Watchpoint: Grand Mesa, Colorado, United States. One-week pass.

"Yep…definitely smells like Taken here." Xiao unholstered her hand cannon and held it upwards next to her head. The Huntress stepped carefully, as to avoid the black portals littered all over the hallway. She liked to call those 'bad puddles'. "Has that…ozone."

"Taken smell like ozone?" Russell's brow raised at the statement.

"What I've been told. I don't really care to check if it's real or not."

"That's true by the way." Jingles piped in. His Ghost definitely changed attitude once he was away from Cassandra. "They also come with the scent of never-ending despair."

"Thought so." Russell rolled his eyes as he stepped over a fallen rotted body. It's been a while since he's been to this place. Last time he checked, it wasn't like this; though that was a while ago.

The main difference was that there was a giant Taken Blight hovering over it. Edgar told the two not to shoot it, as it could summon some big bad thing. Russell didn't want to take the risk, considering that apparently Cassandra was a Taken Guardian heart-for-eyes in love with him, and was willing to burn down anything in her path.

It was such a dumb story, he thought. But it was crazy enough to be plausible, cause even the wildest Warlock wouldn't be able to come up with something like that.

Apparently, this place was the origin point of all Taken activity on this Earth.

Russell turned a corner, looking in between two server walls that were still functional for some reason. They weren't supposed to be working, let alone transmitting data to somewhere.

"Jingles, tell me what these things are doing." Russell placed his hand on a dusty window, wiping away the grime and revealing the server running at full speed.

"They're transmitting data…to a device in the area. I've pinpointed the location, whoever turned these on is still here." A white diamond appeared on Russell's HUD, indicating where to go.

"There's a guy using the servers to download something. I'm gonna go ask some questions." Russell followed the diamond.

"Understood, try not to aggravate any Taken. We've got enough on our hands as is." Xiao's voice came through the radio link.

Russell went up a flight of stairs, taking him to the emergency exit of the facility. The device that was downloading from the servers should just be on the other side of the door. He decided to kick it down, sending it flying by mistake.

A bit too strong, he thought. Russell stepped out, checked both sides and then looked to the ground. A tablet was sitting innocently on the grass, beeping as a loading bar took up the majority of the screen. He picked up the device, turning it around and inspecting it.

To his right, a positive whir sounded. He felt the barrel of a weapon press up against his helmet. "Shit, you got me." Russell said mockingly as he raised his hands. "So clever, so smart." He muttered.

"Shut up." The voice to his right said as the weapon was pushed, tilting Russell's head to the left. "What are you doing here?" The man's voice was gruff, hardened.

In fact, it sounded oddly familiar.

Russell turned to face the man, who wore a visor covering his entire face, only part that he could see was white hair and a receding hairline.

"Shit you're old." Russell commented. The assault rifle that was up against his forehead lightly tapped it. "Sorry, that was rude."

"Cut the crap and speak."

"So, uh…you notice that giant, black ball up there?" He nodded his head towards the Taken Blight hovering over the Watchpoint. "Investigating that."

The man lowered his weapon slightly. Russell stepped back one pace.

"I brought some friends, so you might want to-" A deafening roar interrupted him as he turned around, seeing the Taken portals warp in. "Shit, get out of here."

"Those things again…" The man muttered as he raised his assault rifle, ready to fire.

Russell took out the Ace of Spades and began firing blindly into the portals, hoping he'd hit something before it touched the ground.

"Xiao, we got Taken incoming!" Russell screamed into his radio.

"Roger that! On my way!" Xiao replied.

A pack of Taken Vex Goblins, Minotaurs and Hobgoblins appeared, the latter backing up and preferring to laser them from afar while the former advanced, similar to the Vex style of movement but twitching like the Taken.

The Ace of Spades rung out as Russell shot a Taken Goblin dead, spinning to the side as he threw three knives and hit two, killing neither but staggering them backwards. The man behind Russell began firing his Pulse Rifle, which oddly sounded like the one that came from a schematic that was supposed to be destroyed. Three mini-missiles came from the weapon, exploding on contact as a few Goblins were pulled out of the action in a small blue explosion. Russell ducked an attempted bash at his head from an invisible Minotaur and rolled the other way, firing a few shots from his hand cannon into it as it screeched and turned to chase him.

Russell switched the Ace of Spades out for a new weapon in his armory, Le Monarque. A compound bow from this place called the Black Armory back on his version of the universe. It had a poison dart at the tip of every arrow, only being activated if it was quickly fired after a full draw. It also rewarded precision as the poison would spread to nearby enemies if any critical damage was dealt.

Although he did wonder what a Monarque was.

Russell pulled back the string and let loose an arrow. The shield of the Minotaur exploded as the void energy of the bow matched its own, and the beast staggered, appearing for a second. A second arrow soon followed, a light-purple haze covered its target, and it fell soon after. Russell jumped in the air and threw three more spinning knives at the Taken, using the air-time to let out one more shot with his bow towards a Taken Hobgoblin that was, prior to being killed, relaxing in the back lines and harassing him from afar.

Russell side-stepped the three white projectiles that emerged after a Taken Hobgoblin was killed and threw down a Swarm grenade. It split into small pellets and chased after the enemies, causing small explosions as the Taken were pushed every direction by the impacts. The Hunter kicked down a Goblin and shot it in the face with the Ace of Spades and turned to face another Minotaur. Sliding in between its legs, the Taken beast staggered as a few rounds were unloaded into its underside.

Russell heard the tell-tale sound of the Taken retreating; that sound being eerie quietness.

All was quiet as the Taken were eliminated. The Blight was still above the Watchpoint, but it reduced in sized.

Footfalls on the grass grabbed Russell's attention as he turned to face Xiao, who had her weapon ready but wouldn't have the chance to use it.

"Am I late?" Xiao asked, the old man in the visor nodded. "Damn." She raised her weapon and pointed it at the man.

"Identify yourself."

"Seventy-Six. I'm friendly." The man curtly replied, shouldering his rifle. "I wasn't expecting anyone to be here."

"Well, here we are." Xiao flatly said as she lowered her weapon. "What are you doing around these parts? Place is off-limits to everyone."

"I could ask the same question to you, but Russell here answered it for me." Russell's head snapped towards Seventy-Six.

"How do you know my name?" He asked, somewhat aggravated and surprised. "Do I know you?"

Seventy-Six sighed. "It's complicated, but short answer, yes. Although you probably won't recognize me. I have to leave." The man turned and started walking the other direction. "It's good seeing you again. Thanks for warning me, all those years ago. Reason I made it out alive."

Russell put a hand on his hip and chuckled. He knew who this guy was now. "I'll see you around, Morrison."

The former Overwatch commander looked behind him before continuing.

"Pow-wow's over? We can get back to our original task?" Xiao asked, a tinge of annoyance in her voice.

Russell gave one last look at the figure of the Jack Morrison disappearing into the woods, before facing Xiao once more. "Yeah, let's get to it."

/

Cassandra sighed and shut her eyes as she thought about everything and nothing at all. She wasn't a great tactician, and god forbid her trying to come up with a plan where hundreds of factors came into play.

McCree puffed his cigar as he brought up a map of the United States. "Unidentified ship signatures were spotted flyin' across the States, going from New York…" The cowboy put his finger on New York City. "To Kansas, and then were spotted landing around Colorado. My best bet is that that's your target." The finger ended on the state of Colorado.

Cassandra slowly nodded as she looked at the map. "Do we know exactly where they landed?"

"That's the hard part, they were mostly cloaked, had to go diggin' around to find these records, they weren't actually seen, analysts just thought somethin' was goin' on." McCree took his cigar out of his mouth, putting it out and tossing it to a nearby trash can. "You ever heard of Watchpoint Grand Mesa?"

"…Yes." Cassandra replied. Technically, she was lying, as she didn't really know what he was talking about, but the name was familiar.

"Your Taken have set up shop around the area, I'm gonna make an educated guess and say that they're there." McCree said as he pulled up an image of Watchpoint Grand Mesa. The entire facility looked Taken, with a giant Taken Blight hovering on top.

"Well then, let's go, shall we?"

. . .

Cassandra took a spare dropship to arrive at their destination. Although it was a bit slower than she liked, it made the journey in reasonable time, considering the technological era she was in. The ship veered right, avoiding the massive Taken Blight that was hovering just on top of the Watchpoint.

Since when did Blights get this big? She never really paid attention to how the Taken grew, even though she was technically their queen.

"I'm detecting multiple Guardian signatures in the base…they're here." Mint said. Cassandra frowned. "Watch out, there's an energy signature pointed straight at-" The Ghost was interrupted as a red laser took out the tail of the ship.

Cassandra tried her best to control the rapidly descending vehicle, but when it's saying that most of its engines are gone, it's probably a good idea to bail out.

The Warlock kicked the cockpit window, cracking it, then she punched it out. Cassandra stood up and hopped out of her ship, freefalling in the air.

She controlled her landing using the Warlock levitation ability, her feet meeting the ground gracefully. What wasn't so graceful was the crash landing her dropship took, resulting in a deafening explosion somewhere behind her.

No matter, that fireteam would pay, and they would pay dearly. She could get Winston another ship no problem.

"Hey, uh, you alright? I heard the crash." McCree's voice sounded through her comms link.

"I'm fine. I'll be a bit late, you go ahead and scout out the area."

"Roger that." The communication link shut off as Cassandra dusted herself.

She took a deep breath, a white diamond appeared on her HUD, indicating where to go.

Her feet were quick as she made it through the forests of Grand Mesa, Colorado.

/

McCree had been called many names before. Cowboy, criminal, scum, bottom-of-the-barrel-trash, bootlicker, Clint Eastwood, and many more. He had heard it all over his long career as a vigilante.

But 'Golden Age magnum dude' was a new one.

McCree kept his hands raised as the barrel of a massive, polygonal shotgun that seemed to have copper coils held together with zip ties on the sides was pressed to his forehead.

"Now maybe we could settle this in a peaceful way?" The cowboy attempted as he looked towards the hulking, masked figure. It wore a mask that looked like a skull, except one eye was non existent and the other was boring straight into his consciousness. "Put down the gun, so we can talk?"

"Yeah, first thing you can talk about is yourself. Go on, talk." The man shrugged, another man appeared to his side, this one wore robes like Cassandra, but had different colors. "Come on, I don't have time."

The other man whispered to the one holding the scary shotgun. "Oh, Russell knows him? Alright then." The man lowered the weapon. "Sorry about that, we're kind of on the run from someone."

"By any chance is her-" The shotgun was raised again. "…Nevermind."

"No, who's her name?" The man sounded aggravated. "You got five seconds before I throw your ass into the ground and make Rasputin proud." McCree didn't get the reference, but he didn't have time to think about it.

"Cass-"

"I heard enough." The man put a finger to his ear. "She's on us. Let's get outta here-" An explosion came to their side, knocking McCree down and staggering the other back.

Cassandra was floating down, firing a few rounds of her assault rifle towards the two men. Upon staggering back up, they returned with double the bullets.

She was outnumbered two-to-one, and these guys didn't seem to be playing around. McCree took advantage of their distraction and threw a flashbang to the massive one with the one-eyed mask, then unloaded an entire cylinder into the back of his head. Which didn't do much as the man's head only bumped downwards.

McCree felt some sort of omnipotent fear come over him as the man turned his head and that god forsaken mask carved a hole in his soul once more.

"You're god damn lucky this ain't Cruci-ooh!" The man was cast aside by a swift punch from Cassandra, who ducked a kick from the robed man, using the time his leg was in the air to seize it and flip the man over.

"McCree, I want you to leave, right now." Cassandra spoke with a certain ice in her voice that made McCree shiver. She definitely knew how to sound authoritative. "Go, or else you'll be caught in the crossfire."

"But-" The cowboy tried to interrupted, but a raised eyebrow from the woman shut him up.

"Don't worry, I'll be done and dusted with these fools."

"Alright, then." McCree tipped his hat in her direction and then bolted the other way.

Only stopping to see a massive dropship in the air, coming down on them.

The rest of Overwatch was here. "Look's like the cavalry's here." McCree muttered as he took cover behind a crumbling concrete blocker. The dropship's side door opened and a person jumped out, followed by a massive gorilla.

The duo of Overwatch agents quickly approached the base, spearheaded by Tracer, who quickly joined the fight as the opposition had another member join their ranks, this time in the form of a woman who wore clothing in similar look to Russell's but had different armor pieces, looking more like a post-apocalyptic fighter. The woman held a pistol that twisted at the barrel and seemed to have some bad energy coming out of it. It apparently shot trucks as the bigger agents, such as Winston would recoil after a few rounds. Some kind of needles would come out upon impact and detonate after a few shots were landed.

The gorilla roared as it rushed the woman once more, batting her away as he turned his attention to the massive man, both rushing each other head on as the latter charged into the former with an electrified shoulder, knocking the big gorilla back. Winston quickly came back to his feet and placed a shield down, blocking a few rounds from the post-apocalyptic woman.

McCree kept his head ducked as an arc of flame was thrown his direction, nearly burning his hat. That would have been a darned shame. The cowboy peeked over, seeing the robed man lobbing waves of fire from a huge sword towards Tracer who was just a bit too fast for him. The Brit waited out until the sword disappeared and smacked the man in the face with the grip of her pistol before quickly backing off. The man continued attempting to get a bead on her but never could quite make it. He placed some sort of white swirling puddle underneath himself and continued firing, striking back at Tracer who attempted another smack, sending the small woman flying.

McCree kept himself comfy underneath his concrete blocker, whistling a tune as he waited the fight out, occasionally peeking over himself to check if anything significant happened.

It seemed to him that Overwatch was on the losing side, as they looked like they were backing off, going on the defensive. Cassandra was the only exception as she managed to handle all three of the enemies at the same time, outmaneuvering and outclassing them in every way possible.

Oh well, better luck next time for the rest of them, he thought.

/

"Now what the fuck is going on here!?" Russell screamed as he saw his group, Xiao, Crow and Edgar, go against Tracer, Winston and Cassandra in a massive brawl that could have equated to a massive dust ball in those old Golden Age cartoons. The Hunter blinked as he looked at everyone confused. "Xiao? Mind explaining?"

He pulled out another new weapon in his arsenal, Jötunn. A massive, cuboid fusion rifle that charged up and tracked anyone who was unfortunate enough to be close to the flaming ball of death's trajectory. It looked more like a fancy toaster than a weapon, if anything, however, it did pack a massive punch.

Where Xiao got these weapons, he would most likely never know, but it was like the Traveler personally blessed them. It must have blessed her too as she was somehow generous enough to let go of such amazing weaponry. In fact, he was dumped with a bunch of weaponry from the Black Armory that Xiao didn't like, for some odd reason.

"Hey, come on, put the flaming toaster down-" Russell glared at Xiao and charged Jötunn for effect, shutting the woman up. "Okay, okay. I'll explain."

The tension in the air was palpable as the silence seemed to last for an eternity. "Cassandra, she's the one who attacked us-"

"Because you kidnapped Russell!"

"Not kidnap! Save!" Xiao interrupted the Warlock. "I explained this already!"

"She's a liar!"

He should've expected this, really.

Time, he needs time.

Think, think.

A light bulb lit up in his head.

Russell reached up.

A Golden Gun appeared.

Six shots.

"Don't be stupid-" Xiao was down.

"Don't be stupid, Russell!" His Ghost warned.

"Russell, darling-" Another shot. Cassandra was down.

A third, Crow was down. Edgar could deal with the cleanup, Warlocks tended to be the ones to do that.

The last three went into the Taken Blight. A screech came from it as it exploded.

A portal appeared behind him, and he took it.


I think I'm more comfortable with these shorter chapters to slow down the pace of the story a bit.

Also using this as a way to flex my exotics