Old Habits Die Hard | 3

ooOoo

Lena was counting stars as she sat by the edge of a roof, idly swinging her legs to and fro.

She really meant it when she had told Commander Morrison about knocking out all the Talon operatives on the roofs. Sure, there was that one man who was cowering behind a dumpster on a terrace, but that was because she actually shot his rifle once to render him ineffective.

She knocked him out a few minutes later, out of pity for his blood pressure. She knew when to draw the line between amusing and cruel.

Anyway.

With all that said, it truly meant that she had no more business lounging around the top of houses. But that didn't stop the Commander from ordering her back up here and subjecting her to a whole new level ofboredom.

If there was something Lena hated, it was not being able to talk with anyone. She always found joy in conversing with people, and being ordered not to was practically killing her in a slow fashion.

I'd rather be in a gunfight with Widowmaker by now, she thought dourly. Why does Jack have to be so grumpy?

There was a burst of static, and a voice came from her earpiece. "Tracer, break into the topmost level of the building. We'll be sweeping up the warehouse and securing the objective."

"Alright, boss!" Lena chirped, relieved to finally be doing something else other than flattening her ass on some tiles. She sprang up and blinked to another building, continuing to do so until she reached one side of the warehouse.

Lena fixed her visor, crouching to a sprinting stance as she faced one of the many windows lining the warehouse. In a flash, she blinked to midair just in front of it, falling down in a dive. "I'm the boss, I'm the boss, I'm the boss..."

Glass shattered as Lena dove right through it, and ended her fall by rolling to her feet in the third floor's surface. In hindsight, she could've just blinked through the window, but she decided that doing so wouldn't warrant enough flair.

Boxes littered the edges of the room, all of them big enough for someone to crouch behind. There were no ceiling lights, the only source of illumination coming from the moonlight filtering through the windows. And in the center of the room...

"Woah..." Lena never saw anything like this before; a large circle dominated the center of the floor, and its area was nothing but a swirling mass of black and purple. Particles of the same color rose out of the vortex-like object, but soon fizzled out of existence. "Is this the objective? Holy cow, this is strange!"

Lena decided to take a closer look, so she stepped forward, and soon approaching the large pool in a steady pace. She stopped when an awful lot of static burst out from her earpiece, causing her to flinch.

"Tra-... is... -ston..." Lena heard Winston speak, but there seemed to be an odd amount of interference. "I... war-... no... -at... are... -ling... please... of... -enga-... -object..."

"I'm sorry, love. I can't seem to speak with you right now." Lena winced as static overtook the comm link, and with a press she deactivated the earpiece. "Damn, is this what great-grandma meant by listening to radios from the 1960s?"

Lena made to move closer to the objective when she saw a chilling sight. From the abyss of ominous purple and obsidian black, an arm covered in what seemed to be red plated armor stretched out, as if grasping for any leverage. It then found purchase on the floor beyond the circle's perimeter, and began clawing at it. Another similar hand joined, and slowly a body emerged from within the vortex.

The being drew a deep breath, and it heaved, pulling its whole body from the swirl of dark colors and rolling onto the floor.

Immediately Tracer whipped out her dual pulse pistols, and she aimed her weapons at the being, which slowly dragged itself up. Soon it was standing with its hands on its knees, its back facing her.

Tracer bit back the shivers when the entity turned around, and almost dropped her pistols in shock when she saw what it was. A boy, looking no older than eighteen years, had his body completely covered in some medieval-looking plate armor that was colored crimson. He had a messy mane of black, and there were hints of facial hair above his lips and on his chin.

His eyes snapped open, and two brown orbs looked at Lena. The boy suddenly stretched his hand open, as if to grab something, but froze when his eyes locked on to her pulse pistols.

"Who in hell are you supposed to be?" Tracer asked, failing to contain her bewildered curiosity. The boy blinked, still staring at her weapons, then at her.

"Oh." His voice was a deep baritone, an odd tone for someone that looked his age. The boy stretched out his arms, but flinched when Lena made to point her pistols at his chest. "Er, I'm sorry if I was interrupting something. I don't mean to intrude, really."

Lena lowered her weapons, giving him a grin. "No worries, love. We were coming for that thing behind you, anyways."

Instantly, she snapped her pistols back to position, just in level with his torso. "But you still haven't answered my question."

The boy flinched at her sudden movement. He sighed and gave a shrug. "Oh, why the hell not. I'm Yu-"

From the crates all around them, men with assault rifles popped out from behind or within. Lena only had time to yell a warning before she and the boy dropped to the floor, a storm of bullets suddenly raging above them.

ooOoo

Jack Morrison was punching a Talon operative to unconsciousness when he heard the sounds of gunfire upstairs.

He cursed under his breath and slammed the butt of his rifle on the man's head, effectively knocking him cold. He sprinted further into the hallway, tapping his earpiece to establish a link with Lena.

"Tracer, are you okay?" Jack asked. Three men turned the corner, and he dove behind a crate as they opened fire with their rifles. "Answer me, damnit!"

He reloaded his pulse rifle before rising from cover, firing a barrage of plasma at his enemies. When he dove back to cover Jack growled when he received no response, and went to call Winston instead.

"Winston, this is Soldier 76." He shoved an ammo box into his pulse rifle and popped out, shooting one of the men down then ducking from return fire. "You've got the map, so tell me what's happening above."

"T-tracer is surrounded and stuck with an unidentified m-man!" Winston's strangled voice yelped in response.

"Sweet Jesus, Winston." Jack reloaded and fired from cover, and another man was shot down. "Don't go apeshit on me."

"The odds aren't looking favorable for them!" Winston bellowed. "You have to hurry!"

Jack wondered why the gorilla said "them", but shrugged it off and replied with a grunt. He stood up and kicked the crate, sending it sliding to the man at high speeds. The Talon soldier yelped as the crate slammed into him, pinning him to the wall. Jack sprinted at him and delivered a mighty swing of his rifle to the man's face, knocking him out.

Turning the corner, Jack came across a staircase, with a door at the end of its flight. With a burst of speed, he dashed up the stairs and shoulder-checked the door, knocking it off its hinges.

He barely had time to register the arc of flame before ducking, its heat rolling over him like a wave.

What the?... Jack rose to find two Talon men lying on the ground before him, groaning in pain. He looked up to see ahead of them, and he quirked a brow.

Lena had her pulse pistols out, turning from side to side while releasing a hail of plasma. The Talon operatives under her assault dove behind crates, but some were caught by her fire and fell to the ground.

Behind her, a man in plated armor swung a long sword, which released a wave of fire at Talon operatives in the other side of the room. Most ducked under the flames, but the crates they were hiding behind caught fire, forcing them to jump back and fight in the open.

"Oy, Sir!" Lena blinked to the side to evade enemy fire, and she returned the assault by unloading her dual pistols' clips on the Talon soldiers. "Nice to see you join the party. Can you give us a hand, love?"

"Does she call everyone 'love'?" the man asked, amusement in his voice. He then held the broad side of his blade across his body to block the Talon operatives' bullets.

Jack slammed a foot on the each of the Talon operatives lying in front of him, knocking them out. He aimed his pulse rifle at the men focusing on the sword-wielding boy, and unloaded his clip.

The Talon operatives cried out as they were shot down one by one. They weren't even able to react to Jack's flanking fire before they were all lying on the ground, motionless.

Jack heard the familiar sound of Lena blinking, and he turned to see the rest of the Talon operatives falling down. Tracer stood behind them, blowing away the smoke from the tips of her pistols and holstering her weapons.

Lena gave him a cheeky grin. "Well, what do you know. First mission after Recall, and we've accomplished it and got a new ally!"

Jack raised a brow at the last word and turned to the man, who he could now see looked more like a teenager. The boy gave a strained smile and waved a hand at them.

"Yeah, erm. Hi," the boy said. His arms swung from his sides, and it was as if he was trying not to look at them. "Nice meeting you guys. Name's Yuan. How do you do."

"We're doing great!" Lena answered, beaming. "We just came back from a loooong break, is all."

Right after she said that, a loud, creaking moan reverberated from- to Jack's surprise- what appeared to be a purple swirling vortex in the center of the room. With a whoosh, it appeared to collapse on itself, until it was no more.

The boy stared at the spot where the anomalous thing once was. "Oh." A few seconds of awkward silence later, he turned to them and shrugged his shoulders. "So... What's next?"

To be continued...

ooOoo

Author's Note:

So, this is where my OC starts to come in. Now, I want to make a possibly big announcement about him;

He's a self-insert.

Now, hear me out before you go through that door with the large EXIT sign above it. I have another announcement to make;

I don't know what the fuss is about self-inserts.

Now, hold on- don't toss my story into the ABANDONED room yet. The reason is because I absolutely have no clue about the situation. Seriously, I'm like a little kid who's entered his first classroom; 100% clueless and naive. So treat this as if you're the teacher and I'm the student; tell me what's so disturbing about self-inserts, because I know as much as a rock does when it comes to the general opinion of self-inserts.

Hell, I don't even know if my OC is a self-insert; he's got all of my qualities besides having been tossed into a few unrealistic situations where he's probably got something I don't have.

All I can ask, really, is that you continue reading on when the next batch of chapters arrive. If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that I absolutely HATE Gary Stus- so I can safely say that I've done a good job in avoiding that route with my OC. Hell, he's not even the main focus of the story- it's our lovable grump of an old soldier (and dad figure?), Soldier 76.

Anyway, see you next time. Criticisms (not flames) are appreciated. MrEpic3000 out.