Chapter 2: Push

"One bag of flour…why is it always just one?" Alejandra wondered, "We always burn through the whole bag in less than a day. We should just buy a week's supply to save time. It's not like I'm a child anymore, these things are only twenty pounds and it's not that far from home, I don't know why Mom still treats me like a baby."

The October wind cut sharp across her nose and caused her braided twin-tails to flutter, reminding her how long it had been since that fateful day over ten months ago as she gazed down at the recently purchased twenty-pound bag of flour cradled in her right arm.

She remembered how helpless she had felt before the hero - The one she later learned was the infamous American vigilante, Soldier 76 - had decimated the local presence of Los Muertos and saved her life that night in March. Ever since that fateful encounter, she has been trying to guide herself down the path of heroism and the pursuit of justice, but she had to admit that she could use an even stronger push. Through all the years before that night, Los Muertos had plagued the streets, flooding them with drugs and terrorizing the common man despite their supposed goal of rebelling against the callously blind rich. Gang violence had become a constant factor and fear had become a constant feeling for the people of Dorado. With the town being just near enough the major tourist centers of Veracruz to have considerable wealth, yet far enough away to fly under the radar of the often overworked authorities of the surrounding municipalities, it made a delectable sight to the opportunistic Los Muertos, who had begun their corruption of the city almost a decade ago.

Developing in such a volatile environment had taken its toll on Alejandra, she had been forced to adapt by becoming timid in the face of evil in the hopes it would be sated by the signs of fear, just as many of her peers had before her. However, the tales her mother told her, of the peerless warriors of the world known as Overwatch, kept her from falling into absolute despair; a light shining in darkness, no matter how faint. It was not a false hope in the sudden salvation from a knight in shining armor, ironic as that eventually was. Rather, it was the belief in a sort of divinity of man, a way of life beyond the base and cruel nature of scum such as skull emblazoned desperados that stalked her home and toward a world without pettiness and hatred.

Despite this deep conviction, the spiritual sickness had already taken hold and sapped her dry of resolve, leaving her a quaking husk counted as blessed for avoiding the brunt of the scum's cruelty. No matter how much she had cursed her own name after the countless failures of heart, she still had yet to conquer herself; but after that night she had sworn to better herself, despite herself. Though hardly an underachiever before, she pressed herself even harder in the pursuit of education, physical education in particular. The promise of a brighter future kept her on the path, despite the conflict of seven hours of schooling and the remaining six hours of her day divided between study and assisting her mother at the family bakery, leaving little room for her own pursuits, heroic or otherwise.

Mild as the enjoyment she derived from her daily task of going to the general store gave her, as opposed to mindlessly kneading and shaping dough in the kitchen, she knew she could be doing infinitely more to better herself. Even something as insignificant as the added weight of another bag of flour was an improvement to her current rate of progression. Small as the steps she was taking were, she still considered them worth far more than what granted her the title of hero in the Russian's eyes. Despicable as she was, and guilty of far more than Alejandra could have imagined, giving away Sombra's location to the towering woman of the Motherland was not an act she considered heroic.

"It's not like it was wrong to snitch on Sombra, she is a criminal after all." Alejandra dwelled on within her mind, "Still, doesn't feel good to rat someone out like that, even a Los Muertos, and at least she actually paid for her bread."

Only three blocks from the bakery that doubles as her home, Alejandra passed through an all-too-familiar passageway. She had little choice in the mater, but far less to fear since the day that kept it in her memory.

"They may be in jail now, but it's not like that changes anything. It doesn't matter how many of them get locked up, I have to keep working until I'm the one doing the locking."

The faint scent of toasted cocoles crept through the air and into her nostrils, returning her to the present. "Mom's still baking fresh ones? It's almost Seven, I didn't think we'd be that bu-"

"Hey, bread bitch!", shouts an all too familiar and all too enraged voice from behind.

Near paralyzed by fear, Alejandra struggles to force her neck to turn back for her to see an impossible truth: Inigo was free from prison, and judging by the anger written on his face and two accompanying Los Muertos thugs - the most brutish of them visibly armed with a bike chain -, this meeting was not one of happenstance. This terrifying sight triggered a memory back to the forefront of her mind, last week's news report of a prison break that freed a collection of Los Muertos' recently imprisoned ringleaders and their many subordinates, such as the three storming toward her now. It had been ten months since the day Alejandra had hoped would be the last time they would meet, but his hardened expression and the knowledge that he had spent his eighteenth birthday caged made it clear that this was about far more than just a refusal to share in his hatred and a half-empty coin purse. Before she could manage to form even a single word in her panic, Inigo explains himself as he makes his menacing approach.

"We're gonna be all ears and you'll be all mouth, starting now!"

His is demand punctuated by the spring of a switchblade and a sharp gasp of terror escaping Alejandra's lips.

Horrified beyond belief, her eyes darted between the three malefactors at the speed of terror as she made trembling backward steps toward home, considering her options. She had barely seconds to think as the quickest of the ill-intentioned trio, a gaunt, sickly looking boy with the neck of a vulture and no older than sixteen; was but mere feet from restraining her. As her heart and mind raced in the absolute dread of the situation, an impulse triggered within her, the basic instinct of fight or flight, she needed only to choose. The two paths available to her, to follow the tendencies built up over thirteen years or the new road of the hero, wrenched at her mind within those few seconds of the Vulture decent upon her. To the shock of all those in audience, herself included, she defied the instincts of cowardice that had built within her over her thirteen years on this earth and swung at her aggressor with the bag of flour, the weight providing far more difficulty then she was expecting. The vulture proved to be nimble as he dodged the swift, but clumsy attack that came within inches of striking his chin. Still in thoughtless dismay, she swung again, only to be stopped halfway through her strike by the infuriated grip of Inigo and the strength that soon followed behind it forces Alejandra to the wall, still clutching the bag in desperation.

With a blinding glint of light reflecting from the blade invading Alejandra's eye, Inigo began his questioning proper.

"Now, Ale, I want everything you know about the piece of shit whitey and everything you told him then maybe I won't gut you!"

Equally confused as she was terrified, Alejandra responded with truth stuttered by fear.

"W-what are you talking about, I don't know anything about him, he just showed up, that's a-!"

A sharp pain ran up her leg as the knife penetrated the bag and the tip found its way into her thigh, barely more than a millimeter through the skin, just enough to touch muscle; the sting of the flour mixing with blood adding to a pain she had never experienced before as she let out an unheard scream into the silencing palm of Inigo.

"Do you think I'm some kind of retard!? That cracker didn't jump us until after you showed up, took a grenade for you, and bothered to take your coin back! The only way he would've known about that is if he was watching you, so cough it up!"

As the now spit covered palm was pulled back from her mouth, Alejandra's bewildered mind shifted into overdrive.

"What the hell am I supposed to say?! He won't believe the truth and there's no way I can lie well enough to give him what he wants. I'm dead if I try to scream and it's not like Mom would even hear me from here and anyone who could wouldn't be stupid enough to try and help anyway. Lying's the most I can do now, but what can I say?"

The setting sun and the shadow cast by Inigo's looming stature illuminated the glowing tattoos that proved his allegiance as Alejandra's continued silence expended his patience.

"God damn it, Ale, we don't have all night and you want to keep breathing! Tell us now or my friends and I are gonna burn your house down while you look on bleeding into a gutter!"

Friends; that word alone was enough to set a spark inside her brain that set off a wildfire of thoughts that lit the way to safety, the two of them had one distinguished mutual friend and there was no chance he hadn't heard the news of her encounter with the Slavic soldier and almost certainly had more than a few follow up questions. That was her ticket out, all the answers to Inigo's questions all tied up in one convenient package, all she had to do was start twisting the truth.

"Okay...I'll talk…", she dragged her words to give herself crucial fractions of seconds more to polish her lies.

"Spill it!", demanded a still incensed, but noticeably self-satisfied Inigo as he loosened his grasp and released Alejandra's back from the wall as she begins.

"He was after Sombra, probably all of you guys really, but mainly her for whatever reason. I wasn't lying when I said he just showed up, I think he was following me hoping I'd lead him to her or something, but must have jumped you after our...meeting thinking it'd be a faster way."

Doubting that would be enough to sate Inigo's curiosity, she stopped for but a few seconds to wait for his response while she spins more half-truth within her mind. Predictably, Inigo's grip tightens again as he shouts more questions.

"Keep going! Why'd he bother to save you!?"

Offended at what his choice of words implied, she continued.

"Because he had basic human decency...and because he wanted a favor."

Using the same strategy as before, Inigo eventually broke the silence after his lack of comprehension forces his next question.

"What kind of favor!?"

"He wanted to know where Sombra was and...well...I did owe him...She must have had dirt on him or he just wanted dirt on someone else since nothing happened to her...at least as far I know."

A blunt pain spread across her back as she was forced to the wall once again.

"So you sold us out, eh!?"

Despite this being an outcome she foresaw, Alejandra was still stricken with fright and replied with quivering lips.

"N-no! I knew she could handle him and it's not like she would have been alone, right!? B-besides, what choice did I have!? I saw what he did to you, I didn't want to risk pissing him off!"

Her attempts to play down her willingness to aid the vigilante went unnoticed as the knife is raised to her throat.

" Yeah, well that's not the only time you ratted us out is it!? I heard about you getting visited by that eraser headed muscle cunt, what did she want!?"

Her cold sweat hits the blade as Alejandra pulls a well-seasoned piece of paranoia from history and serves it with the truth.

"...She wanted to know where Sombra was too…I've read about what Russians are like, I didn't want my head nailed to a door, I had no choice!"

Pulling the knife back, Inigo mulled over her panicked words as his cohorts rejoined him and wait for his response, having grown bored of their task of keeping watch for bystanders. Alejandra, naturally, observed her aggressor's face closely, hoping her falsehoods and half-truths had spared her of the blade.

"So...You ratted us out twice just because you were more scared of them then you were of us?... Alright, I see what the problem is."

Looking to his lackeys, the Vulture and the hulking Brute, he gave his command.

"Hold her to the wall and make sure she can't squirm!"

Horror coursed through Alejandra's body faster than ever as she realized her simple, fatal mistake; in her haste to be believed in order to escape the edge of the blade, she had failed to free herself of the burden of guilt in their eyes and instead succeed in implicating herself of far more acts of defiance to her city's captors. As Inigo's hand covered her mouth once again and the lowlifes' combined strength kept her from moving even a muscle, she could only close her eyes and silently curse herself for her profound ignorance.

Eyes shut tight and Inigo's strength not allowing her even open her lips for a bite in retribution, the near-inaudible sounds of the wretch's slowly widening grin the only sensation she could feel as her body went numb from the fear.

"Gonna carve a skull into your skull! Maybe then you'll remember how scary we are every time you see a mirror!"

Inigo's intentions were made redundantly clear while Alejandra tried desperately to ignore them, focusing on any other sound, hoping to take her thoughts away from the imminent, infernal pain. The indifferent chirping of birds, the buzz of street lights switched on with the dusk, the distant clicking of the pawls of a bicycle on the move, the faint bustle of people in their homes ignorant to the wickedness outside; none were enough to remove the advancing steel from her mind. The seconds felt like hours as she failed to overpower the criminals by even an inch or so much as crack her eyes open as the lawbreaker's knife grows ever closer, yet in the time that felt almost frozen, she had noticed that there was something else growing nearer, the sounds of the bicycle. The sounds of her could-be savior grew ever closer as the fires of hope reignited within her soul as she began to reopen her eyes only to reflexively shut them again as fresh blood invaded them and an ear piercing scream rang in her ears as she fell to the ground, the force pinning her to the wall suddenly withdrawn.

Staggering to her hands and knees, she swiftly wiped the crimson spray from her face to discover its cause. The rider had made a leaping crash into the criminals and in this attack, Inigo's blade had penetrated his cheek and, judging by his newfound speech impediment as he instinctively tried to scream some of the more colorful words of the Spanish language while writhing in pain, into his tongue. Studying the rest of the scene, she notes that the Vulture had taken his place with on the ground alongside his master, clutching a head caught between speeding tire and brick, before turning her attention to the bicycle itself. Worn from the road and adorned with various well-stocked packs, one of which had fallen open to reveal it's contents of Chef Vortivask brand soup cans, but most surprisingly, with almost no signs of damage from the crash, only the slightest dents and chips upon its matted blue paint. Quickly discovering the stamp of its maker, Alejandra could see they were worthy of the name Invincible. However, the bike was of little worth compared to its rider, another hero come to her rescue. Alejandra was not sure what she had done to be worthy of one guardian angel, let alone two, and her search for the second lasted mere moments as he too reeled back from the shock of the blow.

Alejandra could scarcely believe the sight in front of her, not only was her newest guardian angel another American, judging by his skin tone and taste in clothing, but he could not have been more than a year or two older than her. Flabbergasted at the prospect of someone her age, let alone a foreigner, that was willing to stand against not just a lone Los Muerto, but a trio of them, she could only stare at him voiceless as he too looked over what his ambush had wrought. For a fleeting moment, the two locked eyes and Alejandra soon understood his courage, his were eyes full of purpose and confidence and while fear still lingered within, it did not control even a single muscle of his body. They were eyes befitting a guardian angel, beautiful and powerful. Suddenly, the hero broke their shared gaze and promptly adopted a combat stance as a confused Alejandra followed his sight to see the Brute recovering from a mere glancing blow.

Following her instincts, Alejandra jumped from the brigand, the pain of the knife's mark coursing through once again as she does, and toward the rider. Her back to the wall once again and still on the ground, she found herself unable to cope with the pain enough to even stand, much less flee further. Anger written on his face, the brute retrieved his cheaply acquired and somewhat clumsy, yet effective weapon and prepared for revenge. Afraid for the life of her savior, she looked back to see his confidence had not been shaken even by the scarcest margin as he faced his opponent. Witnessing this, Alejandra's fears for him began to dissipate and she was finally able to form proper thoughts in what had seemed like hours to her.

"Wait...his confidence...his bicycle...the packs...He must have ridden here all the way from the border, maybe even further! He must be traveling alone, living off the land the whole way from America, judging by all those supplies...Someone like that, who could travel so far and survive...They won't lose...They can't lose…I can believe in that, can't I?...You won't lose...I believe in you...Angel Eyes…"