AN: I've really been enjoying writing this so far! Thanks for reading it!
The next day, when I woke, I yawned and opened my laptop. I searched for tips about the game Hana had showed me. I wanted to impress her when we played again tonight. After thirty minutes of this, I got up, showered (because for the first time ever I realized I smelled as bad as a compost bin), and dressed, and then went out to the cafeteria to eat. Today I ordered something other than my typical meal, out of curiosity. I had toast with jam spread on the top. And boy was it good. I decided to eat this more often.
I was just beginning to move toward the cafeteria when Athena's voice came over the loudspeakers. "Good morning, agents of Overwatch! Today, there will be two missions. Reinhardt, Soldier 76, Genji, Ashe, Ana, and Lucio, report to the bay in ten minutes. Hana, Wrecking Ball, Reaper, Widowmaker, Mei, and Moira, report to the bay in twenty minutes."
I raised my eyebrow. Another mission? What for? I headed to my room, closed the door, changed into my sniper suit, grabbed my rifle, and headed out toward the bay. I waited outside the door while the six agents for the first mission arrived. Hana, Reaper, and Mei did the same until we heard the ship take off and we entered the room. Wrecking Ball rolled into sight just after I entered, and Moira arrived a few minutes later. We all waited for a couple of minutes until the bay door opened and a ship flew in.
The hatch on the side of the ship opened, and we already knew what to do. We climbed the stairs into the ship, the hatch closing behind us, and stocked up on ammunition. When the holographic map appeared, we all crowded around it, and Athena began talking just as the ship lifted off.
"Our destination today is Hollywood," she said. "Former president Jenkins has flown there to star in an upcoming movie. A trio of Upriser soldiers opened fire on him. His bodyguards were able to protect him and eliminate the threats, but he is going to be escorted away in a limousine. Your job is to protect his limousine at all costs. He will be waiting in his limousine with his bodyguards and military personnel until we arrive. Escort him to the destination and he will be picked up by military helicopters. Good luck."
We spent the rest of the mission planning. Hana would rush to the payload and get it moving. Wrecking Ball would hide behind the payload, shooting at any flankers, and swinging around the payload if any enemies got too close. Mei would sit on the payload, doing whatever is necessary, while Reaper would try to flank and I would find a good sniping spot. When the ship landed, we bolted out and began to carry out on our jobs. Reaper instantly teleported away, and I looked around for a sniping position where I could monitor the payload and shoot enemies. I finally decided to just lag behind the payload, shooting anyone who exposed themselves. I slowly walked forward, aiming toward the first bend in the road. After a couple of seconds, a soldier's head appeared. I shot, and the soldier collapsed to the ground, a bullet in his head.
I looked down, feeling guilty. I had long ago learned not to feel grossed out about blood and gore. That wasn't a trait Talon had given me, it was a skill I had taught myself. Nothing could change that. So it wasn't the blood spilled and brains blown that I felt guilty about, it was guilt of what I'd taken away from him.
When he had fallen to the ground, his helmet had rolled off. By looking at his face, I guessed that he was at least 60 years old. By that age, he likely had a wife and at least one kid. I had suddenly robbed him from them. Sure, when he rushed into battle he knew what he was risking, but I couldn't help but feel ashamed for what I'd done.
But I realized that with every kill, every other agent, other than the robots, felt just like me. And yet, they all know that they must push aside those feelings, block them out of their minds, and focus on getting the mission done. Because if we spare the lives of our enemies, they'll only pay us back by taking ours. It's kill or be killed.
With that new mindset, I aimed again and fired at the next exposed soldier. Hana began opening fire, laying down soldiers like a scythe to wheat. After a couple of seconds they began firing back, and she cursed as she began taking damage. But Moira extended her left hand, healing the damage. Some soldiers came into view behind us, their running footsteps giving them away. I turned around and quickly fired at one, but at the same time, soldiers behind them pulled out riot shields and held them in front of the first soldiers, who stuck their guns between the shields and blind fired in our direction, while still advancing forward. I dropped to the ground to avoid the fire and I heard Hammond squeak loudly when his ball took damage. The ball translated that to multiple curses.
Suddenly, a bullet whizzed by Mei's ear, and she whipped around, placing an ice wall in the way of the soldiers behind us. Reaper appeared behind the soldiers in front of us, guns blazing, and they began falling before they even knew he was there. When they began turning around, he changed to wraith form and charged them.
While the front soldiers were distracted, Hana's bullets did wonders. Hammond returned his ball to walking mode, turned around, and fired relentlessly and the soldiers behind us with his quad cannons. They were forced to go around the ice wall, causing them to bunch up. Hammond's guns made short work of the shields, and the soldiers went down in bursts of red. In no time, the attackers behind us were long gone, and Hana and Reaper made short work of the ones ahead. The payload continued moving down its path.
A couple minutes later, three fighter jets flew into view. They were painter all black and had an orange 'U' painted on the side. They angled toward us and opened fire. Hana quickly activated her Defense Matrix, absorbing the bullets until the planes got close and swerved away to avoid crashing. I scoped in on one. I located the missiles on the underside of its wing, aimed ahead of the plane, and fired. The bullet soared through the air and the plane met it perfectly. The bullet pierced the missiles, causing them to explode, and taking down the entire plane. It plummeted to the ground and landed out of sight with a loud boom!. As the remaining two swerved in to fire again, Hana and Hammond pointed their guns and fired. Another plane went crashing down. The final one, in a brave attempt at kamikaze, tilted toward us and fired all its missiles and bullets. The pilot ejected and parachuted to the ground beyond sight. He appeared to be unarmed. Hana's Defense Matrix was still in cooldown, and we had no shields of any kind to protect us. We all dived out of the way as the missiles exploded around the armored limousine, which took a few dents but the former President seemed to be okay. However, there was now a plane hurtling toward the payload at frightening speeds. As it came closer, parachutes automatically popped out of the back of the plane, but at the speed it was going, they were quickly ripped off. They did nothing to slow the plane. An idea popped into my head. It would be very, very risky, but if I didn't stop that plane, the collision blast could be enough to kill me, Mei, Reaper, and Moira outright, probably Hammond, who was still in walking form, and Hana would only survive if she ejected from her mech and hid behind both it and Hammond's ball. If I could somehow change the direction of the plane, cause it to crash with something else, than the only thing that would explode is the plane, instead of the limousine, too. That might be a survivable blast. So I didn't step off the limousine. Instead, I leaped toward the plane, shooting my grappler toward it. It caught on the glass that had opened above the cockpit when the pilot had ejected. I was quickly pulled into the cockpit.
I remembered that inside the airship that had picked up every agent to bring them to the HQ on day one, there had been a screen on the wall that demonstrated how to manually pilot the ship if Athena lost connection to the controls for any reason. I sat in the cockpit, remembering the simple steering instructions. These modern jets were much simpler to fly than those before, so I remembered fairly quickly. I grabbed the steering joystick, as I called it for lack of a better word, and pulled back hard. The plane began to angle more upward, away from the limousine and toward a building on the side of the street. There was no time to jump out now, so I watched as I plummeted toward my inevitable demise. The only thing that ran through my head was that, by saving the lives of my teammates and the President, I had at least partially made up for all the lives I had emotionlessly taken in my time, and that thought filled my head as the plane collided with the building.
AN: Whew! That was intense to write. Thanks SO MUCH for 100+ views on the story! This means so much to me! Another short one, I know, but I think it got the point across. When Widowmaker was still an emotionless killer, she would have grappled away from the limousine to save herself. People can be replaced. But now, with her emotions, she sacrifices herself to save her team.
Oh, but don't think you've seen the end of Widowmaker. Chapter 5 is coming soon, I assure you. I won't make any more spoilers than that, though. What do you think of the story so far? Please leave a review! Thanks!