Chapter 1 The Awakening

When he opened his eyes, all he could see was the darkened sky. He knew not where he was, nor who he was. All he felt was the rubble covering his body, and the light breeze washing over him.

As the tinnitus faded out from his hearing, he started to hear distant gunfire and people screaming.
His memory came flooding back as he started to wiggle free from the rubble. Aliprando De Guerri, Not very Human Engineer and Soldier, 25 Years old. At least he remembered who he was.

He could have sworn that he was just sitting at his computer, playing games until- until what? He clearly remembered talking to his long-time internet friend, playing games, and the next thing he knew he was lying under rubble, surrounded by distant gunfire.

This wasn't right. His country wasn't at war with anyone, he made sure of that, and no terrorist groups have been active for almost five years, so what exactly was going on?

"alright, stay calm, you got this" he muttered to himself, slowly managing to get away from under the Concrete plate pushing down on him. When he finally got out, he flopped on the ground, panting. "I really should've worked out more" he berated himself. "Then again, whats a lazy fuck to do." A wry smile crept on his face.

After finally managing to get his breathing under control, he sat up, looking around.

He was sat in the middle of a ruin, which he presumed to be his Apartment block. After careful examination however, he realised that it wasn't. He wasn't even sure this was Switzerland. The Farmland he knew to surround his complex was nowhere to be seen, in its stead however was a concrete jungle, mostly in ruins. "what the hell.." he muttered, slowly getting up to look around.

He exited the building as quietly as he was able, hoping not to draw attention, with the gunfire and all – still cursing himself for letting himself go the past years. He wasn't fat, but still chubby, and having become a couch-potato, his coordination suffered – resulting in some small debris from the collapsed building to tumble down the slopes of the pile of rubble with a clattering sound.

"shitshitshit" he shuffled towards the staircase, out of sight, now realising that he was on the 3rd floor. "yea, this really isn't my home. Last I remember it had 2 floors." He thought to himself.

Luckly enough, the stairs seemed usable. He got down to the 1st floor, but came upon the next problem. The stairs down to the ground level had collapsed, and the shaft had been filled with rubble from the half-collapsed building. "Well, maybe the windows will give me a window for escape." He chuckled, before slapping himself. "jesus christ that was horrible."

But, true enough, the windows were mostly intact, with a shallow slope of rubble leading down towards the equally damaged road. He sat down at the window, looking around for usable items.
He patted himself down for what he had on hand. "Alright, pocket knife, phone... my wallet. Where's- ah." He sighed in relief as he felt his multitool at his belt. Swiss pride or not, a useful tool is a must.

He pondered if he should access his armory – but decided against it. If this was one of Dan's pranks, he could not risk exposing himself.

As he patted himself down, he noticed that he was wearing casual clothes, instead of just a pair of sweatpants, like he remembered. Also, he was wearing his combat boots for some reason.

"Coulda sworn I threw them out after retiring. Then again, quite convenient, considering the situation." Although, he'd rather have his sword handy right now.

As he made his way down the road, towards what he thought to be the central square of the little town – City?, he scanned the rubble for signs of life. Surely, he wouldn't be the only one, considering the size and relative recency of the rubble. Some piles had sparks flying out, accompanied by the tell-tale sound of arcing electricity, others simply had water flowing down, indicating that it hadn't been too long since they collapsed.

Despite everything, he found no obvious signs of other survivors. Of any life at all, save the gunfire in the distance, really.

He looked around for a sheltered spot and found one in a surviving apartment block's doorway. Going inside, he pulled out his phone and turned the screen on. A single bar of reception. "Huh. Did not expect that." He muttered again. He was fairly certain that he'd have no luck with that, almost expecting the cellphone towers to have been torn down by whatever destroyed the buildings.

He checked the various inboxes of his messengers, until he noticed something. "What the hell.." he muttered, looking at the date. 10.07.2075. "Alright, what the fuck. Who the hell would mess with my phone date?" something was clearly amiss, if the destroyed city wasn't obvious enough. The last date he remembered was 3rd of April, 2019. Five days after his Birthday.

Either his friend planned a very intricate late-birthday surprise, or – or, he thought, I just got thrown into a time warp-scenario. His Sci-Fi loving mind got excited at the thought. "Alright, hold yer horses. Time warp scenarios only exist in books. Either Dan just wasted half his fortune on a half-assed attempt to throw me a party, or I'm having a really weird dream." He pinched himself. "Ouch. Alright not a dream. So, probably Dan wasting money in that case. But, if its not that.." he trailed off, considering his options. "Well, better safe than sorry, no?" he now quietly mumbled, slowly walking towards the exit again, doing better than before. Looked like his muscle memory was coming back.

He decided to look around again, this time intently listening to his surroundings. At least the gunfire seemed further away.

He hoped to find any sign of it really just being a joke from his friend as he ventured further throughout the rubble of the destroyed city – just to come face-to-face with a massive robot, at least 20 meters tall. To his Luck, it seemed inactive. Holes littered its upper torso, accompanied by burn marks. One of its legs was torn off at the shin, making him guess at just what could have cut it off so cleanly. He did not like the idea of something being able to do that. He then noticed that its right arm was a massive cannon.

He started glancing around again. A bad feeling was slowly making him nervous.

"This better really just be Dan pranking me." He hoped, even though he knew that not even Dan's wealth would be able to pull something like this off.

He started walking again, hoping to get away from the gunfire. He had walked towards it at first, hoping to find the source of this supposed prank – now, he was not so keen to see if it really was just a prank.

Pulling his phone out and shielding the screen so that the light from it was hardly visible, he tried to open his GPS map – only for it to show an Error. "well, that's just lovely. What did I spend money on you for?" he growled. He drew out his pocket knife with his free hand, inspecting the edge. "Sharp enough. Lets hope I don't need it." The probability of this just being a prank from Dan got lower with each passing minute.

He was about to shove both his phone and his knife back into his pockets, when he heard footsteps.
Having no time to think, he darted into the next doorway, as quietly as he could.

"And I'm telling you, we're not here for that. We just get rid of the witnesses that may have seen us, and maybe help the null sector troops. Making sure nobody remembers us takes priority."

A second voice replied. "Yes, I get that. But why are we checking the ruins? There's no way anyone survived the Dreadnought coming through."

"What?" Aliprando thought, now seriously confused. "Goddamnit. This really is some weird time slip, isn't it." He thought, attempting to summon his sword. With its quiet humm, it appeared in his right hand, its darkened blade glittering in the dark. He silently cursed himself for not testing the functionality of his armory sooner.

But then again, Dan didn't know that Aliprando wasn't fully human, so he couldn't risk being found out, by Dan of all people.

He concentrated once more, thin Armor materializing on his self. As usual, it just took shape of his clothes, reinforcing them against ballistic damage. He Chuckled to himself, quietly. Well, that was an understatement, this Armor was – he didn't get to finish that thought, as he heard the footsteps getting closer.

"you hear that?" one of the supposed soldiers asked the other. "sounds like- a fly? No dude, I cant hear shit."

The footsteps stopped in front of the doorway Aliprando was hiding in. "Please don't have FLIR, im just a shadow." he hurriedly thought. "C'mon, leave ya bastards." He mentally encouraged them.

The taller one of them was about to take a step towards him, as their radio buzzed. Intelligible chatter filled the air. "Loud and clear, Clean-up 2-2. Affirm. We will rendezvous with you at Drop zone Delta 5. Over." the soldiers looked at each other. "Well, you heard them – time to move. Better move quickly too, you remember what happened last time a squad was late?" "yea, that Reaper was terrifying. Let's go"

With that, the soldiers turned and left. Aliprando was still crouched in the shadowy doorway, sword in hand. "Reaper? What?" he could have sworn he heard that name somewhere before.

As the footsteps disappeared, he gripped his sword in reverse, laying the blade flat against the back of his arm. He slowly walked out of the doorway that hid him, glancing after the retreating figures of the unknown soldiers. He wasn't sure what country or organization they were from, but the fact that they were clean-up and supposed to get rid of witnesses was bad. Bad.

He decided not to linger and made his way away from the directions the soldiers took, which luckily also meant that he was moving away from the now faraway gunfire. Whatever they were fighting, they were really pushing them or it back quickly. Despite the convenience for his quiet escape, he wasn't so sure he liked that.

Despite everything, his escape away from the ruined city was surprisingly uneventful after that.

Well, he did have to trek trough forestry for half a day until he came upon the next town.

Once he was in the Town, he quickly oriented himself.

As it turned out, he was in Russia, of all places. From what little Russian he had picked up over the years, he concluded that there was some war going on against – what did they call them? Omnics?

The Russian media were eerily quiet about said war, but the people were clearly more open about it.
Then again, Russian media being Russian media, he was not really surprised.

What surprised him was the friendliness he received from the townsfolk. He was sure they'd be vary of him, considering he just marched out of a forest south of Dorozhny, not to mention being a foreigner and barely speaking Russian.

Aliprando tried asking around for directions towards the nearest airport, finding to his despair that the nearest airport was Mirny, which was 140 kilometers away from Dorozhny.

Seeing as he had no money, he asked if he could exchange some work for someone driving him to the Airport, to which the Innkeeper agreed.

The innkeeper of the small Café Mintuka, or, as he remembered, A Moment, offered him some food, in exchange for repairing their coffee machine. To drive him to the Airport, he'd first have to repair the engine of the Innkeeper's car, however.

Aliprando responded with confidence and a smile "Sure, I've yet to find an engine I could not fix or improve."

It took him three days. Considering that he had never seen a car with Hydrogen cells before, he was still proud that he managed to pull it off, even if he almost blew it up at first. Not that the innkeeper had to know that, however.

Aliprando thanked the Innkeeper for being allowed to stay with him as he got dropped off at the Airport of Mirny, realizing that he had no money or means to get on a plane home.

"Well shit, great going dumbass" he once more berated himself. This was going to become a habit if he kept this up.

Seeing no other way out of this predicament, he pretended to be just another tourist, staking out the situation at the Airport.

While traffic was scarce, the Aircraft that did traverse the Airport were long-range cargo planes.

Aircraft which he had never seen. Great. His initial disappointment was quickly overcome by curiosity. Would these Aircraft have an Alternative propulsion system, like the car the Innkeeper drove? If they did, would he manage to pilot it?

While he wasn't sure about the engines, he was confident in his ability to pilot the Planes, considering he was one of the best pilots of his class back home.

So, during the next shift change of the guards, he snuck onto the perimeter of the Runway. He quietly made his way towards the Hangar he last saw one of the Freighters being pushed into.

Once he arrived, he lockpicked the door, mentally patting himself on the back for picking up said skillset. Once inside, he slowly but surely staked the hall out, making sure no crew or maintenance personnel were inside, before entering the Aircraft. Luckily for him, the Dashboard and Instruments immediately felt familiar. To his disappointment, however, the Aircraft just turned out to be a common Jet freighter. A Tupolev TU-60. While it was an aircraft he had never seen or heard of before, it felt no different than the American Globemaster series. In comparison however, it was significantly smaller.

As he familiarized himself with the controls, he mentally took notes of what had happened the past week.

Firstly, He was now thoroughly convinced that this was definitively not some ill-advised birthday party. Dan would have long since lost his patience and burst in, showing off how much money he could throw around for his friends.

Secondly, Whatever war was going on, it seemed to be human against those Robots. So, Robots are likely bad guys.

Thirdly, To take a generous amount of money with him from now on.

As he was confident that he'd find himself at home in the cockpit, he exited the jet again and went to look for the hangar door controls. They turned out to be a simple pulley motor with a switch.

He clicked the "Open" button and ran back into the cockpit. The Door was making more noise than he anticipated, so he hurriedly started the engines, ready to roll out of the hangar as soon as the doors were fully open.

He had just reached the runway and had positioned the jet for take off, as the floodlights came to life, accompanied by the sirens and speakers.

The speakers informed him in Russian that he was to exit the aircraft and come out with his hands over his head.

In response, he pushed the throttle levers to maximum. The jet lurched forward, surprisingly easily taking off from the runway. He stayed low to the terrain, hoping ATC still had the comical flaw to not work at low altitude.

Sure enough, the radar didn't pick him up.

He made it about halfway, before he felt a cold hard sensation on the back of his head.

"Hola, Pendejo" said a female voice. "impressive work. For an amateur."

Aliprando froze. "Mind If I put the Autopilot on?" he asked sheepishly. Instead of replying, the woman behind him snapped her fingers. "Done."

He tried turning around to face the woman, but she roughly turned him forward again. "no, you just look at the sky, pendejo. Instead, why don't you tell me how you wound up in Dorozhny? And don't try to talk your way out of it, I am easily bored."

Aliprando thought for a moment. "Quite honestly, I have no idea. I do remember waking up in some weird place tough." Might as well be honest, no? Not the brightest of ideas he's had, but not much to lose right now.

The Woman chuckled. "Pendejo" she mused, "you don't expect me to believe that, do you?"
Aliprando sighed. "I mean, kind of? I literally have no way to prove or disprove it."

The Woman sighed now. "Boring.." she said, pulling the trigger. Aliprando ducked out of the way of the gunfire, whipping around and knocking her Gun away. He then tried to grapple her, but she disappeared in front of his eyes, only to reappear a few meters further back in the plane.

He Blinked. "I- what?" before he could react, she became invisible. Invisible. "Okay, that's just unfair!" he exclaimed, unfolding his pocket knife with a flick of his wrist. He concentrated. Invisible didn't mean mute or invincible, right?

Well, trying to pick up on footsteps over the drone of jet engines should be impossible. For a human.
Aliprando could hear her footsteps. Sure, he'd have a migraine afterwards from the ridiculous intensity of the engines, but better than getting shot and/or stabbed.

Tap tap tap he heard, tap tap TAP she lunged at him and he dodged to the side, her left straight passing just a hairs breath from his ear. He grabbed her fist and pulled towards himself, flipping his pocket knife so that it stopped just a breath before her throat.

"Still find me boring, Chica?" he taunted. To his surprise, she grinned. "Not at all, guapo"

Aliprando lifted one of his eyebrows, now smiling cockily. "What, first I'm an ass, now I'm handsome? You sure change opinions quickly, Sombra."

He knew he had heard "Reaper" before. A game he used to play on his PC, called "Overwatch".
Lets hope the Game Lore corresponds with this world.

He grinned as she frowned in surprise. He contemplated pressuring her with her real name, but decided against it. Better keep some aces up your sleeve.

"Now then, miss Sombra, if I let you go, will you behave?"

She smiled seductively. "I don't know, I kind of like the position you put me in." Aliprando flinched at that, and Sombra used that to break free.

Now Aliprando smiled as well, but surprisingly wickedly. "you… I like you."

As Sombra picked up her SMG from the corner of the Cockpit, still eyeing Aliprando, she scanned him. Seems her Initial assessment wasn't far off. He was slightly out of breath, despite only having moved relatively lightly. He was not in shape, he had excess fat, but he certainly had experience.

To her Surprise, he stowed his knife away. "Well then, Miss Sombra, where do you want me to drop you off?" She hesitated. "What? What makes you think I'll let you live?"

Aliprando laughed. "if you really wanted me dead, you'd not still be standing there. Well, not like you could kill me." His smile grew challenging.

Sombra decided not to test it. "Well guapo, where are you getting off?"

Aliprando's smile returned to normal. "Switzerland. My home."

Now, Sombra was intrigued. This sounded like an opportunity to grab a lot of worthwhile intel.
She had already secured the traces of this Aliprando digging himself out from the rubble of a building in the centre of what was supposed to be the Killzone of the Dreadnought Omnic, which should, and with the exception of Aliprando, did effectively kill any human being in the city.

How this man survived would be highly interesting to her. Tough, now she decided to purposely hide the information away in her private archive. Having backdoors in Talon's Killbots would be quite valuable.

Aliprando, in the meantime, started connecting the dots of what he already knew.

"So," he turned to her again, "Talon and Null Sector." She glared at him. How did he know? First her Alias, now this? This was too good to be a coincidence or guesswork. He Continued. "I'm Guessing you're helping Null Sector upgrade to more effectively start the second crisis?"

Sombra had trouble keeping her poker face. "Who knows." She responded, half heartedly. "Wouldn't you like to know?" she tried to boop him, but he pulled away, awkwardly. "don't- don't do that." He said, grimacing.

Did she just find an angle to annoy him? "What, you don't like me touching you, guapo?"
Aliprando chuckled again. "I'm sure I'd love it, if, y'know, you weren't talon. Or I wasn't chock full of adrenaline and on the verge of passing out." Only now Sombra saw Aliprando's shaky hands and sweaty forehead.

He sat down heavily in the Pilot's seat, sighing. "Five hours of flight left." He mumbled. "You don't suppose you could do me a favour?" he asked, optimistically.

Sombra chuckled, snapping her fingers. She disappeared again.

Aliprando sighed. "Well shit, Ain't this gonna be fun."

This was shaping up to be a long 5 Hours.