Winston was busy working away on the technology behind Tracer's chronal accelerator, there wasn't anything wrong with it, but that didn't mean there couldn't be improvements made. Perhaps he could make it smaller, more convenient for Lena to wear, possibly it could be altered so the cooldown would happen faster, allowing her to 'blink' more frequently. It most likely wasn't possible to ever return Lena to how she was before the accident, but what kind of scientist would he be if he didn't try? Re-adjusting his glasses, he activated the test run for his current modifications, these would allow Tracer to possibly freeze time for a few moments. The accelerator sparked and the computers recorded the input, but eventually it fizzled out and hissed. Winston frowned and began to set things up for the next experiment none the less, not entirely sure where he went wrong. Finally, he decided to take a break and sat down in his tire swing and began peeling a banana.
"Winston, it appears Brigitte has returned." Athena stated over the PA system in his lab.
"Oh good, does she seem well?" Winston asked.
"Well… yes. And Mad Dawg appears to be with her."
Winston paused, banana half-way into his mouth, shocked at the fact that Mad Dawg was… well, even found. Let along here.
"Are you sure?" He asked, picking up a tablet and looking at the security feed, and true to her word, Brigitte and Mad Dawg were walking up the path to the main door. "It can't be!"
"Shall I alert the other agents?" Athena asked.
"No! Uh, sorry. Ahem." Winston exclaimed then collected himself. "I'll go see what this is all about, please refrain from alerting the other agents just yet."
"Of course, Winston." Athena replied.
Winston began making his way to the main door, wondering what could've caused Mad Dawg to return, and determined to get to the bottom of what caused him to leave.
Outside…
"You ready?" Brigitte asked.
"Yup! I'm ready to go home!" Mad Dawg said and began walking away, only for Brigitte to grab his shoulder and drag him back. He shook his head and exclaimed nervously; "Nope! Can't do it!"
"Why?" Brigitte asked. "You were so empowered earlier."
It had taken the duo about two days of driving (with a few breaks for naps and food) to drive back to the base, and Mad Dawg had been honest. He told Brigitte almost everything. The truth behind his origins, what caused him to leave, he skipped out on a few details as to what happened while he was hunting Virus (namely working with Sombra and a few other things) and above all, what happened between him and the agents. Brigitte was shocked, maddened, saddened and yet filled with an odd sense of hope. She believed they'd be willing to listen to Mad Dawg, and let him explain what happened, but now, all that courage was gone.
Mad Dawg was now standing in front of Brigitte, with his back to the door, and didn't notice that they had opened and Winston was standing in the door way.
"Yeah, but that was before I got here. In all honesty, I'm freaking scared, I don't want to face everyone! What am I supposed to say?! They trusted me and I destroyed that trust! They were the kindest people they could be and I rejected all that! Now I'm supposed to walk up to Winston and try to explain everything?!"
"Hello Mad Dawg." Winston said, standing in the doorway.
"Hey Winston." Mad Dawg said over his shoulder. "As I was saying, Winston himself will be an issue because he's pretty much the father figure to the team! There was a time I'm take a shotgun shell to the face for him! He always listened and knew what to say to almost any problem. But after what I said and did, I can't just…" His voice trailed off when he realized who was behind him. "Crap." Slowly he turned around to face the space primate. "Hey Winston."
"What are you doing here?!" Winston asked, shocked and delighted at the same time.
"Well, I, uh… I'm…" Mad Dawg sighed and looked down at the ground, then back up. "I'm here to apologize. I want to explain what's happened to you and the others."
"Well of course!" Winston said. "Why didn't you come back sooner? We'd always be willing to try and help in any way we could!"
"You don't get it Winston…" Mad Dawg shook his head, his eyes tearing up. "The things I did… The people I've hurt… I'm a monster…" Mad Dawg looked down and began silently crying. Winston looked shocked to Brigitte who nodded, as if saying that this was to be expected, and he did his best to console Mad Dawg.
"I don't know what you've done. But I can't be that bad." Winston reasoned, trying to cheer him up.
"Look, Winston, can you gather uh, Mercy, Ana, You, and Morrison? The others don't know I'm back yet, and I want to keep it that way for now. At least, until I explain things to them first." Mad Dawg said, wiping the tears form his eyes.
"Of course." Winston nodded.
Mercy and Ana were talking in the mess hall when their communication devices went off simultaneously, the two medics looked at them slightly puzzled but saw it was from Winston and got up to go see what he needed. At the same time, Solider: 76 had just finished some training exercises when his device began beeping in his jacket. Wiping sweat from his forehead he looked at the message and shrugged before throwing his jacket on and left the gym, heading to one of the offices.
"So, what's this all about Winston?" Ana asked, taking a seat next to Mercy.
"I'll tell you once- Oh good, he's here." Winston said as he saw Solider: 76 enter and take a seat at the table. "Well, I'll let him explain."
With that, the doors opened and Mad Dawg quietly walked into the room, his hands in his pockets and not looking directly at anyone. Mercy gasped audibly, Ana raised her hand to her mouth, and Solider 76's eyes widened.
"Hey." Mad Dawg said timidly.
"Y..You're alive?" Ana stuttered.
"Yeah." Mad Dawg nodded.
"Where were you?!" Mercy exclaimed, practically jumping out of her chair and rushing over to him and hugging him. "We've been looking all over for you! Are you alright?"
"Numbani, Oasis, Orkney, Colorado, Japan…" Mad Dawg listed off a few locations. "and to answer your question, sit down and I'll explain."
"You've got a lot of nerve coming here kid." Solider 76 said, his eyes narrowing dangerously, making Mercy give him an angered glance. "You better have a damn good reason for coming here."
"Yeah. I know, and I wouldn't be here without a genuine reason." Mad Dawg replied, his voice quiet and sad.
"So? Why are you here?"
Mad Dawg looked down, rubbing the back of his neck. Unsure of where to start of what he should say. Finally, he looked up and spoke;
"I wanted to apologize, for everything." Was all he said. No life in his voice, but fear and pain was very clear in his voice. "I… I want to give you the truth. About everything that's been happening the past few months and things that happened long before that." He said, taking a seat with Mercy taking a seat next to him. He bit his cheek before deciding on where to begin.
"I want to begin by apologizing for everything I've put you guys through. I made a lot of mistakes, and I believed that I was beyond redemption for the things I did, the thing... I am."
"What are you talking about?" Ana asked, hurt and puzzled by Mad Dawg's reasoning for staying so far away.
"Okay, let's me ask this: how much do you guys know?" Mad Dawg asked, looking around and dreading the answer.
"Not much." Solider 76's unchanging tone remained the same as he looked directly at him. "We know you killed Hakim, we know you were seen with Reaper and Sombra, we know you attacked Genji and Zarya in Numbani, and we know you murdered Virus. But your reasons for those are unknown."
"So, none of you know I'm a Talon-created genetically mutated life form who was designed to be a killing machine?" Mad Dawg asked warily, deciding to get the biggest bombshell out of the way. And it was HUGE. All four agents seemed genuinely shocked beyond words, as if they had just been told that… Well, that one of their agents wasn't technically a human, and was made by Talon. Mercy's face seemed saddened, as if her worst fear was just confirmed. Winston's jaw seemed to drop to the floor, Ana looked terrified and 76 just seemed to furrow his brow, making his reaction harder to understand than anyone else's.
"What do you mean?" Winston finally asked.
"That's what Beta-576 was." Mad Dawg said, sliding the folder across the table. "That's what… I was."
Casting a glance over to Mercy, Winston thought it over. In a way it made sense, his healing ability, natural strength and fighting ability, none of it seemed natural. So, if he WAS genetically programmed to have these abilities, it would explain a lot. But, if that WAS true, why did he have free will? Why not force him to be a servant of Talon?
"Beta-576 originally was supposed to be a cure, the plan was to create a living organism with natural immunities to most deadly diseases, but… Things changed. In the end, I was the result from their plan to create a genetically enhanced life form, one that was human in almost every way, but was stronger, faster, and deadlier."
"From that, they created you." Winston stated, shock, fear and sadness in his voice.
"Yeah. I was made by Dr. O'Deorain, Dr. Baja, and Dr. Ziegler."
The room went silent again, all eyes turned to Mercy whose eyes were welling up with fear and guilt until Winston spoke up again.
"So… near that old mansion, when you attacked Mercy…"
"I had just met Jax, he warned me and I quote 'Not to trust the medic, she did this to you, M-'." Mad Dawg explained. "Then when Mercy said 'Beta-576', I assumed that the loss of memories, the mutations, it was all her doing. At the time, Jax, McCree, and I were the only ones I thought would've known about it."
"You met Jax? How is he?" Mercy asked, briefly getting off track, but the question made Mad Dawg look away sadly.
"He's dead." He simply said, making Mercy gasp again and her eyes widen and water.
"No…" She mumbled, not wanting to believe it.
"The old house was full of Junkers." Mad Dawg began explaining what happened. "He was so badly stabbed and beaten that he was practically mummified with bandages. I tried to help him, but a Junker shot him through the head. I may have decapitated that Junker in response and ran for it."
"And at the old apartment building in King's Row." Solider 76 said, putting it all together. "You had just found out about all this."
"Yeah, and Virus wanted me dead."
"Why?" Solider 76 asked, still trying to figure that out himself.
"Because… Because…" Mad Dawg stammered before breaking down and crying. It took everyone present aback until Mad Dawg finally managed to say: "Because I caused the Omnic Blackout… and killed his family."
Once again, it went so silent you could hear a feather drop. The four agents looked shocked and terrified in disbelief at Mad Dawg, not sure what to say.
"It happened years and years ago… I was nine or ten I think… I was with some old frie- um… people I used to know. We found out that the power plant was screwing low-income people out of power. I tried to restore it… but when I reconnected the power wires, I didn't notice that there were power dampeners, and I pulled them all out at once. When the power hit, the surge went off the charts." Mad Dawg paused for breath, tears still flowing down his face freely. "Virus' sister was in the hospital, she was on support or suicide watch or something… When the blackout hit, no one knows what happened. But she died. He spent nearly the next decade hunting for whoever did it. And eventually found out it was me."
"My God…" Winston finally spoke up, shocked to his core by all this.
Mad Dawg didn't speak for another few minutes, everyone just sat silently. Finally, Mad Dawg shook his head and continued.
"So, a few months ago, Virus hired some freelancers to try and draw me out. They kidnapped McCree and sent me on a wild chase. There was something in my mind, something about the term 'Beta-576' that wouldn't go away. I needed answers but I also was afraid of dragging you guys into this."
"Why?" Ana finally asked. "You know we'd do whatever we could to help you, no matter what the issue was."
"In about thirty seconds you're gonna change your mind." Mad Dawg flatly stated, then added. "The main reason why I wanted to go at this alone was because I believed this was my issue, my life, my problem. I didn't want to bother you all with it. Also, Virus kidnapped McCree to get to me, if you were working with me, what's to stop him from targeting someone you cared for? Hell, even working with Sombra I nearly got an eleven-year-old-child drilled through the skull!"
"I'm sorry… what?" Winston finally asked after finding his voice.
"Right…" Mad Dawg muttered, remembering he needed to explain that. "So, I wanted to kinda drop of the map after I was done, or at least I figured out what was going on. Anyhow, I broke back into Talon's base in Dorado-"
"WHY!?" Solider: 76 shouted, suddenly cutting Mad Dawg off, surprising everyone.
"Yeah, Morrison, I'm sorry, that plan wasn't too well thought out. My reason I guess was that's where it all started, and I wanted to remove all traces of me from their systems. But after I finished there, Sombra… well. She drugged me and took me to her hideout, where I woke up chained upside-down." Ana and Mercy stared shocked at that last fact and Mad Dawg held his hands up. "NOT LIKE THAT." He added.
"I cut my chest open-" He continued but sighed when he saw Mercy's face. "Let me explain. I wired my heart earlier on so if it stopped it would detonate a bomb and destroy her servers, so she agreed to help me find Virus. Partially because of the leverage I had and partially because apparently, they worked together until Virus screwed her over and some other things happening. Anyhow she has this little girl she's friends with, or maybe related to, I dunno. But Virus found out and kidnapped her and shoved her in this cage that had drills attached that would kill her unless I gave a set amount of blood."
"W..what happened?" Mercy stammered.
"What do you think?" Mad Dawg replied. "I sliced my gut open and bled. Enough people already died because of me, I didn't need more."
"And this girl?" Ana finally asked.
"She's safe. She's far away from all this." Mad Dawg stated, knowing that Alejandra was safe.
"Alright, that's good to know. Now I have a few questions for you." Solider: 76 spoke up again, having been oddly quiet the entire time.
"Fire away."
"First of all, that building we found you in, the one where you seemed incredibly unhinged. What was it?"
"It… Oh god…" Mad Dawg began, the fear creeping up his spine at the memory of the twisted things Virus had set up for him.
"It's alright dear. You don't have to answer if you don't want to." Mercy said reassuringly, but Mad Dawg just shook his head.
"No. No more secrets." He grit his teeth and began to explain. "Virus wanted me to remember what I had done. So, he set up mannequins, pyro effects, machines, and the manequins, well, they were being stabbed, burned, ripped apart, electrocuted, crushed by debris… He wanted me to remember what I had done. To watch my pain. He left newspapers of the days that followed what I had done, played screams of pain throughout the building. He even hung a mannequin that was meant to be his sister in the middle of a room while tvs played the report from way back when it happened." Mad Dawg stopped for a moment, and turned when he heard what sounded like someone retching and looked over to Winston who looked like he was about to throw up. "You alright dude?"
"No." Winston honestly answered. "How could anyone… be so cruel?"
"Back when you caused the, um. 'Incident'." Ana began, timidly not wanting to refer to it as what it was. "How old were you?"
"Nineish, I don't remember to well. I just remember the after math, the taste of the metal in my mouth…" Mad Dawg stopped when he realized what he had said. "I don't wanna talk about it."
"Alright. I understand." Solider: 76 nodded, his tone much calmer, more caring, as if realizing his anger had been for not. "So, what happened to Virus?"
"Well, Sombra and I went on a road trip looking for him. After the crap in King's Row, I went to what used to be a secret hideout I had. After I rescued McCree before this all started, I took him there. Needless to say, things were… awkward."
"I'd say that was an understatement."
"Yeah, it totally was." Mad Dawg said with a tired laugh. "Anyhow, Roadhog and Junkrat got hold of one of my transporters and showed up as well. I was thankful for that, because Virus hired the Junkers to come get us. We fought, and you know the aftermath of it all."
"Yes." Winston nodded. "You did all that?"
"I blew the Train Yard to the sky out of desperation. If I died, Sombra would be tortured and executed for my device frying her stuff, and I didn't want her death on my mind just yet. The death of the Junker Queen and the others? I could live with that. After they threatened to do some… really disturbing things…" He grimaced, remembering the Queen's dying words (which do to common decency we omitted, but you can imagine it probably.)
"Where do Reaper and McCree fit into all this?" Morrison finally asked another question, thinking over everything Mad Dawg explained. Jack couldn't explain why, but he didn't feel like Mad Dawg was lying. Most likely he wasn't. after all, why would he?
"Well, Reaper obviously came after Sombra, and when he found out what I had done, he had no choice but to stay on the sidelines until after the Junker attack. I realized that this was getting worse, so I ripped the device out from my chest. Then it turned out Virus was pulling the strings on everyone. He used a Talon IP to hire the Junkers to come after us, and was planning on blaming you guys for the Omnic Blackout." Answering the question that he knew was coming, he added. "I don't know how or why."
"So, what happened?" Ana prodded, wanting to know how far this mess went.
"Sombra decided to stay and help me find Virus. She turned her back on Talon for a time while we hunted for him. In the end, I fought my way through a giant underground maze until I was trapped. I honestly thought I was gonna die, mercs and Talon agents were everywhere. But at the last second McCree and Reaper showed up and saved my ass."
The four in the room looked surprised at one another and then back to Mad Dawg. That's what McCree refused to talk about?! How much did he know!?
"Before you ask, McCree knew I was looking for something called 'Beta-576', and he knew I was blackmailing Sombra into helping me, but that was it. I don't know how he found where we were, or what Reaper was doing there." He stopped and looked at Mercy before stating:
"What do you remember from when you made me?"
"N..not much…" Mercy stammered, feeling faint at the thought of something she did becoming so… tortured. "I left when Moira said she wanted to 'strengthen' you. It was inhuman what she wanted to do. Before I left, I was informed that the proje- that you were dead."
"Hm." Mad Dawg nodded. "Whatever she did… There's something inside me. An animal. It's like Winston's primal rage, but I have no control, it's like I transform into a beast…"
"Transform? How so?" Winston asked.
"My bones twist and break, fur grows everywhere, my teeth fall out and are replaced with what look like knives. It hurts like hell, and something happens to my mind, like a mix of testosterone, dopamine and anger all injected throughout my entire body, and I lost control."
"How long did it last?"
"Well, when it happened in Virus' funhouse it was about eight minutes, when it happened in Forrest Valley, it was only about four minutes, and I had more control."
"What happened in Forrest Valley?" Mercy asked.
"I'll get to that later." Mad Dawg said getting back on track. "We got separated, and I finally met up with Virus." As he said that, the colour in his face drained, and fear seemed to be taking over. Mercy placed her hand on his back and looked concerned at him. "I'm sorry… I don't like talking about it."
Mad Dawg took a moment to try and collect himself. The other agents were nervous now. Mad Dawg wasn't typically scared of much, or he didn't let it show. So, whatever had happened must've hurt him badly. Finally, he looked back up and continued his explanation: "He tracked down the families of the people and Omnics I had hurt, and trapped me in a room, he gave them an ultimatum. Turn off the screen and let me live, or keep watching and watch me die."
"That heartless bastard…" Mercy scowled, genuinely angry.
"Who? Me or Virus?" Mad Dawg muttered, and was then shocked when Mercy slapped him.
"Don't you DARE talk like that!" She exclaimed. "You didn't know what you were doing! You were trying to help people!"
"And now they're dead because of me!" Mad Dawg shouted back, louder and angrier than he wanted to. "They were people with families! With husbands and wives! With children! I'm just some basterdized science freak show experiment who can't die even by goddamn cyanide and carbon monoxide!"
There was a shocked silence until Ana spoke up again, her voice shaking.
"He… tried to poison you?"
"Yeah, a few people shut off their screens but most didn't. And I don't blame them." Mad Dawg sighed, sitting down again. "The toxins did some real bad damage and I honestly thought I was going to die, but he shut them off so he could gloat at my corpse. The asshole didn't bother to double tap. So, I set fire to his face, melted his mask onto his face… The ripped it off and snapped his neck." Mad Dawg felt like crying, like angry tears should be flowing down his face, but nothing came. "After all he did, all the crap he put me through, put those families through, forcing them to relive their pain… I couldn't justify letting that bastard live."
Once again, there was that damned silence Mad Dawg was growing to loathe and fear. He felt for sure like that was it, they'd never forgive him for what he'd done. And the one-man Mad Dawg didn't want to speak spoke up.
"I don't blame you."
"…what?"
"Mad Dawg, when we first found you, you tried to warn us." Jack began. "You tried to tell us that when push came to shove, you would shove a lot harder than others. I don't like what you did, but I don't blame you for it. This man tortured you, mentally and psychologically broke you, forced you to cross all the lines you ever drew. If anyone else here went through all that, I can't say for sure any of us wouldn't've pulled the trigger as well."
Mad Dawg didn't reply, but nodded and everyone knew that it spoke a thousand words.
"After Virus was, ahem, 'dealt with'." Winston said in his awkward way. "Where did you go after?"
"Well, I moved to Numbani. Turned out Virus had stolen a ton of files and info from Talon, again, all part of his weird plan. Because I stopped him, Doomfist offered to let me join, I told him no and we struck a deal. So long as Talon didn't do anything illegal in Numbani, they'd never see me again. He was fine with that, as he believed I wasn't a big enough threat to need to be killed, but also not insignificant enough to be ignored. Ultimately, this cease fire was the best for both sides."
"You tried to make peace with TALON?" Solider: 76 said in disbelief, his eyebrows raising in surprise.
"Yeah, I tried to end the crap between Overwatch and Talon, but they weren't gonna go for that." Mad Dawg sighed. "But since I believed you'd all have me executed for what I did." He continued shooting a quick glance over to Morrison. "I wanted to lay low, go somewhere where you wouldn't find me but I also didn't want to be a criminal."
"Well, we didn't travel to Numbani much because apparently there was some new vigilante there, the 'Fiery Phoenix' or something like that." Winston commented.
Mad Dawg looked away and mumbled. "Crimson Phoenix."
"Wait, how do you…" Winston began asking but trailed off when he realized what Mad Dawg was silently saying.
"Yeah. That was me." He mumbled, blushing slightly with a smile. "Um. I felt bad not doing things to help people. But with the deal with Doomfist, I figured there wasn't much I could do. The costume was me getting ready for this year's Twisted Metal festival and I had Torbjörn's old wingsuit backpack. One night while I was out, I stopped a mugging, then a robbery, and just some small petty crimes. The city caught on though, and I feel really bad for just leaving like I did…"
"Well you did attack some of your own friends and run from them." Ana commented.
"I'll be honest, I didn't know Zyon was an agent." Mad Dawg shook his head.
"Well, like you, he had 'retired'." Mercy explained. "However, his father was taken by Talon and he called us to help him. After we saved him, he agreed to return to join up again."
"Oh. I feel like crap now…" Mad Dawg muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.
"So, what made you want to return now?" Winston asked.
"A few things. First of all, I'm tired of lying. The red tape surrounding my life was choking me. Second, I met Brigitte at Forrest Valley, and had no idea she was an agent, in the end we became friends and I had to save her from a cult of drugged up hippies who thought Widowmaker was some sort of eternal Goddess." When he saw the shocked and confused looks surrounding him he simply added: "Don't ask. I'll explain later."
"Any other reason?" Morrison asked, sensing there was something else, a bigger reason.
"Yeah, the day before we ran into each other in Numbani, I had the worst experience of my life. I'll admit what I did was stupid, but it also kinda had to be done, either for closure, or to try and build some ground work."
"What did you do?" Mercy finally asked.
Mad Dawg sighed before looking back up: "Just hear me out here okay?"
SEVERAL MONTHS AGO…
Walking through a rather long and large hall, Mad Dawg awkwardly made his way through the sea of teenagers and Omnics who surrounded him, each of them having a place to go to, leaving Mad Dawg the odd one out. He looked at the scrap of paper, then back around him, totally lost. Meanwhile. Moira was silently working on a formula on the board, her mind shifting through the different outtakes or altercations that this could lead to. Classes were dismissed for the day and she wanted to try and complete this new hypothesis so she could progress her research over the course of the next few days, possibly discover something new. However, all thoughts of advancement and scientific progress came to a screeching halt when she heard a voice.
"Can you believe this place?"
Turning confused, she was puzzled, annoyed and somewhat disgusted when she saw Mad Dawg at the back of the room, wearing torn jeans shorts and a t-shirt with a hoodie around his waist, looking at a fruit cup.
"They charge you eight freakin' dollars for mostly ice and strawberries! Strawberries! They're the worst out of ANY form of fruit collection… Am I the only one who thinks that?"
"I wouldn't disagree with you." Moira commented in her dry tone. "I'm personally not fond of strawberries."
"I know, right? The seeds are the worst part." Mad Dawg muttered.
"What are you doing here?" Moira suddenly cut him off.
"What? Oh, right. I'm thinking about getting some more education, so I figured I'd see what the schools have to offer. The Hanamura University has a great athletics program, Numbani College has a decent-looking shop class, I mean, I could re-learn some of the basics to wielding…"
"I'm surprised you even went to school." Moira curtly cut him off.
"Meh, I didn't, but you gotta start somewhere." Mad Dawg shrugged, tossing the plastic cup over his shoulder and into a nearby recycling bin.
"Once again, why are you here?" Moira repeated herself, a little more cross this time. She wasn't working with Talon currently, and none of the agents were nearby, and it was obvious without her weapons she wouldn't stand a chance against this mutant freak, but why would he come here so carelessly? Last time she checked, they had a tentative 'peace' with him.
"Akande told me I could find you here." Mad Dawg honestly answered. "I was wondering if we could talk."
Damn you Akande. She internally cursed.
"About what?" She asked, doing her best to hide her disgust.
"Take a wild guess." Mad Dawg rolled his eyes. "I had some questions, and I figured you would be the best person to ask them too, and something tells me you have some questions you wouldn't mind asking me as well."
Moira paused for a moment, thinking about it. If she was serious, she wanted to ask Mad Dawg some questions, but she also wanted to tear him apart. She had always assumed he'd never just show himself in a place where they could talk. But from the looks of it, he was unarmed.
"So, it's true. You are Beta-576." She finally stated.
"The one the only." Mad Dawg said with a mocking bow.
"If you'd be so kind, please follow me." She said as she walked towards her office with an air of dignity and pride. Mad Dawg cracked his jaw to one side and followed her, glancing over at the board as he followed her. The two left the large classroom and walked down a hall, Mad Dawg looking at the pictures and paintings which lined the hall.
"Oasis University is one of the most prestigious universities on the planet." Moira spoke up, not looking back at Mad Dawg as she walked. "It is known for producing some of the most profound leads in scientific fields that have ever been known."
"From what I've heard, your one of the more intelligent profs here." Mad Dawg replied, not mockingly, almost in respect. "Countless papers written and published, dozens of hypotheses' proposed and studied, PhD's, Doctorates, PhZ's, MD's, PhE's, most people can't even count all the degrees... Stuff most people can't even dream of achieving. According to some of the students this whole place seems to be built on your achievements."
Moira couldn't help but smirk slightly as a feeling of pride flowed through her body. She refused to show it, let alone acknowledge it. But the mutant's words felt… good. Finally, the two walked through a large wooden door into an office, Moira sat down in her chair and Mad Dawg sat across from her.
"Well?" She asked with a raised brow. "What's this all about?"
"Why'd you do it? What was your goal?" Mad Dawg asked, jumping straight into his questions.
"Excuse me?"
"You know what I'm talking about." Mad Dawg said flatly.
"Well, originally you were meant to be a living cure, with the modifications made to your genetic structure from such a young age, we wanted to make a cure for illnesses. Even if we couldn't eradicate virus' from the body, with the advanced cell reproduction, it would've been possible to simply have healthy cells attack bacteria to speed along the healing progress."
"How noble." Mad Dawg sarcastically replied.
"You weren't meant to be human." Moira suddenly shot back. "You were meant to be a cure, not a human. For some reason, the cells inside you accelerated so quickly they built a body for you."
"Did you intend for that to happen?" Mad Dawg asked.
"No. But sometimes things don't go as planned." Moira shook her head. "However, with your new body… complications arose."
"You mean people didn't like you cutting me open and trying to turn me into a weapon?"
"You seem to know a lot about what you're here to ask me about." Moira flatly said.
"I saw a few of your vlogs in one of Virus' shacks, the one where Ziegler was begging you not to do something to me… Also, that was another one of my questions, why did Angela leave?"
"Dr. Ziegler… objected to some ideas I proposed over the course of over time working together. Dr. Baja was very neutral, seeing how my ideas were beneficial, some of the time. He was always a little… off. But he did his job well. However, I haven't heard from him in some time now."
"He's dead." Mad Dawg said sadly, and Moira's face changed to genuine shock.
"Excuse me?" She finally asked.
"When I began this quest to figure out what Beta-576 I wound up in this old mansion that the Junkers were squatting in. They were hired by this asshat named Virus to try and get to me. They tracked down Jax and took him. When I found him, her couldn't move his legs or his left arm. His left eye was nearly out and he seemed… burned. As he was giving me some info, a Junker shot him clean through the skull. I made the Junker pay."
"Did… did he saw anything?" Moira asked.
"Yeah, don't trust the medic, she did this to you. Moira." Mad Dawg practically spat.
"That… is troubling. I was unaware of that." Moira said, seeming saddened. "He was a good man and a great scientist."
"Yeah, from what I read he seemed like a great guy." Mad Dawg nodded in agreement, not feeling like throwing another insult right now. "So… Why'd you change? Y'know… Talon and all that?"
"The progress we were making was impressive, but restrictions were beginning to pile up." Moira began. "Since you were, for lack of a better term, 'human'. The experiments were considered inhuman. That was a contributing factor to Angela's departure, she didn't like that we were experimenting on a 'child'. Eventually I was approached by some people who worked for Talon, and they offered me what I wanted, a place to continue my experiments, but with no restrictions, no laws, just the limits of humanity which I aimed to re-write. They offered me funding and everything I'd ever need. Jackson and I agreed it was a worthwhile deal."
"Wait, wait, wait." Mad Dawg said, cutting Moira off. "Jax was PART of this?!"
"Indeed, Jackson believed that the breakthroughs we'd make would balance out the moral grey area we'd be working in. However, he never knew of the price we paid." Moira paused, as if debating if she wanted to tell Mad Dawg this. "In exchange for everything we'd need, they wanted a living weapon. A creature with advance combat knowledge and problem-solving skills, ine which could survive events or accidents that humans could not, and if possible, one that would be able to repair it's won body and adapt to most circumstances."
"So, you scrapped the cure… because of money?" Mad Dawg asked bewildered. "Instead of… y'know, selling said cure and being richer than you ever could have imagined?"
"This was never about money." Moira scoffed. "I wanted to expand how we saw the world, re-write the laws of the human body, evolve us to our next step, make us stronger."
"And how does making me into a werewolf accomplish that?" Mad Dawg retorted, cutting Moira's high-and-mighty feel down.
"Excuse me?" She asked.
Mad Dawg took something out from his jacket, it was a picture of him in his beast form in Virus' death maze.
"Was that meant to happen?" He asked.
"No…" Moira said, her eyes widening in amazement. "I didn't think that was possible…Those implants…"
"Look, I ain't gonna waste our time making you explain how it all works, the important thing is that it does."
"Now that I've answered your questions, I hope you'd be so kind as to answer a few of mine." Moira said, shaking her surprise off.
"Go ahead, I'll try and be honest." Mad Dawg nodded.
"Why did you wait so long to try and figure out where your abilities came from?" Moira asked.
"Well, I didn't know what Beta-576 was up until a few months ago. Before then, I had no memories of anything from before when I was seven or eight. As for my healing factor, I just sorta accepted that it was part of who I was. I assumed I was born with it."
"Well, I might be able to explain your memory loss." Moira replied. "When you were young, and the… 'Beast Protocol' as Jax called it, you went berserk. Someone didn't restrain you properly and…" She motioned to the right side of her face and Mad Dawg tried not to laugh.
"Crap. I did that?" He said in disbelief.
"Yes. You did." Moira said with bitterness clear. "You then ran through the lab and smashed headfirst through a window. You then fell three hundred feet into a canyon and we never found your body."
"Hm… that seems like something I'd do…" Mad Dawg muttered.
"I hope that clarifies your confusion, and now my only other question is a simple one. I'd ask why you refused joining us, but you have your reasons, believing that Overwatch at one point was your 'family'." She explained waving her hand dismissively. "My question is, why are you really here?"
"I… I wanted to figure out some more about who I am, what I am." Mad Dawg replied.
"No, there's something else." Moira shook her head. "What is it?"
"I…" Mad Dawg began but sighed. "I wanted to figure out what this all means for you and I."
"Oh? And what do you mean by that?" Moira asked with a mirthful smile, leaning forward on her desk.
"I dunno. You created me, but we're constantly fighting and…"
"I'm sorry. Are you under the impression that since I created you I have some connection to you? Like I'm your mother?" She said nearly laughing. She reached out and lifted his head up so he was looking at her. "You mean nothing to me. You were just an experiment, and a failed one at that. Now, you're an annoyance at best and nothing to me at worst."
Moira enjoyed the broken look in Mad Dawg's eyes, while his face didn't show much other than 'deep thought' she knew she had broken him, and she felt like that was good enough. If she was honest, she was surprised how honest she'd been with him and vice versa. But now, this time for pleasantries was over. Mad Dawg seemed to know this as he nodded and got up.
"Thanks for your time." He nodded as he walked to the door, when he got to it he stopped. "Oh, uh… You're gonna wanna get the janitor to clean out the toilet in the teacher lounge. I doubler dickered that thing HARD." He said before slipping out and closing the door.
PRESENT DAY…
It was quiet after Mad Dawg finished, Solider: 76 just sat there in disbelief, Winston was pissed, Ana was shocked and Mercy finally broke down and began crying. Mad dawg slowly turned to her, feeling like he did something wrong.
"Angela?" He quietly asked.
"I'm so sorry!" She cried. "I had no idea what they were doing… I should've done more to help you… I should've stayed and fought to save you…"
"Don't give me that shit." Mad Dawg sighed, rubbing his face. 76, Ana, Winston and Mercy stared in shock at Mad Dawg's response.
"Excuse me?"
"It. Wasn't. You're. Fault." Mad Dawg said, emphasizing each word. "You didn't know." Upon seeing Mercy's multi-emotional-displaying face, he decided to explain. "You had no idea what they were truly doing. You thought they were making a cure, not a weapon. Don't EVER think for one second that any of the blood I've shed is on your hands. It's not. When you found out the truth, you couldn't do anything at that point. You jumping ship and trying to help those affected by the shit-show science fair from hell was the right thing to do. Sitting here and blaming yourself for mistakes you didn't make won't help anyone, let alone yourself! Believe me, I know when you need to blame yourself for something, and this ain't one of those times."
After finishing, Mad Dawg noticed the shocked faces from the other agents sitting around the table. Mercy wiped the tears from her eyes and smiled slightly.
"Thank you, Mad Dawg." She whispered.
Mad Dawg turned back to the others then finally asked. "Now what?"
"I'm unsure." Winston shrugged. "At this point, we believed the next time we'd see you would be in the middle of a firefight or behind bars."
"I'm tired of running." Mad Dawg shook his head. "It's doing more damage than Talon ever did, and it's hurting the people I cared for." He paused then added. "And I know this might come across as 'Oh, he's been rejected by the woman who created him, and now he's on the rebound'. But it's not." He looked directly at Jack and continued. "You gave me a chance to be better, to be something else than a monster, and I blew it. Even if you want me gone for good after this, I'll understand. I just wanted to say… I'm sorry. Truly I am."
The four-remained silent, unsure of what to say, but finally Solider: 76 spoke up.
"That dosen't change what you did." He simply said, and the other three agents glared angrily at him. "But it does change where we go from here. As it stands, we'll need to figure out how to move forward from the Omnic Crisis-"
"Wait. 'We'?" Mad Dawg cut him off confused.
"Yeah, there's no way in hell you're doing this alone. It'd be wrong to leave you to deal with this on your own."
"Yeah, I think you might be able to think of something better than my plan of blaming you guys for what I did."
"Okay." Morrison said flatly. "I take back what I said, get the hell out."
"Fine! I will!" Mad Dawg said in an angered tone as he got up and began to leave before sitting back down.
"For now, though, you're more than welcome to stay here. And I think there's some people who would be really happy to know your alive." Winston commented.
"Yeah…" Mad Dawg sighed with a slight smile. "This should be fun."
Opening the door and stepping outside, Mad Dawg looked around before randomly shouting as loudly as he could:
"MAD DAWG'S BACK BABY!"
…only for Tracer to appear literally out of nowhere and tackled him to the ground in a hug.
"So, you think the other's will be willing to listen to him?" Ana asked, looking over to Jack.
"Yeah, if they don't kill him first." Solider: 76 said with a chuckle.
A.N. Done. Finally. I know this was a very talkative chapter (the next few will be as well, I'm sorry,) but I wanted to get back on track. Mad Dawg's finally home. But will everyone be as forgiving as the leaders? What about Dedsec? What about Torbjörn and Mei? Well, if you think you know what's gonna happen or have suggestions, leave a review! Thanks to everyone whose been following and favouriting, it means a lot to see those notifications. Hopefully the next chapter will be up soon.