{A/N} Wow. This Chapter was long overdue.
My sincere apologies to all of you loyal readers who waited so patiently for me to post this... I can't believe it almost took me a year to finally get to posting this!
I just wanted to reassure you that I am back and ready to write some more WidowGenji goodness! And this chapter is certain to give you quite a treat of that. Prepare for a few answers to some lingering questions, and perhaps a few more questions in the process!
At any rate, I'm happy to be back and plan to come back with new content much sooner than this took... Thanks, everyone!
-Nb
Chapter 6: The Widow's Plea
…
Genji stood at the side of Winston's life support pod that he was sealed inside, unconscious, unmoving… in critical condition. Another friend down for the count.
Only one other Overwatch member remained beside the large gorilla, and it was Pharah. Lena Oxton, Tracer, was pulled out of the hostage situation safely and from what Genji heard, she was awake again. Just simply recovering.
But even that was a small comfort at this point. Half of what remained of Overwatch was now in the custody of a terrorist they didn't even know the identity or the motive of. The popular theory was still that Gabriel Reyes had returned from the grave a second time, only this time a bit more calculating.
What did Genji believe? He didn't know that either.
Amelie made it sound like Reyes truly wasn't involved at all, and while Genji didn't believe that for a second, he did believe her when she said that the terrorist broadcast was not being hosted by Reaper. Someone else got his mask… and for what he knew right now, that same someone else was the one who took half of the recovering Overwatch team.
He feared the worst. But even he knew that the worst was yet to come.
The Widowmaker had been spinning her web for them this whole time… and he was falling willfully into her trap.
Genji had sat down by now, next to the few remaining Overwatch members in the room, metal-layered hands folded together and his forehead pressed against them as he tried to meditate and calm himself in this increasingly stressful situation he was cornered into.
"Mister Shimada?" an Overwatch agent greeted timidly as he stepped into the room.
The agent was one of the many sent out to find any other casualties or injured agents from the attack at the hospital.
Just at the timid voice the agent had, Genji's folded hands started to shake uncontrollably. His inner calm was starting to fade rapidly.
"We could not find Doctor Ziegler. We have to assume the worst until we can find any trace of her at the attack site…"
Genji's slanted eyes opened and glared at the wall he was facing across the room, his green visor starting to glow intensely.
"… And according to the few pieces of evidence we could find, the attack was hosted by no more than two unknown individuals. There was no huge, orchestrated terrorist attack as we originally thought. Just two criminals, not even on the record."
The armored ninja shot up from his seat and darted out past the Overwatch agent, stomping over to the nearest wall in the hallway outside the room and reeling back to slam his fist into the wall as hard as he could, screaming out, "Damn it all!"
A tense silence filled the hallway, his voice echoing for a good while.
The agent gulped uncertainly, "Sir?"
Genji stared at the massive indent he left in the metal wall, simply standing there and breathing to regain his composure, "Why do you call me sir? There is no sir in charge around here anymore."
"Actually, sir," he cleared his throat, "According to the tactical chain of command, with nobody in commission to give tactical orders, you're the only one left who can issue commands to Overwatch besides the higher-ups—"
"And the higher-ups have gone silent since the public reveal of all our classified files." Genji finished for him.
The agent nodded, "Yes, sir."
Genji sighed deeply and stood straight, "Very well. I'll temporarily take command. But I ask that you not call me sir unless absolutely necessary. Which it shouldn't be, with hope."
"Of course, Mister Shimada. Not to jump the gun or anything, but do you have any orders for our remaining agents?"
"Remaining?" asked Genji.
The agent scratched the back of his neck sheepishly, "Yes, Mister Shimada. Many have signed their resignations already. You must understand, we all fear for the lives of our families just by being involved with Overwatch."
Genji looked down with a thoughtful expression beneath his helmet, "Hmm… We need to find out who the hell we're dealing with. From there, we can formulate a plan."
"Not to doubt your judgement, sir, but how do we find someone who… well, who might as well not even exist?" he used the honorific of sir again unintentionally.
"We do not," Genji replied simply, turning to make his way down the hall with an intense gaze of determination.
The agent watched with a puzzled look at his response before Genji continued.
"Take whoever is left and continue your investigation of the attack on the hospital. I have sources I can rely on here to investigate the identities of our foes..."
It was starting to look like another interrogation session with Amelie was in order.
Angela let out a dull groan as she regained consciousness, her vision blurry and unsettling as she look around at her surroundings.
She found herself within a metal cell, old-fashioned jail bars trapping her inside.
The sounds of sparks exploding off of super-heated metal reverberated off the walls of the rather small room she was locked up in. Upon further investigation, she would find a young man with a welding helmet over his face as he tampered with a large, rather advanced-looking... torpedo?
"Hey, boss, your little blonde pet is awake," a girl directly across the room from Angela pointed out.
The girl had a youthful appearance about her, a dangerous spark in her violet eyes as she stared down Angela with a playful smirk. She wore a high tech variant of an armored hardsuit, seemingly flexible in material most likely for the sake of not having to sacrifice agility for extra protection. Her hair was shaved on one side with magenta wires in the place of hair, the rest of it combed over the other side of her head, blonde in color and draped down over her shoulder in the form of a braid.
She had a slushie in one hand with the other crossed over her abdomen as she sipped loudly from the obnoxiously pink straw of the large slushie cup, "Wakey wakey, hermosa." She winked.
Angela glared with a look of disgust. The young Hispanic woman was impossible to forget.
"Sombra," Angela greeted with a slight scoff, "The only blonde pet here I see is you. Can't say I'm a fan of the new look."
The slushie-wielding girl gasped sharply, "I told you she would remember me! You hit her in the head pretty hard, but nobody can forget the one and only planet-hacker herself when they meet her," Sombra practically sang in delight to which the helmeted man didn't reply.
"The new look is pretty intense, right?" Sombra smirked, "I like to think I've been augmented in a way-"
"Cut it out, Sombra," the young man working on the torpedo barked out gruffly, turning off his welding tool so he could take his mask off and look back at Angela with piercing red irises.
Even from across the room, Angela could see wiring and computer programming flashing in his crimson orbs. Her own blue eyes locked with his and widened in horror. He was unmistakably the one who captured her at the hospital.
"You-!"
"Me," he interjected in a dull tone, "Don't act so scared, Doctor Ziegler, I'm about to be the least of your fears in the days to come."
Angela darted up to her feet and gripped onto the metal cell bars with clenched fists, "Who are you?! What did you do with Winston? Or the rest of my friends for that matter!" she exclaimed accusingly.
The red-lensed man let out a quiet "tsk" and tossed his welding tool onto a nearby table nonchalantly, "So many questions, Doctor. But that's alright. Talk all you want, I always thought you had the cutest little Swiss accent. So please... ask me more," he stepped closer to the cell so she could see his face better and he smirked down at her maliciously.
Sombra frowned at that and stopped slurping on her slushie for a moment to look away, "I'm going back to the room. Come find me when you're finished playing with your pet."
The Hispanic girl took her leave and in the meantime, Angela studied his face as he stared daggers into her very soul, forcing her to look away out of discomfort.
"What's the matter, doc? Don't recognize me? You should."
Angela's gaze darted back to him sharply, "Why?"
The black-haired terrorist walked away to take his welding mask off the top of his head, "Keeping tabs on Overwatch members is your job, isn't it?" He asked, running his fingers through his hair as he dropped the mask on the table next to his wleding tool.
The blonde doctor let out a sound of disgust, "Don't flatter yourself. I know every Overwatch member to date, alive and deceased... current and former-"
Angela was abruptly interrupted by a loud, mechanical squawk that caused her to jump out of her own skin, blue eyes shooting over to find a mechanical bird staring straight at her, tilting its metal head side to side as if it were a living animal despite it clearly not being one.
The man simpered sardonically, "I'm sorry, did Corvus scare you?"
"Don't talk to me like I am a child!" She barked back.
And with that, the villain's hand darted into the cell and gripped Angela's jaw so tightly that she felt every muscle in her face tense up and ache in response.
Angela let out a pained scream and the anonymous young man's red eyes glowed deeply, "You're going to tell me where the remnants of Overwatch are hiding..."
"-no!" Angela cried out in pain as the man's grip started to slowly dislocate her jawbone.
"... or I'm going to kill you and everyone you've ever loved!" The man screamed louder than she ever could.
Genji twiddled his metal-layered thumbs silently as he stared at the woman with blue skin across from him for yet another interrogation session, an uncomfortable silence settled between them.
At first, Amelie was more than happy to oblige another mind game with her beloved old friend, her usual smirk playing her blue lips and a sparkle of challenge in her amber gaze.
That was not the case after ten minutes of them simply staring at each other wihout a word.
Now Amelie was just mad. Annoyed, bored, and mad.
With a deep scowl on her gorgeous complexion, she finally growled out, "So are we going to play again today, Genji? Or have you finally accepted defeat after so many interrogation sessions that just left you with more questions than answers?"
"I know your end game, Amelie. I know exactly what you want out of this."
Amelie was taken aback by Genji's casual tone in saying that, "Oh? Do tell."
Genji crossed his arms over his metal chest and shrugged, "You want out of this. Out of your binds... out of this base. Out of Overwatch."
"Can you blame me?"
"Not fully. Not for that."
A sharp glare pierced straight through Genji's visor from Amelie's golden irises, "Alright. Sure, let's say that's my end game as you call it, Genji. What's yours then? Because you and I both know it's not this boring, heroic plan to stop Talon and save the world."
The Japanese cyborg stared at Amelie in total silence.
A sly simper very slowly crawled its way across her lips, "No... that's too base for you. Too simple. You always saw a greater depth to things than the rest of these fools. So... what is your end game?"
Genji stood up and walked over to the door to casually unlock it, "When faced with the impending threat of annihilation. Or with disbandment, Overwatch signed a contract with every country in the world."
Amelie's thin, dark blue eyebrows rose in piqued interest.
Genji glanced back at her out of the glowing green visor that hid his true eyes behind it, "Once there wasn't a single, remaining member of the old Overwatch team in action... in the event that Overwatch truly is no more. A represenative from every country that we have affiliated with will be called to action. To pick up the pieces where we left off and take down whatever put an end to us. And Overwatch will live on."
Amelie's narrow eyes went wide in near disbelief at this confidential fact that Genji was telling her, "Wow... Wow, Raven was right, your Overwatch is very similar to a bunch of cockroaches. Get rid of one of you and you adapt and come back with ten more at your beckon call."
Genji turned completely around and his eyes squinted sharply at Amelie's chuckling remark, "Raven was right? Who's Raven?"
Amelie simpered maliciously and shrugged, "Whoops. Did I just give you a peek at the cards in my hand?"
The Japanese man stomped over to stand close at her side, pressing a palm flat against the table to lean over her with his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
The beautiful Miss Lacroix gazed up at Genji with a playful wink.
Finally, Genji averted his eyes to the floor and whispered in a much, much quieter tone, "How can I get you to tell me everything you know, Amelie? Please, tell me. No more games... I just want the truth."
Amelie rolled her eyes a bit and shook her head, "The truth is going to get you killed, Genji."
"I don't care," the ninja retorted, "I have no other desire than to know the truth at this point. So tell me... and I'll give you anything you want."
The young French woman's eyes went wide as she found Genji's hand grazing up her cheek, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. Even with how cold and dead her skin looked, her cheeks visibly heated up at Genji's unexpected affection.
Amelie hesitated.
This was a bad idea. A dangerous idea. A Talon agent and an Overwatch soldier teaming up. It was doomed to have disasterous consequences.
And something about it seemed so very appealing to the spider of a woman.
After a painstaking moment of silence, Amelie looked up at him, "Get me out of here alive. I can't tell you everything I know... but I can show you."
Without a moment's hesitation, Genji reached behind him and slid a silver and green katana off his back, spinning the razor-sharp blade around in his grasp.
Amelie stared down at his sword for a long moment, unable to fight off a playful simper that snuck its way across her thin, blue lips, "I'd almost forgotten you had that with how rarely you unsheathe it... but I could never forget how long and hard it was-"
"Save your remarks for later, Amelie. As soon as I remove your binds, we have about five minutes to escape before they put the entire base on lockdown," Genji interjected.
She failed to restrain an amused chuckle and she glanced back to watch him closely as he stepped behind her and in one swift, clean uppercut, Amelie's electrically enhanced restraints all fell limp off her fit, slender form, allowing her to stand up and stretch out her muscles after being locked in place for so long.
"Ngh..." she grunted out as she rolled her shoulders, "... You always have known how to show a girl a good time."
Within seconds of Amelie's restraints being deactivated, a loud, booming alarm started to ring loudly across the entire base, the lights in the ceiling above them turning a deep, unsettling red color.
Her eyes went wide and she immediately looked to Genji with a frown, "What now, Monsieur Shimada?"
Genji walked away to the door casually and opened it up wide as he sheathed his katana. A smirk crossed his lips beneath his mask and he glanced over at her for just a moment, "We run... and Amelie?"
Amelie raised an eyebrow in question.
"Try to keep up this time," he actually teased her a bit.
A devious grin crossed her expression as she watched him dash out the door and a dark chuckle escaped her lips as she quickly followed after him.
"And here I was beginning to believe you didn't have a human bone in your body anymore, Genji."
...
{A/N} Real twist there, huh? What IS going through Genji's head right now?
Tell me what you think! Is Genji just shrugging off responsibility and embracing his more human side or is he truly so desperate that he would release a heartless assassin like Amelie to find his friends?
And most of all... who is Raven or the mysterious terrorist who claims to have a connection to Overwatch?
Things are really about to heat up in the next few chapters so stay tuned for future updates!
And once again, thank you for reading!
-Nb