"Just remember, Mister Punisher, to please shut down all long-range radio communications and active sensors." Two-Kilo had courteously reminded him. "With the exception of point-to-point broadcasts and passive instruments, we should relatively be fine."
'Should relatively be fine'? What the hell does that even mean?
Annoyingly calm as the other guy was, despite what they were about to do, Two-Kilo really should work on his social skills better, if he wanted to be taken seriously and not as a fucking nut.
Nevertheless, he already did what the guy had asked the second he was told about it beforehand anyway. But since he was extremely paranoid to the point of absurdity from the time he was dumb enough to actually assent to this 'plan', he checked on it again via his cockpit display panels, just to be sure.
And he was. For the fourth time, at least. Not that it was really helping soothe his fraying nerves at all.
No, siree. Not one damned bit.
Also, if ever there was a record out there somewhere, that he could clearly state on how much of a suicidal plan this all was—hell, even more crazier than his dumbass stunt, just prior to this one—then he would've undoubtedly be already screaming right now at the top of his lungs.
Yet he actually had the balls to do all this regardless. Because, way he figured it earlier, he thought he was probably going to die at this stupid sortie sooner or later; and he wanted to be all nonchalant and be recklessly brave about it.
To say he was regretting everything at the moment would be an understatement of colossally epic proportions.
"Warning: omnic probable air detection range, ten kilometers and closing," his virtual assistant monotonously prompted once his plane hit the point-of-no-return, "danger, multiple threats in the vicinity, please reroute immediately."
In any case, he was sort of glad that he wasn't the only one who thought how crazy this all was. Even if it was just his plane's lifeless VA, and not a sane, rational person like he would've wanted.
He only had about a few more seconds' worth of breathing room left 'til both their planes hit the omnic's prospective sensor-net, and his gut was clenching so damn bad it was making him sweat even more buckets underneath all of his gear, and the preceding perspiration beforehand. Moreover, his hand gripping the throttle control slightly shook at the prospect of entering enemy-controlled airspace, where he had begrudgingly condemned himself to do nothing, since apparently that was cornerstone of this entire 'plan' to begin with.
Unwittingly flying blind into hostile territory? That was one thing, sure. Though doing it intentionally nevertheless, while not trying to employ evasive and combat maneuvers, just went against everything he trained for as a USAF aviator.
And for a fighter jock that was rigorously taught to fly aggressively and constantly be on the attack, just flying completely still for too long without doing anything pretty much equated to an explosive death in the hands of opposing forces.
On a more unrelated matter though, he prayed to all the gods he could think of that he didn't need to cough up $200 million dollars as reimbursement for this plane, which he knew deep in his heart was eventually not going to survive this particular encounter unscathed.
If he actually manages to survive in the next thirty minutes, that is.
But he was still doing it anyway. Because somewhere down the line, he lost a few of his precious and already fleeting brain cells; which was probably the result of not having ate that many nutritious vegetables when he was a kid, or the fact that he hit his head so hard and so many damn times that he ultimately lost count.
Whatever the hell it was, he was paying for it now.
Out of all the pilots in the whole wide friggin' world, why did it have to be him?
Why did this have to happen now? Now, out of all times.
Out of thousands upon thousands of diverse possibilities he could think of, for this scenario to occur, and it just so happened to conveniently take place with him being in this exact location and at the exact same time.
Naturally, he already knew his luck was bad—Alaska was proof enough of that as it is—but he didn't know it was going to be this bad somewhere down the line.
"Warning: ETA to omnic probable air detection range, fifteen seconds. Fourteen, thirteen…"
Oh, who the hell was he trying to kid?
He was supremely scared shitless, and he obviously didn't want to die. Plain and simple.
God in fucking heaven, he really didn't want to die right now.
There was so much of the world he hasn't even seen and experienced yet, damn it; and now he was gonna have his sorry ass blown off before he could even have a chance to try it all out.
"—nine, eight, seven…."
For Christ's sake, he doesn't even know what it feels like to be in the arms of a loving woman, nor has he ever tried fondly kissing what he can only imagine were said woman's luscious lips.
Yeah, he almost couldn't believe it himself either.
Here he was, a young and hot-blooded eighteen-year-old fighter pilot in the world's most dominant air force, meticulously trained in all the ways of flying, dogfighting, and the ever-changing traditions in the art of aerial warfare.
And he still hasn't even gotten it on with a beautiful woman up till now.
Morbidly speaking, he was sort of glad his parents were already gone and had already resided in the afterlife; because more than likely, they undoubtedly would've given him holy hell for not having dated someone special at this crucial point in his life, especially in the case of his dad. Most especially his dad.
Depressing as it was, his only…outlook, regarding that subject, only limited to viewing cheesy romantic comedies, a few porn vids here and there, and his sad imaginations; whereas he could only dream as to how soft it would probably be if he was actually lucky enough to gently press his lips against this imaginary woman's own.
Or how warm she would most likely be if she hugs him so damn tightly, that he was actually going to sigh in contentment from the comforting embrace.
Eighteen-years-old, kick-ass fighter jock, and he was most likely going to die a virgin.
Some fucking ace he was.
"—two, one." His VA said with a sense of dread and finality, making him flinch after that. "Warning: now entering omnic probable air detection range.
"Warning," it went on without interruption, "probability of hostile UCAV intercept at eighty-seven percent, hostile surface-to-air missile launch threat at eighty-one percent, groundside triple-A threat at seventy-three percent. Danger, operating environment now extremely hostile. Please reroute immediately."
There was no turning back now.
Whilst maintaining formation with the transport and keeping both his altitude and airspeed constant, he mentally braced himself for the inevitable. The only thing he could do to keep his nerves from breaking right this minute was to glue his eyes towards his passive sensor display panel, and pray.
Even though he wasn't that much of a practicing Christian, and had honestly thought that the hardcore believers he did know personally were complete dicks and total hypocrites.
His bitching on religion aside, they really weren't kidding about the whole, 'no atheists in foxholes' thing.
And even when he already knew this much, life really did have its weird moments sometimes.
It took him about eleven and a half minutes and several dozen klicks deeper into enemy territory before he came to the realization that something wasn't right.
Even though he was currently wound like a tightly coiled spring, ready to snap at a moment's notice—whether be it from distant thunder or his instruments just plainly going off—there was just that gnawing feeling that something just seemed…off, somehow.
For one thing, his threat receivers weren't blaring with the looming warnings of an omnic UCAV's radar locking unto his bird, which was what he dreaded most the instant they breached hostile airspace; and his VA hadn't sound off about any IR or electro-optical missiles screaming up his way. Ditto on groundside SAM and triple-A emplacements.
At this point in time, he'd half-expected himself to get shot down by now. And the fact that a missile hadn't blindsided him right this particular moment was unusually more surprising than anything.
Hell, it was truly starting to unnerve him even more at how eerily quiet this sector was; when according to the intel estimates he got an hour or so ago, this area was deemed extremely hot, and was to be avoided at all cost.
Lest anyone wanted an early grave.
And yet here were two not-so-subtle aircraft, just casually flying straight and true like it was no one's business and without any care in the world—correction, he actually cared a helluva whole lot.
Although, just flying normally in supremely contested airspace like it was a standard routine flight, was a whole new thing entirely for the likes of him. How was this even remotely possible?
"Mister Punisher," Two-Kilo called to him via their shared freq out of a sudden, making him jump out of his seat from his excess vigilance, "our transport's going to land momentarily up ahead. Can you please cover us?"
Overwatch.
Right, it started to make sense now!
In hindsight, it probably explained why there were all so calm about this whole stupid thing to begin with.
Good Lord, now he was actually scared and curious. How were they actually doing this?
It certainly didn't have anything to do with their aircraft, that was obvious. The damned thing looked dated as all hell and had clearly seen better days, so he was ruling out their method of transportation as the key to this whole questionable endeavor.
Electronic sensor manipulation, then? Probably doing a subtle spoofing of their long-range and comprehensive defense network beforehand, by hijacking its command programming with a combination of advanced cyberwarfare suites and some super-secret Overwatch tech thrown into the mix?
Or maybe even some sort of never-before-seen hyperspectral imaging jammer, that masked their signature in both ends of the EM spectrum from any kind of optics?
Or perhaps maybe even a combination of those two variable solutions?
Just thinking about it, the list was practically friggin' endless.
As much as he may have given that organization a lot of shit over the years, for being a fickle cesspool of pampered prima donnas from all corners of the world, he never really disrespected their highly-skilled technological prowess in near-countless fields.
And now, seeing how that tech was helping them first-hand, was slowly starting melt away some of his preconceptions about the international peacekeeping force, it's ostentatious intentions, and its numerous, but odd-job members. Somewhat.
He still thought they were overrated, though.
"Hello? Mister Punisher?"
"What?" He curtly replied.
"We're touching down in about twenty seconds. Can you please cover us as we disembark?"
"I will, don't worry." He assured them, tone slightly composed as he started to break formation and tilted his nose upwards to increase his altitude and distance. "Just hurry the hell up, I don't want to stay here any longer than I have to."
"That's understandable, Mister Punisher. Just give us ten minutes, and we'll shut these rogue omnics down for good."
"Yeah, sure thing."
There was no mistaking it, he was still quite terrified actually; with him and his newfound UN buddies being so deeply behind enemy-controlled lines that friendly forces would not reach them in time to assist, should this covert incursion turn south really damn quick.
On the other hand, was he going to let it stop him from essentially doing his job of trying to look after them?
Oh, hell no.
He may be scared, yes (pucker factor of above twelve) but at the end of the day he was still a commissioned officer and fighter pilot of the United States Air Force. And he still had a job to do, regardless of his ever-growing distress and his half-assed reasons for being a pilot in the first place.
Plus, if he did end up making a complete ass out of himself before he punches out, five generations of his family's ancestors would most definitely give him shit for all eternity.
That really wasn't something he was looking forward to.
It didn't take long before the Overwatch transport, which he finally guessed was a Chinese-made Xi'an Y-32 tactical transport—or a variant of it, without any visible weaponry—had descended further down in the middle of a grassy field, flaring its wing-enclosed ducted turbofans for a textbook landing. Which it gracefully did, moments later.
Whoever was driving that almost thirty-year-old bird wasn't half-bad.
Twitching his flight stick left and adjusting his overall speed via the wall-mounted throttle, he banked his FA-1 forty-five degrees, until his wing was pointed parallel to the transport's location on the ground, where he slightly pulled on the stick back afterwards to commence a wide pylon turn; attentively circling around them counter-clockwise in an oval racetrack pattern.
"Alright Two-Kilo, I'm proceeding into holding pattern." He reported as he faced left, where his banked fighter was affording him decent visibility to the UN peacekeepers and the lush green surface below. "I got visual on your pos at this time—I mean, position." He caught himself, momentarily forgetting that he was talking to a civilian.
It still took some getting used to.
"We see you, Mister Punisher. We're going to exit our transport now. Please give us a moment…"
By way of his fighter's numerous high-resolution cameras, and its crystal clear vid-feed streaming directly through his cockpit's tertiary LCD display panel, he could see the Overwatch transport's ramp gradually opening up—
—and was immediately rewarded to a view of a hulking figure, in equally bulky, but very intricate armor swiftly exiting the parked bird, sporting a shimmering blue energy barrier that was materializing out of its arm; with the massive figure possessing nimbleness he didn't even know was the least bit conceivable, in something that looked so large and ungainly.
The person—or thing—must be at least 7'4", and probably weighed a metric fucking ton. The massive SOB was also carrying a massive war hammer, with a pair of rocket motors on the other-side, one-handed.
He almost didn't recognize the armored monstrosity at a glance, and it took him quite a few seconds to thoroughly look at the goliath before he eventually realized who it truly was.
Or, more technically, everyone that was living on this here blue planet knew exactly who that certain person was. Given how his—and the other Overwatch agents' faces—were constantly plastered everywhere, in all nooks and crannies known to man, that either had a functioning screen or a pretty solid surface. For nearly twenty-five years straight.
At some point, he knew his younger self would've no doubt gush rather uncontrollably right this exact second, at the chance of actually seeing Overwatch agents up close and in action.
As for that that behemoth's name, though, it was—was….
...
…
…
…
…
Well, shit. It would seem that he completely forgot.
What in the hell was that prissy Kraut's name again?
He could've sworn he knew it at some point, back when he was still a little kid maybe, and his folks were still alive and breathing.
And right now, he felt like he had that Kraut's name at just the tip of his tongue, too.
It went somewhere along the lines of…
'Ray-something Willie', maybe?
It was rather German-sounding, obviously, and probably complicated as all hell to spell.
Whatever his name was though, it really didn't matter all that much to him.
All he knew for certain was that the guy was huge, even without him being thoroughly encased in that ancient-looking and kick-ass armor of his, that resembled the medieval crusaders of old. But other than that, there really wasn't anything else that was worth remembering that would've stuck to his eight-year-old self at the time.
Though the only other Overwatch agents he did know much, whose names and faces he could actuallyrecall up until this point, were only those belonging to Jack Morrison, Gabriel Reyes, and that of Ana Amari, the organization's leading founders. The first two were easy enough to remember, partly because they used to be in the service, same as him; with Morrison being a former PJ and fellow airman in the Air Force, and Reyes a Force Recon jarhead in the Corps.
But the last one though, Amari, was…well, for lack of a better sounding and more technical term, extremely fucking hot back in the day.
On second thought, she still is actually.
And he vividly reminisced having this sizeable poster of her in his old room, when he was in his formative pre-teen years. Where she was posing from behind, and turning her head to face the camera; her eye with that wicked tattoo looking sharp as a tack, sniper rifle in hand, and her combat harness just tightly pressing against her lean and shapely derri—
"Alright, Mister Punisher, we're setting up now."
"Wha—come again?"
"I said we're setting up right now." Two-Kilo reiterated with his usual deep and polite voice, which then shifted tone. "Are you okay, Mister Punisher? Because if you're having problems with your point-to-point communications link, I'll be more than happy to assist you—"
"No, no thank you." He quickly replied, all those overly stimulating thoughts of one attractive middle-aged sniper being hastily cleared away, along with his nonexistent throat hitches. "Everything's fine, don't sweat it."
"Are you sure? Because it's no trou—"
"I am completely fine." He asserted. "No problems at all."
"Well, if you say so. Anyway, we'll be done momentarily."
"Wait, what?" He looked at his display again and tried to really focus, this time without any unexpected and really enticing thoughts of a certain woman's supremely fit backside.
It looked as if the rest of the German Godzilla's team had already finished vacating their transport—probably having done it beforehand when he was still stuck trying to remember that Kraut's hard-to-remember full name, and also his childhood crush—and had just finished setting up shop at the moment, just a block or two away northwest from their inactive Y-32 transport's position.
Damn, they moved fast. How'd they get there so quick?
Was he really so out of it, that he completely failed to notice a team of some overly conspicuous Overwatch agents in the middle of the Korean countryside?
That was—
Yeah…
More than likely, that was probably the case.
In his defense, he was tremendously stressed out and confused, due in part to him operating in a clearly hostile combat environment and his libido's brief burst of activity respectively. With his thoughts regarding the latter as something that was completely normal and nothing to be ashamed of, and heedless of his present circumstances.
In any case, that was what he told himself.
Going back to his panel, he saw that the Overwatch team, a typical six-man element, had at present spread out considerably; majority of them, including the gigantic Kraut along with four other nondescript riflemen, fanned out to form an outward crescent-shaped defensive perimeter to keep watch on that good-sized armored monkey and another plain guy, who were setting up some tall, complicated-looking device pointedly arranged to do something that was beneath the ground.
What the hell was even under there? As much as he knew, there was nothing he could see that was really worth noting in this particular grid—other than the fact that for some reason this place was labeled hostile by the brass—and the only thing he did catch sight of in this area were a lot of lofty trees, picturesque mountains shrouded with foliage, and intermittent open fields in the surrounding valleys with untouched meadows like the ones the Overwatch guys had landed themselves in.
And no omnics whatsoever, visible or otherwise, within two square kilometers.
Just a whole lot of risk for pretty much nothing of value or importance, which he thought was…odd, considering what the stakes here were.
So, what he really wanted to know was, what was so damned important about this seemingly desolate place? And why was it worth crossing over into this part of omnic-controlled ground?
On any other given day, he would've been his annoying and somewhat amiable self, and just ask people point-blank to get the answers that he so evidently needed; as he usually did with civilians, fellow USAF airmen, and other military service members alike.
However, when it came to individuals working within a wide-reaching supranational organization, that was not bound by any sovereign country's will or laws whatsoever, and only answered directly towards the command of select members residing in the UN Security Council?
Perplexingly, he didn't even know where to start.
These guys obviously knew something he didn't. And he desperately wanted to know even just a tiny glimpse of whatever the hell is it they were doing, and why it was relevant to the present situation at hand.
"Mister Punisher, primary detonation charge is set." His comms lit-up with Two-Kilo's distinct and already well-known voice. "We're fixing up the secondary EMP payload even as we speak. Please bear with us for just a few more moments."
"Roger." He replied uninterestingly, eyes still stuck to his display panel showing the live feed; where he saw the huge monkey from earlier setting up another piece of gear, then lifting the sizeable component of whatever-the-hell-it-was that apparently had something to do with multi-staged explosives and electromagnetic pulse detonatio—
Wait.
He looked at the display even more closely.
Was that a—
His brain froze, as something in the LCD panel downright stopped every thought process residing within the confines of his mind; with his eyes widening in sheer disbelief, as sobering comprehension finally came down to him like a huge crashing tidal wave.
There.
Right friggin' there, just a dozen or two meters behind the Kraut and the accompanying protective detail facing the tree line across them, and just right next to the guy still setting up the tall device, was a monkey.
He shook his head a few times to see if he was seeing things, and when he finally realized he wasn't, he looked at the screen even more keenly than usual.
An honest-to-God monkey, wearing gleaming white armor and carrying that heavy-looking component for their device that was impossible for a single man to carry, but it was effortlessly lugging one-handed anyway.
There was an actual mammal walking and working, in a hot combat zone no less, accompanied by human soldiers and being treated as if it was one of them! And that it didn't seem to bother them that there was an animal amongst them, that barely had any sentience of any kind. Here, out of all places.
And it had a jetpack, too. An actual jetpack with miniature vectored nozzles underneath the propulsion unit's main housing, which was bolted directly unto the back of the monkey's armored torso piece.
Holy shit.
So those rumors he heard two months ago from the REMFs were actually true, then. That Overwatch really did have a simian-looking SOB working within their ranks, and that no one working in the organization's upper echelons didn't thought it the least bit disturbing or alarming.
This was almost too hard to believe, and yet the monkey was there right before his very eyes. Or LCD screen, if he was going to be more honest about it.
The implications of militarizing mammals for combat use, even against omnics alone was—
And—good God…was that—was it…was it actually wearing glasses?
Out of nowhere, and as if it knew it was being thoroughly watched, the monkey—who was hauling the heavy part easily over its massive shoulder—stopped what he was doing for the briefest of moments, craned his head upwards to the sky to look at his circling fighter, then raised its free hand to pleasantly wave at him.
"Uh, hello there."
His throat dried damn-near instantaneously.
It…it just talked. Good God…
It fucking talked to him! And weirdly enough, it had the same voice as Two-Kilo's for some ungodly reason.
Unless his point-of-contact to the Overwatch team all along was—noooooo.
No, that wasn't it!
Christ Almighty, that didn't make actual sense at all!
Then again…
Does…does that mean he was talking to a fucking monkey this entire time? And he didn't even know about it?
The massive ape—Lord knew how, because he sure as hell didn't—spoke like a completely normal person, and he totally didn't notice at all because it sounded so damn natural and ordinary.
No noticeable inflections on its voice, no weird vibe or distinct accents of any kind that would give way to the otherworldly fact that he was talking to a primate. A primate that sounded like he was talking to someone that was born to a loving family in the Midwest, and not in some creepy-ass laboratory somewhere in the bowels of a mad scientist's evil lair.
He shuddered at thought at what these people were truly capable of, all while trying to wrap his head around the fact that there really was an armored monkey roaming around in a battlefield, and that it could also talk.
It almost sounded like the beginning of a bad joke. It might as well be.
And if it could talk, think, and do stuff on its own accord…then does it mean that this particular ape had actually achieved human-level sentience?
Who the hell were they, and what made them decide to play God with the natural order of things?
He lost count on how many times he blamed the Lord Almighty for his shitty luck, and for being assigned to this even more shitty escort mission.
He stopped looking at the display panel showing the monkey and its team, altogether.
"You're…you can talk."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You're talking right now."
"Oh. Um," Two-Kilo—no wait, the monkey—spoke with a confused tone. And the fact that what it was doing right now, which was brimming with such sheer humanity, was making him freak out even more at how human the gesture was. "I suppose I am."
"How…?" He asked in audible disbelief. "How is this even real…?"
"The…vocal folds modulating the flow of air being expelled in the lungs during phonation, perhaps?"
"What?"
"Vocal chords." The monkey said matter-of-factly. "You asked how, right? They stretch horizontally and vertically across the larynx, causing vibrations that are responsible for recognizable human speech, singing, and all sorts of vocal communications, which in turn are controlled via the vagus nerve."
"What…?" He hesitantly asked again a second time, not knowing what to say.
"It's actually all quite fascinating once you think about it, really. How something so small can drastically be responsible for—"
But, before he was going to be involuntarily subjected to a lecture, regarding the wonders of the vocal cords' wide-ranging utility in all aspects of human life, his helmet's built-in speakers suddenly rang out an incessant alarm about unknown contacts being picked up on his instruments.
And when he moved his eyes to the passive sensor display to see what was going on, his blood ran cold a second later.