Chapter 6
Time to Suit Up

The following few days were a great challenge for Amélie. With no particular engineering or mechanical skills, she kept watch or accompanied the kids as they tested their new outfits. She also took great care in observing them, and their relationships.

Alya and Amanda were the more obvious and, to her surprise, only romantic relationship of the group. She'd had her suspicion when she'd seen them in the car, but she quickly realized, even when they tried to be discreet, they failed horribly.

Amanda didn't have much to do with her time. Her father's revolver was still in perfect condition, and beside armor fitting, there wasn't much for her to do. She helped wherever she could, however, handing tools when necessary. She hovered near Alya, serving as her assistant as often as possible. In turn, Alya hovered near Amanda every time they were apart more than a minute, but Alya's hovering was different. It was a lot more protective. Alya would always come around with a stool, or a bottle of water, any way she could make herself useful and receive a kiss on the cheek for it. Amélie had already seen that sort of behavior, had experienced it first hand, and it made her heart clench every time she saw them interacting.

The twins were another interesting duo to watch interact, not only together but with the others. Much like any siblings, they bickered and argued all the time, especially when it came to fixing their mother's old meka tank. It became rather obvious, too, that Duri strangely worshiped Neelam. She would follow her around like a puppy, get her approbation on everything she did and said, give her suggestion which Neelam never listened to. Neelam reveled in it. Amélie assumed she was all too aware of it, and rather than discouraging the younger teenager, she'd just decided to roll with it. Plus, Neelam would very often use Duri's support to block Alya in everything she wanted to do or propose.

There was bad blood between them, Amélie noticed quickly. Neelam and Alya very rarely agreed on anything. Neelam, much like her mother, was the embodiment of chaos. Recklessly going in and destroying everything was the only thing she ever suggested, which surprised Amélie greatly. It prompted her to believe she did it on purpose, just to oppose Alya on principal. Because Alya was order, she was the group de facto leader, she was the oldest and the responsible one. Neelam was just playing a role of balance in the group because too much order without chaos was never a good thing. Especially according to Neelam's other mother.

Though Wei kept to himself most of the time, working alone or with the help of one of the omnics assisting them, there was an undeniable bond between the three boys of the group. They experimented their new toys together, especially Charlie and Myeong. They would hang out in the same corner, whispering things to each other. Whenever the girls saw them lazying out instead of working they would just roll their eyes and call them back to work.

But of course, spending so much time around teenagers meant that the thing they usually talked about was heart problems. Well, most of them. Amanda and Alya were usually the listeners of such stories, giving advice and the such. Neelam didn't talk about this sort of things, and when she did it was with an indifferent shrug. She didn't have any story to tell, any advice to give or receive. No one in her line of sight, so to speak. Wei listened to Charlie's problems, mostly, with little to no advice to give of his own. Of course, Amélie could read between the line. There was someone in Wei's heart, someone he couldn't talk about. She'd heard him talk to the other omnics about his omnic friend and lab assistant Albert enough to know the truth.

Charlie had a crush on a bad girl. A girl who would ruin him, from what she'd gathered. You don't always choose who your heart settle on, she supposed. Charlie had listened to everyone's advice, everyone who cared to give him one, but still, this girl was haunting him. Myeong also had his lot of girl problems, a girl who didn't seem to notice him. An older girl at his high school, who was tutoring him in maths – good to hear the guy they had trusted with grappling hooks was bad in maths. Duri also had her own lot of girl problems and boy problems. Duri's real problem was that she assumed she was developing a crush on every person who talked to her when she didn't even know what a crush was.

All these romantic plotting was the only reason Amélie hadn't left. Because no matter how you put it, she was a sucker for romance stories, even if they were as uninteresting as high school dramas.


Brigitte approached her at one point. They'd been working tirelessly for three days, and everything was coming together smoothly. Amélie was seating on her usual chair, right at the entrance of the barn. It was the only enjoyably cold place in the entire building because even if the air was rather warm outside, it was nothing compared to the furnace that was inside. She would sit there almost all day, enjoying every breath of fresh air which came through the ajar door, and observing the teenagers work.

"We should be ready by tomorrow," the mechanic declared.

"I still believe they are not ready."

"We are never ready when the fighting starts. But, they are as ready as can be."

"I suppose you will be coming with us?"

"One more shield is still not enough."

"On that, we can both agree on."

Silence settled between the two of them. The barn was as noisy as ever, filled with the sound of sparks flying from a soldering gun, and the chatter of excited and nervous teenagers.

"I could fix your gun," Brigitte suggested. "Or make you a better pair of glasses."

Amélie shook her head.

"I don't need either."

"You won't let me make you an armor either?"

Amélie smirked.

"Focus on what matters first. I've survived without your armors so far. They'll need them more than me."


Everyone was ready, and a time and date of departure for Talon's main base had been settled. The next morning, as the sun would rise, they would all climb into the Orca and fly off to battle. Amélie couldn't sleep. It had nothing to do with the fact that she occupied a couch in a room full of snoring teenagers who slept on the floor. She felt strange. She'd never been afraid before a mission before, but this was definitely fear sipping into her entire body and making her hands shake. Shaky hands made for a shaky aim. This was the quickest her heart could beat.

It took some thinking on her part to realize that she really wasn't scared for her. She was scared for them. For these seven teenagers – teenagers, the oldest was twenty-one – who were about to face death. And that Widowmaker clone. She couldn't keep her out of her mind. She would have to kill her, she knew, but a clone was nothing. If Talon had made one, they could make twenty. She would have to find the lab where they made them. It had to be in the main base of operation. She would find it, and she would destroy it completely.

Someone moved to her right and walked over everyone else, and out of the house. Amélie stayed perfectly still, her eyes closed. She waited until the door to the house had closed off, and she sat up. A quick glance at the sleeping bags told her exactly who had gone out. She stood up and followed her out.

She found Neelam sitting on a big log beside the dirt road, at the edge of the propriety. Something blue flashed in her hand, then disappeared, then reappeared again. Upon approaching, Amélie realized she was making geometrical shapes out of hard-light, then destroying them, and rebuilding a new one. She'd never bothered to ask her how she was able to do it, to create seemingly out of thin air things like her mother never could, but Amélie assumed there was a reason hard-light technology was still experimental.

She silently came to sit beside Neelam, who smirked.

"Couldn't sleep either? I suppose my usual insomnia wasn't helped by pre-battle jitters."

She crashed a cube and created an almost perfect sphere.

"I was just thinking, if we did all this for nothing, it will be a big waste of resource."
She destroyed the sphere and created a star.

"Also I really don't feel like starting Overwatch again. I know Alya would jump at the chance but I'm just not really okay with it."

She exploded the star and created a Rubik cube. She took it in her hands and started scrambling the sides.

"I just want my old life back. Is it too much to ask? You're probably the last person to answer that question. Don't answer that."

Once she was satisfied with how scrambled the sides were, she started completing the game.

"Maybe you were right. Maybe we're not ready and we are all going to die tomorrow. And honestly, I don't want to die. I have so much I still want to do. I may not have someone to live for, like the others, and if I died and my moms were dead no one would miss me, but there is still stuff I want to do!"

She completed the cube and threw it down the road with all her strength. It shattered into a thousand tiny light pieces.

"Now is not the time to doubt yourself," Amélie finally said. "And whatever happens tomorrow, I will make sure you all make it out alive. All seven of you."

Neelam pursed her lips and stood up.

"We both know it's not a promise you can keep."


Amélie was the first ready to go. She'd pulled out her usual outfit, dirty black pants and tee-shirt, with a protective chest plate and her leather jacket. Her gloves felt a bit harder to fit than usual. Her gun a bit heavier. With her glasses on her head, she waited for everyone else. Bastion and Hammond were the next to arrive, the two of them taking little to no preparation.

The Orca had already landed in a field further into the ranch, and Amélie was losing her mind waiting. Any second the Orca – Overwatch's most recognizable plane, with the organization logo on every imaginable surface – was staying in an open field was a second of opportunity they lost. She paced in front of the plane's open hatch, desperately waiting for the others. She was almost tempted to leave without them. Suddenly, she heard Bastion happily beep, and Hammond's bot said:

"Finally!"

Amélie turned to the edge of the field, where Brigitte was accompanying the group of seven teenagers. If anything, Amélie conceited, they looked epic.

Alya was at the front. She wore a lighter version of her mother's Raptora suit, with fewer armor parts. There were still protections on all her joins and her chest, but the rest was a thick dark blue bodysuit. She had a smaller jetpack on her back as well, one that didn't allow her to fly, but push herself up if necessary. She had her helmet under one arm, and an automatic rifle under the other.

Amanda was on her right. She wore a chestplate under a red leather jacket with a golden dragon on her back. Two belts crossed around her waist. One carried Peacekeeper and ammo, the other a collection of daggers. A golden ribbon kept her hair tied in a ponytail.

Charlie was on Alya's left. He'd forgone orange for light blue, to Amélie's relief. Two big gantlets covered his hands, connected to the pack on his back by long tubes hanging from his elbows. The generator on his chest was turning at full force, producing electricity stocked on his back. Blue goggles covered his eyes, with indications on the state of his gauntlets and generator.

Myeong walked beside him. His grappling system was fully operational, protected by green armor pieces. He had heavy protections on his arms and legs and his chest. His hair was still in a tangled mess of dreads, which had prevented him from getting a helmet, but a pair of goggled rested on his forehead, ready to protect his eyes.

Duri was in her mother's hold Meka, right behind them. The old battle mech had been painstakingly put back together with everything they could find. One of its arms had been replaced by a different kind of gun, probably taken from an old OR model. It had been painted in camouflage green quickly, covering most of the sponsors' stickers still on it. Duri had replaced them with big llama stickers. She was wearing a pink bodysuit which didn't look as comfortable as the one D. va used to wear.

On Amanda's right side, Wei was still making small adjustments to his gun. He was the only one not wearing any sort of body armor. He had two long straps falling on his shoulders, covered with small metal cartridges, all identical in shape and size. All the ones on the right were marked with a little flame and all the ones on the left with a little snowflake.

Finally, Neelam walked at everyone's right. She wore a sleeveless jacket with shoulder-pads, and her entire left arm was encapsulated in a metal protection, covered with purple-glowing wires which disappeared inside her jacket. She wore a fingerless glove on her other hand, the center of which glowed purple. Her semi-automatic was hanging around her waist, along with two small blue and white balls which almost looked like grenades.

Upon seeing them arrive, Amélie smirked and crossed her arms. If they were going to die today, at least they were doing it in style.


A/N: Hey guys! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and so I'll be posting chapter 7 + epilogue on Thursday. See you guys then!