I don't dodge his next attack.
The flat, rippling planes of his flesh fist catch me in the gobble hinge, and I topple, only righting myself in time to not be KO'd by his next hit. He has yet to strike me with the gauntlet. I could survive, I're sure of it, enough that I'd claimed as much so confidently an hour before and he'd grinned at I with that tiger's smile. Now he doesn't even bother as a single-armed strike across my back brings me to the metal floor.
"Up, Zaryan," he tells me when I do not immediately rise.
"I…will…" I wheeze.
I should. I will.
I stagger, dizzy, both fists raised to his one. He smirks, casting a glance over his shoulder at the Captain and tells her, "a bit more pressure, Ana. You go too easy on her."
The Captain's eyes narrow. At first, there is nothing, but after a moment's hesitation the pressure at the back of my pan increases from a thrum to an ache, and I nearly fall again.
The only reason I don't is because the Successor is darting forward, a clean right hook that I block and a knee to my gastric sack that I don't. I fold, stumbling before Doomfist as he shakes his head.
"Up. You have spent too long too soft, Aspirant. The Condescension holds within her claws ten times this strength."
"The sleep psionics…" I mutter out through a mouth full of blood, even as I know it is a foolish thing to say.
Disappointment clouds his eyes. "A fraction of what you will feel when you face her. Think, Zaryan. The Empress is you: of your blood, of your lineage. She is you and you are her but only in her most larval form, at her lowest point. She has had hundreds of thousands of sweeps to hone what her DNA has given her, stretched her psionics abilities to their physical limits, fended off death itself for those around her. You wish to overthrow her, to tear her from her throne, yet you cannot face me? Up."
I get up. Within eleven minutes I am on the ground again.
He shakes his head. "That will be enough for today. Someone get her some juice."
The world feels like cotton around me, fuzzy at the edges of my skin as I'm moved about like a doll. The Captain says things to me, at me, in my ear as she tenderly and calmly patches me up. I ignore all of it. I suck down the rejuvijuice that is shoved in my hands and let myself be hauled toward the medbay. It is only when I pass by a portal to the outside, the vast canvas of stars, my own pale reflection floating translucently along its surface, that I realize that the arms supporting me are not Ana's.
"Lynx," I mutter.
"No other."
"I did not tell you where I was going."
"I am your Strategos, it is my job to know the goings on in this ship. Now, be quiet, your lifeblood's going to fall all out of your mouth if you keep doing that."
So I quiet, and the two of us drag along, foot by foot, the portholes sliding by like rare glimpses into the future if the future were nothing but void. Our reflections chase us, a pair of trolls stretched long by time and obligation.
"It is necessary," I say.
"I'm sure you think so."
"You disapprove."
"Of course I disapprove," Lynx scoffs. "And you know I disapproved before you asked. That is why you hid this from me."
I don't deny it. "I am not ready to face her. I must undergo the training she has, a millennia packed down to a few decades. Doomfist understands this."
"You are, and always will be, awfully big headed Zarya," they snort. "If you ever face her in single combat we've already lost. The whole point of this revolution is that it is not only on you, you know. That is what makes us different from her."
"Are we truly so special?" I ask bitterly. "I am just Her, after all. Her again and again, over and over as the cycle repeats."
The silence hangs heavy between us.
Quieter, much quieter, I say, "I am not Her."
"I know," they tell me.
The doors of the medbay rise up in front of me and I have a heartache that cannot be summed in words as I feel the pressures of my wounds and my misery and my ribs that were so fruitfully kicked in. The flesh on my face is tender and Lynx's grip under my arm jerks discomfort, yet it is the only thing holding me up. Shouting comes to a blundering halt as we enter.
Moira acknowledges us first, and offers a dismissal to her verbal sparring partner. "Another time, Widowmaker," she says evenly, too smoothly, sea before a storm because Widow turns to the waves and snaps back, "no."
"What is-" is all I say, for Widow begins before I can end.
"No, this is not a debate, I will not come back another time, and you will not go near him again."
Reaper is lying on a plank between them. Since he's acquired the mask I have become much worse at reading his expression, but the way his head flips between the two women reeks of a deeply saturated discomfort.
"It will be very difficult to treat him without going near him," Moira says with every shark tooth in her pharyngeal jaw.
Widow looked like she might jump right then, wrap her grapplekind around the docterror's throat and try like she has so many times. "What is going on here?" I bark again.
"O'Deorain is going to stop experimenting on Reaper," Widow says through clenched bone nubs. "Right. Now. Or her desecrated floater is going to splattered over the hull come tomorrow evening."
"How many times must I say it my dear?" Moira sighs. "It is not an experiment. I am treating him. His condition is…most unstable."
"Liar," Widow bites.
The altercation unfurls before me, again, a callback to the ring and I am once again stuck between those indecisions. Why does it always come to this? I have my my ambitions, my plans, but in the heat of the moment I freeze. A small hand presses warm into my side. In assurance or in restraint I am not sure.
"Reaper has volunteered for this," Moira deflects easily. "Together, we are making so much progress."
I think I hear him swallow. "Look Widow, without Moira's help I'd be dead-"
"-And that does not mean you owe her your life," Widow finishes. She has not taken her lookstubs off Moira. She may never. It may be the last thing she sees and for one blinding moment I can imagine a possible future where the ancient seadweller culls a mere guppy with barely a sweat. Where Reaper deteriorates. Where Sombra fades once more because she uses pain as an excuse to pry herself away and always has.
"Enough," I say, and in this moment, I am not Aleksa Zaryan, I am not Doomfist's prodigy, I am not the tenderized bit of meat that wobbles in the middle of the infirmary. I am the Aspirant. I am their Heiress. "Moira, you will cease your experiments."
Her head moves to me. Surprise lifts her brows, but more than that is condescension, as though she is used to minnows that think they can swim so close to her mandibles. "Like I said, they are not experiments-"
"I did not ask," I say. Her jaw locks. "I do not care whether Reaper has agreed or not: you do not have permission to make contact with my crew. I have given you an order, and I will hear no more on it."
I stare her down. There is a challenge, a dare to bring up the Successor's name, to use him as a shield, someone over my head. My eyes openly invite her to take it.
After a moment, she drops her chin. "As you say, Aspirant."
"Yes. As I say." With the remaining authority in my voice I tell her, "now, I am in need of medical attention. This is now your focus."
"…Of course, your grace."
I sit upon a spare recline. Moira busies herself, a state I have not observed before, and I wonder if for the first I am seeing her put off her game. Widow watches me, for a moment standing still in time as the scene moves on without her. The two of us lock eyes. There is the slightest shift to her, a tilt to her head, what might be a nod of acknowledgement or—dare I think it— respect. The bow retracts once more, and then she is gone. Reaper has slunk out in the gaps between those moments.
As the docterror finds what she needs, a body joins me at my place of rest. "You are not Her," Lynx tells me. "The difference is in the choice."
"Which choice," I ask as I look directly ahead.
"Mine. And who I've followed, in the end."
