Tainted Resurrection (Overwatch game fan fiction)
By Heather Killough-Walden
The woman couldn't make up her mind. That's what it all came down to, he knew that. That was what did it. Her goddamned indecision… in those last few heartbeats, in that space between this option and that – between him and that other guy – that's what made the difference. She'd had two men on her mind. And in a most un-Mercy-like manner, as she'd had her hand pressed to Gabriel's chest, her eyes peering into his and the light of her magic surrounding them both, she'd realized something.
She'd realized that if Gabriel died, she would no longer have to choose. The torment would be over. The stolen glances, the gnawing desire, the love she unlawfully possessed for two men… it would all be over. Just like that. Because one of the men would be taken out of the picture.
He saw the thought flash across her beautiful gaze. He saw it. It was a literal darkness, a shadow passing through the blue of her eyes.
It was that realization, that evil, undeniable, and nasty truth, that made Gabriel what he was today. The darkness of that thought infused Mercy's magic. It tainted it, and in turn, it tainted him.
And Gabriel Reyes… became Reaper.
"We have another one."
Angela Ziegler looked up from the map she'd been studying as a friend walked through the door of her study. Lena Oxton didn't usually "walk" through her door – she didn't normally "walk" anywhere. She usually ran. But something was slowing her down this time, and Angela had a feeling it had something to do with the same thing that was putting the frown on Lena's face, and the wrinkle of stress in her young forehead.
Lena stopped in front of the large table with the map and slid her hand into her jacket, extracting a small piece of paper with black lettering.
Angela knew what it said without even having to read it, and the fact that this was the second one of its kind made her heart sink into her guts. Lena held the note out for her, and Angela took it silently, gazing at it with a hopeless sense of dark destiny:
Beg for Mercy
It was scrolled in thick black ink that ran along the edges, a careless, cruel lettering that almost felt as if it had been carved with blades rather than with the tip of a pen.
"Where is he?" Angela asked. She wasn't referring to the person who'd left the note, but to the victim to whom the note had no doubt been attached.
"He's dead, Mercy," said Lena. "You know you can't help this one."
"Lena, where is he?" she repeated, her voice tight.
Lena stared at her in silence a moment, her lip twitching. Then she sighed heavily. "I knew you wouldn't back down. Come with me. Try to keep up."
So she did. She went with Lena. She had to use her staff to keep up with the girl. There was a reason her friends referred to Lena as "Tracer." She would be there one moment, and gone without a trace in the next. Moving so fast, she slipped through time – and even a little backwards. Just never enough to really, really matter. Like now.
Angela landed beside her friend and slowly moved toward the body. A point-blank shot to the chest had taken the young man out. The wound was deep and it was mean. It was what Angela called an ending shot because it ended a person. And there was one being in the world better at those particular shots than anyone.
Angela gracefully knelt and placed her hand to the man's bloody, scorched chest. She closed her eyes. She concentrated.
Nothing happened.
She gritted her teeth, made a wish, and tried again.
Just like the last time. Nothing happened.
"Mercy," said Lena softly. "He did something to this one, just like the other one. You can't resurrect him."
Angela stared down at the corpse. "Why doesn't he just kill me?" she asked softly, disappointment rising like acid indigestion to sit on her tongue. It tasted like poison.
"Because then he couldn't torture you."
Angela looked up at Lena.
"Sorry, luv. But you know it's true." Lena shrugged helplessly.
"This has to stop," said Angela. She looked back down at the body. The man was young, brown haired. Brown eyes stared sightlessly at the stars overhead. He was dressed in jeans and a brown leather jacket. Scruff covered his chin. He was handsome.
He looked terribly familiar, Angela realized.
"They both look like Jesse," she said aloud, her voice a mere whisper with the realization.
"Cor, they do!" said Lena softly. Both victims did. "You don't think…."
"No, I don't think," said Angela. "I know. He's killing men who look like McCree. And when he grows bored with that, he'll go after Jesse."
"We've got to warn him!" Lena exclaimed. And just like that, she was gone, nothing but a fading light stream left behind her. When it, too, was gone and Angela was truly alone, she pulled out the two notes that had been left for her, each tacked brutally to the chest of a murder victim using a hammer and nail.
They were almost exactly alike, and the handwriting was unmistakable. Angela closed her eyes and touched her forehead. Her chest ached.
Many years ago, she had been in love. She was young and she was foolish, so she loved a man who was reckless and a little mean. She loved him because she could see there was good in him, and when he was around her, that good came out.
But there was a darkness in him too. And though it pulled her in, like a black hole's gravity, it cast a shadow around him, an aura of murkiness and of unease. She hoped that with time and with patience, the darkness would fade. It would brighten. Go away.
But then Jesse McCree came along.
Angela found the man kind and polite. He was a little funny. They became friends.
But the man Angela loved saw it differently. The black tincture resting in his veins and shading his heart would allow him to see it no other way. No matter what Angela said. No matter what she did. His jealousy was towering. It was a metal structure, a hulking beast, larger than both of them together. She couldn't beat it.
The night she decided to tell him she could take no more, a fight broke out. He was shot. He took the bullet in the chest, point blank. It was a new weapon designed by the enemy, one vicious and hard-hitting. It tore a burning hole through him that left him lying on the ground, eyes wide open but seeing less and less with each passing second.
Angela knelt beside him, too late to heal him, but ready to bring him back the moment he crossed over.
Just before his battered heart beat its final beat, he looked into her eyes. And there was that darkness. She saw it so clearly, so deeply. She felt it. A shadow of doubt.
And then he was gone. And she was placing her hand to his ripped-open chest and willing him to return. "Heroes never die," she whispered, meaning it with all her heart. But a tear slipped from her shut eyes to trail down her cheek, because she knew.
She felt that too.
When he came back, he came back wrong. He came back different. Ever-shifting, ever-changing, his new form as cruel to him as his emotions had been in the last. She watched open wounds slice their way across his once beautiful body, a body she had loved and known intimately. Then she watched as they closed up again. And reopened.
Terror gripped her.
"Gabriel," she said breathlessly as his gold, eerily glowing eyes opened, and in shock and fury, locked on to hers.
But he was Gabriel no more.
Author Bio
Heather Killough-Walden is a California native currently living in Texas with her husband, child, and rescue cat General Leia Organa, and KCCS Tinkerbelle. She is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Big Bad Wolf series, The Kings series, the Lost Angels series, the Monsters series, the October Trilogy, the Neverland series, and The Chosen Soul series. Heather's educational background includes religious studies, archeology, and law. She has traveled all over the world but hopes to one day live in a town by the sea, with four seasons, lots of trains, and a world-class hockey team.
Follow Heather's bestselling work in its entirety on:
Facebook: /HeatherKilloughWaldenFB
Instagram: heatherkilloughwalden/
Goodreads: /HeatherKilloughWaldenGoodreads
and through her blog at