"This is your pilot speaking, we will be arriving in approximately fifteen minutes."
The sudden voice startled me and pulled me and a few other soldiers back into consciousness. I wasn't the only person who thought sleep would be a good way to kill time. I merely jumped as my eyelids jolted open, but a few other men let out startled yells in response. I looked over at Sombra, who was snickering at us. The others glared at her and flipped her off, but I didn't care. Once again, my mind was going at high speeds, making time go by faster. It seems to do that a lot.
"Arriving in approximately five minutes."
The sudden voice made the other soldiers jump again.
"If you startle us like that one more fucking time I will cap your ass!" one of them yelled. Rather than talk over the speaker, the pilot looked back to respond.
"Then this ship will plummet into the ocean and you assholes can sleep with the fishes!" he yelled.
"Is that a threat?" the soldier yelled back. At this point, Sombra was nearly in tears laughing. Reaper, on the other hand, wasn't amused in the slightest. The shouting match between the two came to an abrupt halt when Reaper suddenly stood and glared at them both.
"Both of you. Shut up." he said with his distinctive gravelly voice. The pilot, terrified of Reaper's words, immediately went back to what he was doing. The soldier made the mistake of challenging Reaper's authority.
"Did you not just hear him?" he yelled. "That jackass just threatened to-"
"NOW." Reaper yelled. It was the first time I had ever heard him raise his voice. Hell, it might've even been the first time Widowmaker heard him raise his voice, as she was even taken aback. She had a look of surprise on her face; it was almost a look of fear. At this point, Sombra had stopped laughing as well. Aside from the sound of the dropship's engine, it was completely silent.
"Goddamn children..." I heard Reaper mutter under his breath. I, like everyone else, sat in silence. I began smiling to myself ever so slightly. Nice to see a friendly team who can work well together, I thought to myself sarcastically. Eventually, I spoke up.
"So...what's the plan?" I said. "Do we just rush in there, guns blazing?" Reaper began to respond.
"If we act fast enough, then yes, that is what we'll be doing. That way, we'll catch them off guard-" he was cut off by the pilot's voice.
"Uh...sir?" he said.
"Shut up. I'm talking." Reaper said without even looking at him.
"Anyways..." he began. It was at this point that I noticed a faint beeping sound from the pilot's seat. As Reaper was talking, the pilot spoke up again, this time in a louder tone. At this point, the beeping had also grown louder.
"Sir, you really need to-" he was cut off by Reaper. This time, he looked back towards the pilot.
"Listen, if you don't shut up and...wait a minute..." he said, finally noticing the beeping. He quickly walked to the front of the dropship.
"Is that..." Reaper said. His indecisive statement was ultimately cut off.
*BOOM*
A loud explosion rocked the whole ship, throwing half of us out of our seats. The beeping was now incredibly loud, signaling that the outer hull of the dropship was significantly damaged.
"That's what that damn beeping was...a missile lock-on!" one soldier yelled out.
"Did you forget to activate the cloaking mechanism, dipshit?" another soldier yelled out. The pilot was too frightened to respond.
"Merde...they knew we were coming." Widowmaker said.
"They knew we were coming..." Reaper said, echoing her statement. He looked towards me.
"Do you have anything to do with this, clone?" he said.
"Why the hell do you pin this shit on me?" I yelled. "I've had no way of contacting Overwatch whatsoever, so why do you think I'm responsible?"
"Perhaps when they attacked us, you passed the message along..." Reaper said. "Your distaste for Talon is quite apparent, after all."
"Or, maybe they looked through our files and relayed intel back to their headquarters!" I yelled. "Not every advantage Overwatch has over us is because of me! As a matter of fact, none of them are because of me! Get it through your thick skull!" Rather than respond to me, he looked towards Widowmaker.
"I knew this clone project was a mistake." he said. "Our 'successful' test subject is quite disobedient, perhaps we should put it down." At this point, I was fuming at him. Somewhere along the way, he discovered that being called a clone or an "it" got under my skin. He was right, though; even I thought of myself like that. Still, it set me off.
"Did you just call me an 'it'?" I shouted. He chuckled ever so slightly.
"I'm not wrong, am I?" he said calmly.
"I'm still human, asshole." I said quietly. There was quite a bit of repressed rage in my voice.
"Last I checked, humans aren't born and raised in test tubes." he responded. I clenched my fists in anger. I was so close to unleashing my rage on him.
"I swear, I will fucking-" my threat was cut off by the sound of glass shattering. A bullet went through the front window of the dropship, killing the pilot instantly. A few more bullets came flying through the window, and within seconds, there was a storm of gunfire going through the window.
"The ship's going down!" one soldier yelled. "Someone get to the front and pilot this thing before we plummet into the ocean!"
"Fuck that, I'm not getting shot!" another soldier yelled. Reaper growled and turned into a gray cloud of smoke.
"What the hell…?" I muttered. I had never seen him do that before, so it caught me off guard. Nonetheless, I cared more about where the dropship would crash land. Reaper turned back to his normal self after his gray smoke form floated to the front. He was taking cover behind the control panel, reaching his hands up to the controls and attempting to blindly fly the dropship.
"We're gonna crash land! Brace for impact!" Reaper yelled. Within seconds, we crash landed. I crawled off of the dropship, dazed and blurry-eyed. Once I came to my senses, I saw that we were on a large freighter type ship. I looked up and saw the Overwatch logo, and that's when I realized we crash landed on the ammunition shipment we were supposed to attack. Reaper, Widowmaker, Sombra, and a few other soldiers crawled out of the dropship wreckage. A few soldiers were killed in the impact.
"Widowmaker, get to a higher position!" Reaper yelled. "Tobias and I will hold them off!" I rushed over to a dead soldier and grabbed his pulse rifle. Me and Reaper ducked behind a crate and opened fire on the Overwatch soldiers who were stationed on the ship. After picking off a few soldiers, Widowmaker fired a grappling hook at a ledge towards the back of the ship, near the ships control room. A group of soldiers rushed out of the control room to subdue her; however, she engaged in close combat with the soldiers. Her moves were fluid and graceful, incapacitating every soldier and emerging without a scratch. She equipped her sniper rifle and began picking off enemy soldiers. Reaper looked towards me.
"Get back to the dropship and call for a VTOL!" he yelled. After our argument on the dropship, following his orders was the last thing I wanted to do. But in this instance, I'd be an idiot to not follow his orders. I rushed back to the dropship and grabbed the dead pilot's earpiece.
"This is Tobias! We need a VTOL sent to our location immediately!" I was too focused on my task to notice that I was in full view of the enemy soldiers. Before I could regroup with Reaper, I felt a sharp pain in my right shoulder, and I looked over to see blood quickly leaking out of it. I tried my best to ignore it and rushed over to Reaper.
"Is a VTOL en route?" he asked.
"Yeah, I got a VTOL on the way, but I was shot in the shoulder." I replied. He ignored my statement about my shoulder wound. He probably didn't consider it worth his time.
"Only a few enemies left!" one soldier yelled. Reaper let out a subtle chuckle before leaping over his cover and rushing towards the remaining few soldiers. All of a sudden, red and black smoke engulfed his figure. He began spinning in circles, firing his two Hellfire shotguns rapidly.
"DIE! DIE! DIE!" he yelled as the remaining Overwatch soldiers were mercilessly gunned down. He casually walked back towards us. Widowmaker and Sombra grouped up with us.
"Great, now we're stranded on a boat. Good thinking, Gabe." Sombra said.
"Don't call me that." Reaper said angrily. Gabe? Is that his real name? I thought quietly to myself. Could it be…I cut myself off. If I were to ask him about it, now wouldn't be the time. Come to think of it, there probably won't ever be a good time. He'll probably shoot me if I ask. Maybe Sombra can tell me later.
"We're not stranded." I said. "A VTOL should be coming." Widowmaker glared at us.
"A VTOL? Why not another dropship?" she said.
"A VTOL will get us back to base in an hour, rather than three, or however long it took." Reaper said. "A dropship is unnecessary. We have fewer men now than we did when we left the base."
"No, Reaper, a dropship is necessary." she said. "Dropships have larger cargo holds, which we need for the ammunition-" Reaper cut her off.
"This was an act of retaliation. We don't need to bring back any of this ammunition. We have ample resources." he said. Widowmaker wasn't having any of it. As the two were arguing, I walked over to Sombra, who was watching the argument unfold from a distance.
"Do they always argue?" I asked quietly.
"Occasionally." she responded. "Reaper has higher authority than Widowmaker, which has been the source of some tension." She sighed before continuing. "We need Akande back, amigo." I looked down at her, confused.
"Akande?" I asked.
"Akande Ogundimu." she responded. "One of Talon's leaders. You may know him as Doomfist." I nodded in understanding.
"You said you need him back." I said. "What happened to him?"
"He was imprisoned by Helix Security International after a run-in with Overwatch." she responded. "If anyone knows how to lead Talon, it's him. At least he can lead it better than Reaper. He certainly isn't as big of a gilipollas as Reaper." I chuckled. I didn't know what gilipollas meant, but I assumed it meant something along the lines of "asshole". I then remembered that Sombra referred to Reaper as "Gabe".
"Is Reaper's real name Gabe?" I asked, again quietly. Reaper and Widowmaker were yelling at each other, but I still did not want them to hear me.
"Sí." she said. "Gabriel Reyes." I froze and went silent. My eyes widened as I stared at Reaper, now in a completely different way. I thought about the Gabriel I saw during the dream I had on the way here. Sombra noticed my shock at this revelation.
"Tobias?" she said. I didn't respond. "You okay, amigo?" She waved her hand in front of my face, finally snapping me out of my trance.
"Sorry…" I muttered. She sighed and looked back at Reaper. "So he didn't die…" Sombra nodded in acknowledgement. "But…"
"Qué?" Sombra said curiously.
"What the hell happened to him?" I finally said.
"Can't tell you for sure." she said. "I've looked through all of Talon's files, but I couldn't find anything on…well, what he is. Clearly there's a inhuman element. According to the info that does exist on him, his cells rapidly degrade and regenerate, which apparently gives him the ability to turn into a black mist and float around like a ghost. Again, I don't know for sure. All I know is that both Overwatch intel and Talon intel list Gabriel Reyes and Reaper as two different people. Both list Gabriel as dead, even though we both know that's not true. Basically, in short, everyone thought Gabriel died in the Overwatch HQ explosion, as that's what's officially listed by Overwatch, Talon, and the UN. In reality, he survived, and now he's Reaper. What happened in between is beyond me. No intel on it seems to exist. And you know me, amigo; if it exists digitally, I can hack it." I chuckled at her last statement, while still in minor shock over finding out the truth behind Reaper's identity.
"I wonder if Jack survived too…" I said quietly. Sombra didn't hear me.
"Obviously, you know that you shouldn't call him Gabe." she said. "He was lenient with me. If you call him Gabe, he'll probably kill you on the spot. Especially after your little…argument." I knew she was referring to me and Reaper's argument on the dropship.
Reaper and Widowmaker's argument continued for some time. During this time, me and Sombra sat down, while the surviving soldiers awkwardly stood around. Sombra pulled up a small screen with her long fingernails. "Take a look." She showed me files on Doomfist, regarding his past, rise to power, that kind of thing. Eventually, I got bored of reading up on him, and Sombra could tell. She then showed me security footage of Reaper yelling at Talon soldiers in an attempt to entertain us to pass the time. Some of the footage was kinda funny, but we didn't want Reaper to hear us, so we had to try our best to not let out more than a few chuckles.
"How do you have access to all this?" I asked.
"Haven't you heard? I'm the best hacker there is, amigo." she responded. "Of course, it helps that Talon gave me access to their database. Perdedores."
After some time had passed, I looked behind me to see the VTOL flying towards us. At this point, the argument had died down somewhat, but they were still in a disagreement, and both were obviously frustrated.
"Hey, the VTOL's almost here." I said. Both of them didn't notice me.
"Hey…HEY!" I shouted. They finally turned their attention to me. "The VTOL is here. Stop arguing and pay attention!"
"Well, it's too late to call a dropship now." Reaper said. I imagined him having a sly smirk under his mask. Widowmaker sighed and walked towards where the VTOL was set to land. We boarded the VTOL and took off, leaving the damaged ship behind, along with the bodies of everyone who was aboard. Killing everyone on the shipment and leaving the actual cargo untouched sent a message to Overwatch that it wasn't an attack for the sake of stealing supplies, but rather an act of vengeance after their attack on the Talon base. An act of vengeance that I wish I was never a part of.
The ride back to the base was mostly silent, except for when Reaper spoke up.
"No survivors…perhaps you aren't a traitor." Reaper said. "I'll still be keeping a close eye on you, clone." I glared at him, before sighing and looking at the ground, like I had been up until that point. The rest of the ride was completely silent.
God, I hate Talon.
