"Tracer!" shouted Mercy, trying her best to keep up with Tracer while simultaneously avoiding the several hundred shots that the incoming omnic horde were firing. "Get to cover so I can heal you!"
"Whoops!" Tracer Blinked behind a large chunk of debris, just tall enough to completely obscure her from the enemy. "Sorry, Mercy!"
"You'll be sorry when you take a bullet to the ankle," muttered Mercy. She zipped over to Tracer and fired a healing stream from her Caduceus Staff. Within seconds, Tracer was back at full health. As soon as she was, she recklessly zoomed back into the fray.
"Mercy, requesting assistance!" called DVa. Mercy rolled her eyes, then zoomed as quickly as she could from the safe confines of her cover. She booted up her Staff with another charge of Healing, just barely keeping Hana's MEKA from exploding.
"Careful, DVa!" warned Mercy. "If you have to eject, I'm not sure you'll survive in this battlefield."
"C'mon, Mercy, I'm tougher than I look," said DVa with a smirk. "Hey, mind boosting my damage?"
Mercy shook her head, then switched streams on her Caduceus Staff to damage boost, at which point DVa maniacally laughed and began firing wildly into the approaching horde of robots. Mercy had to hop, duck, shimmy, and slide in order to avoid the hail of gunfire coming from the omnics that DVa didn't destroy.
"A bit of help, please!" begged Mercy.
"Huh? Oh, Angela, you should get outta here," said DVa. She activated her boosters, then zipped forward into the crowd of bots before hitting her Self-Destruct button. "Nerf this!"
"Hana, no!" Mercy looked around in terror, trying to find someplace safe to hide from the blast.
"Quick, over here!" called DVa, curling up behind some chunk of debris. Mercy quickly activated Guardian Angel to swiftly fly to safety.
Tracer blinked directly into her path, smashing into the medic and tangling their bodies together as they hit the ground.
"Tracer!" snapped Mercy.
"Whoops! Sorry, Mercy!" Tracer didn't say any more before Recalling back as far as she could, which would put her a safe distance away from DVa's exploding MEKA.
Mercy didn't have the same luxury, and was caught in the massive explosion.
"You have ten seconds before I start shouting," said 76, pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly. "You have that long to explain to me how Angela ended up almost dying on what should have been a simple mission. Your time starts now."
As soon as they arrived back home, 76 sat the two girls down in the briefing room while Mercy was essentially put back together by Zenyatta and Ana. The whole time, Lena and Hana sat staring at the ground in shame. Not only did they get their good friend hurt, but 76 was going to chew them out for it. Jack Morrison was well known for his combat prowess, but he was legendary for his lectures.
"We're really sorry, Pops," said Tracer. "We didn't mean it, honest."
"Yeah, Gramps, it was a total accident," said Hana. "We got a little too excited and I guess that made us careless. We feel really bad about what happened."
"Super bad."
"Mega bad."
"Hyper bad."
"There's not enough words that mean 'really' for how bad we feel," said Hana. "Like, for realsies, we feel totally sucky."
"We'll do anything to make it up to her," said Lena.
"Anything?"
All heads turned to the door and the source of the voice. Though Angela Ziegler was alive, she was in a bad way; She wore a neck brace and several bruises, walked with a limp, and seemed to be using her Caduceus Staff to keep herself upright.
"Oh my god, Angela," gasped Tracer. "Are you alright?"
"I'll live. Probably." Mercy coughed, clutching her neck gingerly. "But what you were saying a second ago. You would do anything to make it up to me?"
"Anything at all!"
"Well, I shouldn't be on my feet for a few days." Mercy coughed weakly. "Perhaps even a week or two. I need you two to carry my weight."
"Huh?" asked Hana. "What do you mean?"
"You two should take my place. Overwatch cannot afford to go for very long with a Healer missing. You two must take my staff and do my work for me."
"Uh… I don't know, Angela. I'm a Tank, I don't know anything about healing," said Hana. "And Lena is DPS, she's your exact opposite."
"But, as Hana was going to say, we'll give it all we've got!" promised Lena.
"Lena, what're you—"
"Go ahead and rest, Angie, we've got everything under control!"
"Thank you, dear. It means a lot to me," said Mercy. She offered her staff to the two girls. "Here, you will need this."
Lena gently took the Caduceus Staff in her hands, feeling a strange current run through her. It was like the warm, fuzzy feeling of a healing stream crossed with the chilling adrenaline of a damage boost. Simply put, it made Tracer feel powerful.
"Normally, the Caduceus Staff can only be fired by me. But, for you two, I've altered it to accept your DNA as well," said Mercy, somehow still standing despite giving up the staff. "While I am away, you two will be the only ones to use it. Furthermore, Lucio, Ana, and Zenyatta are on extended missions to the moon, to look after the scientists at the Horizon colony." She let her words hang in the air for a bit. "You two will be the only healers in the OverHouse."
"W-wow," said Lena. "That's a lot of responsibility…" Then, she remembered her promise and shook her head firmly. "But we'll handle it! Get better, Angela, me and Hana have things well in hand. Let's go, mate. We've got a team to heal." Tracer grabbed Hana's hand and all but dragged her out of the office.
Somehow, during the whole ordeal, Tracer and DVa had managed to ignore Mercy's mischievous smirk.
"Alright, Angela," sighed 76. "You can heal yourself, and the other healers will be back tomorrow from Ilios. So what was that crap you just shovelled?"
"It has been far too long since my last vacation," said Mercy, pulling off her neck brace. "What's more, I think those two have taken their healing for granted. So I thought I'd teach them a little lesson in protecting their healers."
"That's… unlike you."
"You can only get blown up about four times before it stops being fun."
"Fair enough. I was just going to make them drop and give me a hundred," said 76, scratching the back of his head. "But this… Much funnier."
"Ja, I thought you'd say so." Mercy grinned, uncharacteristically mischievous. "So, I'll see you in a few days. I have to go pack."
"You sure they'll be able to pick up your weight?"
"Well, a few of you can heal yourselves, and I'll only be gone for a week, at most," said Mercy. "I'm sure they'll do just fine."
"Hm. Well, I've got my Biotic Field, so…" 76 shrugged. "Have fun, I guess. See you when you get back."
"Auf wiedersehen, Jack. See you soon."
Mercy fumbled with her keys, eventually sliding her key into the lock and twisting. She lifted her suitcases and stepped into the house. Her vacation was over and, though she enjoyed quietly relaxing very much, it was good to be home. She couldn't wait to see her friends, who were practically family, after her five day absence. After living in the OverHouse for so long, it was strange to go a day without having to heal someone who had been burned or blown up.
As Mercy neared the living room, she began to smell smoke. That was concerning, to say the least, and Mercy picked up her pace. She followed the smell, which took her upstairs and to Tracer's room. Mercy set her suitcases down, and pushed open the door.
Tracer and DVa lay, covered in soot and ash, on Tracer's bed. Mercy did a quick overview of the two girls and surmised that they both had small fractures along their arms and legs, perhaps even even a cracked rib or two. Tracer's hair was also slightly on fire, though that seemed to be a recent development. Laying on the floor, almost forgotten, was the Caduceus Staff. Mercy smiled, then grabbed her tool from the floor.
"Angela? Is that you?" coughed Tracer.
"Ja, my dear," said Mercy. "I'm here. Are you alright?"
"We don't give you enough credit," wheezed DVa. "Your job is harder than I thought. We barely made it out alive."
"As long as your team is healthy, you've done your job well," said Mercy. She turned her staff to healing stream and fired at the girls.
"So scary… Sometimes, my team would disappear and leave me alone with no way to defend myself," said Tracer. "Just poof! Gone!"
"Mh-hm. That happens sometimes," hummed Mercy.
"And the heal requests," groaned DVa. "I was busy healing, or getting to the point, and people were screaming for health. What did they want me to do?"
"More than is possible," said Mercy gently. "Let that be a lesson to you two. Protect your healers. Respect your healers. Love your healers."