12. Every Shadow.

He walks among the mortals and they cower from him. The scientists would walk the long way round the base to avoid him. Engineers fumble with tools, orderlies tremble and drop their things, nurses back away in fright. Even the soldiers turn away a little when he is near. He walks among the mortals everyday, and yet he is the furthest thing from a mortal that there could ever be.

It's not so much annoying as it is amusing for the man, as he dissipated into a menacing mist of black and drifted rather aimlessly through the ventilation grates, thus emerging directly into the cool air of the night above without having to navigate the labyrinth of exit tunnels leading out of Talon's Alaskan compound.

The mortals cower from him. Well... most of them, at least.

Not the spider.

It sits atop the roof of a watch tower, inside of which two operatives fidgeted nervously as they saw him billow his way up on top to join the female sniper.

'Widowmaker', he rasps, taloned fingers curling as it flicked him a single blithe look and returned to perusing the endless expanses of frozen tundra with what could only be described as a colossal amount of interest. Reaper squinted. He saw nothing. It was all white; white sky, white ground, white men in camouflaged uniforms hiding in their white dug-outs. Even the floodlights were white, but at least that one part was to be expected.

'You are due for your re-calibration', he wheezes with some effort, his throat burning up, and healing just as quickly.

The spider is silent. Snow falls softly all over the compound.

'Widowm-', he growls, claws reaching for the woman's shoulder. Before he was even half way there she had spun and grabbed his arm at the elbow, ready to break it free of its socket.

Reaper cackled.

He dissolves into a black mist in her vice-like grip and melts into a puddle on the floor, spilling through her fingers, then rising into form once again behind the spider as it turned and glared at him in that way it always did whenever it would fail to hurt him.

'Recalibration', he insists, his own talons now gripping the spider's wrist, squeezing, hard. The thin armguard cracks almost immediately, and he finds cold flesh against his touch as he continued applying pressure. The spider continued glaring at him defiantly even as its bones began to snap in his crushing grip. 'Now.'

The experiments- High Command called them 'upgrades'- had dulled the spider's senses to the point that it could no longer feel pain. That was good, in that he could break it, and it wouldn't complain. But the downside was that it also didn't register itself as being broken, and continued giving him dirty looks as his claws closed fully. Coagulated blood dripped down in thick globs onto the roof. The plop!plop! was probably freaking out the two guards inside, who had no way of knowing what was going on atop their watchtower.

'Go get fixed', he mumbles as he dissolves once again and float away from the vantage point. The scenery was beginning to bore him, and his message had been delivered. There was nothing left for him to do here with the spider. Furthermore, he had to get retrofitted with those new Chaos-X grenades Engineering had promised.

As they saw him float away the two Talon watchmen gave out an audible sigh of relief.

Snow continued falling softly across the compound.

Widowmaker cradled her broken wrist and gracefully grapple-hooked her way down to the solid ground, the dull ache in her arm probing at the back of her mind dully, like as if she was under water. She headed for Medical.

The fleet leaves for Volskaya at four in the morning; till then, she had but a few hours to get herself patched up, re-calibrated and maybe get some rest.

Not that it actually really mattered; she never really needed rest anyways.

(break)

'Volskaya Industries' been hit', the A.I spoke calmly, and Naveen was frozen for a second as he took in the news.

'Been hit!?', he exclaimed as the rest of of the staff turned towards the huge holo projector now showing a panning shot of the Russian complex, 'by who?'

Live surveillance footage of panicking Russian guards running around like headless chickens was brought up. The moment Naveen regained his senses, he ran over to the masterboard and punched the big red button jutting out of the central console as the camera zoomed in on a shadowy wraith unloading twin midnight-black shotguns into the arm of a Volskaya Mech unit.

Talon. A cold shiver claimed every single souls in the room as the wraith was knocked against a bulkhead by the Mech and cast the surveillance camera a final hateful glare before literally dissolving into a black wisp and slipping away. The view switched to a city view, and Naveen almost flipped where he stood as a massive explosion blasted buildings right out of their foundations. The staff around him too took multiple steps back, the surreal sight almost too visceral for them; it was as if the huge jetting fires were themselves bursting into Helix's Europe Headquarters. The feed jumped again. And again. And again. As each new feed came into place it was suddenly shot out; leaving a broken, cracked mess through which only vague shapes could be seen.

But the audio worked just fine. And there were screams. Screams everywhere. That, and gunfire. The steady, undulating 900 rounds per minute staccato of unmistakable Bastion units firing their bolts off filled the room. At last, as they managed to hijack the feed from a convenience store shop at the edge of Victory Square, the scenes of destruction were laid before the horrified members of Helix International.

Black pods were descending from a Leviathan drop-ship as Specters circled the massive carrier raining rockets down onto Petrograd. Immortals waddled into the square, trunk sized plasma canons blasting truck sized holes out of the scenery while Sentries streamed out of Gateways hovering mere feet above the ground, powered by massive tele-portal units.

'What the fuck is going on!?', a radio technician could not contain his shock and blurted out. A single gun began firing. Just by the sound of the bolt clacking, everyone could tell that it was old. Very old. Probably even an AK-47, the classic gun that had been around for more than a hundred years. Ping!Ping!Ping went the shells against the lead Omnic Immortal's Barrier shields, bouncing off more harmlessly than rubber pellets. It stopped out of curiosity and scanned the area as the sustained rifle fire continued.

But it ended quickly, though. A massive rocket from an interested Spectre took care of whatever building the resistance was hiding at.

'W-what..?', Naveen was speechless. A laser flicked over the camera, followed a split second later by a plasma bolt that toasted the contraption.

The display went black.

Seconds passed before another shot took the screen, this time of the outside of a petrol kiosk, far from the city centres. The thick forest of trees blocked everything on the ground, but the view in the sky showed three more Leviathans descending from the murky stratosphere in the distance with hundreds of menancing black pods dropping from their sides.

'Volskaya was just a feint blow...'

The face of Russian Defence Minister Ivan Ivanov Ivanovsky took up the entirety of the screen as klaxons began blaring in the distance, signalling an urgent call for all Viking pilots to abandon their chores and get back to their crafts.

He was screaming his head off.

'Send in the troops', Naveen muttered to the nearest person who would listen, his eyes too absorbed on the man on the screen who was being surrounded by a phalanx of security guards and soldiers as they escorted him through a tunnel. The overhead lamps shook with concussive blasts from what were probably Immortals above.

'Send in what troops sir?', Michael asked haltingly, hand hovering over the holo console as he waited for his order.

'Send in the troops!', Naveen turned to him; visceral, yelling, as another massive explosion rocked the holo feed, 'send in everything!'

(break)

'This is not a battle! This is war!'

Angela could only agree.

'I hate urban warfare', the Captain mumbled as she ducked back behind cover and reloaded her rocket launcher.

Angela also agreed with this.

From her position, she could see hundreds of Federation troops and Helix 'advisors' engaging the Omnics in the blasted Victory Square. The fight night not have been anything one-sided, but there were no indications that either sides were even making the least bit of advance either. Russian siegetanks prevented the Immortals from advancing on the so-called 'soft' human troops, while Sentry forcefields discouraged the humans from making any push of their own. It was a literal tug of war paid for with human lives and Omnic metal scraps. How sad...

For all the advances in ways to kill things in the last a hundred and fifty years, warfare that day might as well have returned to the muds of Flanders.

'Bravo Company, forward!', Pharah screamed into her comms as a massive pod crashed into behind the Omnic lines and she struggled to make herself be heard. Bravo company's men burst out of hiding and dashed forward under massive cover fire from the Siegetanks and the other three companies that had flanked a semi-circle around the south-western side of the square. Spectres zipped across in the sky overhead, attempting to disrupt the Federation leap-frog with their Brutalizer Air-to-Ground missiles even as allied Vikings flew an aerial bubble of protection over the ground based assault, to competent effectiveness so far.

At the blasted pedestals statues of Great War heroes the men of Bravo took cover and tossed flashbangs and smoke haphazardly over their positions to hopefully confuse the defenders. To zero results whatsoever; split-second erections of force fields on the shattered steps leading into the museum had the sloppily-aimed grenades back to the friendly lines. Oh shit.

'Repulsars!', the panicked cry had Mercy nearly ripping her earpiece off as whoever let out the horrified sound was soon cut off with a fwoosh!. She immediately saw why. From the crater behind the Omnic line a towering Colossi clambered onto its tripedal legs and began shooting thousand degrees plasma from its twin thermal lances, literally pulverizing the front of Bravo company as they scampered back in hasty, disorganized retreat. Rising above the smoke of smoke frags, it was an otherworldly horror; an invader from stars beyond our system, and now- living, walking death. A massive explosion knocked her onto her back and Angela stared on in horror as the crumbling to her left totally gave way and the deadly column of rubble began falling towards her. Bracing for death; Angela was surprised to find strong arms around her, dragging her away at literally the proverbial last second.

'Get it together!', her Captain yelled at her, wrist mounted concussive blaster firing wildly away. The enemy must have been much closer than she realized ,'we need you!'

'Vikings, now!', the coms channel became flooded with unintelligible sounds as the Omnic surge had the Federation troops panicking and totally forgetting radio etiquette. Mercy gave her Captain a worried glance as the latter watched the Omnic advance grimly, single armored hand absentmindedly trying to tear away her earpiece; to no effect- it was intergrated into her Raptora armor.

It seemed like all was lost as the heavy supporting artillery siegetanks went silent, too.

'This is not the end...', but there was desperation in Pharah's voice as she spoke. Activating her guardian angel, Mercy flew to a Federation soldier's side and turned to survey the devastation unfolding at her back. There was little they could do; the whole company was collapsing. Sparse, unaimed fire trickled in from their flanks but it was not enough.

Pharah fired her rocket launcher and the missile arced forth... right into the hardened field barrier of a waddling got its attention, and it paused mid stride to turn and train its plasma cannons on them.

'Down down d-'

The blast left her ears ringing. At this proximity, it felt like a thousand thunderclaps rolled into one single moment and compressed into her ear. Followed immediately by another. Does this never stop?! But wait!

The busted shell of an on-fire immortal stared at her, and another rocket came down from the sky like as if Zeus himself had raised his thunderbolt to smite the Omnics down.

'Rocket barrage incoming!', she looked up just in time to see a squadron of vikings unleash their Repulsar rockets at the ground push, even at the cost of their own lives; for turning their weapons on the Omnic units on the ground left them completely exposed to the Spectres that wasted no time in swooping in to strike down the Helix-Federation crafts.

And yet, it was enough. What?!

Bravo halted as it suddenly realized that virtually the entire front phalanx of Omnics had been turned to smoke and dust. First one, then two, then two dozen, then almost all of them began unloading clips into what remained of the Omnic advance. As if summoned by an unseen god the Siegetank volleys started up again, pelting the enemy backlines with heavy, delibitating shock waves that slowly but surely confirmed that perhaps, today, mankind would emerge ascendant on the battlefield.

Recognizing the sudden turn in the tide, her Captain fired off her last two rockets in the general direction of the opposition before slapping on a fresh load and glancing behind her quickly to check that her angel had her back. She did.

'Into the fray!', Pharah screamed as she launched herself into the air, and Mercy, after one split second to take it all in, engaged her own wings, and followed suit.

There was still fight left in her,yet.

And this battle, will be won.

A/N: Shorter chapter than expected because I'm also working on my pharmercy weekly prompts but... I hope you enjoyed it :D