Chapter 1: Heroes of the Old
"Everyone, we need to face the truth: Overwatch needs more heroes." Winston looked around the table. Six Overwatch operatives looked back at him, a slew of empty seats in between each of them. "Just look at this dismal excuse for a meeting! Six operatives! That's all we can spare! The others are off fighting in god knows where, risking their lives for the world's most understaffed and overworked peacekeeping agency!" Winston stated firmly. Pharah stood up valiantly.
"Well, we will just have to look for more! There must be more heroes in this world!" Pharah exclaimed. "There must be someone who won't stand idly by while evil roams the Earth!" Mercy shook her head from across the table.
"Recruitment is at an all time low, even vhen compared to rates recorded back before Overvatch's downfall. Heroes don't just emerge from novhere." Mercy sighed, a dejected look on her face. "Zhey're a valuable resource in zhis vorld, after all." Torbjorn stood up on his chair and cleared his throat.
"I think that we should ask the governments of the world for more manpower." He suggested. "Overwatch is going to have to go public eventually. Why not go public in our most desperate hour?"
"Psh! And I thought I was the crazy bloke 'ere!" Junkrat slouched in his seat, tossing one of his bombs in the air in a casual manner. "From what I understand, Overwatch ain't too popular with everyone else. If we go bloody public with this, then I'm afraid that Jack would have another buncha angry protesters on his hands!" Junkrat caught his bomb and hitched it back onto his belt, eyeing Soldier 76 from across the table.
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but Junkrat's right. Going public with Overwatch after being back in business for only a few months is very risky." Soldier 76 muttered. "It's starting to look like that our world has run out of heroes…"
"That's true, but that doesn't put an end to this" Tracer exclaimed with a sly smirk on her face. She sat cross-legged in her seat next to Winston..
"What are you talking about?" Torbjorn asked. Tracer looked at Winston and gently nudged his arm.
"Should we tell the the plan?" Winston smiled and nodded. Tracer looked back at the rest of the Overwatch operatives with a whimsical look in her eyes. "Alright loves. Feast your eyes!" Tracer pulled a thick wad of documents out of her jacket and slammed them onto the table. Like a poker dealer, she split the large wad into nine parts, all with varying thicknesses. Each part was labeled with a name, none of which the Overwatch team had ever seen before. "Alright loves. You wanted manpower? You've got it." Tracer pulled out the first group of documents and started reading it out loud.
"This guy is known as Scout. Comes from a family of 10 in Boston, Massachusetts. Able to easily run speeds as fast as 27 km/h. He is a shotgun enthusiast and has also achieved the double jump WITHOUT cybernetic implants or augmentations."
"This is the Soldier. He comes from somewhere in the USA, although he had never said where. His expertise in anti-personnel rockets is unrivaled, even learning a death-defying maneuver called a 'Rocket Jump', granting him unrivaled mobility."
"The Pyro is a complete mystery. Nobody knows who it is or what it is. All we know is that it is a complete monster on the battlefield, leaving behind only charred corpses and fiery desolation."
"Tavish Finnegan Degroot, also known as the Demoman. A black, scottish, drunken cyclops who specializes in explosives, creating his own bombs. His explosives come in the form of grenades and stickybombs. He also owns an ancient ghost sword that can steal souls." Tracer looked up from the document. "Yeah. I'm serious." She cleared her throat and continued.
"Mikhail Koscatovil, otherwise known as the Heavy. The very definition of a one man army. He is a Russian powerhouse, mowing down enemies with his minigun, all while tanking multiple wounds. As a side effect of carrying so much gear, he is fairly slow on the battlefield."
"Dell Conagher-" Torbjorn and Soldier 76 started to squirm in their chairs, catching Tracer's eye. "Somethin' wrong loves?" The two of them shook their heads hastily. "Okay… anyways, Dell Conagher is a combat Engineer from Bee Cave, Texas. His Sentry Guns are a nightmare to deal with on the battlefield. His Dispensers and Teleporters are a vital asset to any team."
"The Medic is a doctor hailing from Rottenburg, Germany. His medigun is the definition of modern science, able to seal any wound in seconds and even buffing up its target to up to 150% of their regular health. His trademark 'Übercharge' can render a target invulnerable for several seconds."
"The Sniper. Guess what he does. As a New Zealander raised as an Australian, he has decades of hunting experience, making him a true crackshot on the battlefield. No matter how far the enemy is, Sniper will put a bullet in his skull."
"Finally, we have the Spy. The only things we know about him is that he's a Frenchman who specialized in infiltration and sabotage. He can take the form of almost anyone with his disguise kit and can turn fully invisible with his watch."
"GIMME THAT FILE WITH THE BLACK SCOTTISH DRUNK CYCLOPS!" Junkrat leapt forward with a giddy expression on his face. He grabbed Demoman's documents and poured through them like a child with a comic book. His eyes carefully scanned the numerous blueprints for explosives and other gadgets. "Wha…?" Junkrat's giddy smile slipped off his face. The designs were nothing like he'd ever seen before. Retro, old fashioned, yet so meticulously engineered that they work like a charm, according to the pictures of destroyed buildings included within the document.
"Junkrat! Give that back!" Winston roared. "Act with a bit of maturity!" Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Mercy with Medic's document in her hands. She flipped through Medic's medigun blueprints with interest. However, her gaze suddenly fell upon a picture of Medic's face. Mercy felt her face turn red as an unexplainable feeling suddenly washed through her. She couldn't take her eyes off Medic's photo.
"Come on Mercy! Set an example or something!" Pharah scolded. "Everyone! Give the files back right now!" Suddenly, she noticed Soldier 76 and Torbjorn pouring over Engineer's file. She sighed. "Not you two…" Soldier 76 and Torbjorn exchanged excited whispers as the two of them flipped through page after page of information.
"ROOOAARR!"
Winston stood on top of the table in his rage form, pulling everyone's attention away from the files. "PUT THE FILES BACK NOW!" Everyone with a file swiftly put them all back into a nice, orderly pile. Winston reverted back to his original form, clearing his throat. "Excuse me for that, but we still have more things to discuss about these men."
"What are we waiting for?" Pharah asked bluntly. "These are exactly the kind of soldiers we need! All nine of them together seems like an unstoppable team with no discernable flaws!" Winston shook his head.
"The problem is that they currently do not exist." Perplexed expressions appeared on everyone's faces. Winston pushed up his glasses and folded his hands in front of him. "These files date all the way back to the 1960's, more than two centuries from now. Everyone on this list is dead...as far as we know." Winston was met with silence across the room as everyone tried to process what they just heard.
"Why bring up dead soldiers? What are you trying, Winston?" Torbjorn asked impatiently. Winston looked at Tracer.
"C'mon loves. Follow me." Tracer said as she blinked to the meeting hall's exit. Everyone got up and started following Tracer as she lead them towards the hangar. After a few minutes of walking, they were there, standing before an enormous tarp. Winston lumbered towards a nearby button.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…" Winston gave the button a firm press, causing the tarp to drop. "...the Slipstream 2.0!" A giant, chrome-colored, transport was revealed behind the tarp. Everyone stared at it with marvel. "Tracer and I have been working on this for the past few months, improving on the original Slipstream's design." Mercy stepped forwards all of a sudden.
"I see vhere zhis is going." She said accusingly. "You're going to time travel to zhe past to bring zhose men here." Winston nodded. "Have you even considered zhe consequences of tampering vith zhe space-time continuum? If you bring zhose men here and one of zhem ends up dying, zhe consequences vould be-"
"Do you have any better ideas?" Winston rebutted, cutting Mercy off. "If we do not recruit someone now, we will surely be destroyed, along with many innocent lives." Mercy opened her mouth to protest, but shut it after.
"Winston, I have to side with Mercy here, but for a different reason." Soldier 76 piped up. "You wanna know why Torbjorn and I are so interested in Engineer's profile?" Soldier 76 walked up to Winston. "He's the founder of Overwatch." Gasps rang out. Winston's eye widened in surprise."It's true. I worked with Dell Conagher in Overwatch's earliest days before he handed the leadership to me. If we bring him here and he gets killed, then Overwatch would have never existed." Winston was left dumbfounded.
"Wh-what? How come I've never heard of this 'Dell Conagher' figure before?" He asked. Torbjorn sighed.
"They eventually found out about Mr. Conagher's past as a violent mercenary who helped fuel the infamous century-spanning Gravel wars. After that, he was shunned by the very organization he founded. Once he left, Overwatch, despite Jack's orders, deleted all files about Dell Conagher's time as director just to spite him." Torbjorn explained solemnly.
"Hold on mate." Junkrat chimed in. "You're sayin' that this bloke's Overwatch's original leader? Don't you think that him being here along with the rest of his crew would be a real asset? I mean, we have the person who bloody created this organization! Don't you think that he and all of his friends of all people would know how to help us?" Junkrat looked around the table to see several people agreeing with him, including Tracer and Winston. Mercy, Soldier 76, and Torbjorn all sighed.
"I cannot argue with a majority vote. I also must admit, getting to see Mr. Conagher again would truly be a wonder." Torbjorn stated. Reluctantly, the three of them agreed with the rest of the group. Winston smiled.
"Great! Now that we are all in agreement, initiate operation 'Old Heroes'!" Winston looked over to Tracer, who smiled and instantly blinked away. A few moments later, she blinked back to the hangar clad in her old Slipstream outfit.
"I haven't worn this for a while now…" Tracer recalled. She took a deep breath. "This thing better not put me into that bloody time-limbo again." Winston shook his head.
"I promise you that this version of the Slipstream is completely improved! Besides, you played a part in the designing of this Slipstream model, so you of all people should know its weaknesses and strengths!" Tracer sighed nodded, a flicker of doubt still in her mind. She pressed a button on the side of the Slipstream 2.0 and boarded it with vigour. She waved goodbye to the rest of the operatives as the door closed. Tracer took a deep breath. This was it. She quickly opened a hidden compartment under a seat and took out Ana's sleep dart gun. She had smuggled this aboard days ago. She knows who these mercenaries are. They sounded like respectable warriors on the surface, but once you spend days reading their files and researching them, you see them in a whole new light. A womanizer, a war criminal, a psychopath, a violent drunk, a fat maniac, a dangerous inventor, a mad doctor, a crazy ocker, and a cold murderer. No way was she going to be able to tell them to come quietly. No. Tracer hitched Ana's sleep dart gun to her side.
They were coming with her whether they want to or not.