When Sniper came to, his first thoughts were of his hat. Blinking furiously, he sat up and pulled himself upright with the assistance of a chair. Falling asleep on watch again…damn, I'm getting sloppy. Then he saw the huge column of smoke rising in front of him, and everything came rushing back.

"Scout? You there?" The connection was dead. "Heavy? Soldier? What's your status?" Resting his rifle on the low wall that ran around the edge of the dam, Sniper peered into the scope, trying to catch a glimpse of the floodplain below through the cloud of smoke.

The radio made a crackling sound. Looking away from his scope, Sniper bent down and fiddled with the dials until he picked up a familiar, French-accented voice.

"Sniper! What is going on out there?"

"Buggered if I know. The other three were checking out a bot incursion, then…" He broke off, staring through his scope again.

"Well?" There was a slight hissing sound as the microphone picked up the cloud of cigarette smoke that permanently shrouded Spy's head. "We haven't got all day."

The wind picked up, and the smoke began to clear. As it did, Sniper caught his first glimpses of the devastation that lay below. Crikey! "I'm looking at a bunch of demolished buildings, fellas. Everything from the edge of the slipway to the entrance to the canyon is busted up. As for what caused it…"

The object was roughly the size of a grain silo, and shaped like a teardrop. It had come to rest with the fat end embedded firmly in the foundations of the warehouse and the thin top pointing straight up. The whole object seemed to give off a strange glow, and Sniper noticed that some of the haze was coming from a pool of water being boiled away at the base of the warehouse.

"…The bloody thing's red hot! Must've fallen out of space."

"Can you describe this 'bloody thing'? It seems to have destroyed nearly every security camera we had down there."

"It's big, made of metal, and it was moving fast. Shaped like a big…spinning top, I reckon. Didn't even see it hit the ground, it just appeared."

"Could it be Grey Mann's doing?" Sniper picked up the sounds of a few other mercenaries wondering aloud. "A weapon of some kind, perhaps."

"Could be. I did see some bots earlier, but they're gone now. Bloody thing landed right on top of them."

"What about the others? Scout, Heavy, Soldier… can you see where they are?"

Sniper shook his head as he panned the scope of his rifle across the ruined warehouse. "They were in there, fighting the bots when the thing came down. Nothing on the radio since then."

"Dead?"

Before he could answer, he caught a flash of movement in his peripheral vision. Sniper instinctively ducked down behind the lip of the dam, hugging his rifle to his chest.

"Sniper!"

"Sit tight. Something's happening down there." Replacing the radio receiver, Sniper unfastened the clamps that held his telescopic scope to the top of his rifle. Then, as slowly and as smoothly as he could, he rose up until he was level with the lip of the wall to train his telescope on the pod.

The smoke had almost completely cleared, revealing every aspect of the mysterious object. The banging sound intensified, and by adjusting the zoom on the scope Sniper could see that a circular panel was vibrating at the top of the pod. An escape hatch? Maybe the crew survived.

His answer came a few seconds later. With one final bang, some sort of explosive detonated behind the panel, blowing it clear of the pod and onto the ground below. The explosion revealed an open hatch, and as the dust clouds billowed around it, a crewmember of the pod appeared. The first to emerge was something that looked like a man wrapped in a hooded cloak. He jumped down from the open hatch and landed heavily, trailing black smoke, although if he was on fire he didn't seem to notice. The figure gestured towards the pod, and a few seconds later someone else came out. They hesitated at the door of the pod, but someone else who was still inside kicked them out onto the sandy ground. The face of a young woman, cut and bloodied, appeared in Sniper's scope.

One man…one woman…and what the hell is that?

It was certainly shaped like a woman, with a skin-tight outfit that left little to the imagination. Yet the skin that showed underneath reminded Sniper of a drowned corpse, an ugly bruised purple that gave her an otherworldly appearance. She was carrying a rifle of some kind as well, a sleek compact design that matched the colour of her outfit. Unlike the others, she made the jump from the hatch to the ground look easy, landing with a graceful roll on the sandy ground. Rousing the other woman to her feet with a swift kick, she joined the man in the cloak in a whispered conversation.

Gently, Sniper lowered himself back down behind the dam wall, and reached for the radio. At the same time, he moved to reattach his scope to his rifle.

"I've got eyes on three targets. One woman…and I've got no clue what the other two are. They're armed, so I doubt they've come in peace." The bolt of his rifle slid shut with a satisfying click. "Any objections to having me as the welcoming party, mates?"

There was a muttered conversation on the other end of the line, then the team's Medic spoke up, albeit uncomfortably close to the microphone.

"You're quite sure the others are dead, Sniper? I will be needing extra space in the infirmary if that is not the case, as my other projects are occupying the beds at the moment."

"I don't know where the others are, Doc." Sniper settled his rifle into the crook of his arm. "But I know I'm about to bag myself a couple of bona fide aliens."

"Bravo, Sombra. I guess you were useful for something after all."

"She performed as expected. We have arrived at the correct date…although several hundred metres from the predicted landing point. It's close enough not to matter."

"What about our pilot?"

"She can stay right where she is." Reaper scanned the surrounding buildings, his hands hovering over the stocks of his Hellfire shotguns. "That pod has enough supplies to keep her alive for days, and she won't try to escape if we still have our hostage."

Emily rose to her feet, clutching Widowmaker's arm for balance as she struggled to stay upright. The assassin gave an exasperated sigh as she hooked her free arm under the woman to prevent her from touching the red-hot time machine. "We had better find somewhere to hide this one. I don't feel like carrying her around much longer."

Reaper drew in a rattling breath as if he was about to answer – before something came whizzing through the air overhead to strike his mask in a shower of sparks. The impact sent him reeling, and his entire body seemed to ripple and briefly lose cohesion. An instant later, the distant boom of a shot echoed out, amplified by the sloping wall of the dam.

Before the sound had died away, Widowmaker had brought her rifle up and was returning fire. Even in a full sprint, she was able to fire off five rounds in quick succession that all landed in a tight group on the top of the dam wall. Her motions were unnaturally swift for a human, the product of endless hours of training and mental conditioning. Within seconds of the ambush being sprung, their unseen attacker was either dead or taking cover as Widowmaker emptied her rifle at their last known position, then threw Emily over her shoulder and dashed behind the pod.

"Gabriel! I trust you are not hurt!"

Reaper had vanished, but his voice was still audible in Emily and Widowmaker's earpieces. "Give me a minute. It looks like you've got company back there."

Widowmaker switched her rifle into close-quarters configuration. "How many?"

"Remember what the dossier said? No more than nine."

Short chapter this time, but the two teams are finally going to meet in earnest! Be sure to let me know what you think so far, and thanks for reading.