the soil, and pushed herself up to stand.
Unfortunately, her limbs started trembling as soon as she put pressure in them, thus she fell face-first upon the snow.
"Rapunzel! A-are you alright?" the construct questioned worriedly, quickly approaching to her.
"Y-yeah… I… I just need to…" she said lowly, struggling to recollect herself with slow and quivering motions, kneeling on all fours in the ground.
"There is something wrong with u-us. Our light is-"
A loud thunder echoed through the hurricane winds, drowning out the construct's speech.
Their attention immediately headed towards the source of the sound.
A large, scarlet radiance rising above the horizon line into the opaque skies.
"What is that?" Rapunzel asked, her gaze still fixed over the crimson glow sailing across the freezing breeze.
"It's a flare-e." Ghost replied.
"I know it's a flare," she retorted humorlessly, turning to face her small companion. "But what does it mean?"
"It's a sign, that we are not a-alone."
Following that sentence, Rapunzel narrowed her eyes, stretching her pale lips into a thin line.
She took a deep breath, maintaining her stiff stance for a few more seconds before bringing one knee forward, setting her foot firm on the soil.
Then, with moderate effort, she rose from the snow, and immediately began dragging her feet forth.
"Rapunzel, wait! What are you doing!?" Ghost exclaimed, chasing after her.
"It's not too far from here, we could get answers there." she replied earnestly, not bothering to look at the construct while she walked.
"Rapunzel, I must i-insist, something's not right with u-us and-"
"We'll worry about that later, somebody could be in danger. Can you access our inventory? What do we have at our disposal?"
"Nothing to r-remediate our current situation."
"Ghost!"
"Fine, fine. We have an old transmat-beacon, the Gatelord's eye, some weapon parts, strange coins to spare and enough ammo to take down ten Walkers, or last five minutes in Crota's Throne World. But for some reason I can't access the vehicle grid, which means no Sparrow or Jumpship to navigate this u-uncharted land."
"Then our weapons will have to be enough."
Rapunzel opened her palm, a thousand light-particles emerged around her fingers, aligning, converging amongst themselves until a rectangular shape appeared, which shortly later became her 'Khvostov 7G-0X' rifle.
After that, silence reigned over the huntress and her Ghost as they continued venturing into the blizzard, advancing in direction to the vermilion radiance seizing the background.
Sombra sighed, looking down to the ground while she checked her machine gun for what could easily be the twelfth time.
She repeatedly inserted and removed the cartridge magazine of her weapon. Her fingers twiddling over the safety lever as she inspected the reflex sight up-close, hoping… Waiting…
She would never admit it openly, but Sombra was nervous because, on this very particular case, she didn't have all the information at her disposal.
For some unknown reason, their superiors decided to skip the briefing in a matter of utmost urgency and secrecy.
Usually that wasn't a problem, for she was simply fulfilling the task given to her as mandated.
However, when she decided to hack her way into the classified files of Talon, her efforts were stopped by a bafflingly sophisticated, nigh-impenetrable barrier in the form of a thousand firewalls and encrypted algorithms protecting the details from this operation.
It was a level of confidentiality she had only seen on a few, select occasions.
She couldn't stop thinking about what their command was so invested to keep hidden.
But none of that was important now, they still had a mission, and she refused to let those doubts dominate her, despite the circumstances.
Sombra frowned, shaking away those negative thoughts. Then, she glanced upwards, looking to the black-robed figure standing before the opened gate of the airship transporting them, his sight lost on the mountain range submerged under a thick blizzard.
"Hey, Gabe?" she called, leaning slightly forth from her seat. The man slowly turned his head, a pale mask that resembled a skull stared back at her. "You mind telling me why are we doing this?"
"Command wants us to investigate an outpost near the base that suddenly went dark."
"Yeah, I know that part," Sombra said, rolling her eyes. "But what I want you to tell me is why are 'we' doing it. If I remember correctly, a recovery team was dispatched to investigate this weeks ago, right?"
"The first group sent to the outpost never returned, neither did the second, nor the third… Not even the Spec-Ops team has reported back since then. Command says it's imperative to have that outpost functioning again."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Sombra huffed, dropping her shoulders in defeat. There still was something wrong in this whole scenario, something she couldn't put her finger on, and yet-
"Attention, 'Team Alpha'," a female voice unexpectedly echoed across the ship, earning the attention of every soul inside. "We are nearing the objective, I have visual contact with the outpost."
Sombra narrowed her eyes while she stood from her seat and walked to the cockpit at the front.
She had seen and done incredible things throughout her career as a hacker. But nothing, not even the most dangerous battles from her previous missions prepared her for what she witnessed beyond the windows of the pilot's cabin.
Sombra's eyes grew wide as plates at the sight from a colossal ring-shaped structure rising over the horizon, tall enough to belittle the radio tower beside it. The strange construction had several spikes protruding off its brass-like surface.
"Gabe… What is that?" she whispered dumbfounded, her gaze deeply fixed in the surreal imagery painting the crystals of the cockpit.
"I already said I don't know," he replied with a low, raspy voice. "Drop us at the center of the camp."
"Roger, sir, prepare to drop in five." the pilot said.
"Widow?" Sombra spoke, spinning in her heel, glancing to the blue-skinned woman standing at the bottom of the ship. She wore a tight purple spandex that covered her whole body, an elongated ponytail emerged from the gray helmet on her head that reached her armored knees. "Do you-"
"Just do as you're told and everything will run smoothly," 'Widow' answered bluntly, not bothering to look at her while she inspected her own weapon, a violet assault rifle. "But try to stick to the mission this time, the boss won't be pleased if you miss the target again… and neither will I…"
Sombra fell silent after this, her eyes widened again as she gulped and wrapped one palm around her throat.
'What a merry band we are…'
There was a deafening, mechanical noise, alongside an abrupt jolt shaking the environment.
She turned once more, encountering several buildings far from the opened gate. Sombra took a deep breath, and they hopped down from the ship into the outpost.
"Stay in the air," the black-robbed man said, placing two gloved fingers on the side of his head. "I'll light up a flare once we're done."
"Aye, sir," the pilot replied in the comms. "Good hunting."
Following that, a loud buzz seized the atmosphere. Snow was mightily dispersed all over the place as the blocky, gray ship slowly rose from the ground until it reached the sky anew, and vanished there.
"Widowmaker, get to higher ground," the man spoke, looking to the blue-skinned woman standing behind him. "Inform of any movement in the vicinity."
She gave a light nod in reply, not saying a word while she lifted an arm. Shortly later, a grappling hook attached to a lengthened wire emerged from her gauntlet, traversing the air. The grapnel tangled itself around the girders at the upper part of the radio tower near the strange structure.
And with that, Widowmaker was swiftly propelled to the heavens, her figure quickly disappeared in the thick mist blanketing the complex.
"Sombra, see if you can restore the power on the outpost, then check for the footage of the security cameras."
"Got it, 'Captain Reaper'," Sombra said nonchalantly, straightening her posture, moving her hand upwards to perform a military salute. "But what will you do in the meantime?"
"I'll look around to find survivors, or something to discover what happened here."
Suddenly, Reaper's body started dissolving and collapsed, turning into a cloud of dark smoke, lurking over the ground like a serpent that swiftly faded in the distance.
Sombra pursed her lips, lingering motionless on her stance for a moment, but soon she started walking cautiously towards one particular building at the background of the installations.
Once there, she pressed her back against the wall next to the front gate. After a few seconds of silent preparation, she hastily abandoned her cover and crossed the doorframe.
"Ew! That smell, dude!" Sombra exclaimed when a powerful, disgusting stench invaded her nostrils as she entered the building, forcing her to pinch her nose closed with her index and thumb.
She shook her head repeatedly, clamping her eyes tightly shut to reduce the nausea plaguing her, for her stomach churned by cause of the strong, sickening fetor.
"So, this is why the Spec-Ops team didn't report back…" she mumbled, lightly shuddering upon encountering the nightmarish sight from a plethora of dead bodies, Talon soldiers sprawled all over the place like toys littering a cradle. Large crimson stains drenched the cracked walls, forming small puddles in the floor as well.
Sombra glanced up again, finding a wide control panel with many buttons, gauges and levers seizing the entire background wall, right beyond the sea of corpses.
"Ugh…" she sighed, rolling her eyes, realizing about what she must do next, nothing she looked forward to.
Breathing through her lightly-open mouth, Sombra started walking across the obscure room, cautiously tip-toeing between the bodies, squirming a little whenever her feet brushed them by accident.
She let her machine gun lead the way, aiming it to every corner while she advanced. The claustrophobic room grew increasingly blacker with each step, eliciting feeble echoes that shattered the still atmosphere.
The entrance behind her seemed so far away now, just as the dim light pouring through it. At least she got near her goal, having traversed the common grave successfully. All she needed now was to reach for the control panel before her.
But then, Sombra yelped loudly when she felt a tight grasp closing around her wrist. She immediately glanced down, spotting a hand emerging from the dark below, strongly clutching her.
She instinctively closed her free fist, ready to throw a punch.
"H-help-p…"
She almost didn't hear the raspy whisper, the grip surrounding her forearm unexpectedly loosened, and the mysterious hand fell off.
Sombra relaxed her stance, raising an eyebrow. It took her a few seconds, but it struck her soon.
After the initial shock, she discovered a wounded soldier, still alive, sitting in the floor, leaning against the wall. His chest slowly heaving, his helmet pointed upwards as if asking for forgiveness while the rest of his armored, blood-soaked body remained unmoving.
"Easy there, corporal, it's alright…" Sombra said, saving her weapon and crouching beside the barely-living man. "What happened here? Where's the rest of your team?"
"Those machines…" the soldier replied in a mutter. "They came out of nowhere… They just… kept coming and coming, wiped us all out before we could even… notice…"
"Stay with me, corporal…" Sombra put a palm on the man's shoulder while she placed two fingers next to her earpiece. "Gabe, do you read? I found the Spec-Ops team, they're all dead, but there's a survivor."
"What did he tell you?" Reaper's voice echoed through the comms.
"It was an ambush, probably by omnics."
"No!" the soldier exclaimed out of the blue. "Those things were not omnics… It was something else… something much… worse…"
He trailed off as his arms dropped to his sides, consciousness seemingly abandoning him when his fainted body unwittingly leaned against the wall.
"Hey, corporal? Hey! … Mierda…"
"Sombra, what's your status?"
"Our friend just passed away, he didn't tell me anything else."
"Then focus on restoring the energy."
Sombra rose from the ground when the communicator went silent, walking towards the control panel. Once there, she lifted her hand, her synthetic nails and the purple wires on her glove started shining.
After that, a myriad of holographic hexagons appeared before her fingertips, which began casting numerous light-beams over the broad, dented console. Then, she typed on the translucent figures as if it was a keyboard.
"Let's see…" she whispered to herself. "Fairly robust security algorithms, child's play… Decoding hull schematics, overriding clearance and… Voilà! Let there be light."
Following the sentence, the luminaries hanging from the roof lit with an incandescent, whitish glow that vanished the darkness filling the room. Numerous LEDs flickered in the control panel, accompanied by soft, mechanical sounds echoing within it.
Notably pleased, Sombra flicked her wrist, crossing her arms while she smiled lightly, and the holograms vanished as fast as they manifested.
But then, the lights went out again…
The console shut down immediately. Obscurity seized the place anew, barely countered by several filaments of electricity coursing across the control panel, emitting a faint, cerulean luminescence.
"What the hell?" Sombra mumbled, taking a step back.
Suddenly, an abrupt quake shook the earth with a deafening rumble, making her lose her balance momently.
"I see movement, we have company." Widowmaker spoke calmly through the comms.
"Sombra!?" Reaper growled shortly later.
"That wasn't me, Gabe!" she retorted hastily, placing her fingers on her earpiece.
"Group up, now!"
Sombra quickly spun over her heel and engaged in a rampant run towards the entrance of the building, paying no mind to the mass grave upholstering the floor.
However, as soon as she set a foot outside, she was greeted with a thick, sapphire smokescreen emerging from thin air, blanketing the entire complex.
"Gabe!?" she questioned loudly, glancing desperately at her surroundings in hopes of seeing beyond the blue mist engulfing her.
And there she saw it…
Sombra stared aghast, wholly immobile, at the massive, ring-shaped structure in the center of the outpost, which was activating by itself. Its bronze surface became enveloped by a strange, fuming darkness polluting the atmosphere around it.
"Sombra!"
She turned, spotting Reaper standing before the skyscraping, alien construction. Without thinking it twice, she rushed to his side, pulling out her machine gun during her frenzied sprint.
"What's up with the smoke!? Somniferous gas!? Poison!?" she exclaimed upon joining Reaper at the feet of the structure.
"No, it would've killed us already." he replied with unyielding composure.
"Oh, I feel so relieved now!"
After the response, a blinding glow spontaneously materialized amidst the bluish fog, its pristine radiance rivaling a burning star. Sombra raised her hands in front of her eyes, shielding her eyes from the mysterious light hovering upon the snow.
In that moment, she glanced at Reaper beside her, apparently being as dazzled as she was. While she silently inspected him from top to bottom, her sight immediately landed over the small, crimson pistol on his utility belt.
It was an easy choice, actually. Whatever they were facing, it clearly wasn't anything like their usual Talon shenanigans, so she preferred to have backup at her disposal, or a quick escape route, by the least.
Thus, Sombra swiftly reached for the flare gun beneath Reaper's robe, snatched it from him, then shot it upwards. A huge projectile glowing vermillion was propelled into the skies, submerging the outpost under a mix of red and blue luminescence.
"What are you doing!?" he questioned, giving her a fierce death-stare.
"Not sure about you, but I'm planning to live after this!" Sombra retorted, looking back at him.
Reaper growled sonorously, pulling out his Hellfire shotguns from his coat.
The flare soon vanished in the heavens, just as the incandescent shine surprisingly started dissipating.
Then, it happened…
"Whoah!" Sombra squealed when a gleaming, crimson projectile pierced through the sapphire fog, crossing atop her scalp, missing her skull by scarce millimeters.
Shortly later, from inside the cerulean mist emerged several machines of thin, lengthened limbs carrying huge sidearms. They possessed large, fan-shaped heads with a single, red eye, as well as a marble, viscous-looking core shining within their frames, which alloy material heavily resembled brass.
"Who the hell are those guys!?" Sombra shouted, firing her weapon towards the unknown automatons while she searched for cover.
"Shut up and keep shooting!"
Despite the constant array of gunfire they discharged against their foes, the machines remained unfazed by their attacks, since the bullets merely bounced off their frames without dealing important damage.
So automatons kept marching unfaltering, unleashing an endless stream of radiant, scarlet projectiles upon them.
Being forced to retreat, Reaper's blackened silhouette formed from a dark cloud on a nearby building, while Sombra quickly jumped under a small barricade of sandbags settled close to that place.
"Widowmaker, report!" Reaper spoke, dropping one of his shotguns and pressing two fingers to his earpiece. "We're under att-"
A piercing scream blared through the air.
Sombra looked above, catching a glimpse from a purple glow irradiating at the upper part of the radio tower. The strange gleam faded rapidly, being replaced by a familiar figure.
Widowmaker falling off the skies.
Her unconscious body leaving behind a long tail of violet smoke as she plummeted down into the earth like a missile, landing atop a building nigh them with a loud, metallic thunder.
"Shit! Gabe! Widow needs help! I-"
Another howl of pain was heard, Sombra's gaze immediately tracked the source.
In less than a second, a spear of crimson light cut across the breeze, striking Reaper with enough force to knock him back into several boxes stacked behind him.
"Gabe!"
Sombra hastily rose from her cover, lifting her machine gun, then fired all its rounds against one machine approaching her barricade.
A thousand sparks flashed when the automaton's curved head shattered and exploded under the ceaseless spray of bullets.
Sombra smiled wickedly as the headless frame stumbled backwards.
"Wait, what the…?" she mumbled, narrowing her eyes and lowering her weapon while she stared, utterly perplexed, at the decapitated machine in front of her.
It wasn't possible.
Normally, even androids would stop causing trouble after beheaded.
But these automatons were different, for this one, despite shuddering madly and being wreathed by swirling, flickering lightning-bolts, remained standing.
It didn't make any sense.
"Dammit!" Sombra exclaimed, her eyes growing wide when the headless frame lunged towards her on a frenzy.
She quickly withdrew, running in the opposite direction while her countless foes formed a wide, bronze barrier around her.
Sombra pulled out her translocator and threw it as far as she could. The device gracefully landed at the foot of a building within reach.
Her nails and her glove began glowing, a purple aura enveloped her whole body.
Then, in the blink of an eye, her figure became translucent, then dissipated into nothingness.
Soon after, her being was instantly restored where her translocator found shelter with an empurpled flash, successfully broadening the distance between her and the automatons pursuing her.
"Shit, that was close! Now to-ARGH!"
The oxygen filling Sombra's lungs suddenly abandoned her when a bright, vermillion lance struck her chest, pushing her back into the wall, cracking its surface as her spine crunched upon the impact.
She fell to her knees on the snow, suffering a coughing fit. Her hand immediately moved towards her aching bosom, there was a black-contoured hole in her charred coat, its fabric melted over her burnt skin.
Still choking with her own breath, Sombra weakly lifted her gaze.
The first thing she met was the dark claw from one of the machines extended ahead her face, shining in a purple, smoky veil while several more surrounded her, a thousand blood-red lights fixed upon her.
With her weapon having escaped her grasp and lacking strength to fight back, Sombra clamped her eyes tightly shut, tensing all of her muscles, fearing the worst.
But there was no pain, no threat. Nothing…
Instead, deafening gunshots seized the atmosphere.
Sombra's eyelids snapped open to the sight of the automaton trembling uncontrollably, sparkling, cerulean bolts swirled across its entire frame before vanishing with a final shudder.
Not too long later, the damaged machine collapsed onto the ground like a puppet whose strings were cut.
Meanwhile, the other automatons diverted their attention from the fallen hacker and started scanning the surroundings.
It was then, that something fell of the skies into the soil.
A small, spherical, iron gadget.
Which landed amidst the machines scouting the outpost.
The mysterious device detonated in a maelstrom of fast-spreading fire with a loud thunder.
Lying prone on the snow, Sombra watched silently as every automaton trapped inside the explosion was devoured by inextinguishable flames, being dissolved to ashes within just an instant.
Fire continued burning, thus the enemy was no more…
After the commotion, Sombra sat on the snow, recovering her breath while she looked from end to end of the now unoccupied base.
No longer spotting further menaces, she began crawling away sluggishly, seeking to retrieve her machine gun lying around nearby.
However, before she could grab her weapon, a cloaked figure dropped off the heavens, landing in front of her.
Sombra swiftly glanced upwards. Initially, the sunlight shining from behind blinded her intentions of unveiling the newcomer's identity.
Her muscles tightened again as she narrowed her eyes, expecting another confrontation.
But instead, she was faced by a concerned girl crouching to level with her.
"Are you hurt?" the stranger asked in a soft, soothing voice.
A black-gloved hand hovered ahead her nose. Sombra cautiously took it, accepting the aid to rise from the ground.
"I am so glad I found you," the newcomer said, sounding improperly optimistic, given the circumstances. "Just when I started to think I was alone here."
Standing on her own, Sombra maintained silence, tilting her head and arching an eyebrow while that girl merely kept smiling at her like a buffoon.
In that moment, she took the opportunity to study her features up-close.
The girl had fair skin, almost as pale as bone, yet several freckles decorated her button nose. Dark circles outlined her emerald-green eyes. Her thin lips were a light pink and her short, straight hair was of a chestnut coloration, barely reaching her shoulders.
Regarding her garments, she sported dark-gray steel plates held together by several straps upon beige and brown clothing, with a long, hazel-colored cloak hanging from her back.
She also wielded a plain-looking assault rifle, so she quickly forgot about it.
"Oh, you are actually hurt…" the newcomer spoke again, her gleeful smirk slowly turning into a saddened stare."I'm sorry, I should've gotten here sooner."
Sombra gazed down to herself, encountering a reddish mark of skinless flesh beneath her torn coat, surrounded by a black contour that presumably was burned tissue.
"Don't worry, I'll live," she said with a faint shrug, unconsciously placing a palm upon her bosom. "Thanks for the rescue, um… What was your name, again?"
"My name is 'Rapunzel', I am a 'Guardian'," the girl replied earnestly. "And I promise you, that we won't fall today… Does this belong to you?"
Rapunzel picked up Sombra's machine gun from the soil, handing it to her.
"Thanks." Sombra whispered, taking her weapon. "So… What's the deal with those robots? Haven't seen anything like that since… well, ever!" she concluded, pointing towards a neutralized automaton near them, shuddering lightly on the snow while its crimson eye flickered on and off.
"The 'Vex'." Rapunzel answered, walking to the damaged machine, crouching beside it. "Cybernetic warriors built only to wage war. These ones in particular are called 'Goblins', you can set them apart by their curved heads."
"Sounds like you've fought them before."
"Yes, but not here… I'm not sure where we are yet, but it's clearly far from their usual domain, which in itself it's something to start worrying about."
Afterwards, Rapunzel moved one hand behind her back, bringing to sight a long knife.
Then, she dug the sharp blade on the white core of the automaton beneath her, and its convulsions instantly ceased, its scarlet light smothering until it was completely obscure.
Sombra frowned at this, remaining motionless in her stance as Rapunzel turned her head to face her with a dead-serious expression, which suddenly became a wide, comforting smile.
She found her enthusiasm a bit contagious. A small huff escaped her while her lips curved slightly upwards.
But that feeble smirk faded quickly when she spotted close movement over the corner of her eye.
It was another machine, a Vex Goblin rapidly approaching to them.
"Behind you!"
Acting solely on instinct, Rapunzel pulled out her knife from the inactive automaton, spinning in her heel.
She bent her wrist inwards into her forearm, and tossed the blade against the machine rushing towards her. The knife pierced through the Goblin's ivory core, inducing an explosion of liquid marble that culminated in its defeat, as its now defunct frame collapsed upon the snow.
"Fall back!" Rapunzel exclaimed, glancing over her shoulder to Sombra.
A swarm of incandescent, incorporeal projectiles flooded the air around them as several shadows seized the horizon line.
Both women retreated together, taking cover behind some boxes sprawled nearby. Once there, they returned fire with their own weapons, but it was futile, for the machines endured the attack, and continued marching at a snail's pace in their direction.
"Now you saved me," Rapunzel wheezed out, crouching into safety again. "We make a great team!"
"Save it for when we make it out of here alive," Sombra replied, rolling her eyes. "Now what?"
"Stay here, I have a plan."
Without warning, Rapunzel rose from the ground, lifting her arm high in the wind.
And suddenly, a blinding, amber light irradiated inside her palm.
Sombra watched astounded while a maelstrom of bright flames materialized from thin air, spreading across Rapunzel's body with a glare that could rival the sun itself.
Gleaming sparks swirled around her fingers, forming a convoluted silhouette that instantly solidified into what seemed to be a blazing hand cannon.
Following the brief fireworks-show, Rapunzel slowly lowered the ethereal gun.
However, she didn't aim for the numerous Vex surrounding them, her focus went somewhere else.
She calmly aligned her hand cannon with the radio tower.
Rapunzel inhaled deeply, held her breath, and firmly pressed the trigger.
A burning light-spear emerged from her weapon, crossing the entire complex within a heartbeat, effortlessly cutting across a thick girder in the base of the tower.
Steel creaked with roaring, mechanical thunders, long cables fell loose onto the snow and the entire construction tilted earthwards, growing hazardously near the skyscraping, ring-shaped structure at the center of the outpost.
But something wasn't right…
"Wait, what? W-what is this!?" Rapunzel questioned loudly when, out of the blue, her blazing hand cannon, alongside the flames enveloping her vanished as fast as they appeared, so she returned to her previous self.
"No! Why!? I still had two more shots!" she shouted, frantically palpating her body with her palms, hoping that would somehow summon her powers once more. "Yes, I know! It's just that… Ugh, forget it! Guess we'll have to do it the hard way."
"Um… What?" Sombra asked, tilting her head in visible confusion.
"Oh, e-excuse me!" Rapunzel stammered, taking cover behind the box anew. "I-I was talking to someone else, someone very grumpy…"
"O… kay…"
A loud pounding began hammering on the vicinity, the enemy was getting closer.
It was time to act.
"Please ignore that! Just listen," she said hastily, turning to face Sombra. "That warp-gate in the distance, if we don't destroy it, they won't stop coming. But we don't have enough fire power… Unless… I-I know we've just met, but there's something I need to ask of you."
"For as long as you keep shooting at them, count with me, but what do you need?"
"Cover me, I've got an idea."
"Sure thing, should be pretty easy! They've been wanting to rip me apart since the day started, I'm ready when you are."
"Good, I'll see you on the other side… Now!"
With that, Sombra stood, raising her machine gun while Rapunzel jumped over the large box, rushing into the firefight ahead.
Dozens of crimson, cyclopean eyes fell upon her as she engaged them. The Goblins scattered across the complex started unleashing a vermillion bulletstorm against her.
During her run, a gleaming light sprinkled with shining, sapphire dust flashed in Rapunzel's hands, which soon dimmed and solidified into a greatsword, its grip tightly enveloped by brown leather.
The weapon also had a strange scutcheon engraved on top of its long, double-edged blade that glowed from the inside out as if it was red-hot.
Lingering motionless on her stance, Sombra simply contemplated while Rapunzel disappeared amidst the wintery fog obscuring the background, becoming nothing but the amber glow of her sword bouncing in the distance.
Scarlet beams sparkled within the opaque, grey veil blanketing the outpost.
Ferrous scrapings echoed across the breeze as the crimson flares shut down one after the other by whim of an incandescent, golden shine zig-zagging throughout the battlefield.
"Huh, I don't think she needed my help after all." Sombra mumbled, lowering her machine gun, twisting her eyebrows at the dreamlike, deadly performance displaying before her.
The spectacle continued growing increasingly farer and eventually, the peculiar amber glow began flashing beneath the damaged radio tower looming over the complex.
"Wait… She's not going to do what I think-Oh shit…"
Deafening, metallic noises suddenly blared through the atmosphere when the entire structure tilted even further, colliding into the massive wrap-gate like the first link in a row of falling dominoes.
After the crash, the two constructions rapidly shattered in a million pieces, big and small, collapsing upon the outpost.
"Oh, shit!"
Sombra screamed, swiftly abandoning her hideout, then sprinting away at full pelt as an avalanche of steel rained from above her. Wide iron girders plummeted down the earth all around her, impaling themselves on the soil with enormous clouds arising below them.
Adrenaline rushed strong in her veins, her heart pounded madly against her chest while she kept running, unwilling to look at the metal storm chasing her.
The corners of her sight suddenly turned black, she was very close to hyperventilating.
She had given everything.
But no matter how hard she tried, or how fast she raced, the snow-slide quickly matched her pace, and began engulfing her slowly.
So, in a last, desperate attempt of saving her life, Sombra lunged forward, throwing herself into the ground.
She instinctively placed her hands atop her head as she laid prone on the soil, tightening her muscles with each quake shaking the land under her.
Meanwhile, a mighty energy-pulse unexpectedly emerged from the remains of the warp-gate, making waves across the whole complex, followed shortly later by a hurricane breeze flowing on every direction.
Electric tendrils spread over the soil like roots, crawling up the frames of the Goblins that survived the havoc as they knelt, crossing their arms in a gesture akin to a meditation pose.
A cerulean aura swirled around them, which quickly dissipated with a sparkling radiance illuminating their ivory cores till everything became white for a moment.
The sudden brilliance immediately darkened and faded.
Thus, the few Vex still roaming the outpost were gone, leaving no trail of their existence behind.
As soon as she stopped feeling the raging winds, Sombra cautiously lifted her gaze, finding herself in what she could only describe like a 'forest of steel', populated by several iron stakes protruding off the snow, projected upwards into the heavens.
She also encountered enormous remnants of the radio tower and the warp-gate casting malformed shades upon the complex, alongside many destroyed Goblins upholstering the ground.
Then, as if on cue, she appeared…
The self-proclaimed 'Guardian' calmly walking out from wintery mist, holding her rifle in one hand while dragging her greatsword over the soil with the other.
However, she wasn't alone.
Hovering low above Rapunzel's shoulder, Sombra spotted a tiny drone of a single eye glowing blue.
Its shell was pristine like marble, resembling a convoluted origami piece, with eight small horns projecting outwards from its front and back, four on each side respectively.
"Why do you a-always feel the need to improvise and wreck up-p everything!?" the strange drone spoke, its mechanical voice sounding slightly labored.
"What say you? Everything went according to my plan." Rapunzel replied, looking at her little companion floating next to her head.
"The crazy s-stunts you call 'plans' almost-t got us killed! Just like l-last time, and all the other times before! You seem t-to take the phrase 'one nail drives out another' a bit too seriously."
"It worked, didn't it? Besides, I-"
Suddenly, the familiar figure of earlier fell from the sky, revealing herself as Widowmaker landing in between the other two women, swiftly pointing her rifle against Rapunzel.
"Widow, wait!" Sombra exclaimed, extending one hand forth while remaining on the ground.
"Whoah, hold your fire!" Rapunzel said hastily, unconsciously dropping her own weapons and raising her arms in the air. "I am no foe of yours!"
"Prove it."
"I am not a machine and I'm not shooting at you, would that suffice?"
"What about your petite friend over there?" Widowmaker questioned coldly, gesturing with her rifle to the tiny drone beside her.
"This is my 'Ghost'!" Rapunzel replied, capturing the small machine in her hands, holding it against her chest protectively. "It wouldn't harm a fly, even if it wanted to!"
"Yes!" the Ghost added. "Wait, what?"
Widowmaker narrowed her eyes. Despite hearing the answer, she maintained her stiff stance, aligning the barrel of her weapon with the Guardian's forehead.
Sombra froze, still lying prone on the snow, silently staring at the tense scene without intentions to intervene, as she feared her actions could bring a outcome worse than the one already built up.
For what seemed like an eternity, no words were spoken while they lingered motionless during that volatile meeting, merely waiting for someone else to make the next move.
Surprisingly enough, Widowmaker undid her shooting position, lowering her rifle.
"Those machines, what are they?" she resumed, visibly more relaxed.
"The Vex," Rapunzel said relieved, releasing her little companion from her grasp. "Their presence here is a bad omen to us all. Please, I-I know we've just been introduced, but I need your help to-"
Her sentence was abruptly cut off by a shadowy presence knocking her out with a strong hit in the back of her head, which instantly rendered her unconscious.
"No! Why would you-… Ugh… I… Mister… I-I don't feel so good…"
The Ghost's protest also went interrupted after several threads of purple light appeared from nowhere, linking to its shell, deactivating it against its will and made it fall onto the ground.
"Was that really necessary, Gabe?" Sombra asked, having finally risen, flicking her wrist so her hacking interface would disappear. "I don't think it's a good idea to attack the person that kicked the butts of the guys that were kicking our butts."
"We can't afford the risk," Reaper answered as the three of them gathered around the fallen Guardian. "As far as we know, she could be a mercenary, a spy, or even have ties to Overwatch."
"If you say so," Sombra said, rolling her eyes with a faint shrug. "But now what?"
"We'll take them to the base," he continued, reaching down for the collar of Rapunzel's cloak, swinging her unconscious body over his shoulder while taking the inactive Ghost in his free hand. "They clearly know something we don't. If they represent a threat, we'll find out."
"Team Alpha, do you read?" the pilot's voice unexpectedly sounded through the comms. "I am approaching to your location. I saw your flare earlier, but the weather got too crazy out of the sudden, what happened down there?"
"We've found the source of the problem," Widowmaker replied, pressing her fingers against her ear piece. "All hostiles are neutralized, we request evac at south-west of the outpost, over."
"Roger that, ma'am, confirming visual contact, on my way."
When the communications went silent, the loud buzzing of ignited turbines filled the ambient as their transport emerged from behind the mountains, slowly descending into the outpost.
The group was forced to step back because of the raging winds elicited by the airship nearing firm soil, its gates opening as soon as it reached ground-level.
Without saying another word, Sombra, Reaper and Widowmaker stepped inside the ship, along with the so-called 'Guardian'.
The gates of their transport closed behind them while the sonorous buzz echoed anew in the breeze. The ship slowly took off, spreading snow to the surroundings, reaching the clouds, then disappearing in the horizon.