My name is WIDOWMAKER and, theoretically, my chosen occupation is not feudalistic.
Yes there are captains, each vessel in the fleet a nation and all that, but loyalty to the Successor is absolute. Ships fly and attacks are made at a captain's discretion, but there are few gamblignant left in the galaxy that have not flocked to Doomfist's banner, where the safety of the herd is well-worth the small tithe they pay. There are those close to him, but this collection demands no lip service, holds no title of ensign, lieutenant, or commander. Factions do not spring up where his attention falters. Why would they? There are no ranks to climb: if they want to claim Talon for themselves, they will have to stand up and fight him for it in open battle, to which he will accept any and all challenges with a soft smirk. The Admiralty is up for anyone who is strong enough to claim it. A wilting meritocracy, where status is determined by how many caegars you can grab in a given run.
So then, where does this assembly leave me?
Whatever the unspoken galitime law of piracy supposedly is, allegiances have formed, and they appear to have done so with his blessing. For instance, he could have easily drawn Sombra back to his side once she'd gotten what she'd wanted out of her own schemes—her skills are not so common that she is a dispensable ally. But, he let her go without a fuss, merely that knowing smile of his as she drifted back into her friendship with the Aspirant. When he calls his inner circle, as he has now, the lines in the sand become clear: Sombra lounges near Zarya and Lynx, pretending like she isn't. (As I catch sight of Lynx, my eyes narrow. I still have business with them, but that will have to wait until later.) I and Reaper, of course, ruin her air of nonchalance further by crowding her space.
On the opposite side, though not far enough away to clearly divide between audience and exhibition, Doomfist sits on his throne, a handful of trolls milling at the foot of the stairs. New recruits, as I'll learn, but there is no need to inaugurate every wayward soul that ends up as a mercenary. He is plotting something.
Reaper hasn't taken his eyes off the cerulean. I have known him to stare sometimes, a form of intimidation, but now he isn't even shooting passing glares at the other two, his sole attention focused on the armored one.
"What is it?" I ask, low enough that Sombra will not hear.
He doesn't seem to either. The room is barbed with something, so potent that even Zarya in all her density can sense it, though she doesn't notice the way Doomfist is studying her like a curious lab specimen. He is clearly reveling in the room's frustration, amused by our desire to begin whatever fool meeting this is meant to be.
So he starts. He introduces each troll one by one, and I watch Reaper marvel. It is all inscrutable until-
"And this," he says, and gestures to the shadow emerging from behind the throne, one that must have been there all along but somehow still escaped my sniper's eye, "is Docterror Moira O'Deorain, one of my oldest and most loyal friends. She has done us a great service, securing more…volunteers…that are willing to aid us in our goal."
Then everything—Reaper, Zarya, even the speech—leaves my thinkpan because the figure that steps down from the plinth is, unmistakably, a violet.
I have not seen a seadweller since I was a child. There is a strum of vengeance in me, the immediate flicker of territorial defensiveness because this creature is not only of my ilk, but she is old. Piracy is a young trolls game, more so because it draws in fast and kills early, but no troll this can become ancient without clinging to the empire with tooth and nail, clawing her way to the top and disposing of anyone who gets in her way. This is a woman not to be trusted. Her imminent betrayal is written in the thickened crown of her gills, her unscarred flesh, the ancient growth of her spiraling horns: here is a troll who has lived thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years, and has always struck first.
But she must also be powerful. Duplicity is a trick that runs out fast, and can only be one that tips the scales in your favor, rather than providing actual weight in your defense. Something about her makes my teeth gnash, her pure aura exuding aplomb in spades. That inexorable ooze of arrogance drives me crazy, because I know it is deserved.
I am lunging at her before I have conscious thought.
If were asked, and I will be, I would say it was defensive. The only people who matter to me in the entire galaxy are in this room right now, feet away from what I have come to be absolutely certain is a threat. I've killed for less. But those days are long behind me and the last time this impulse struck so strong I slaughtered all of Sombra's coadjutors in less than twelve minutes. Now I am fangs bared, claws aimed for a quick blow, giving her no chance to anticipate the attack.
There is pain in against my sternum.
I am on the ground.
Her boot is on my throat and I scrabble, panic and bloodlust both flaring as air leaves my body. She reacted before I even got to her, before I could even think-
She is smiling down at me. The pounding in my ears has deafened I to the commotion, but now only the eerie silence lets I know that shouting rang through the chamber not a moment before. Straining to gain control of my panic before it overwhelms me, I blink the lilac from my vision and see what has unfolded.
Reaper has his shotgun pressed to the Docterror's temple. She is unfazed, and part of me realizes that she could knock if from his hand before his finger could even caress the trigger. Not only that, but the goldblood has her pistol raised, pointed at Reaper's back, a look of fury on her face that seems impossible with the lissomness she had exhibited just a moment ago.
Beyond them, only barely within my line of sight on the cold and rusted ground, Sombra has gun pointed at the floor, vaguely suggesting its previous intention. The olive's blade is at her throat.
Silence rings in the room, oppressive, the tableau unmoving. No one dares. Zarya and Lynx are there, as helpless, as useless as the rest of us, just standing while a dribble of purple slides down Sombra's neck. Zarya's eyes keep bouncing in-between them. If I turn just right, I can see where Reaper has his second gun trained on the goldblood, and her cerulean friend is hefting a rocket launcher at him.
A rocket launcher, of all things. It's almost funny. I don't have enough oxygen to laugh.
Instead, the moment goes on, until finally, finally, Doomfist says, "well I think that is enough of that. Moira, would you let her up?"
She smiles, keeping her triangle teeth hidden neatly behind her lips. "Of course." She steps off my neck.
I get to my feet, slowly. The other trolls do not relax: only their arms lower, or their swords withdraw. There is mistrusting looks in the corner of everyone's glance nuggets, and as I slither from Moira, never taking my eyes off her, the volatility of a fully charged FTL core remaining.
"Excuse my Aspirant's friend," Doomfist placates, voice warm and tinged with good humor that I do not feel in appropriate. "I know seadwellers, they tend to run a bit…hot blooded."
"Of course," Moira agrees. "Or natural propensity for violence is what has brought us to the top of the spectrum in the first place."
He laughs. No one else seems to find it funny. "If there were any proof of that, it would be you, Docterror." He claps his hands together, flesh ringing against bronze. "Well, that was quite the series of introductions. You are all dismissed."
We look to one another. He stares, but does not repeat himself.
I slip away, first to escape out the door, but still slow enough to hear him say, "except for you, Aspirant. I would like to speak with me."
My name is ZARYA and I know exactly this feeling as Doomfist summons me back into the throne room. Long ago, what feels like a lifetime, my lusus burbled reverberations through my hive until I sheepishly slinked into the rumpusblock and she pointed one webbed claw at a shattered vase. It was a decorum that had survived three hundred years of Heiress assassinations, yet for some reason now lay broken before us. I said I didn't know what happened. She pointed her claw harder.
That shame is grating on me now, and it takes all my accumulated pride to lift my head and lock ganderbulbs with the Successor.
"I must say," he says, an even voice, one he reserves for private conversations, "I'm a bit disappointed with that display."
"Widow is-" Erratic, fiercely loyal. A dozen descriptors, but all of them sound like excuses.
"I was not talking about her actions," he drawls. "Violets need one another to work off their aggressions, and Widow has been among her lesser for far too long. This was expected."
My mind flicks to the way his eyes followed me not ten minutes before. "You. Planned this?"
At once I berate myself. Of course he planned this, I should have presented it as a statement, not a question. This is why I have Lynx coach me on such things, I am no good at these games of power.
"Yes," he affirms what I both already know. "I arranged it as a test. I wanted to see what you would do when negotiations fell apart, how you would handle infighting amongst my crew. you fell short of my expectations."
"And what gives you the right to test me, Successor?" It takes no effort to summon up the required offense in my voice. In fact, it is almost more difficult to keep the rest of it down.
He stares at me, down the zigzag incline between us. "I thought you came to me as an equal, but I was sorely mistaken." He holds up a spiked hand before I can retort. "That is not your fault. Alternia is meant to cull the weak, letting only the strong arise and join their brethren amongst the stars. You spent your youth wrapped in theory, hiding from your sister, too reliant on your Strategos and other friends. If you cannot control you people, you will never be my equal, let alone the Empress's."
That shame comes back, and I can't help but glance away. He says things I know, that I am not a good leader, that I've arrived here on the skills of others and sheer dumb luck.
"But-" he says, and I am able to look up again. "That can change. There is still potential in you Zarya, that you do not deny your failings has cemented my decision."
"What decision?" Control myself, no suspicion in my voice, completely neutral.
He knits his fingers together. "Tomorrow night, your training will begin. I will grind you down to your barest essentials, your mind, your body, your essence, and build you again. In time, if you commit, you will shed my old weaknesses behind."
I can imagine it, what training the Successor will entail. My bloodpusher beats a little faster. "And what do you gain from this no-longer alliance of equals?"
His fangs glint, as long as any purpleblood's. "You will be the sword that pierces the Condescension's heart, and I will be its smith." The voice that comes from him seems to ring of a thousand dead, and a thousand more to come. He sits back. "But that will be all, Zarya. Return here tomorrow, nine sharp. We have much to do."
So I am dismissed. I flee from the room, knowing whatever game has just been played, my loss is coming faster than I think.
