Disclaimer: I own no franchise mentioned in this work. Halo belongs to 343, Overwatch belongs to Blizzard.
*Important Note*I have changed the tagging for this story. Reasons and specifics are explained below if you care.*End Important Note*
After several months of consideration and a good amount of looking through the growing Overwatch canon material, I have decided to change the Tracer/Widowmaker pairing to Tracer/Emily, since that is canon. Seeing as it IS canon, I have not tagged it in the character list and am instead simply tagging Widowmaker with no pairing.
I have also removed the Angst tag from this story and replaced it with Adventure. When I started this story a year ago, I wanted to write Tracer/Widowmaker and the angst that pairing would cause. Looking at it now, after a good bit of writing on other stories and with a MUCH clearer idea of where I want this story to go, I realize that I no longer want to write that story.
Doesn't seem like one year since I published this. On the other hand, I should definitely have more than the mere seven chapters that I've gotten out for this fic. Will try to keep going on this one, know where I generally want to go, but getting there is the issue.
Considering that this would be her second mission in as many days, Tracer was truly appreciative that Emily was out visiting family in the States. Of course Emily knew about Tracer's Overwatch activities, how could she not when living with the agent, but Lena also knew that every time she went out to a fight, Emily would stay home and fret.
Even with all her assurances and displays of skill, it was a natural human reaction to danger. While at first it had annoyed Lena that Emily perhaps thought her incapable, she had quickly learned that it was just a girlfriend thing that would never go away. At this point, she found it quite cute.
Thinking on that topic, Tracer was brought to the unexpected moment she had shared with her enemy only yesterday. At the time, it had just seemed like an amusing thing to do, something to throw off the Talon agent and confuse her.
Now, it struck her as rather stupid and silly. Emily had stayed loyal to her, through her worry when Lena was in a fight and the night terrors that Tracer still suffered from time to time. Tracer knew that she was high maintenance, and betraying that devotion on Emily's part was a mistake. Such was life, and Tracer would make up for it after making sure that the Talon weapon in King's Row stayed in the possession of the proper authorities.
Any thoughts about her girlfriend were shunted to the side as Winston's voice came through her communicator, "Landing confirmed, the two junkrats were using a transport craft that they stole. They'll be with you soon."
"Understood, thank you Winston," Tracer replied softly as she got ready to enter combat. A quick glance below revealed that the police cordon around the crime scene was still unaware of the incoming threat. Lena considered warning them, but quickly discarded that idea as they were just as likely to shoot at her as at a junker in the middle of London.
The relaxed mood below quickly changed as explosions sounded out, letting Tracer get a rough idea of where the two troublemakers were from the smoke rising above the buildings on a nearby street. A flick of her hands and Tracer's signature Pulse Pistols were deployed and ready to deal out death to the enemy.
Shouts rang out from the officers as they called into their radios in an attempt to figure out what was going on. Since it was early morning, the traffic in the area was just beginning to pick up, leading to several blueshirts to begin suggesting clearing the street.
They need not have bothered to do so, as within seconds the civilians were already surging towards the exits of the street as several explosions shook the ground. Gunshots could be heard further down King's Row, showing that some form of resistance was being put up by authorities that were far out of their league.
Small arms fire did nothing to stop the attackers, although it did let Tracer know how many casualties there were as combatants were eliminated. From what she could tell up on the roof above the street, one of the incoming junkers was armed with a shotgun or some other similar weapon, while the other seemed to be fond of explosives.
Within the next few seconds, Lena had a visual on what she would be fighting. Coming towards the Talon weapon left behind from earlier were two men, easily identifiable by the scrap metal and dirty rags that barely covered their bodies.
Just looking at them, Tracer couldn't determine which would be more of a threat. On one hand, the massive masked idiot wielding an actual gun would be hard to take down due to his size. The other one, however, was armed with explosives, meaning that he could easily ruin Lena's day with a well-placed shot from his weapon.
Even as she readied her pistols, the Overwatch agent glanced down to see the civilian officers catching sight of the two enemies headed towards them. While they were equipped to deal with pedestrians and general crowds, they did not have the heavy weaponry needed for this fight. Within seconds two were down from the spray of the larger junker's gun, unable to find cover in time.
Another was taken out by an explosion from what seemed to be a grenade launcher of some kind. With only two officers left, Lena ran forward and leapt off the building, mentally prepared to enter combat.
Most people who jumped from six stories up were looking for a way out of the fight. Of course, most people weren't Tracer.
As she fell, she noted the last two officers fall, one to a blast from the shotgun and the other to a grenade. Closing in on the ground, it was easy to see that both weapons fired pieces of metal more than actual bullets, an easy giveaway for the low quality of both guns.
Right before she hit the pavement, Lena blurred forward as she activated her chronal accelerator. By angling her Blink slightly up, she countered her downward momentum and came out of the move running towards the two enemies.
Both junkers reacted to her sudden appearance by firing wildly in her general direction. Due to her speed and experience, however, Tracer was in no danger of being hit as she responded with a flurry of bolts from her pistols.
It took a second for the two to realize that the return fire was actually a threat before they moved. Unluckily, the only hit Tracer got was a grazing slash across the scrap of metal on the right hand of the larger enemy. While her speed did work to her advantage in not getting hit, even she couldn't adjust quickly enough to compensate her own aim.
Knowing that getting closer would get her killed by the scrap metal fired from the junker shotgun, Tracer kept her distance and used her speed to her advantage to keep the two invaders back. Since she had intercepted the two before they moved too close, Lena had some room to work with as she adjusted to stay in front of the bomb that the two were apparently after.
The exchange of shots lasted for several minutes, quite a long time as far as close-range battles like this went. By this point, the three combatants were in a stalemate, each unable to dislodge the other.
Every time the junkers tried to move from the car that they had taken cover behind, Tracer put a burst of rounds around them. With the high fire rate and fast reload speed on her pulse pistols, the risk of a hit was too high for the two wildmen, even as insane as they were.
On the other hand, though, Tracer couldn't advance towards the two due to their position. As it was, Lena was kept busy avoiding the grenades that would fly out to drop around her, each fairly accurate considering the horrible condition of the weapon they came from. Charging the two was not an options, as the massive one would be able to blast her with his scrap gun at that range.
With Lena currently running a game of delaying her enemies long enough for the proper authorities to show up and the junkers trying to tire her out, none of the combatants noticed the ship approaching from above. This quickly changed as a hail of bullets fell around the Overwatch agent, alerting her to the presence of the third party.
A quick Recall followed by several steps and Tracer was covered from the hovering craft, allowing her to get a good look at it. It was easily identifiable as a Talon transport, which struck Tracer as quite odd since they had not been concerned with recovering their material before. That they were doing so when the area was under attack was inconvenient, as now Lena was pinned between that ship and the junkers down the street.
Luckily, the two nutjobs were also kept in cover by the weapons fire from the ship, which prevented them from charging Tracer and eliminating her. Several explosives from the one with the grenade launcher came flying at the craft, accompanied by unintelligible nonsense that was likely curses from the sender.
As the transport swerved to the side to avoid the projectiles, Lena managed to get a good glance inside the open door where the shots were coming from. Much to the agent's surprise, Widowmaker was crouched in the opening and firing down at them with little regard for accuracy. Considering that the Talon sniper was usually a precision shooter, it was odd to see such inconsistent and wild fire from her.
Why Widowmaker was using that tactic became clear, however, as another recognizable Talon agent appeared beside the spider. While Sombra was a fairly new figure in the fight between the defunct Overwatch resistance and Talon, she had quickly become known to be an irritating and at times dangerous foe.
While Tracer had never faced her alone before, she knew that Winston had been struggling to contain intrusions into Overwatch systems from the enemy operative. The special abilities of several agents had been compromised in mid-fight before, leading to some close calls or outright defeats in skirmishes.
Instead of entering the fight, however, the Talon software specialist dropped down to look at the EMP that Tracer was defending. Tracer risked a glance out of her cover to see what the agent was doing, but quickly retreated as Widowmaker nearly put a bullet through her skull.
As she kept her cover and waited for an opportunity to eliminate one enemy or the other, Tracer could hear Widowmaker shouting to Sombra over the roar of the Talon transport. Concentrating on filtering out the sporadic gunshots, engines, and explosions as Widowmaker and the junkers exchanged fire between the ground and hovering vehicle, Tracer managed to make out what was being said.
"-a while! What happened to it?" Sombra said, her accent obvious even as she was shouting to her ally above.
Widowmaker popped off a few more shots before replying, "Overwatch intercepted it before it could detonate. The idiots guarding it were useless and I was unable to repair the circuitry myself."
"You sure our mutual employer doesn't have another lying around? Leaving an electromagnetic bomb in the middle of the street is just asking for trouble."
"I was told that losing the weapon was not a concern. Progress?" Widowmaker asked, putting another precise shot into the metal of the car that was proving Tracer cover.
A few seconds passed before Sombra answered, "Some, but not enough. Still curious as to how this is supposed to work if we're close enough to fight them. A blast from a weapon of this size will take out a good half of the city. The military isn't going to sit around with an attack like that."
"Just get it done," the Talon sniper ordered.
With their intent to set off the device now established, Tracer knew which enemy was the greater threat. While the junkers had caused death and damage, it was nothing compared to what would happen if all electronics in the city were to blow out.
Tracer gave herself a couple more seconds to breathe before darting out from cover as Widowmaker fired on the junkers to keep them pinned down. Before the two Talon agents could do anything, Tracer sent a flurry of shots from her Pulse pistols at Sombra.
As the small but numerous shots threw up grit and clipped the weapon that she was working on, Sombra ducked behind it to avoid getting brained. Of course, this action drew Widowmaker's attention, leading to her peppering the ground around Lena with rounds.
A smile and a snarky, "Too slow!" merited a glare from Widowmaker right before Tracer blinked forward to try and catch Sombra by surprise.
Before she had touched the ground again, Lena knew that her enemy was already gone, probably cloaked considering the terrain. Knowing that the Talon operative wouldn't go far, Tracer turned and emptied both of her Pulse pistols into the circuitry that Sombra had been working on.
Unluckily, Tracer couldn't stick around to repeat the action as one of the explosives fired by the pinned junkers missed the Talon transport above and came falling towards her. Another Blink and she was out of the way, allowing her to watch as the grenade impacted next to the bomb, doing visible damage to the casing.
Standing around was out of the question, seeing as Lena was buggered if Sombra got close enough to mess with her Chronal Accelerator. With that in mind, Tracer continued running, making sure to keep an eye out for any rounds fired by Widowmaker.
As she came to a stop behind a car to catch her breath and let her Chronal Accelerator recharge, Tracer's communicator gave a beep to indicate an incoming call. Considering that the only person that could contact her through that method were Overwatch agents, Winston, or Emily, it was a rather limited selection as to who the call was from.
Taking the call, Tracer smiled slightly as Winston spoke, "Tracer? You there?"
"Little bit busy, but what'cha need Big Guy?" Tracer answered before sending a flurry of shots at the EMP weapon when Sombra appeared near it. The Talon agent ducked away again at the shots as she shouted something up at Widowmaker, probably a call for better covering fire.
Lena ignored their irritated shouts at each other and listened as Winston began, "I hear that you've found the problem and rushed in with no support, as usual. Do they have an aircraft, or is that the authorities?"
A huff preceded Tracer's answer, "Talon decided to join in. They want their electric bomb back, apparently. They were talking about using it to fight someone. Have anything on that?"
"It's a weapon that emits an electromagnetic pulse when detonated, not an 'electric bomb', Lena," Winston berated.
"Not the time for that, Winston," Tracer said, crouching down slightly as a burst of rounds whistled through the air above her head, courtesy of Sombra's machine pistol this time.
The ape grumbled for a second on the other end of line before continuing, "I was watching the newcomers arrive in New York to go to the United Nations Headquarters. Apparently the UN doesn't know who they are either, as they sent out a group of Helix Security personnel to arrest them by the Petras Act."
"They couldn't even get away from a couple of guys with pistols and a truck or two?" Tracer questioned suspiciously, knowing that there was no chance that Helix would take down the being that had landed on the planet.
"Err, no, not quite," Winston said hesitantly. "The entire force was eliminated , but I was cut off by an intrusion from Sombra into my systems. Athena fought her off, but I missed what happened. When I got the feed back, the two fighters were gone, along with their ship."
A couple seconds passed as Tracer thought about the correct question to ask, eventually inquiring, "Couldn't see them on your fancy radar and stuff?"
"I picked up something moving east to cross the pond from the States, but they disappeared fairly quickly," Winston replied.
"How'd they get to New York so fast? Weren't they in Kangaroo-land yesterday?" Tracer asked, having come up with the question while Winston was answering the first.
Deep, rumbling laughter came over the connection at the name for Australia before the monkey responded, "They were cruising in high-atmosphere. I don't know what that ship is that they have, but it would be something to take apart and examine."
"Speaking of that ship and those on it, any idea where they're going? I would prefer to not have another couple of people shooting it out in my city," Lena said, a trace of irritation creeping into her voice.
"That's why I called, actually," Winston began. "I picked it up on approach to your position, at least with it's current trajectory."
Before the Overwatch scientist could continue, Tracer interrupted, "You couldn't have told me that first? I need that intel pronto, luv."
"Nothing you or I can do about it, Lena. Even if we did have the option to shoot it down, Talon has already made an enemy of them. Perhaps we can use their help," the scientist suggested.
"I dunno about that, sounds like it could go sideways. When are they coming in?"
In the short time it took for Winston to reply, Tracer noticed that Sombra had returned to her work on the weapon. A quick glance up stayed her initial compulsion to rush the Talon agent due to Widowmaker bringing her weapon around to fire on Lena's position. The rattle of bullets competed with the voice in her ear as Winston answered, "With their current rate, they'll be over you in less than a minute. It will probably be longer, though, as they will have to slow down for the fight."
Tracer's reply to that was cut off as she heard Widowmaker shout, "Incoming in the air! We need the weapon active now, Sombra!"
"I will get it done when it gets done," the other operative replied, obviously irritated at being distracted from her work.
Grateful for the fact that her positioning allowed her to make out the shouts above the sound of fighting, Lena prepared to crash the enemy party. Before she left, she quickly told Winston, "Gotta go, Big Guy. Thanks for the heads-up, and see you soon!"
"Be careful out there, Tracer," Winston replied softly. Any other reply from her fellow Overwatch agent was cut off as Tracer closed the comm line.
A quick glance around the street gave Tracer the chance to locate her enemies and make a general plan of attack. Widowmaker was concentrating on keeping the junkers back from Sombra, who was still messing with the Talon weapon. With the one junker so fond of explosives, the Talon operative had no choice but to keep them at a distance for fear of damage to their transport or the weapon they apparently needed.
While that was good in that it made a good distraction for Tracer and kept the two nutjobs off her back, it would be quite convenient if the two terrorists suddenly found themselves without a ride. Without air support to cover them, there was no way that they could successfully defend against Lena's speed or the two junkers, let alone the green giant that Tracer knew was on its way.
Now that she had an objective for the next few seconds, Tracer reached back and pulled out one of her pulse bombs. A hit from this in the right spot on that Talon ship would send it crashing to the ground, and if she was lucky it would be on top of the bomb.
With her own explosive ready to go and Widowmaker concentrated on the junkers, Tracer bolted from her cover. She knew that the Talon operative above had noticed by the rounds that whizzed past almost immediately. A well-timed Blink made avoiding them easily, however, and brought Lena another few meters closer to her target.
It was at that point that she noticed the lack of Sombra's form behind the bomb. The mistake of losing track of the hacker quickly caught up to Tracer as her Chronal Accelerator suddenly starting beeping, indicating that it was malfunctioning somehow. Without the ability to manipulate her position in time, there was no way that she could avoid shots from Widowmaker with any degree of accuracy.
Of course, with said sniper already focused on her and no cover immediately apparent, that was a large problem. Glancing up as she prepared to try and keep her body bullet-free, Tracer could see a small smirk on Widowmaker's lips as the Talon agent braced her weapon and lined up the shot.
Or at least tried to. Just before she could pull the trigger, Widowmaker's focus suddenly changed as she looked up. Her greater height allowed her to see over the buildings, so Tracer and the rest of the fighters down at street level could not see whatever had caught the sniper's attention.
Their ignorance was quickly rectified as several rounds slammed into the Talon craft, pushing it out of the position it had been holding above the battlefield. Tracer got a glimpse of Widowmaker deploying her grapple to keep from falling to her death on the street below.
A second later, her attention was back to the sky as the mysterious ship went screaming past, buzzing the tops of the roofs and nearly colliding with the Talon craft as it tried to stabilize. At the speed it was going, the ship was almost instantly obscured by the buildings of King's Row, but Tracer knew that it would be back within seconds.
Utilizing the reprieve she had been granted by the timely arrival of the alien ship, Lena made sure that her gear was back online and quickly Recalled when she saw that it was. This action drew the attention of Sombra away from the new attackers and back to the Overwatch agent, leading the hacker to fire several rounds off at her enemy.
Knowing that she had little time to spare, Sombra quickly began to work on the bomb once again, ignoring the shots that Tracer fired at her. Seeing that her attempt to dissuade the Talon operative from continuing was having little effect, Tracer glanced at the Pulse bomb she had prepared for the Talon transport.
Taking a moment to glance up, Tracer noticed the unknown aircraft looping overhead, obviously preparing to dive down onto the field of battle. That was a problem for later, however, as right now the most immediate threat was the Talon weapon.
With a little laugh, Tracer called out, "Time's up, let the fight begin!" As Sombra looked up at the taunt, Lena chucked the explosive and fired off several shots to try and keep the Talon agent close enough to be caught by the blast.
Unluckily, Sombra managed to cloak, making it impossible for Tracer to effectively pin down the thief. Even so, the Overwatch agent was satisfied when her bomb stuck to the Talon weapon and detonated after a couple seconds, leaving a visible hole in the outer casing. Those few seconds, however, were all that were needed for the alien's to complete their aerial maneuver and drop down to the street, giving those present a good look at the heavily armed and armored transport.
Most UNSC pilots would never dare approach a combat zone at the speed they were going. The possibility of anti-aircraft fire or other such undesirable obstacles would limit any Pelican by way of the pilot's reaction times.
Of course, since there was no Covenant or other active AA installments in the middle of a densely populated city along with the fact that both Chief and Cortana could avoid any sudden issues much faster than a regular human, this limitation was of little concern. Even so, Cortana was keeping a close eye on both their surroundings and the gauges of the Pelican as Chief blasted through the atmosphere to reach their destination as quickly as possible.
After breaking off from the enemy ship, they had quickly returned to the Forward Unto Dawn to resupply for possible combat wherever they ended up. This turned out to be the city of London, a rather unsurprising location considering that the large population would allow their enemies to blend into the various oddities that were always present in such places.
Data acquired by Cortana had allowed them to determine that their enemy was once more engaged in combat, near the historical street of King's Row. Following that intelligence, Chief had decided that downing the enemy transport before they could escape again was the best approach to the battle.
Since any rounds that missed the target would hit somewhere in the city, the Spartan was using the speed of the Pelican to hide their approach as much as possible. At this point, there would be little that the enemy could do to avoid their fate as Cortana announced, "Five seconds to target."
Chief acknowledged the call by bleeding off some speed and bringing up the targeting reticule for the Pelican's chin-mounted machine gun. Behind the Spartan, Thel 'Vadam glanced out at the scenery flashing by before bracing himself against the inevitable acceleration when the human ship slowed down.
By this point, the small form of the hostile aircraft was visible, even though it was impossible to make out details with their speed. As they drew closer, Chief fired a burst of rounds that raked across the stealth ship and caused it to careen out of the way as the Pelican tilted just enough to avoid a collision.
Now that the enemy was alerted to their presence but unable to immediately flee, the human and Sangheili warriors could engage on the ground and try to obtain information about why they were attacked. Since their speed had already taken them well past the battlefield, the Spartan began to loop the Pelican up and around, shedding speed as he let off the thrusters and rotated the ship so that gravity once more aligned with the floor.
That maneuver done, the Arbiter released his grip on the handholds that kept him from falling and walked back into the troop bay to prepare for the fight. Several seconds passed before the Master Chief caught sight of their landing zone, which was determined merely by the fact that there were several combatants around it.
A flick of his hand and the UNSC dropship was set to hover down to the ground, a procedure so simple that even Cortana didn't need to mess with it. The Spartan quickly made his way to stand beside his Sangheili ally. As Chief took out his rifle, he asked, "Status?"
"Ready for battle, even if this is not the fight I was expecting after the Ring," Thel replied, referring to Installation 04B and their mission to light it and destroy the Flood.
"Never is," 117 replied, conveying his meaning even with few words. Anytime the Spartan was involved, it seemed like the enemy was always something different.
With that, the Spartan reached up and pushed the button to open the hatch. Almost immediately several small caliber rounds impacted the Pelican and their shields, alerting them to the position of the enemy. By natural agreement created from their shared battles, the Spartan went barrelling towards the enemy sniper that had shot at him before while the Sangheili held back to engage any other threats.
Even with the impressive reaction to the Spartan's charge, the female had no chance to escape as her rifle was battered aside and the stock of the MA5 clipped her temple, sending her to the ground. Since the two warriors needed information more than corpses, the Spartan held back enough to not completely brain the enemy but instead effectively disable.
While most of his attention had been on that task, the UNSC soldier was not blind to his surroundings. A quick glance at his motion tracker and then out at the street showed that their enemy had some form of cloaking technology.
Unluckily for them, MJOLNIR was equipped with a large variety of imaging technology, as had been common since the 21st century. With only a thought, Chief's HUD displayed thermal imaging of the area, allowing him to easily see the otherwise invisible hostile.
Before he could act on that information, however, a blast of random bits of metal glanced off his shields, doing little damage due to their rather unconventional use. Instead of dealing with the new enemy, however, the Spartan trusted the Arbiter to subdue the threat. Several shots from a Covenant carbine sounded out as the Arbiter suppressed the enemy fire, giving the human the time he needed.
Exactly as before, the Spartan sprinted forward, ignoring the sudden appearance of the hostile as she dropped her cloaked and began to frantically fire at his charging form. Anticipating the same move that he had pulled before, the figure prepared to crouch down and jump out of the way. Her attempt was quickly thwarted as Chief planted his next step and pivoted towards her as she leapt, leading to a look of shock being directed at him just the stock of his MA5 once again made contact with the enemy.
Looking back, Chief noted that the Arbiter had successfully dealt with the two hostiles that had been hiding on the edge of the battlefield. Surprisingly, the two appeared to be more of the 'junkers' that they had already encountered on the other side of the planet. It would be interesting to see why they were here, and even more intriguing to find out why they hadn't continued fighting when the Arbiter had reached them.
At least, that's what Chief assumed had happened. Both scrap-metal-clad individuals were still conscious and not resisting the Sangheili's directions to board the Pelican. Cortana seemed to think the same as she commented, "Odd pair."
Chief's response was cut short as his motion tracker pinged another contact. With reflexes that would've torn any non-Spartan to shreds, 117 brought his weapon up and trained it at the unknown. A second later, he let his aim drift a bit as he recognized the girl that had appeared and then promptly disappeared on the Dawn.
Seeing that the Spartan was not about to shoot her, the girl finished stepping out of cover and nervously glanced at the massive soldier. She gave a hesitant wave and said, "Hullo again, luv."
MJOLNIR is hardened against EMP's, as shields do go down when you're hit, the entire suit does not lock up. HUD stays on, can still use jetpack and other abilities, etc.
-evevee
