Hello. Sorry for the long wait, I took a little hiatus there. This chapter is a little shorter than usual, but instead I have a bit of a longer author note. I feel like I need to clear a thing; my betareader, ShizzySavage16, didn't get it and it hit me that you, the readers, might not get it either. It is in chapter 1, Sniper gets really strong in the end there. Maybe that seems uncharasteristic for him. I will give you the same explanation to you as I gave to ShizzySavage16, and this is a straight quote that I wrote to Shizzy:

"What I wanted to demonstrate is that when he, or when any of the mercs, really, gets into that "rage" mode they reck havoc. They can't see straight, and can only think on what Gray did to them and want to tear him apart for that. That gives them the ability to reach for a overhuman strenght that they really didn't realized that they had... if that makes any sense. So that's why he seems so strong in that part, but because I knew that he was physically weak, I made it so that he sort of collapsed after a while. He had no more strenght to give with the body he have."

There you have it. That's why Sniper is so strong in that scene.

I also like to ask for a bit of a help. As I have written several chapter in advance, I find it that it grows harder for the bad guys of the story to keep up. What I mean is that there is far to many good guys in the battle. Just look on all the characters that are good in the Overwatch universe. It is 21 good guys and only 8 bad guys. And that's without including the 7 living mercheneries. That's why I like you, if you like to, to send me OC's. Especially evil OC's. They will not get a cameo in a while, as I have written several chapters in advance, and they might not get such a big part of the story. If I think it is good, however, they might get a bigger role. It is just to make the battle more even. Here is what I want to know about them.

Name:

Gender:

Age:

Nationality:

Evil or good:

Weapons:

Abilitys (both what the ability's name is and a bit on what it is all about):

Summary (as detailed as possible, please! Like why he/she turns good/evil, a bit of his/hers childhood and so on):

And that's that. Without further ado, here is the chapter.

Early April, 2082

Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil

When it came to Matthew, he had some troubles on his own. Troubles that came to him in his sleep in the form of horrifying nightmares, just as Mercy warned him.

For a couple of days, even a little more than a week, his nightmares have had the same recurring theme.

Endless struggles against mechanized foes, screams that he recognizes as his comrades' mixed with his own, his parents asking him where he's gone to, only for him to return no answer, and tight leather straps that hold him down as sharp knives cuts and seeps into his skin.

It always feels like an eternity before he succeeds to wake himself up, and when he finally wakes up he is always covered in cold sweat.

Only his own stubbornness and his own principles stops him from going to Mercy, all just to seek help for the returning nightmares he's been having in these past days.

When he claims that he doesn't need help and that he is in perfect health — he stands by it. No doctor should say otherwise, as he thinks that there is nothing left to argue against. Mat only needed some time to deal with his new bearings, to get himself into his old shape and then get going with his life. He thinks that the nightmares are to end after a certain time, and to strengthen his belief in it, he repeats it over and over to himself both out loud and in his mind. He tells himself that it's just his mind playing tricks on him, and that it will soon fade away to a harmless memory.

But something that he has not yet learned is that a memory can hurt you, even how little it may be.

He remembers that as he ages, his tendency to get 'scared' lowers as well, and after a few years as an animal hunter in his thirties, he could honestly say that 'fears' are almost nonexistent, which was a very good thing too... especially when it was the time to hunt humans instead of animals.

Despite this, there is always that tiny worry that one of the jobs he takes might bring troubles to either himself or to his parents in the end, but as long as he remains anonymous, he reckons that everything will turn out fine. So the fear of anything happening to his parents because of his profession was the last thing on his mind when he signed the contract and joined up with the mercenaries of BLU.

The small side note on that contract, for the mercenaries were to only address each other by their titles, suited him just fine. He was certain that everything he thought good with the contract outweighed the bad.

One, he was bound to have a steady income for a long, long time. Two, the hours that he had been given suit him just fine. Three, the higher-ups mostly keep to themselves, and are very confidential, which only gives him less to worry about... only thing he needed to do, was do his job.

Now, though, he began to really reconsider his choice to sign that contract.

His parents are dead and he is left to live a life a full century into the future... or one century too late as he refers to it. On top of that, he is plagued with nightmares and visions, which refuse to stop when even when he is convinced that he will be rid of it soon.

In these days that he spends alone in his quarters, he not only begins to realize the weight in the decision he made in signing the contract with BLU, but the fate of his parents is starting to sink in completely as well.

His parents are dead.

Dead, buried (hopefully) and gone for good, never to be seen again...

As Matthew lies awake at the nights during the days that go by, unable to sleep in fear because of the nightmares and the anxiety that the death of his parents brings to him, he tries to remember the last time he had a conversation with them...

Really talking to them, hearing their voices, not only writing to them.

He remembers...

It was an argument over the phone with his dad again. It was about the usual topic; Mat's choice of occupation, and of how his father haven't approved of it one bit. Matthew's dad was completely fine with him being a hunter, but as soon as word reached out that the supposed 'animal hunter' had gone from hunting animals to hunting HUMANS...

The problems started to arise...

"I'm not a crazed gunman, Dad! I'm an assassin! ... Well, the difference being, one is a job and the other's mental sickness!" He argued.

How many times the marksman resorted with those words — he doesn't know. As many times his father have called him a crazed gunman... that too, he doesn't know.

The holy Days have never been the same since the change in his profession, and that he could promise. They have been less holy and more awkward, despite how much his mother tried to liven up the atmosphere.

Matthew can't say that he was a person who's susceptible to crying. The tears never seemed to come to him since his younger years. On that third day, after he had awoken for the second time, when he remembered his last talk with his parents have been in the form of the usual verbal brawl with his father and then some half-weird, half-heartedly words with his mother that usually is what follows... his tears start to roll like the they have never done before in Mat's entire life.

The days stock on him until he loses all sense of time. After the first three days of constant mourning, his sense of time completely leaves him, and the days and the nights crashes together into each other to create a blur of raw emotions comes over him one after the other. Most of that time he spends lying on top of the bed in the living quarters he was provided with, and stares up at the lamp in the roof that reminds him so much of the one in the kitchen in the BLU's headquarter.

Emotionally, he fluctuates between feeling completely empty, furious and depressed, an odd sensation for a man that considers his entire adult life prior to this as stable.But at the entire time, he doesn't scream. He doesn't talk or make much of a sound. He only goes from letting the tears shed from his eyes, to not resisting when the tears become too much to handle, back and forth, and back and forth... all in silence.

At times, he would've just ventured out into the world beyond the door of his living quarters, either to get a snippet of food or just to get a short walk around the building together with an escort. But that stopped completely after the third day of being plagued with these damn nightmares. He doesn't even come out to eat, and the only thing that he gets into his stomach is the occasional, essential water he drinks at the times he is able to get up and go to the private bathroom.

Even when he drinks water, he feels forced to swallow, and after the end of the week he doesn't even drink any water.

His mind is at a standstill when he hears the door open. His mind must have been still for the last two or three days, but that's nothing that Matthew can remember at the moment. Right now, he can barely focus his eyes on the lamp as he lies on the bed, a spot where he barely moved from in the bigger part of the last week. The storm that has been his emotions seems to finally come to a standstill, but that is to be proven as a deception so false, he himself can't see it.

In truth, he is merely in the eye of the storm.

"Mr. Sniper, get up," the voice of Mercy speaks, accompanied with oncoming footsteps. Matthew doesn't even make an effort to look over at her, and he doesn't even show that he's registered her words. He doesn't even show any annoyance that the doctor referred to him by the less preferable 'Mr. Sniper', than just 'Sniper'.

He shows absolutely no indication of her even being there by the side of his bed.

"Please, get up, Mr. Sniper," she tries again from where she stands by the bedside, more determined this time, but to no avail.

A few silent moments goes by before she speaks up again with the same determination as before.

"If you don't come up from that bed and get something into that stomach of yours right now, Mr. Sniper, I'll have Winston get over here to feed you by force," she exclaimed.

"If you don't come to the infirmary for your monthly medical checkup right now, Sniper, I'll have Heavy come out to that dump on wheels you call a van to retrieve you."

The memory of Medic's voice through the outdoor speakers comes back to Matthew like a flash of lightening; fast, bright and sudden.

That only triggers his brain to state the fact, which had surely been stated so many times in the later period, that Medic is dead. The one that takes care of the team's health with the stern tone that is more associated of a proper teacher from a boy's school in the middle of the 1850's. The one that expects you to go by the rules at all times, to come where you're needed in time and to be proper until your very death, and if you don't... well, he'd make you do it.

And having an extra helping hand from the colossal Heavy couldn't hurt either, especially when it came to the more rowdy lot of BLU's Mercenaries.

Medic is - or has been, if Matthew were to stay correct - the only one to have spoken to the team in that way since… ever, actually.

A few of them can't even recollect if any schoolteachers or their own parents have given them such a treatment similar to Medic's. At least it was proven to be effective, especially when it came to the monthly checkups, Medic has been very finicky about those. And nothing of it's changed when the RED and the BLU have joined forces against Gray and his robots. Medic hasn't made any differences between the earlier foes from his allies, as they all have been fighting this new common enemy; the moment Gray appeared had erased whatever difference there was between the two colors, making them obsolete towards the Doctor as well.

The BLUs despise the RED, and the RED despise the BLU. It was only the common hate and hostility for the third Mann brother that made all of them work together. They have barely warmed up to each other at the time when Gray overcame them.

So is it unusual that Matthew's eyes darts open at the memory of Medic's voice?

Is it strange for him to slowly rise up from the bed and stand over Mercy? Is it wrong for him to get an itch to kill her where she stands to make him think on the past even more?

Yes on all three, probably.

"Winston?" Matthew inquires, his voice steady and normal to a beginning. "Winston? Hmph. What will you have that big hairball do once he gets here exactly? What if I don't want to get up?"

"… you're already standing." Mercy points out.

He shot an unimpressed stare at her, "No thanks to you or the monkey." It's here that his voice starts to slowly, but steadily rise with every word. "In fact, I don't want neither of you here."

Mercy shrugged, "You have no choice in the matter, Mr. Sniper, much like I have told you before. I'm the doctor, you're the patient, and let me inform you that you are a guest, our guest. You can leave whenever you want. Nothing's holding you back."

"I'm no patient, there's nothing wrong with me!" Matthew scowled out.

Mercy's eyebrow rises a bit at that, but otherwise choosing to keep quiet and remain calm... not that she gets a chance to speak back at the moment, as Mat continues without any pause while he glares on at her. His voice keeps growing loud, as he feels that the only thing he wants is to pour everything he feels out into his words, to get rid of what he experiences on the inside... as if he can cut them out. All of his feelings that are whipped up, feelings so dark and so powerful that he didn't know he could feel. With those, he figures there is only one true way to get rid of them, and that is to kill someone.

He realizes then and there, that there's only one person to kill that will make everything better; a certain man in grey...

"What is wrong, however, is what that bloody poofter, Gray Mann did to us! Bloody hell- he had us tortured!" He growled out, "He had some of us killed! That he did this," he points at the ports on his body, "for no other reason than his sick amusement! He then puts on hold for an eternity, all the while he went and erased every trace of us! I can't even know what happened to my parents!"

He ends the sentence with a harmful scowl, along with all the anger he feels about it. He then goes abruptly quiet, his still and enraged eyes only for the doctor in front of him, his body shaking from his outburst and with his breath heavy in his throat.

Mercy had not reacted the slightest to the scene right in front of her; she just stood there, with her arms folded and a brow raised.

After a quiet moment, where Matthew tries and fails to collect himself, he speaks again, his voice dripping with rage

"When I find that bastard, Gray... I will do things to him that you can't even imagine, doc."

"What makes you so sure he is even still alive?" Mercy asks, clearly in belief that Gray is dead and buried since long.

"Then sod it! I'll will just have to do with his rotting corpse then!"

Mercy observes Matthew in silence as he tries to get his shaking fists under control, with knuckles that are colored white from how tightly they are clasped together. It's not only his fists that shake, but his entire being, even his breath. It is only in this silence, after he's gotten some of the negativity out of him, that he can get the shaking under control.

"... I guess that you've gotten yourself a goal in life," she observes, "even though I don't agree with it in the slightest."

"You can bet that shiny doctrine of yours I have."

"I also guess that while you try to succeed in this goal of yours, you will come out of this room, socialize with the rest of us and eat a healthy diet on a regular basis, right?"

"I guess I have to now." He agrees with a shrug.

"And to accept my treatment?" At that, the marksman gives her a tense stare as he doesn't grant it with a response. She only answers it with an expectant look. "You will only be gaining from it," she adds, "I have observed you through my cameras."

His brows goes through the roof as he looks around the room in an attempt to find any cameras... but he fails.

He then goes back to stare at Mercy with the same tense stare, but after a moment of that expectant glance of hers, he finds that he has to look away with a grumble, finally coming to the agreement that she was right.

Mercy's too much like Medic.

"Fine... Maybe," he gets out with a low, strained voice.

"That's not good eno-,"

"Bloody hell, fine!" He gives in and throws his hands in the air. "You hear me? Fine!"

Satisfied with the result, Mercy takes the lead and walks out of the room with a grumpy man out of the room. "Oh, by the way," she says on the way out the door, as she don't even turns to face him. "My real name is Angela Ziegler."

Matthew gives her an unimpressed stare, not paying mind to it at all.

Early April, 2082

Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil

Ben wants to be alone.

That's everything he wants at the moment. He's lost everything he had; his family, his friends and the very world he lived in. Therefore, he only wants some time to be alone and think.

But Tracer seemed to be of another mind, unapproving of how isolated he wished to be.

"Mercy doesn't like it for you to be alone, that's all," she says when he tells her to leave him alone, "and quite frankly, I don't either." She adds. She follows him wherever he goes, even when he goes outside.

As the two of them go out, the air suddenly becomes heavy with an oncoming storm. The black clouds could clearly be seen along the distant horizon... but despite this, Ben continues onwards, onto the lawn that is outside the base. There he stands for a good while, with his back towards the base and towards Tracer.

Tracer frowns at the boy, "Come on, luv', we should go inside." She pleads after a moment of silence. She sighs, "Please, there's gonna be rain any second now..."

Ben groans, "Can you go inside? I wanna stay here for a while, so just go." He requests with an irritated tone.

Tracer shot a brow at him, "And let you get wet?" Her frown gets bigger, "You're gonna get sick! And with this PTSD, it might just be too much to handle!"

Why couldn't she just leave him alone?

"Jheez, I just wanna be alone for once. Get some peace 'n quiet, and I don't care if that means gettin' wet. Just go back in, I'll stay here. I dunno', you can... watch me from one of the windows or something." He suggested, his patience running at a fast pace.

There's a moment's silence before Tracer speaks again, and in that little window of silence, the water drops suddenly start to fall on their heads.

This time she is more determined, and it really is heard in her voice. "Please. We should go inside, and we should do it now." She persists.

Anger rises within Benjamin, and as he turns to her that anger is visible in his eyes. "Then go! Why the hell should I even be inside?! What is this, a jail?!"

Tracer gets the same anger in her eyes, and her tone reflects that, "Why you should be so bloody thick-headed is seriously beyond me. Why be outside and get wet for no damn reason? Does it really mean so much for you to be alone?"

"YEAH, I WANNA BE ALONE!" He yells.

And that's when it happens.

He takes a few steps closer to Tracer to give her a push, but just as he takes the first step, his legs fold beneath him and he falls to the ground. A sudden headache travels up to his temple, and in the corner of his eye, he sees Gray with a few bots at his side.

That smirk is at Gray's lips, that damned smile that he so often had on the few occasions that the mercenaries had seen him... but just like that...

The illusion is gone.

Together with the headache.

Ben slowly regains his footing and breathes slowly at his questionable balance, uncertain if his legs could manage his body weight for some time...

It does.

"Your legs gave out," Tracer observes with a low voice. She sounds concerned, as the anger that was with her earlier is blown away. "I saw it, luv'." Ben sees it on her that she wants to go and get Mercy.

He huffs with a smirk that said otherwise, "No, they didn't. You're seeing stuff..." he groans as he shakes his head in disappointment, "You're delusional," he says.

That last part... the word 'delusional', seems to hit Tracer really hard, as she seems to halt where she is. Her expression grows very dark and she remains quiet for a moment...

Ben raises a brow at her, put off by her sudden silence. He contemplates opening his mouth to say something, but is beat to it.

"Fine, be that way. Stay out here and get wet. Get sick, for all I care. But don't come to me and complain about it later."

With that she goes back to the building, and leaves Ben out in the rain that only gets worse by the second. He looks after her, with irritation evident in his face, "Good riddance..." he mutters under his breath and turns his back to her and the house.

Middle April, 2082

Location: Watchpoint Rio Xingú, Brazil

"Ben, I heard that you and Tracer had somewhat of a conflict."

After half an hour of staring nowhere else than on his own lap on today's therapy session, Benjamin finally looks up to face Mercy from where he sits. A reluctant Matthew is sitting by his side, and cooks up a storm of mutter of how he really don't need to be there. In fact, the first half hour of the session the doctor has spent to coax somewhat of a good conversation between her and the huntsman without bigger success, all the while she writes down notes.

It's progress regardless because the marksman decided to show up, and for that, Mercy is grateful.

"Yeah, we did." Ben confirms boringly, trying not to make too much of an issue out of it.

"Can you please tell me what happened?"

It takes a moment for him to answer, as he first wonders why she would know that.

He assumed that Tracer must've told her after all, "Okay, uhh… It was a few days ago. I wanted to go outside for a bit, and she came with... I didn't even want her following me. It was starting to rain, and she wanted me to get inside. I said 'nah', and I told her that she could go inside and watch me from one of the windows. That's when she gets angry, right, and goes frickin' ballistic! That's pretty much all of it." He explains.

"I have heard from Tracer that it was a bit more to it than that." Mercy gets an expectant look, as she often gets at these occasions. Radcliff have not failed to notice that.

Ben gets mildly irritated and starts to grumble to himself much like Matthew beside him. The runner doesn't answer, but instead looks away, "Mr. Scout, the whole story, please."

Ben huffs with a scowl planted on his face, "I can't help it that she has a hard time to let go of…" he trails of a bit as the scowl grows. He meets Mercy's look again with anger in his eyes. "I slipped and she just kept on going that I wasn't fine. I just slipped, alright?"

"According to her, your legs gave in. You didn't slip." She says.

His eyes narrow at her, "Don't you start, too."

Mercy blinks, "Start what?"

The runner takes a breath in an attempt to get his growing anger under control.

Matthew stops his grumbling and starts to pay attention, his curiosity peaked just a little even when he tries not to.

"Okay, it was more to it than that," Ben gives in, but is still stubborn on one little detail, "I slipped," he goes on as he gives somewhat of an evil eye at the doctor, "she got worried and wanted to get you. I said no, that I got it under control, but she didn't give in. We went back and forth a bit until she got enough and goes I don't know where... Happy?"

"Happier, but far from thrilled," she speaks and purses her lips just a bit in disapproval as she writes down a few more notes. When she's done, she stares hard down at Ben with a stern face. Both of the men notice that this is not her typical 'you better watch yourself' face, that she is really angry right now, "Mr. Scout, do you know what Tracer's speciality is?"

Benjamin gets an odd feeling in his stomach at the use of the word speciality, and somewhat of a foreboding feeling comes to his mind. He shakes his head, "No..."

She thinks for a moment how to describe it the best before she opens her mouth. "... The basic of it is that she can travel in time."

She gets unbelieving looks from the other two, which she expected. "I know how it sounds, but it is true. She can travel in time, but only to a limited ability. How she got that specific skill, you can ask her yourself; I only want to speak about the ability itself and the effects it has on her. I can't guarantee that she answers, though..." she shoots Ben a glare, a quiet accusation of a wrongdoing that the runner still doesn't really understands that he made.

"Her speciality is, in some limited sense, to travel in time," she continues, "more specifically, she can wind herself, and only herself, back or forward in time by a few seconds as the rest of the world continues on as normal. Some would rather call it that she 'blinks' back and forth."

"That don't sound like anything sensible in my ears," Mat admits and shares a look with the runner.

"Sounds like something out of a TV-series," Benjamin thinks. "Like, 'Doctor Who' — Which is just awesome, by the way."

"What does?" Matthew wonders. "'Doctor Who', or the fact that someone can travel in time?" The aussie then stares at Mercy with a frown, that clearly tells that all he wants is to escape the session, "Or is it that this sheila over here, this doctor, wants us to think that time travel is really possible?" He scoffs, "And she says that we need help."

"You may say whatever you want, Mr. Sniper," she informs him with an indifferent look, "but you will not get out of my sessions until I say so." A silent and sarcastic 'whoopee' is heard from Matthew under a grumble, but other than that he doesn't make any other fuzz and looks away.

Mercy continues, "Anyways, Tracer can do this, but this ability did come along with some inconveniences... like, that contraption on her chest? That is to help her control this unique ability. Without it she jumps without any restrain whatsoever, so she must always wear it. But before she got it, well…"

"… she just jumped back and forth with no stop?" Ben assumes.

"Yes." Mercy looks at him right in the eye with a serious expression.

"Back and forth, back and forth, again and again and again. Never able to stop it, never able to control it. For a while she thought that she had lost her mind, that she wasn't real. So to call her crazy, to call her delusional, can really get to her." Mercy looks down a bit, with sadness and concern shown in her face, "Even if the incident was quite a while ago, it still affects her greatly."

For a moment there is only silence in the room. Both Matthew and Benjamin have been caught up in their own troubles to understand that these people, these friendly folks that have done nothing but to try to help them, might very well have problems too.

And they're right.

But after a while, Mercy clears her throat and looks at the two men in front of her in turn. "As I understand it, you two don't know each others names, even though that you have worked with each other. I'd like you to tell each other your name's, if it's not much of a hassle, which really shouldn't be the case."

Scout and Sniper looks at each other with their brows raised, then they look at her.

"We don't really gotta do that, right?" The runner asks.

"The best treatment to your condition is to talk to others; to your friends preferably, and share your feelings and thoughts amongst each other. What is a friend if he does not know the other's name?"

"The kind that's only acquaintances?" Suggests Sniper.

Mercy sighs at the stubbornness of him, "... You want to get better or not?" She asks.

Both the runner and the marksman sigh, then they turn to each other.

"Matthew Mundy," Sniper says, "call me Mat."

"Benjamin Radcliff," the runner speaks, "Ben for short."

"Angela Ziegler," Mercy chirps, happy to begin the treatment.