The following morning, all five assassins were at the Numbani airport ready to board a flight back to the L.A. All of their weapons and ammunition in their luggage. Each with their own clothing, perfect to hide their identity. Amelie wore a beautifully designed purple and white niqab that blended well with her healing skin, but showed off her eyes and make sure they were the focus. Sombra wore a purple dashiki with secondary yellow and white colors that best suited her, using weave to cover the other half of her head to hide her neural enhancers. Moira wore a dark purple hijab that covered down to her eyebrows, and a black dress that concealed all of her medical equipment she carried. Akande wore a black and white kaffiyeh over his head that reached passed his shoulders and sported a simple white robe and sandals. Gabriel wore a black jacket, boots, and jeans and to cover his face he used a black and grey patterned shemagh scarf and sunglasses to cover his eyes. All of them waiting patiently in line like everyone else.
Once again, Sombra took care of any rearrangements of destination flights. Really, if they all wanted to, they could go anyplace they wished, but Gabriel insisted they all take head home.
"I have no idea how living arrangements are gonna be like now." Sombra sighed as they all waited in line.
"What do you mean?" Moira asked, curiously. Akande turned to look down at her as well. Amelie sighed, hoping to have avoided this topic, yet Sombra, as always, had to run her mouth off.
"Uh...well." She bit her lip nervously. "Gabe's place is a two bedroom with one bathroom..." She chuckled.
"What?" Moira and Akande faces fell.
"It's actually roomier than it looks..." She turned to look specifically at Akande. "Well...you might be a bit too big for the bath...hehe." She laughed nervously.
"Gabriel." Akande turned to his friend. "Please tell me you have another place besides there." He frowned.
"Look, it's all we got now at the moment. But I'll see what else I can do considering how big our group got, and how big it will get soon." Gabriel sighed. "For now, the living arrangements will have to be ladies in the bigger bedroom and us two in the smaller one. I can sleep on the couch if we're too tight in space." He tried to reason, though this seemed to get Amelie to turn at him with a slight frown.
"Are we not sharing a bedroom, mon amour?" Her voiced oozed warning.
"Ooh, you're gonna get it, Gabe." Sombra instigated.
"Stop being childish." Moira rolled her eyes.
"That won't do Gabriel, you can't expect us to live in such a small space like that." Akande said in annoyance.
"Look. I'm thinking how we can split the space here. Look, Amelie." He addressed her first. "Right now, we can't share a bedroom for us two with three others and two bedrooms." He reasoned, though not convincingly.
"This is ridiculous." She scoffed. "You cannot expect me to not share a bedroom without you considering." Amelie pointed to her belly before raising her hands up in an obvious gesture. "Perhaps we can share the smaller bedroom, while Akande and Sombra share the bigger one considering," She turned to Akande. "His larger space intake." She sighed then turned to Moira. "You can have the garage. There are no parked cars and you'll have all the space you need to work and can sleep on the couch." She explained.
All four of them looked at her like she just figured out the problem that they thought they'd spend the rest of the day attempting to solve.
"Why must I co-exist with her?" Akande asked as he nodded to Sombra.
"Ay, no andes de apretado." Sombra teased, winking at him.
"Sombra, learn to control yourself and respect his privacy as well as self-respect." Amelie tried to discipline her.
"Oh. I'll try, but who's to say he'll be able to resist my..." She took a moment to pause before looking at Akande and batting her eyelashes seductively. "womanly wiles." She teased.
"You'll have an easier time seducing a wall than Akande." Said Moira as she pointed the line was moving and their turn for passport confirmation was almost up.
"How would you know?" Sombra turned to glare at her suspiciously.
"When I helped him plan for his release, he clearly had his focus on cooperating to make a successful escape. Any other man in that prison would have attempted to have had their way with me. Not that any could have, but Akande here behaved like a total gentleman and professional escapee." She said. "He likely has his mind on other, more important topics." She said. "Such as the self, and setting his own goals. Such needs are unimportant to him." Moira explained.
"I'm right here, you know?" Akande said, crossing his arms. "I could have told her that."
"She would not have listened to just you. She needed to hear it from another person." Moira replied, causing Sombra to frown.
"If that's the case, why don't you sleep with him?" Sombra mumbled.
"Because I'd keep him up all night-" Moira was answering before interrupting.
"What?!" Sombra almost yelled, but still caught the attention of people around her, to which she glared at them to mind their business, which they did.
"What I meant was, he'd be unable to sleep because I am used to working whenever I can." She answered. "It is better you shared the room with him. My time is put to better use if I worked in the garage whenever I could and slept on the couch when need be." She answered.
"Oh..." Sombra came to the logic of that realization and scratched the back of her head, accidentally causing her weave to come partly undone. "Shit." She exclaimed, trying to put it back in place.
"I still do not like this." Akande grumbled.
"Hey don't worry about it, if we can't be like those two," She pointed her thumb at Amelie and Gabriel, catching their attention. "we can at least be respectable roomies, no?" She said, holding her hand out for him to shake. He looked at her hand hesitantly, before sighing.
"Fine, but you must stop with this type of talk. I would appreciate it if you stopped it." He demanded. "And we keep our physical distance on the bed." He added.
"Fine." She replied. "No promises on the second one, though." She smirked. "Afterall, we are social creatures who seek heat in our sleep aren't we?" She teased, Akande rolled his eyes before looking away. "Ok, ok. Last one I promise." She said, grabbing his shoulder, trying to turn his massive body to face her. "Come on. Shake on it." She held out her hand out once more. He looked at it once again, examining her and she looked genuinely sincere this time.
"Fine." He said as he shook hers in return.
"Oh~!" Sombra blushed. Akande frowned, seeing her reddening as a sign that she was already about to break her promise.
"What now?" He asked bitterly.
"Nothing, it's just look at how big your hand is compared to mine." She let out a genuine laugh, causing him to look down at the difference. Indeed, his dwarfed hers in comparison, by almost three times. This caused him to chuckle at the sight.
"Interesting." He noted.
"And so it begins." Said Gabriel, shaking his head at the display, causing Akande to jerk his hand back and return to his stoic nature.
"You just had to comment, didn't you?" Amelie teased.
"Just noting what I saw." Gabriel replied.
Just then, it was their turn to show their passports. Akande was the first to go ahead of them all, showing his fake identification. The hostess that prevented them from boarding the plane examined it lazily.
"You're all set Mr. Kafur." She said, calling Moira next. "You're good to go Ms. Pepple." She let her go in and then was approached by Amelie and Gabriel. "Mr and Mrs. King, enjoy your flight." She said as Sombra's turn came next. When she showed her fake passport, the hostess looked at it in confusion. "Excuse me, miss...Olivia Colomar? Am I saying that right?" She asked, the spanish name sounding a bit too foreign to her. Sombra smirked at the young woman. Gabriel suddenly turned as she said her name out loud. There were only two other people in the world besides himself, Amelie and Sombra that knew that name. He worried.
"Is everything ok?" Amelie asked, noticing he stopped right behind her.
"Hold on." Gabriel said, examining the situation. "Go, I'll catch up, Amelie." He said, waiting for Sombra. Amelie nodded and went ahead.
"Yes." She was handed her passport back. "Yes it is. Thank you." She said as she followed after her team, standing directly in front of Gabriel. "Hey." She said. "Heard that?" She asked.
"I did. What do you think you're doing?" He frowned.
"Hey, I barely hear my own name anymore, its nice to have to hear it every now and then." She answered. "Even if it is from a random stranger." She crossed her arms. Gabriel sighed. "Fine, I'll be more careful with it." She said.
"Please do." He paused. "I'm not saying this to keep you down, just to keep you and the rest of us safe." He placed his hand on her shoulder. "Now go take your seat, Olive." He smirked under his shemagh, much to her surprise and irritation.
"Seriously? That's the thing you're bringing back from Blackwatch?" She sighed in annoyance and went to take her seat, he followed after her and took his seat next with Amelie.
They all took their seat. Sombra and Akande sat in the middle row, with Sombra in the middle and Akande on the edge, closer to the next row, with Moira in the corner, Amelie in the middle and Gabriel by the window. The captain spoke through the speakers with the usual warnings, while the hostess showed how to operate the emergency items if something happened. Sombra was more prepared on entertainment purposes for the duration of this flight. She pulled out all the stops and brought three separate phones, fully charged, with full intent on doing whatever she needed to do to avoid boredom.
"You carry too many of those. One should be enough if you use the energy wisely." Akande commented.
"This is a seventeen hour flight, Doomfist. And this flight has complimentary wifi!" She said excitedly, pointing to the corner of the screen that showed a strong signal. "No way am I just gonna spend my time waiting and conserving." She showed him all three devices. "Each of these have enough energy to last the whole flight." She turned the other two off. "And oh the apps and shows I've been wanting to download." She said as she brought down the adjustable table in front of her and propped up the device to full screen. "And now I watch." She said, fixating on her screen. Akande scoffed and adjusted his complimentary neck pillow to sleep for the duration of the flight.
Meanwhile, in their row, Moira was discussing matters of importance with Amelie and Gabriel. Such as Amelie's physical therapy to regulate her oxygen intake as well as preparing her body and mind for the upcoming months.
"So from what Sombra has told and shown me, you three seem to have semblance of how to have already started the therapy. An oxygen rich diet, slowly controlled intakes of an oxygen via mask. And extensive cardio exercises designed to get your blood pumping." She went over the list quietly.
"And what else would I need to do to make sure that the pregnancy goes right along with these exercises? Surely what this therapy does isn't what my body needs during a pregnancy, does it?" Amelie asked.
"I'm very glad you've asked that. Because," Moira pulled out a file in her phone. "during pregnancy, your body will need these specific kinds of nutrients, but the most important, aside from your oxygen therapy, would be an iron rich diet, along with vitamins c and d, fibre, calcium, and a lot of water just to name the basics. I don't see how any of this should get in the way of your therapy." Moira said.
"That's good to know." Gabriel said.
"Indeed." Amelie said, looking at the guide for a pregnancy diet that Moira had shown her. "Will my skin tone return to normal?" Amelie asked. "After the therapy, I mean." She clarified.
"It should. I don't see why it wouldn't. Overtime, it should come back naturally. It's the equivalent of a little kid holding their breath, turning red, then purple, passing out, given some space and air, they wake up and go back to normal. This is just a more extreme case of that. In layman's terms of course." She explained.
"Do you think our kid will have our," Gabriel paused and turned to Amelie, she to him, and both back to Moira. "attributes?" Amelie had unknowingly reached for Gabriel's hand for comfort, and he in turn held hers.
"Naturally." Moira said confidently, much to their concern. "It'll likely have a combination of both of your attributes. I can guarantee that when it is born, it will have dark hair, like you both. Though, I've never seen someone with yellow eyes, so I don't know for sure what likelihood it'll be born with them, but brown eyes being a dominant gene, it will have a higher chance of that eye color. Or maybe even a different one perhaps." She pointed first at their hair, then at their eyes, much to their confusion.
"What?! No!" Gabriel rolled his eyes and Amelie turned to him to calm him down before turning back to Moira.
"I think what he meant was, will they have..." Amelie paused for a moment, wondering how this could be worded. "Gabriel's abilities or mine for that matter? Like regeneration, low oxygen levels, extraordinary eyesight, or turning into smoke?" Amelie rushed what abilities she could remember. Moira paused for a moment to consider this.
"That's a bit tougher to confirm. For one, I've never helped deliver a child. Second, I've never imagined it'd have parents like yourselves. And thirdly, I am not entirely sure if the experiments performed on both of you altered your initial genetic material for reproduction." She looked examined them both before turning to Gabriel.
"What?" He asked.
"Gabriel, you were in the best shape of your life prior to the soldier enhancement program, so chances are your kid, excluding your abilities, has a high chance of being born normal and healthy. And Amelie," She turned to the soon-to-be mother. "You were a dancer, a good one at that, correct?" Moira asked, Amelie nodded. "So you'd say that you were in a healthy condition to bare children before Talon?" She asked.
"Of course." Amelie confirmed.
"In any other situation, I could confirm that you'd both would have a healthy child. Hell, an exceptionally healthy child considering. But I will be honest in admitting I do not know how deep the genetic altering goes. Maybe it will have both your abilities or only half of them. Point is. I am not sure." Moira confessed.
"So...what should we do?" Gabriel asked, holding Amelie's hand in his protectively. They both looked at her in hopes to hear something that could calm them.
"At the moment, we will just have to settle with dealing with this as a normal pregnancy. Whatever happens that is out of the ordinary, come to me, I'll examine it and do my best to explain it and take steps to fix or adjust to it. Alright?" Moira asked. Both nodded. It was the best they could hope for at the moment.
They all felt the plane begin to turn onto the flight path and begin to pick up speed.
"Let's try to enjoy the flight. I can't be the only one who will wish the flight would be over in the next hour or two?" She smiled and placed a sleep mask on. Both Amelie and Gabriel looked confused as the mask itself was designed in an animated characters eyes with what looked like part of headband between them. "Do not judge. I can feel it." Said Moira, to their surprise and they chose to look away.
The plane began to go even faster and before they knew it, the plane had already taken off into the air and the couple could not help but look down at the beautiful city of Numbani.
"Maybe one day we'll come back." Gabriel said, looking down at the magnificently advanced buildings and gorgeous landscape.
"I hope so too." Amelie nodded before laying her head on his shoulder. "As a family." She said before closing her eyes. Gabriel looked down at her and smiled. Nodding silently, he turned back to the window to see their take off.
As soon as the plane had gone up three miles, Sombra began tapping on her screen in irritation. Her screen had begun to buffer.
"What?! Nononononono!" She began to panic.
"What?!" Akande opened his eyes and turned to her.
"It's buffering...but it's ok, right? I mean maybe the speed we're going at just caused a hiccup in the signal right?" Sombra forced a smile, though she was clearly worried about what had happened.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking." The speakers said.
"Oh good, maybe he's going to tell us that we can use our electronics." She said hopefully.
"But yours was already on?" Akande questioned.
"Yeah, but everyone has it on all the time." She reasoned.
"We regret to announce that the our router is no longer operating." The captain said. a great majority of the passengers let out groans, but for Sombra, something different had occurred. A fuse inside her had blown out at what she just heard.
"Well, this is certainly a turn of events. And not quite in your favor." Akande smirked.
"We will make up for this inconvenience by letting all snacks and drinks for the rest of the flight free of charge." Continued the captain. Sombra's eyes suddenly sparked in joy.
"Yes! All is not lost my friend! You will come to taste the great taste that are takis!" She said excitedly.
"What are those?" He asked, disapproving of her sudden excitement.
"Only the best snack in the entire world. The perfect mix of lime, spice, and corn and starch that will surely make this flight perfect!" She stood slightly up from her seat to see the aisle. "Oh! Here comes the cart!" She sat back down. "Don't worry, this will be a good bonding experience for us my tall friend." She stretched out in her seat.
"That is the second use of the word friend that does not apply to us." Akande's eyebrow twitched.
"Nonsense, friend! We're sharing a row and we helped each other out already. We're already friends." She grinned, as if her logic was the soundest of the two.
"Hello, sorry for the inconvenience." Said the hostess. "Would you like a snack while you enjoy your flight?" She asked.
"Yes. Give me all the Takis you guys have. Fuego especially. Thank you." Sombra leaned back confidently in her seat.
"I'm sorry miss, but we don't carry that brand with us." She said. Akande smirked as he heard that. Sombra's eyes flew wide open.
"Que..?" She asked, not believing what she had just heard.
"We do not have such a brand. Perhaps you'd like the more popular commercial brand that we're tied to?" The hostess asked with a smile as she pulled out an all too familiar red and yellow bag with a 'radical' cheetah on the cover. "Hot Cheet-"
As the plane flew off in the distance, from outside, a single phrase could be heard from within; wall penetrating, anger induced, scream.
"No mames!"