Old Habits Die Hard | 9
Author's Note:
This will diverge from canon a bit, but it's just something minor;
Remember the space the crowd was in during the animated short "Alive"? It wasn't really big, what with all the buildings around it.
Now imagine that it was multiple times bigger, like two football fields long and wide. And the space is a circle shape.
Sorry, this is what I had imagined Mondatta's place of assassination looked like. Hopefully it does not impact the story in a significantly negative way.
ooOoo
Genji kept a hand on his katana as he surveyed the area around him. Beyond him the dropship soared overhead, leaving him where he was dispatched.
If there was one thing that he was thankful of for his metal shell of a body, it's that it filtered the surrounding smoke from entering his lungs. Around him, buildings had collapsed and wreaked of raging fire. Cars were flipped, crushed, and mauled by gigantic claw marks. Genji looked away when he spotted a man lying on the pavement, long dead with his blood pooling around his head.
It hasn't been an hour, and this place already looks like a war zone. Genji laid a finger on his earpiece and said, "HQ, Dropship, this is Genji. The area is clear of any life. Shall I advance?"
"Are you sure there's no one that we can save?" Lena asked, her voice buzzing in the comm. He would by lying if he didn't think she sounded the least distraught.
"There is a corpse of a man on the road, but I am unsure that there's still any hope for him," Genji answered. He received no response from Lena after that.
"Must be one of the forty-five unaccounted," Winston's voice came, and it was as if he was muttering to himself. There was silence for a few seconds before the gorilla spoke once more; "You may advance, Genji. Make sure to check your surroundings; there might be civilians in need of rescue."
"Affirmative, HQ." Genji crouched down, then sprang forward, launching himself several feet in the air towards a building's wall. When he made contact, his hands and feet latched onto the wall. He began to climb up.
He jumped to the building's roof once he was close enough, and he sprinted to the other side, looking around the area below it. There was ruin and wreckage, as expected. However, he noticed a group of men in black vests marching down the road.
Genji pulled back, resisting the urge to hiss. He activated his earpiece. "HQ, Dropship. I've spotted a squadron of black-vested men. There is no indication that they're part of the police force or army. Perhaps they are Talon operatives?"
There was a growl from the comm link. "Talon?" Jack spat. "Are they working with the dragon or something?"
"We can only speculate at this point," Winston interjected slowly, as if he was afraid to provoke Jack further. "However, if they have squadrons roaming around the area for this long without that dragon ripping them apart, then they must have some relationship."
Jack released a string of curses, and Genji had to restrain himself from flinching at the intensity of them. "What're we going to do, then?" the soldier asked after a few moments. "Got any clue, HQ?"
"Our primary objective is to take down that dragon," Winston said firmly. "In case nothing that can be a hindrance happens, we can include the local Talon soldiers in our blacklist."
His response from Jack was a grunt.
"Affirmative, HQ," Genji said, watching the group of Talon soldiers round a corner and disappear from sight. "Shall I scout for more potential Talon squadrons?"
"You have the green light, Genji," Winston said. "Just be careful."
"Of course." Genji sprinted to the building's edge, leaping off and landing on another rooftop. Staying low, he continued his reconnaissance mission.
ooOoo
So they took the beast down with nothing but their own monsters and swords. Jack watched the ruinous landscape from the open drop-off of the dropship, ignoring the wind blowing his hair. Impressive, considering that their military is a medieval-era army.
As he thought this, he turned his sights to Yuan, who was watching the burning town with an impassive gaze. From the very beginning that the boy showed up, Jack had been disturbed by his presence. A human being from a completely different dimension? The thought was barely believable, and it helped immensely that Lena reported that he popped out of some portal.
Now the boy unnerved him in more ways than one. The words Yuan said to him in the training room echoed in his mind; a resounding thought that was almost impossible to brush off. At this point, he still felt like an emotionally jumbled mess to the boy's words. I'm not sure that I can handle leading this team again, even for a while. I'm way past my expiry date, anyway.
He stopped the frustrated growl building up in his throat, and he opted to turn his sight to the floor with deeply furrowed brows.
... To see an ominous mist of black seeping into the dropship's floor. It was then that he really growled and spun around to face Yuan, who gave him a raised brow.
"Keep your guard!" Jack yelled, tightening the grip on his pulse rifle. "Possible hostile enemy has invaded the aircraft!"
Yuan continued to stare at him questioningly until he spotted the inky-black wisps. He looked down at the mist-covered floor, a deep frown growing on his face. "What the?.."
"Hey, I think I've seen this before..." Lena said from the cockpit, watching the blackness with dilated pupils. "Doesn't this come from the Reaper-"
"Die."
The form of a black-cloaked man rose from the mist, and the two shotguns he was wielding were each pointed at him and Yuan.
Jack could only yell a warning before he dropped to the floor, a storm of red laser fire immediately raging above him. From the other side of the drop-off, Yuan was shielding his head with his sword as he pressed himself against the floor.
Lena cried out as she shrank behind the pilot's seat, taking cover from the hail of laser blasts. The control panel of the dropship wasn't so lucky, as it exploded into sparks from the red beams burning holes into it.
The dropship tilted to one side, where the open ramp of the drop-off was flapping uselessly. Jack practically dug his fingers into the floor, desperate to stop himself from falling into the town hundreds of feet below.
He growled out a curse as the dropship also began to take a nosedive, descending to the Earth at a rapid pace. Jack would've shot the man in black with his rifle, but his two hands were occupied grabbing for dear life.
Yuan didn't appear to have the same idea; once they were no more than a dozen meters from the rooftops of buildings, the boy lunged from the floor to tackle the cloaked man. Both yelled out as they fell to the town below.
Yuan! Without stopping to think, Jack released his grip, and he slid across the floor until he fell off the dropship. He was quickly descending to a rooftop, and Jack kept his rifle against his chest as his shoulder slammed into the surface, the rest of his body following in a roll.
He somehow ended up on his feet, and he used his free arms to clutch at his aching sides. He gritted his teeth as he rode out the waves of pain coursing through him. That was some fall, alright.
He looked up to see the dropship sinking past the buildings beyond, and thoughts of Lena's fate twisted his stomach. He was about to establish a comm link with said person when his earpiece burst into static life.
"Soldier 76, this is Tracer!" Lena's voice said, sounds of screaming wind and emergency sirens in the background. "I've got the dropship working using the back-up controls, but it won't be flying for long. I'll be making an emergency landing on the town square; it's just ahead of me!"
Jack sent a thanks to whoever deity he could think of. "Alright, I'll update the situation to the others. You just focus on achieving a safe landing. Soldier 76 out."
With an "aye!", Lena dismissed the comm link. Jack began to establish a link with Winston, and his brows creased when he couldn't get a signal. "The hell?.."
He continued to try and form a link with Winston, but his earpiece wasn't receiving the smallest bit of signal from HQ. After a while, he picked up the familiar sounds of shotgun blasts. Damnit. I forgot about Yuan and the Reaper.
He scrambled to the edge of the rooftop, and he looked down to see Yuan and the Reaper on the rooftop of a shorter building. The boy had the flat of his blade trying to cover most of his body as he stumbled back from every shot the latter pumped out from his weapons.
Jack brought his rifle to bear on the Reaper's form, but he froze when he heard multiple footsteps from behind him. He turned around to see a group of men in black vests wielding assault rifles.
With a growl, he sprinted to the side of the rooftop and peeked below, seeing another rooftop. He turned to see the men with rifles running after him, and he jumped off the building.
He landed on the other building's rooftop, and he ran off, occasionally firing at the men following him with his pulse rifle. Genji didn't tell that there were Talon squadrons on the roofs!
Bullets began to whiz past him, and Jack leapt off to another rooftop and continued running, hoping to gain some distance between himself and the enemy. There was no suitable cover for him to fight against the Talon operatives, so his only choice was to avoid them altogether. I also have to lead them away from Yuan. Hopefully the kid's still alive.
There were several cries from behind him, and he turned around to see the Talon soldiers being struck down by a hail of shurikens coming from the side. Once all of them were down, Jack turned to another rooftop to see Genji storing away his shurikens and looking up at him.
The cyborg leapt off the rooftop he was on, landing on his feet in front of him. Genji rose and did a short bow. "Apologies, Soldier 76. I had my hands full with Talon operatives on the rooftop, thus I was not able to update you on my status. How does Tracer fare?"
Jack huffed. "She's doing fine. She made an emergency landing in the town square. I think that was the place where Mondatta was murdered."
Genji froze when he spoke the omnic monk's name, but soon nodded. "I see. For now, I shall deal with Talon. You must assist Yuan against the entity known as Reaper."
Shit, I forgot about that. Jack reloaded his pulse rifle, pulling it up to his chest. "Got it."
With that, he ran off to where he came from, retracing his steps to where he last saw Yuan and the Reaper. As the image of the black-garbed man with the dual shotguns entered his mind, Jack couldn't help but feel a chill running through his spine. It's like there's something familiar about him..
ooOoo
Yuan grimaced as another blast of the Reaper's shotguns smacked at his sword, and he barely managed to balance himself from falling off the roof. This isn't gonna work.
The man in black tossed away his shotguns, to Yuan's confusion. But he took that as an opportunity to level his sword directly at the being, and released a stream of fire.
The flames shot forward like a fiery beam, and engulfed the Reaper in their searing blaze. When Yuan stopped his assault, he noticed a pool of black mist next to where Reaper once stood.
Said entity rose from the inky blackness, two new shotguns in his hands. Yuan gritted his teeth, raising the flat of his blade to block a burst of pellets.
"You know," he said through clenched teeth, "I have a feeling you're not human."
"I used to be," the Reaper growled, an oppressing voice coming from behind his skull mask. "But then the ones you're working with turned me into this.."
"Wha.." Yuan noticed that the rain of shotgun blasts stopped battering at his sword, and he peeked out of it to find the Reaper gone. That was, until he heard the thuds of two objects hitting the floor behind him. He whipped around to see said entity pointing a new pair of shotguns at him, his last ones lying at his feet.
The Reaper fired with one shotgun, and Yuan barely had time to whip his sword in one hand to block the shot. That one hand wasn't enough to withstand the blow, and his sword was knocked out of his grasp, clattering on the floor a meter away.
Yuan tried to summon it back to his hands, but he froze when he saw two shotguns cocked to his head. A chuckle came from behind the Reaper's mask, and he had to restrain himself from shivering.
"Send the Underworld my regards, boy," the man in black said, and Yuan spotted his fingers beginning to pull the trigger on both shotguns.
The Reaper would've been true to his word if he hadn't been suddenly rained down by a storm of blue beams. One of the projectiles clipped him on the shoulder, and the ominous entity growled as he dissolved into inky wisps and dissipated.
Yuan turned around to see Soldier 76 jump off a building's rooftop and land on the one he was on. The masked man swept his gaze around the area, his rifle-like weapon pinned to his chest by two hands.
Yuan sighed in relief, and let his shoulders slump. "Holy shit, man. Thanks for saving me."
Soldier 76 gave him a nod. "I had to lead a couple of Talon grunts away from here, so I wasn't able to come earlier."
Yuan nodded at that, and he retrieved his sword in a burst of flames around his hand. "Understandable. I would've done the same thing."
There was a growl, and he gripped Drakon tighter as wisps of inky black formed behind Soldier 76. "Soldier, behind you!"
Soldier 76 whipped around, backing to his side upon spotting the ominous swirls of black. He leveled his rifle at the mist, his brows creasing deeply.
Yuan felt his breath get stuck stuck in his throat when he heard a low, growling voice from the blackness;"Morrison..."
Soldier 76 flinched as if he was struck in the face. Yuan spotted his hands gripping tighter on his weapon as he continued aiming at the mist. "Who the hell are you supposed to be?" the masked man spat.
From the curls of black smoke, the black-garbed form of Reaper rose, his shotguns pointed at them. Yuan grimaced when the being let loose a guttural growl, a sound unlike anything he's heard of.
"I am the one you've shoved aside," the Reaper said, slowly walking towards them. Yuan pointed his sword at the man as he and Soldier 76 took a few steps back. "I am the one you broke. You are blind if you do not know what you did to me..."
He spotted a bead of sweat rolling down Soldier 76's forehead, who growled in response to Reaper. The rifle-wielding man let loose a round of blue beams from his weapon, which simply passed through Reaper's wispy form.
"IF YOU CANNOT SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO ME, I'LL MAKE YOU FEEL IT," the Reaper snarled, the wisps of black around his body raging like wild fire at his outburst. While he wasn't exactly the most intimidating opponent Yuan had faced, he emanated an aura that made him feel like being covered in cold sweat and his teeth chattering.
With a roar, Reaper unloaded a blast from both his shotguns. Yuan could see the shrapnel nearing in slow motion, and he chastised himself for currently being frozen in fear. He tried to bring up his sword to shield himself, but a part of his mind told him it was too late.
Suddenly, a grey blur landed between them and the Reaper. The metal-clad figure of Genji unsheathed what looked like a katana from his hip, and in incredible speed parried all the pellets from Reaper's shots, sending it back to the dark being.
The Reaper snarled as his shotguns' ammunition pierced into his body, with some ripping through the weapons themselves, which exploded in his hands. The cloaked man howled as he stumbled back, flailing his burning hands to extinguish the flames.
Genji performed a few twists with his katana before sheathing it in his hip. He kept a hand on its hilt as he stared at the Reaper from behind his visor, looking more impassive than any other time Yuan saw his expressionless mask.
"You are outnumbered," Genji spoke, his voice as hard as stone. "It is best that you leave us, Reaper."
The man in black growled, looking as if trying to burn a hole through the ninja with his skull mask's glare. Genji only stared back, still as a statue.
The Reaper turned to Soldier 76, and Yuan flinched at the seemingly intense glare he leveled at the rifle-wielding man. "I will be back, Morrison..."
Clutching his shoulder in obvious pain, the Reaper continued to look at Soldier 76, even as he broke down into inky smoke and was swept away by the wind.
Silence arrived. Yuan turned to see Soldier 76 breathing heavily, a sheen of sweat covering his forehead. It was as if he had ran a marathon.
Genji turned around to face them, tilting his head upon spotting Soldier 76. "Is something the matter, Sir? It looks as if you've seen a ghost."
Soldier shook his head, like he was was shaking something off. The masked man straightened his posture and gave Genji a grunt. "Maybe I have. But that's not important right now. Have you been able to connect with HQ?"
Yuan had a feeling that he wasn't telling everything, but his voice brook no argument. Genji seemed to know that as well and instead answered his inquiry; "I have not been able to establish a link. It's as if something is blocking out the signal."
Soldier made a sound between a sigh and a growl. "Could you at least get one with Tracer?"
Genji pressed a finger on the side of his head and held it there for a few seconds. After a while, he dropped his hand and shook his head. "I cannot connect with her either. However, I was able to do it a while ago."
Now Soldier 76 really growled. "What the hell can possibly be messing..."
The sky above them suddenly turned black, as if a great object obstructed their view from it. Yuan looked up, his blood running cold when he saw a huge silvery shape with flapping wings soar ahead of them, flying off to the distance with a creaking, metallic roar.
There was silence for a few seconds before it was broken by Soldier 76. "Shit," he cursed. "I just realized- it's going to the direction where Lena made an emergency landing."
Genji nodded slowly. "The beast would surely not miss an object as great as it flying in its territory before dropping somewhere."
Yuan chewed on his lip, darting his eyes between the ninja and the masked man. "Shouldn't we be doing something by now?"
"Yeah." Soldier 76 looked at the floor for a few moments. He then slung his rifle on his shoulders and gave him and Genji a look that could be interpreted as a hard one. "Alright, listen up. Yuan and I will be going through the streets; we'll be clearing them up as we head to Tracer. Genji, you'll stay on the rooftops and take care of the Talon grunts there."
Yuan grinned, slinging his own weapon on his shoulders. "Yeah, that sounds like a plan."
Genji nodded, giving Soldier 76 a bow. "I will do my duty. My only hope is that we can reach Tracer in time."
"Good." Soldier 76 turned to Yuan, and he felt something akin to dread twist in his gut. "Yuan, we're taking the stairs on the way down."
His response was to groan and fling his head back. "Oh, come on! That's literally the only bad part about this entire thing."
Unbeknownst to him, Soldier 76 and Genji shared a look, the former shaking his head and muttering something about "teenagers".
ooOoo
"Cheers, love!" Lena said. "You've earned yourself a free ticket to slumberland."
The Talon operative spun around, but it was too late as she whipped him on the head with a pulse pistol. There was a loud clang, and the man dropped to the ground.
Lena rotated fully to inspect her surroundings. An entire group of Talon soldiers were on the ground around her, either having hemorrhage in the head or bleeding out from pulse rounds.
Deeming her survey complete, Lena blinked to the side of the damaged dropship in the midde of King's Row's town square, and leaned against its hull to catch a breath.
Ever since she had made the emergency landing (she also patted herself on the back for not losing her pilot skills all this time), Lena had been trying to find ways to make the dropship fully operational. Despite her faster-than-average speed, she had never been able to find a manual anywhere in the aircraft.
The search for a solution continued a few more minutes until Talon squads had ambushed her position from multiple angles. The town square was a large place, so they had plenty of places to assault her from.
Now Lena had actually found some use for her super speed. Which all concluded to the present time- just her and the dropship, with Talon soldiers slowly dying all over the place.
The killing had unnerved her at first. She hadn't done much damage of this scale ever since the Omnic Crisis. But she had reminded herself continuously that for every Talon operative taken down, more innocent people would be safe and alive.
Lena blinked to the interior of the the dropship, stopping on the pilot seat and making herself comfortable. She reclined against the seat as she stared into the burning world beyond, humming a ditzy tune to herself.Killing isn't good. But it might just be what it takes to save the greater part of mankind.
A sound tore through the air, rattling the interior of the dropship and making Lena shake on her seat. She blinked in confusion and blinked to just behind the exit ramp, poking her head out to look above.
A huge thing consisting of metallic parts flew past from the sky, momentarily casting a shadow on the dropship and her. Lena sucked back a long gasp and craned her head past the side of the aircraft, spotting the beast landing on all four silvery claws at the top of the slightly collapsed town hall.
Its red eyes flashed as its head turned to her, and Lena pulled back whilst sucking in a breath. Her blood ran cold as she heard the dragon rumble out a growl, and with a flap of its wings it sounded as if it was nearing the dropship.
Oh sweet cripes, help me now. The sounds of the beast flapping closer grew in volume, and Lena sent a prayer to whoever god could hear her now. Staying low to the ground as much as possible, she blinked behind a crumpled car to watch the dropship in the center of the town square.
Peeking out from the hunk of broken metal, Lena spotted the terrifying beast of metal looming over the dropship, its crimson eyes looking down on it with a sense of curiosity. The dragon placed a claw on its roof, the aircraft groaning from the pressure.
Oh, no, Lena thought as she pursed her lips. I can't risk it harming the dropship!
Without stopping to think, she rose and put two fingers in her mouth, and whistled as loud as she could.Fucking cripes, I've done it now, didn't I?
The metallic dragon snapped its head to her, but Lena had already blinked into the building behind her, continuing to blink up the stairs until she reached the highest floor. From there she ran up to the rooftop and and stood over its edge, looking over the beast.
"Oi, over here!" she yelled as she waved her arms as far as she can. "Think you can take a bite out of me, love?"
From multiple stories below, the dragon craned its long neck up to look at her. Lena was able to catch her reflection in its red eyes before they flashed with a lethal intensity. The beast roared, and with an unfurling of its wings leapt up after her.
Lena blinked back by a few meters, keeping a hand on a pouch of pulse bombs strapped to her hip. Let's pray that I can make the shot...
Soon the air around her grew heavy, and the silvery beast rose into view, smoke wafting out its nostrils as it watched her with a murderous glint in its eyes. The dragon reached forward, opening its maw to let loose a roar as it did so.
Wait for it... NOW! Lena cocked her hand back and tossed an armed pulse grenade at its open jaws. Immediately after she blinked all the way down the building and to the other side of the town square, watching from behind another wrecked car.
She stopped just in time to see a huge fiery explosion engulf the dragon's entire head, a sky-piercing shriek coming from the beast as it reared back, shaking its burning head violently. With its eyes shrouded by flames, the silvery dragon flapped off from the town square, colliding with multiple buildings in its midair stumbling.
Lena heaved a sigh of relief, slumping against the car and landing on her bum. She put her head in her hands and chuckled. "Bloody jeepers, I actually did it."
She would've done a victory dance if it were not for the distant gunfire that suddenly rang through the dirty air. Lena kept still as she listened carefully, her mind racing with thoughts.
Jack? Genji? Yuan? Tracer jumped to her feet, biting her lips as she looked at an alleyway, where the sounds of gunfire were more prominent. It was also the general direction where the beast flew off to.
"Oh for god's sake." Lena blinked to the interior of the dropship, snatching the keys on the control pad. She then blinked out and tapped a button, which shut all entry points of the aircraft and locked them. Storing the keys away, she whipped her pistols out her gauntlets before blinking deeper into King's Row.
Don't worry, loves, Lena thought. The cavalry's coming.
ooOoo
Jack pinned himself against a car as bullets whizzed by. He growled, slamming fresh pulse ammo into his rifle and firing back at the Talon soldiers in the other side of the street.
"Y'know, if an edgy ghost man with unlimited shotguns can work for these people," Yuan began as he took cover in another car, "Why can't they get tanks?"
After the boy had spoke, Jack recalled the ominous Reaper, and his even more ominous presence. The way the shady being behaved reminded him of a man he knew a long time ago, and he held back a shudder as he immediately quashed his train of thought.
"Tanks fell out of service a long time ago." After unloading his entire clip, Jack shoved three helix rockets into his rifle and popped out of cover, taking aim on a row of Talon operatives behind a concrete barrier.
He fired, and three high-velocity rockets slammed into enemy cover, engulfing it and them in a bright blue explosion. Jack ducked behind the car and turned to a wide-eyes Yuan. "Bastion units replaced their roles and were better at it in every way. Said machines are most likely not in the possession of Talon, since they were scrapped a few years ago."
"Oh." Yuan rose and pointed his blade at Talon soldiers taking cover behind a car, and unleashed a torrent of flames. The men ducked to avoid the fire, but one unlucky soul was caught in the inferno and ran off screaming to die somewhere else. "Why's that?"
A Bastion unit in its sentry form fired away at a group of men in blue armor, ripping through them like wet tissue...
Jack shook his head as he reloaded his pulse rifle. "You don't want to know."
He hoped that Yuan would drop the subject, and he barely held in a relieved sigh when the boy answered with silence. Jack peeked out of cover to spot the last group of men standing behind the fallen wall of a building.
A Talon operative fell from above in front of them, screaming in pain as a loud crack resounded when he struck the ground. The soldiers jumped back in surprise, even more so when a shuriken followed after to embed the fallen man in the neck.
More shurikens rained down, and they all fell down with cries of pain. Genji dropped to the ground in front of him and Yuan, and rose to give them a nod.
As they both walked out of cover, the cyber ninja spoke. "I have cleared the rooftops of any Talon infestation. There won't be any appearing above us soon."
Jack grunted an affirmative. "Then we'll be moving up. Tracer must be a few ways ahea-"
Genji's hand snapped to the katana on his hip, and he pulled it out to spin around and slash at an unseen object just as a loud gunshot pierced the air. There was a clang of metal, and a long steel bullet clattered on the ground beside the cyborg.
Jack cursed and dove back behind the car. He turned to see Genji and Yuan taking cover at the other one.
"It's a sniper," Jack growled. "Great. Just damn great."
From the side of the vehicle, he poked his head out. He spotted the sharpshooter in one of the still intact buildings, taking position behind an open window at the fifth floor.
"Is this the Widowmaker that Tracer has spoke of?" asked Genji.
He shook his head. "No; just a Talon grunt armed with a sniper rifle."
Jack spotted Yuan pursing his lips. "So how do we get out of this?"
"Unless the bastard has switched to another position, I can light him up with my helix rockets," he answered. "But if he did, I might get shot for nothing.."
An uncomfortable silence fell between the three of them. Jack tried to formulate plans in his mind, but he couldn't wipe away the uncertain look Yuan gave Genji, who stared back with probably the same feeling.
There was a whoop from a certain young woman, and with wide eyes Jack jumped out of cover to see a trace of blue speeding into the building where the sniper was. A second later, said sniper tumbled out the window, screaming until he crashed into the cement road, falling silent with a crack.
There was a flash of blue in his vision, and Jack heard an all too familiar giggle beside him. "Were you all stuck in a hard place, loves?" Lena asked with a grin.
"Tracer!" Yuan breathed a sigh of relief, a smile slipping into his face. "Thank the gods you're alive?"
"Why wouldn't I be?" Lena replied with a shrug. "Cavalry will always be there, won't it?"
Genji chuckled. "If it was any other way, we'd still be glad that you're well."
Lena snorted, a brow arched at the ninja. "Will you ever have any faith in me, love?"
"Anyways, what matters is that you're alive," Jack cut in, unable to hold back his impatience. "And that's good. But how's the dropship doing."
"Well, isn't it great that Sir 76 is happy for my wellbeing!" Tracer made a salute and tossed it at him. "Dropship is safe and secure, Soldier 76, Sir. A bunch of Talon grunts came for my head, but I held them off just fine!"
Jack nodded. "Anything else that happened?"
Tracer paused, as if looking unsure of something. She ran a hand through her hair and bit her lip. "Well, there was that dragon..."
"The dragon from my world?" Yuan butted in, a look of worry in his face. "What happened?"
A distant roar was the response to his question, and Jack felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. Oh shit.
A second after, a building ahead of them exploded into rubble as a large metallic form clawed through it, shrieking bloody murder. Soot covered the beast's smoking head, and it eyes were flashing a dangerous red.
Jack couldn't help but let his breath get hitched in throat as the dragon caught sight of them, its eyes narrowing as it snarled out smoke. He couldn't help but feel that the monster's eyes were specifically trained on a certain ex-pilot beside him.
The metal dragon tumbled out of the destroyed building, crashing into another and sending the entire structure collapsing upon it. There was a roar as a claw tore out of the rubble, reaching out to them as if wanting to maul them to death.
"Run!" Jack yelled, keeping the fright out of his voice. All the others turned around, and he took it as a cue to spin to the opposite direction and sprint off, his feet thumping hard on the road.
"Bloody jeepers," Lena cursed. "I'm such a wanker for not telling you that I saw it heading this way!"
"Well, at least you reached us first," Yuan said between huffs as he pumped his legs down the pavement.
The ground trembled as they ran, and Jack glanced behind to see the dragon tumbling into the road, beginning to claw its way towards them with increasing speed.
"Clear off, everybody!" Jack bellowed, and the others moved to the side as he whipped around, shoved three helix rockets into his pulse rifle, and fired.
The explosive projectiles shot at the dragon in high speeds, leaving blue tracers in their paths. They collided with the beast's head, and it roared as an explosion engulfed its head, sending it crashing into the concrete ground.
"Go ahead of me- I'll catch up!" Jack barked at the others, and they continued to run when he stopped to to watch the dragon, his pulse rifle trained on it in case anything happened.
The metal-clad monstrosity thrashed around, clawing at its face while ramming itself against the buildings on the sides. Then it unfurled great wings of metal and lunged forward, only to veer to the side and have its entire body crash into a building. The building on its side that was nearer to Jack crumbled down in dust and rubble as metal parts thrashed within the falling structure, a sure sign that the monster was still giving chase.
With that in mind, he whirled around and continued to dash down the road. He soon came across the other three, who were standing a distance away. They all caught sigh of him at the same time and kept their eyes on him as he neared them.
"What's the matter?" Jack asked once he was a few feet away from, stopping to arch a brow at them. "Why aren't you running?"
Lena pouted and sent a glare at him. "Well, sorry then, love. We were waiting for you because we were worri-"
The ground beneath them was showered upon by a hail of bullets, and they all ducked to avoid the gunfire. Growling, Jack looked ahead to see a group of Talon soldiers on a rooftop, their assault rifles aimed at him and the others. He turned around to see the buildings behind them continue to fall down, which showed that the dragon was still in hot pursuit.
"Damnit!" he swore, bringing his pulse rifle to bear and firing back at the Talon operatives. "We're surrounded!"
"That's just great!" Yuan yelled through the roaring of gunfire and dragon. "What to do now?"
Jack's mind scrambled for battle tactics, and his veteran instincts caught hold of a plan.
"Genji, Tracer," he said, the two snapping to attention upon hearing his voice. "You two get up and distract the dragon. Direct it away from this place. Yuan, you and I will take positions here and fight back at the Talon grunts. When we're done with them, we'll think of a plan to take down the dragon."
The other three shared a look, and soon they all nodded. "Affirmative, Sir," Genji said, and three shurikens shot out of his arms and into his hand. He rose and leapt to a building, climbing it up the moment he made contact.
"Aye aye, Captain!" Lena chirped, giving him a salute. "You can count on us."
In a whiz of blue, she was on top of the building with Genji, and they both began shooting pulse rounds and throwing shurikens at the beast in the other side of the street.
Jack wasn't able to see more as he turned to Yuan and raised a brow. The boy's hands gripped the hilt of his red sword tighter, and he gave a nod.
"Alright then, Soldier 76," Yuan said with a hard look. "Let's do this."
He grunted an affirmative, and looked over to the nearest building, which was a 7/11 store. "We're going there for cover. Who knows if the surrounding cars aren't enough."
"Right." Yuan fired a stream of flame at the Talon soldiers, and they all dove behind the rooftop. "There might be snipers."
Jack nodded in response, and the both of them dashed into the store and took cover behind a shelf of junk food, which was the nearest one to the window panes showing the outside.
In the background, the dragon's roars grew muted and soon drifted off. Jack sighed and reloaded his pulse rifle, peeking out the store to return fire at the Talon operatives.
I just hope that Lena and Genji will be okay, he thought. Images of the dragon entered his mind, and he suppressed the urge to shudder when he saw the emotionless glint of the monster's crimson eyes, which seemed to only hold a lust for death and destruction.
ooOoo
"Say, Genji," Lena began, blinking to another rooftop as the previous one was rolled over by flames. "How would you rate our situation in terms of our wellbeing?"
The dragon, which was in the air, snapped its jaws shut, ending the stream of flame. It roared and began to fly after her when Genji tossed three shurikens at its head, making it flinch and turn to him.
"I have mastered the art of concentration throughout my years with Master Zen, Tracer," he replied, jumping out of the way just as the beast flew overhead and ripped the part of the roof he was standing on. "But this is too perilous a circumstance for me to be thinking about other matters."
He landed on top of another building, watching as the metal dragon turned around for another charge, a murderous glint in its eyes.
"Pffft." Lena was at his side in a flash of blue, giving him a teasing smirk. "You're just being a killjoy."
The dragon was getting closer, roaring and stretching out a claw towards them. With a huff, Lena blinked to the next building. Genji sighed, bending his knees to leap high, landing on the rooftop opposite to Lena's. The previous rooftop they stood on was promptly ripped to shreds by the dragon, which passed by with a roar of frustration.
Lena laughed and waved off the dragon, as if she had just told a joke. "Sorry, love! Dinner won't be coming for a while."
Genji held back a gasp when bullets rained on Lena's position, with her yelping and blinking away. She appeared at his side a second later, putting a hand over her brows and squinting her eyes at the distance. "What in the?.."
A few rooftops away, a squad of Talon soldiers with assault rifles were looking around frantically, most likely wondering where Lena had gone.
The ex-pilot herself bristled at them, growling through gritted teeth. "Bloody hell! There are more of them wankers around?"
Genji nodded slowly, keeping a hand on his katana as he watched the Talon men point their rifles around. "It appears so. I fear that there might be more lurking around."
Lena groaned, tossing her hands to the air. "Great. As if a murderous robot dragon wasn't enough!"
Her eyes widened suddenly, and with a jump she pointed behind him. "Genji! The dragon!"
Genji hissed, berating himself for not sensing the other threat sooner. He crouched low and looked up at Lena. "Move!"
In a flash of blue, the time-traveling assassin was gone. He sprang to the air, diving to the side as the huge form of the metal beast soared past with a roar, the distance between them almost making him uncomfortable.
Strong winds followed the dragon's flight, and Genji grunted as he tried to resist their push on him. He landed on another building with almost a stumble, sucking in as much air as he can from behind his mask. That was too close.
A trail of blue stopped beside him, and Lenna popped up with her hands on her knees. "That was some scary stuff, wasn't it, love?"
"Indeed," he replied, and held back a yelp when a bullet glanced off his metal-plated shoulder. More projectiles came rushing past him and Lena, and he brandished his katana to block some that were too close for comfort. "I also think that something should be done with the other party."
Lena, who was shielding her face with her arms, nodded rapidly. "Gee, love. You think?"
Genji hummed, his mind running whilst he parried bullets that came at him and Lena. After a while, he glanced at her and said, "You will handle the Talon part of this problem. I shall continue to catch the dragon's attention."
Lena's eyes flickered to him as she bit her lip. "But what if there are more? The Talon guys, I mean."
"I may pitch in to help you, then," Genji said, and he heaved a heavy sigh. "We can only pray that Soldier 76 and Yuan make it to help us."
"Sounds like a plan, love," Lena said, a small smile gracing her lips. Dual pulse pistols shot out of her gauntlets, and she caught them in her hands and twirled them. "See you later, yeah?"
In a blink, Lena was gone. Genji was watching her blue trail approaching the Talon squad from the side when he felt the hear tickling his metal body, and he leapt back to evade a wave of fire that completely covered the rooftop he was on.
ooOoo
A bullet punched through a bag of potato chips, spilling its contents on the floor beside him. Jack growled, and when the storm of bullets stopped he poked out to unload pulse rounds at the Talon agents. Most ducked behind cover in the rooftop, but a man was clipped in the shoulder and fell forward to tumble off the roof and crash on the top of a car.
"Don't you have any more of those explosives?" Yuan, who was beside him, asked.
Jack grunted, falling back to cover and reloading his pulse rifle as enemy gunfire began to assault them. "I ran out of helix rockets when I blasted the dragon's face. I'm also starting to get low on ammunition."
"Well, shit," Yuan said. A bullet pierced through the shelf next to his head, and he winced as a pack of potato chips fell on his head.
"This cover is getting unstable." Jack rose and bent to a running stance, facing the other end of the room. "We're moving to the next shelf."
More bullets continued to mow down the shelf, and when the gunfire fell to a lull he sprinted to the other shelf that was closest to the shop's entrance. Once he was in cover, he crouched low and turned to Yuan, giving him an expectant look.
"No shit, Sherlock," the boy said with a nod, and he practically dove to his side before more bullets continued to spray the previous cover a second later. Soon the shelf gave a creaking groan, and it fell back to crash on the other shelves behind it, causing a domino effect.
"Damn," Yuan said as he looked at the fallen shelves, and gulped. "Do you think that will happen to this column of cover too? If they manage to mow this down, that is."
Jack fired a barrage of pulse rounds at the Talon operatives. A shot caught one of them right in the chest, and the man cried out as he dropped out of sight. He turned to Yuan suppressed a hiss at his conclusion. "Most likely."
The two of them continued to crouch there, waiting for enemy fire to die down before taking the chance to counter attack.
Yuan looked up at him, uncertainty in his eyes. "What're we gonna do after that?"
Jack could only stare back, then he grunted and pressed his back against the shelf, his rear sliding to the floor as his legs gave out under him.
This is a tricky situation. There were few instances during the Omnic Crisis that had Jack pinned down like this, but he always had the plenty others to count on rescuing him. Now the only other two in our numbers are too busy playing tag with a giant mechanical dragon.
There was no doubt that the Talon squad would rip their cover to shreds, sooner or later. But having no idea what to do after that was so frustrating the he didn't even bother to reload his pulse rifle and fire back. If we go out, we run the risk of facing other Talon grunts who are waiting to ambush us. We can just be shot in the head by a sniper and that will be it for us.
Amidst the racing of his mind, Jack could spot Yuan from the corner of his eyes standing up and gripping his sword with both hands. This prompted him to turn to the boy and raise a brow, subconsciously pulling his rifle up at the sight of his stance.
"What're you doing?" he asked, and he had to stop his hand from putting a finger on his rifle's trigger.
"This isn't going to work." Yuan turned to stare at the shelf in front of him, although it seemed like he was looking at something far beyond it. "I have to do something."
"You?" Jack held back a scoff, opting to his narrow his eyes at the boy. "I'm sure that you realize that you're the most challenged member in our party right now, since the only weapon you have is your sword. There's not much you can do out there."
"I have to try." Yuan heaved a sigh and looked down at him with eyes that he felt should not belong to a man as young as him. "Look, I just realized something; it's not Genji and Tracer that need helping- it's us. We're effectively cornered here, anything else we might do can get us killed. It's the other two that will be saving our asses from the ditch we're in, but they can't do that with the damn robo-dragon they're handling."
The boy pulled his sword to his chest, sucking in a deep breath. Yuan's eyes then snapped open, a steel-like quality in then that wasn't previously present. "I must take down the dragon myself."
Jack restrained himself from jumping up in shock. He tilted his head at the boy. "How the hell can you do that? I know that you've beaten the thing before, but you said that it was with the help of your sister and two of your own dragons."
A small smile slipped into Yuan's face. "I'm a creative man. I'll think of something, don't worry."
Jack shook his head, a growl escaping his throat. "This is ridiculous. You can't do this."
"I've seen a lot of things, Soldier," Yuan replied, giving him a grin. "Many times I thought the things I did were impossible, but I was able to do them anyway."
Silence came after that, and Jack could only stare at Yuan, who did the same. Somewhere in his mind, Jack recalled that the boy was also a soldier, and he too had responsibilities to uphold.
Memories of Overwatch flooded his mind, of him leading them with a determination to make the world a better place. Just like I did.
An eternity seemed to pass between them, and he finally ended the silence with a grunt. "You better be damn sure that you know what you're doing."
"Roger that, mate," Yuan said, tossing a salute at him. "How about you?"
"I'll hold the line here," he answered. "Give them something to focus on, so you can do what you got to do."
"Alright." Ignoring that a bullet just went past above his head, Yuan turned around and stretched his back, a moan escaping his mouth. "Wish me luck, Soldier 76."
The boy was about to take a step forward when Jack stopped him. "Wait."
Yuan twisted his shoulder to face him, quirking a brow at him.
Jack gulped in a deep breath, and looked him straight in the eye. "It's Jack. Jack Morrison."
Yuan continued to look questioningly at him for a few seconds until his lips curled into a smirk. "Huh, I knew that the Reaper dude wasn't spouting random names. You got a badass name, by the way."
Immediately after that, the boy faced forward and sprinted out of cover, turning the shelf's corner and out of sight. Jack peeked out to see Yuan running out of the store, gunfire raining down on him.
He took that as his cue to shove a new clip into his pulse rifle, and with a growl fired everything he had at the Talon operatives. They noticed him too late, for several of them were shot down before the rest ducked under the fire.
Meanwhile, Yuan crouched in the middle of the road, his sword pointing at the cement beneath him. Then the blade exploded with flames, and the boy shot upward as a great jet of fire propelled him into the air, past all the surrounding buildings and over the one where the Talon operatives were on.
I really hope you know what you're doing, kid. Jack sighed as he pulled his pulse rifle to his chest, looking at the building where the boy had gone over. Even if you're a soldier. Especially that you're a soldier.
ooOoo
He gripped his bow tighter as he watched the dragon fly around two humanoid shapes in the distance, an arrow already nocked. I must strike at the right time.
He spotted movement by the corner of his eyes, and he turned to see a man in red armor land on a distant rooftop, leaving a trail of fire behind him. It is curious that his equipment looks obsolete in a timeline like this.
The man dashed forward, a long, crimson sword in his hands as he leapt to another rooftop. He seemed to be calling the dragon, as his mouth appeared to be yelling out something while he waved his blade at it. Overall, he looks like a baka.
The man then whipped his sword to cover his torso and head just as bullets started showering his position. A few rooftops ahead of him, a group of black-vested men were firing their guns at him. He must be one ofthem, then.
After scanning the area and confirming that no one had spotted him yet, he leveled his bow at one of the men in black and pulled the arrow. He made adjustments to his aim, then fired.
The arrow cut through the air and found its mark: the chest of a black-vested man, who arched his back and fell out of sight. The others began to turn to his direction, but he already had more arrows heading their way.
Several heart/lung shots later, the group of rifle-wielders all dropped to the floor and out of sight.
The man in red poked his head out from behind his blade, and pulled it down upon seeing no more men were firing at him. He continued dash at the dragon, which was still having a skirmish with the two humanoids.
The man in red aimed the tip of his sword at the beast, and to his surprise released a beam of fire from the blade. The dragon roared as flames rolled over it, and it turned to the man with a growl.
He watched as the medieval-armored man crouched as the dragon charged him, flapping its great metal wings and releasing a roar. Behind it, the two humanoid shapes gave chase, one of them yelling in a female voice.
The dragon dropped a claw, intending to swipe the man with it. When the distance left between them was only a few meters, the man leapt to the side, completely dodging the beast's attack albeit dangerously close to it. But before the man could land, he pointed his sword downward and shot to the dragon with a burst of flame from the blade.
He ended up on the dragon's back, where he pulled his sword up and slammed into the base of the beast's neck. His war cry could be heard for miles, as well as the metal monster's roar a second after. The dragon began to roll through midair, looking determined to shake the swordsman off. The two flew off to the distance, the now more visible yellow and gray people chasing after them.
The gray shape particularly caught his interest, and his blood ran cold when he made out the silvery plates of metal covering every inch of the humanoid's body. He growled and pulled out an arrow from his quiver, nocking it to his bow as he dashed after them.
I must look out for ototo, for I have failed to do so years ago.
ooOoo
Jack likened his situation to a robber's; stuck in a building with the police waiting outside in waves.
The problem was worse than he thought- Talon operatives practically trickled into the street in front of him, and they took cover behind cars and a police box as they trained their assault rifles on his position.
Well, not really. The shelf he previously took cover behind had been ripped to shreds since a while go, along with its brethren behind it. Jack was currently under the counter, which was a solid marble material. Thank god that they fund the 7/11 brand well.
He wasn't sure why the Talon soldiers outside hadn't left yet. He would've thought that they would think him dead; the gunfire they assaulted the store with was no joke. Maybe they know that I'm not an easy man to kill, after all. They're probably waiting for me to jump out and wave a white flag.
He froze when he heard sniffling from behind him. Jack turned around to look at the door labeled "storage room". He leaned forward and listened closely- indeed, someone was wracked with sniffling.
He looked up at the doorknob. It was noting but a stump of gold-colored material; the mass gunfire earlier must have blown it off.
Jack crept forward, staying low to not show himself to the Talon operatives. He poked the door with the tip of his pulse rifle, and it was pushed in slightly.
There was a shout, and gunfire dominated the space above him- bullets being unloaded from dozens of guns. Some landed on his back and bounced off his head, and Jack growled as he lunged forward, practically diving through the door and into the room beyond it.
He shut the door behind him, which was a futile action; bullets punched holes all over it, and he wouldn't be surprised if it got evaporated sooner or later. Jack turned to observe the storage room further.
It was a dull place of gray; average size with shelves lining the back wall, with stuff and other junk filled them to the brim. Cardboard boxes were strewn all over the place, some filled with items and others not.
What really caught Jack's attention was the girl sitting on the corner, crying; she looked a little over six or seven, with a pink shirt and overalls as her attire. Her tear-stained face looked up from the teddy bear she was sobbing on, and her pupils dilated when she caught sight of him.
"No..." the girl latched onto the stuffed toy as if she did dear life, shrinking against the wall. "Don't hurt me, stranger..."
"No, no," Jack said with a shake of his head. "I'm not gonna hurt you. What's wrong?"
The girl sniffed, her lip trembling as streams of tears fell down her face. "I want mum and dad..."
He nodded and took a step towards her, but halted when she flinched and hid her face behind her teddy bear, as if to shield herself.
Jack remembered a scenario like this back in the old days; a small child's hand in his while his other one held on to a pulse rifle. He had been defending a choke point from rogue omnics, with him quite literally ending up on top of all of their corpses with the child after.
He latched on to the memory; it reminded him of why Overwatch existed and what its purpose was for. To make the world a better and safer place.
He knelt in front of the girl, who sniffed and looked up at him. Fear was evident in her eyes as he watched them through his visor.
With a sigh, he grabbed his mask and gingerly pulled it off. The pollution in the air hit him hard for the first time, but he ignored that when his eyes came face to face with the girl's.
"Look, kid," he began, speaking slowly as to not frighten her. "I promise that I'll get you to your mom and dad. However, there are a lot of bad people out there and I need you to stick with me. Can you trust me?"
The girl's eyes were glassy with tears, but her child-like innocence shone through. She chewed her lip, as if unsure about something. "Mum told me that I shouldn't be with strangers."
"Well, I'm not a stranger," he replied. Memories came flooding in, and he gave the girl a smile. "I'm actually a hero."
The girl's eyes flashed with curiosity and awe, but she continued to stare at him. Jack took that as a cue to continue. "Ever heard of Overwatch, kid?"
The girl's eyes glanced to the ceiling, as if she were thinking. "Um... yeah. Dad told me that they used to protect the world from bad guys."
"Well, guess what," Jack said, and he was surprised that he was still smiling. "I'm the leader of Overwatch. I came here to fight the bad guys out of town."
"Really?" the girl asked, her jaw dropping to the floor.
"Yeah, really." He rose and offered a hand to her. "So am I still a stranger?"
Her eyes trained on his hand, and a few seconds later she laid her own tiny one on it. "No, I guess... Mum told me that heroes are very, very good guys."
"And you'll be able to tell her that she's right when you see her later." He pulled, and she got to her feet with her teddy bear in her other hand. "So what's your name, kid?"
She brushed the tears from her eyes with an arm, and the first genuine smile touched her lips. "I'm Alexandra."
The name made him recall a memory of saving an older girl a few weeks ago, who had a similar name. He smiled. "That's a nice name."
She grinned up at him, but she immediately flinched when a bullet tore through the wall and slammed into a shelf beside her, sending multiple objects falling to the floor. Fear returned to her eyes, and the sight made Jack growl.
He put his mask on and glanced at the door, which was basically nothing but a plastic screen with holes covering every inch of its surface. He gripped his pulse rifle tighter. "Alexandra, when I said there were bad people out there, I mean very, very bad people. They only want to see us get hurt. I'll take care of them, okay?"
Alexandra nodded meekly, hugging her teddy bear tighter as the sounds of gunfire raged on.
Jack nodded back and pulled his pulse rifle up to chest level. "Stay here. I'll be back."
He turned around and kicked the door down, which wasn't hard to do. He dove under the counter before he could get sprayed with bullets and tapped a button on his head gear. In his visor, a line of text appeared; "TACTICAL VISOR ENGAGED."
Immediately after, an orange screen came to being in front of his face. He then jumped to his feet and whirled around to face dozens of Talon soldiers outside the store, their assault rifles trained on him.
He brought his own pulse rifle to bear when the orange screen presented target markers on the center of their bodies, highlighting everyone in view.
"I've got you in my sights," Jack growled. Not a millisecond after, he pulled the trigger and let loose.
Every round hit their target, and he constantly switched to a new target when the previous one was instantly shot down. He was shredding their numbers so rapidly that they were barely able to return fire being mowed down. Bullets whizzed past him and stopped with every Talon soldier he shot down.
When it was time to reload, he did so without breaking a sweat. Fully loaded from its empty clip half a second ago, Jack's pulse rifle shredded everything in sight with all the ferocity only a machine gun should have.
Just as the last Talon grunt fell down, the orange screen blinked off, with his visor indicating that the Tactical Visor was at 0% power.
He was watching the corpses of the Talon men when a thought occurred to him. The dropship. Alexandra will be safe there.
He poked his head into the storage room and gave a look at Alexandra, who has huddling at the corner. "Follow me. We're gonna get you to a safe place."
The girl nodded and walked to him, placing a hand on his. He gripped it tightly, and together they dashed out the store, jumping over the shattered remains of a window pane.
Alexandra almost stumbled when she caught sight of the Talon soldiers lying on the ground and their own blood. Jack tugged at her hand, urging her to move. "Come on," he said. "Just stick with me and don't look back!"
She gulped and did as he said, the two of them moving through the street as fast as they could. Jack cursed under his breath when he spotted more Talon operatives on top of a building, their assault rifles aimed at the them.
"Run, Alexandra!" he shouted, and he pulled his pulse rifle up to fire at the Talon soldiers. The bullets showering them stopped when the enemy ducked behind the rooftop.
Jack was no religious man, but he sent a prayer to whatever deity was present anyway. God help me get Alexandra to safety, if not myself.
ooOoo
Genji had been getting the feeling that someone has been watching them for the past few minutes, but the thought always got lost when he beheld the sight of Yuan riding the mechanical dragon, powerful winds blowing his hair back as he probably held on the sword impaled to the beast's nape for dear life.
"Has he lost his bloody mind?" Lena shrieked as they leapt from roof to roof after the two. "He's gonna get himself killed, the bloody idiot!"
Genji tossed three shurikens at the dragon, with them only succeeding to bounce off its armored hide. "You have been expressing that repeatedly for the last couple of minutes."
"And why the hell should I not?" Lena skidded to the stuff and waved her arms frantically at Yuan and the dragon. "Yuan is RIDING a DRAGON!"
Genji looked up to observe the dragon flying around in circles, with Yuan screaming on top of it as he clung to his sword. He shrugged. "I'm sure he has faced wilder things before. His background surely suggests something of the sort."
Lena groaned and tossed her hands at the sky. "I don't care! What matters is that we should save his ass-gone-bonkers!"
Genji's hearing picked up something slicing through the air, and he shoved Lena aside to slash his katana at a bullet, which clattered on the floor beside him.
More gunfire came, and with practiced motion he deflected all of them. Lena sighed, her shoulders slumping as she said; "And there's also Talon..."
A few rooftops away, a group of armed Talon soldiers fired a few more rounds at them, which Genji simply deflected. He tossed a shuriken which struck the neck of one of them, and sent him tumbling to the floor. "It actually is quite worrying how they seem to be crawling all over the place..."
"You can say that again, love." Lena whipped out her pulse pistols to fire at the Talon operatives, seeing that Yuan and the dragon weren't really going anywhere. It was when she was reloading that she froze, her eyes widening. "Oh, bloody hell.."
Genji tilted his head at her when the enemy's gunfire died down, the Talon men ducking behind cover to probably reload. "Oh?"
"Soldier 76!" Lena exclaimed, concern evident in her voice. "Aren't he and Yuan supposed to be fighting Talon agents of their own? If Yuan's here, then what's happened to him?"
"Ah..." Genji swung his katana to deflect a bullet, and the man who fired it was shot down by his own doing.Commander Morrison's status is indeed worrisome...
The Talon squad unleashed another hail of bullets at them, and it wasn't until they ran out of ammo and hid that he spoke. "I shall find the good commander. Until then, you must hold the line here and keep an eye on Yuan."
Lena pursed her lips and looked at him with concern. "Are you sure you don't need any help, love?"
Genji gave her a smile, though he knew she wouldn't see it through his mask. He nodded. "Yes, I am sure. Anyway, it looks like he needs much more help than I do."
He pointed at Yuan, who was whooping as he rode the dragon in a surf boarding stance, with his hands curled around the hilt of his sword.
Lena chuckled, her lips curling to a smirk. "Yeah, you're right. The poor bloke looks like he's gonna yell his head off any second."
Genji hummed and nodded. Lena sucked a breath, her eyes opening to show steel. She then gave him a nod. "Alright, love. I'll leave you to it. Just come back with Soldier safely, yeah?"
"We shall see," he replied. He spun around and bent his knees, then sprang high into the air, leaping over multiple rooftops before he could land on one. Genji continued dashed off to look for Jack Morrison.
All the while, he couldn't shake off the feeling that someone was watching him.
ooOoo
Hand in hand, Jack ran through the streets with Alexandra. There was a bit of difficulty in doing so, with the girl's limited speed and Talon on their tails, but he thought he could manage it.
The dragon roared beyond, unseen behind the buildings of the street. It was growing louder by the minute, so Jack knew they were getting close. He glanced at Alexandra when she let out a whimper.
"Yeah, there are more bad things ahead," he told her gently. "But if you stick with me, I promise that you won't get hurt."
"O-okay," Alexandra murmured. Her grip on his hand tightened.
Just then, a storm of bullets showered them, and with a growl Jack put the screaming Alexandra in front of him while his back faced the gunfire.
After unleashing some pulse rounds at the Talon soldiers in the rooftops, he turned to see a car by the side of the road. Miraculously, it still remained intact after all the previous chaos.
"Get behind that!" he told Alexandra, and he pointed at the vehicle ahead. She nodded, and they both sprinted for it as fast as they can.
Jack bit back a cry when something sharp dug into his ankle with an explosion of pain. He growled, and when they were a few feet away from the car he scooped Alexandra in his arms and dove forward. He grunted as the side of his body skidded across the cement when they landed behind the car.
He released Alexandra from his grasp, and he was relieved to see her without a scratch. He pulled his back to lean against the car and twisted his foot around as much as possible. She may be uninjured, but the same couldn't be said for me.
There was a hole in the back of his shoe, which extended to a his ankle, which was trickling out blood. He could see the butt of a bullet protruding out the wound. This thing's definitely cracked a bone in me, he thought when he applied pressure to his foot, gritting when pain rolled through it in waves. I won't be able to move efficiently with this.
He did his best to poke out of cover without using the injured foot, and with a growl he fired at the Talon operatives with his pulse rifle. One of them was caught in the chest by a blue bolt, while the others ducked to avoid the fire.
"Mister Leader?" Alexandra asked, and he turned to see her eyeing his foot with worry. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm okay," he lied, not wanting to crush the girl's hope with his current handicap. He sighed as he reloaded his pulse rifle. "Call me Soldier 76, by the way."
The world doesn't need to know that Jack Morrison is alive.
"Mister Soldier 76?" Alexandra asked with a tilt of her head.
He chuckled and pulled his rifle to chest level. "Just Soldier 76."
He pulled out of cover, ignoring the flash of pain from his injury. He took aim at the Talon squad and pulled the trigger. Their gunfire immediately stopped as they dove into cover to avoid the pulse rounds.
"When are we going to leave this place?" Alexandra asked, a touch nervousness in her voice. She wrapped her arms around her teddy bear, pulling it against her chest.
With the state he was in, Jack could believe that they wouldn't be able to leave until Talon completely surrounded them. That train of thought stopped as he looked at her eyes, remembering the day when he had gone against an army with a child, and triumphed hand in hand.
"When I'm finished with these bad guys," he finally answered. "Don't worry, because that'll be soon."
He could feel himself withering inside as he practically fed the girl lies. Honestly, what can we do? But I have to try, for Alexandra's sake...
Several cries pierced the air, and Jack twisted around to see a Talon grunt crashing into the street opposite of them, with the familiar form of Genji in the rooftop with the rest of the Talon squad.
They didn't stand a chance. Shurikens flew, a katana sliced through the air, and the cyber ninja danced through every attack they threw at him. Soon every Talon soldier on that roof was taken down by either a shuriken in their chest or their neck getting slashed open cleanly.
Genji made a familiar hand gesture against his chest, and he was gone in a puff of purple smoke.
Alexandra screamed, and he whirled around to level his pulse rifle at the assailant. However, it was only Genji standing in front of them.
The ninja tilted his head, almost in a curious manner. "Kon'nichiwa, Soldier 76. May I ask who the girl is?"
Jack gave him a nod of thanks before gesturing at her with a hand. "This is Alexandra," he said, then turned to her. "That is Genji; he's a friend."
The girl nodded meekly, looking up at the cyborg with eyes gleaming with curiosity. "Hullo, Mr. Genji,"
Genji clasped his hands and bowed at her. "Greetings, Alexandra-chan. You have no need to fear me, for I'm the friendly neighborhood green cyborg ninja dude."
Jack raised a brow while the girl giggled, a smile gracing her lips. "Spider Man is old news," he grumbled.
Genji ignored his statement as he turned to him, his look turning harder. "Sir, how do you fare?"
"I need to get this kid to the dropship," he replied immediately. "She isn't safe here."
Genji lowered his gaze, and Jack had a feeling he was now looking at his injured feet. "And you?" the ninja asked.
"I'll be fine." With a grunt, he brought himself to his feet using the car as leverage. "How's your situation?"
Genji continued to look at him, as if wanting to press further. Instead he sighed and replied, "Yuan is riding the dragon."
Jack froze, and he narrowed his eyes at the ninja. "What."
"Did he not tell you of what he planned to do?" Genji asked. "He was with you earlier, if I recall."
He shook his head and growled. "Why the hell is he riding the dragon?"
Genji shrugged his shoulders. "As you Westerners say- 'beats me'. Perhaps he thought he can control the dragon? A lot of movies depict people being able to ride great beasts if they have direct access to its nervous system."
"So he's controlling it, then?" Jack asked. What the hell was going on the kid's head?
Genji shook his head. "More like clinging for dear life."
He groaned. He glanced at Alexandra, who looked at a loss for what they were talking about. "Anyway, I'll be bringing her to the dropship. You can tell the rest on the way."
He made to take a step forward when pain exploded in his injured foot, causing him to freeze with a grunt. He didn't dare move in fear of causing greater pain to himself.
Genji walked to his side, his green visor trained on his foot. "It would not do you any good to walk whilst having an injury like this. Let me help you. I'm sure Tracer could hold her own for a few more minutes."
Jack growled and looked away. He knew that they were wasting daylight, and that he wasn't doing anyone a favor with his behavior. But his damn pride was still trying to hold up. Oh, what the hell...
"What're you waiting for, then?" he asked gruffly, his tone bordering on snapping. Genji nodded, then grabbed his arm and slung it over his metal-plated shoulder. Jack could feel most of the pressure on his feet washing away, the pain being reduced to a dull ache.
He looked at Alexandra and tilted his head at the road ahead. "You coming, kid?"
She nodded with a hum, and with the help of Genji, he began walking forward, with her by his side. Gunshots could be heard in the distance, and Jack's gut twisted at the intensity of the sound. Must be a lot of guns firing. Let's hope Lena and Yuan are okay.
ooOoo
Seeing as how his brother was currently fine with the other two, he switched his attention to the squads of black-vested men and dragon.
It took a few hops from roof to roof, but he quickly made his way to the battle. The yellow shape in the distance- whom he can now identify was a woman- was zipping around in unreal speed, a trail of blue tracing her movement. She was hopping from groups of men in black to another, trying to take out as many as possible before speeding away from heavy gunfire.
He looked at the dragon, which was currently flying around above what appeared to be the town square. The red-armored boy was still hanging onto the beast, gritting his teeth as both of his hands gripped the hilt of his long sword.
The town square itself appeared insignificant, aside from the strange aircraft lying in the center of its great space. His senses picked up multiple thumping sounds, and he turned to see a sight that creased his brows in worry.
More black-vested men were moving from rooftop to rooftop, heading to the circle of buildings that made the perimeter of the town square. He looked around to see more of the men with assault rifles converging to the town square from on top of the buildings. They all moved in groups, and he took a gander that if he looked from above the sight would be comparable to a black swarm of angry ants zeroing on its prey from multiple angles.
Their numbers are too great, he thought. More than the woman in yellow could possibly handle, despite her inhuman speed.
He decided that it was time to intervene again. Pulling an arrow from his quiver, he nocked it to his bow and aimed at the nearest squad, which was a few rooftops away. He pulled the bow, then released after a few seconds.
The arrow cut through the air and struck one of the armed men's chest, and he dropped out of sight. The others jumped in surprise and began looking around, like frantic sheep for wolves.
Marked by the dragon. The next arrow he nocked was a scatter arrow, a more technologically advanced variant than his usual ammunition. He pulled on its longer-than-average form, then let loose.
The projectile landed at the center of the group of men, and blue pinpricks of smaller arrows exploded outward from it. A second later, the entire squad fell down, their last sound a brief cry.
Bullets passed him from behind, and he growled and ducked behind cover in cement walls lining the top of the building's perimeter. I have been spotted.
As gunfire roared above him, he moved to other side of roof while preparing an arrow. Then he rose, fired it at the squad of men at the distance, then ducked to avoid the shower of bullets. At this point, I can only reduce the amount of enemies focusing on the others. I pray that this is enough.
ooOoo
They followed the sounds of battle around a corner and into a road that lead to the town square. Jack felt his foot starting to get better, but he knew he still wouldn't be able to do good with it.
"Is that the dropship?" asked Alexandra, pointing at said vehicle in the center of the square.
"Yeah," he replied. "We're almost there. You're gonna be safe in a few minutes."
She nodded in reply. "Will my mum and dad be waiting for me?"
Jack pursed his lips and looked away, coming face to face with Genji's impassive mask. The ninja gave a head tilt at him.
After a while, he turned to Alexandra and nodded. "Yeah. You'll be seeing them later."
She smiled brightly, and a spring began to show in her step.
Genji suddenly shot out from under Jack's arm, and he barely leaned back from falling forward. The cyborg stood in front of them and sheathed his katana and swung it multiple times at the air. Bullets fell on the ground around him.
"Take cover!" Genji yelled. "Enemies ahead!"
Jack looked up and spotted two groups of Talon soldiers in opposite buildings ahead of the street. He took hold of Alexandra's arm and pulled her along as he limped his way to a car at the side. "Run!"
They were able to get behind it before gunfire rained on their position. The car's windows broke, and he pulled Alexandra under him before shards of glass pelted his back.
When there was no more glass to shower on them, he peeked out to see Genji leap into the top of a building, his katana in his hands.
With a growl, he shoved a new clip in his pulse rifle after noting that he would only have three clips left. He then poked out of cover and fired at one Talon squad, catching one of them in the head while the rest ducked to cover.
Several men from the other group of Talon agents fell off the building, their screaming cut short when they crashed into the pavement. There were shouts and cries from the other operatives, and just as they fell silent, Genji leapt from the building they were on and to the other building where the second Talon squad was. Bullets flew by the ninja before he landed on the building, and more shouts came.
Jack picked up the familiar sounds of dual pulse pistols in action, and just as the group of Talon soldiers fell silent, there was a flash of blue beside him.
"Wotcher, love," Lena said whilst tossing a salute. "How's it going?"
He sighed and looked at his injured foot. "Could've done better, but there were some factors I couldn't ignore."
He patted the top of Alexandra's head, who was oddly looking at Lena wearily. "Like this kid. Her name's Alexandra. Hey, you should know who Tracer is. I heard she's a big hit these days."
"Hiya there, love!" Lena bent her knees to be at eye level with the girl. "Aren't you such a cutie? Alexandra's a very pretty name, by the way."
"Um..." Alexandra shuffled her feet and looked at the ground, as if wanting to be anywhere but there right now. "I know you... But that's because mum told me you did a very bad thing."
Immediately, Jack recalled a reason why Lena was such a 'big hit'. She was the only one spotted in Mondatta's assassination. Of course people would speculate she had something to do with it.
An emotion not entirely Lena-like showed in her eyes, but only for a brief second. Lena rose and chuckled, a sound that seemed to strain. "Well, kid. Your mum heard wrong. I'm one of the good guys!"
Alexandra pursed her lips. "I didn't know mum could be wrong..."
"You kids aren't the only ones who make mistakes," Jack said, remembering the man whom he thought was his friend. He shook his head and turned to Lena. "What's the status, Tracer?"
Just then, Genji landed beside her, but Lena ignored him as her face twisted with frustration. "Cripes, I forgot about that! It's getting worse, y'know. Talon is everywhere!"
Jack took a sharp intake of breath. "What do you mean by 'Talon is everywhere'?"
"She means," Genji cut in with a dark tone, "that Talon has completely covered the perimeter of the town square. They're also guarding every road that leads here. It is fortunate that we took down the squads who were here."
"Oh, and don't forget Yuan!" Lena said. She narrowed her eyes at Jack. "Were the both of you actually planning to have him ride the dragon?"
Jack groaned and shook his head. "No. He just told me that's he's got something creative in his sleeve. I honestly don't know what came to him when he thought riding a mechanical dragon was a good idea."
"Most likely he thought that would get the beast's attention." Genji looked up just when a huge silvery form flew past them, with the whoops of a certain boy following it. "It seems to be working, at the very least."
Jack growled and hoisted his rifle to his chest. "He won't be holding on for long. Since all of us are here, we can finally get something done with that dragon."
He limped forward, waving the approaching Genji off as he began moving to the town square. Something small grabbed his empty hand, and he glanced at Alexandra, who was walking by his side.
"Alright!" Lena cheered. The dragon and Yuan passed by, and she shouted at latter, "You hear that, love? Cavalry's here!"
Yuan yelled something in reply, but it was inaudible from where he was at.
"You're bringing me to the dropship?" Alexandra asked Jack.
"Yeah." He paused, crouching as he spotted black specks on the roofs of the other half of the town square's perimeter. "We can't go directly, though. The place is a kill zone."
"Indeed," Genji said. "We must be discreet and come from another angle."
"But what happens if we're caught?" Lena asked, nervousness in her voice.
"Well, I'm almost out of juice." Jack looked down at his pulse rifle. "It's really up to the two of you in case anything goes wrong."
He turned to them and saw Genji give a bow. "I shall do my best," the cyber ninja said.
Lena snorted, her pulse pistols shooting out of her gauntlets and into her hands. "It's a good thing I spent most of my time making sure Yuan wouldn't fall off rather than shooting at Talon soldiers."
Jack nodded, and looked down at Alexandra. Her eyes showed uncertainty, and he mouthed to her, "It'll be fine."
"Okay, then." Jack tightened the grip on his pulse rifle as he swept his gaze to the other two. "First we'll get Alexandra to the dropship- the dragon comes second. We'll skirt around the square's peri-"
"LOOK OUT!"
The building beside them exploded, and they dove to the ground just before rubble flew past them and crashed into the road, sending dust everywhere.
Jack pulled Alexandra in his arms, his mask allowing him better vision through the dust cloud. He looked up and saw a great silvery shape rising out of the building's wreckage, thrashing around as it gave a creaking roar.
Then all the dust was blown away by metallic wings, and the dragon reared back as it clawed at the air in front of it. On its back, Yuan pulled on his sword as if it were the reigns of a horse.
The dragon roared, a bellowing sound that shook the earth. Then it leapt into the air, veering to the side as it flew away while thrashing violently to get the boy off its back. The beast slammed into the top of a building, paving through it before it gained speed and continue its flight around the town square.
"Is he trying to kill us now?" Lena asked with an annoyed tone. That was when bullets assaulted their position, and with a growl Jack pulled Alexandra with him as he dove behind debris of the destroyed building. His foot wracked his nerves with pain, and he gritted his teeth.
"No," Genji said gravely behind his own cover, a pile of debris a distance from them. He armed his hands with shurikens as he said, "But Talon does, I'm afraid."
"Oh, bollocks," Lena cursed. She was crouching behind the wreckage of a car far back. "They've spotted us?"
Gunfire showered her cover in response. The intensity of the fire unnerved Jack. It's literally raining bullets.
Just as enemy fire died down, he glanced at his pulse rifle. I've barely got anything left, so I better take my shots carefully.
He pulled himself out of cover, ignoring the pain in his foot. He leveled his pulse rifle at one of the Talon squads, taking his time to aim since as were literally in the other side of the square.
He pulled the trigger, releasing a burst of blue bolts at the Talon operatives. Most zipped past them, but one man fell down after being clipped in the chest.
Jack ducked into cover just before a hail of bullets replied to his assault. Gunfire raged above him, and he gripped his pulse rifle tight as he waited for it to come to a lull.
From the other pile of rubble, Genji poked out to toss a few shurikens at a distant Talon squad. He immediately crouched to evade a storm of gunfire assaulting his position.
"There's too many of them!" Lena yelled, firing a clip from her pulse pistols at the Talon operatives. "At this rate, we'll be mowed down soon."
Alexandra whimpered and clutched her teddy bear tighter. Jack growled and rose when the gunfire above stopped. He aimed at the same Talon group and fired, taking down two men before he fell into cover. "That doesn't matter. We'll hold down this position until we don't have any juice left!"
"Which is sooner than you expect Sir," Genji replied, his voice low. Jack glanced at him to see the cyber ninja staring at him from behind the green visor. "I am running out of shurikens."
Jack didn't know what say in response. The sounds of gunfire raining their cover continued on, his finger itching to pull the trigger on the Talon squad. The situation is getting near hopeless.
"Well, then," Lena spoke, her chipper voice sounding like it didn't belong in the situation, despite its strained tone. "We're screwed over now, aren't we?"
The assault of bullets drowned out any sound after that, and Jack thought it was never going to end. He could only glance at Alexandra, who looked like she was holding onto her stuffed toy for dear life.
I can't give up now. He sensed a lull in enemy gunfire, and he rose to take aim at a Talon squad. Bullets whizzed past him as he pulled the trigger, his pulse rifle releasing a few rounds of blue energy. A bullet grazed his arm, and he was forced to take cover before he could see if his shots were true.
There are people counting on me.
ooOoo
Yuan knew that he was the most challenged of the group when it came to combat; swords aren't supposed to be for fighting guns, after all. Which was why he thought he could make himself someone they can count on by taking drastic measures to secure the objective.
Yet as he wrapped his fingers around Drakon's hilt as much as he can while the wind whipped at his face, he knew he had made a big mistake. I've done fucked up now, didn't I?
Yuan had fought this dragon before. He had impaled swords into its body, tossed a spear at its eye, kept a blade in its side as he and his sister's dragon wrestled with it. But in all those times, I had allies with me.
Oh, he had allies now. Except they were busy fighting their own war. He peeked over the dragon's side to see the others behind cover from far below. In the other side of the square, swarms of black-vested Talon soldiers filled the top of buildings like angry, buzzing ants. I hope they'll be able to handle all of these guys.
Suddenly, the dragon tipped down, slowly turning its momentum to a dive. The wind whipped Yuan's face harsher, and he shielded his face as he looked at where the dragon was descending. All the while, his one hand on Drakon's hilt gripped it tighter.
He gasped upon that the dragon was heading straight towards the others, particularly Jack and a girl behind a broken part of the building.
He growled and took hold of his sword in both hands. Pouring all his strength, he tried shove it deeper while tilting it sideways. I'm gonna eat my armor if I actually manage to turn the dragon away.
There was a snap, and Yuan almost stumbled when Drakon suddenly dug deeper by a good meter. The dragon roared, its metallic body rumbling under his feet.
Here's hoping... With a roar, Yuan shoved the impaled Drakon to the side, fire engulfing his arms and the blade. The dragon shrieked, and to his surprise it veered away from the others, an uncomfortable amount of distance barely between them.
The dragon began to fling itself at each side erratically, and Yuan curled his fingers around Drakon's flaming hilt tighter. You're not gonna be shaking me off, bozo.
He looked up just to see that they were flying straight at the town hall. He held back a scream as he planted his feet on the dragon as much as possible while pulling back at his sword. "OH SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, NO-"
They slammed into the town hall, and Yuan's vision exploded with dust. The sound of concrete falling apart grated his ears, and he gritted his teeth as he held on as much as possible. He didn't know if he was barrel-rolling or being shook from side to side; he only knew that the dragon was roaring furiously as it thrashed around.
I can't believe that I'm saying this, Yuan thought to himself. But I hope the bastard gets out of the dust cloud so I can see better.
He stayed in a world of dust for a few more seconds, then the cloud parted to reveal the orange and smoky sky above. He looked down to see that he was still riding the dragon, and the wreckage of the town hall still hidden in dust.
As he looked at the ruins, an ominous feeling came to him. One, he realized, was the same as when he first sensed the dragon in this this universe. Oddly, however, it wasn't as oppressive.
"Yuan..."
He would've jumped in surprise if it wasn't for the fact that he was busy holding onto a flying dragon. Despite the voice sounding as if it came from inside his head, he leaned forward- as if expecting to hear better.
"Yuan, can you hear me?..."
Wait a minute, he thought, a feeling akin to giddiness growing in his chest. Is that who I think it is?...
"Master..." Yuan struggled to speak against the wind, and he raised a hand to shield his face. "... Hand?"
"Yes, it's me," the god-like being said in his forever firm and commanding voice. He sighed; an odd sound when it came to his tone. "Thank goodness I found you. Andie's been threatening to spear me ever since you disappeared."
"Oh. That's nice." Yuan began to suck a deep breath, but stopped when he realized he didn't want a gale of wind whipping inside his mouth. "So any plans for this lost soul? It's okay if you leave me to die here- there's this hot British girl I made friends with."
There was a sigh that resonated in his mind- a far more fitting sound for Master Hand. "I'd rather keep you in the mansion than terrorizing any more females with your presence. By the way, that means I'm making a portal near you; you should be able to see it."
"There are buildings everywhere. I'm sure they'll probably block my vis-" Yuan left his jaw hanging when he spotted the sight below.
The dust that encompassed the ruins of the town square was gone, and in its place was a huge vortex of swirling purple masses- almost as wide as the building itself. Light flashed within the portal, like a purple lightning storm from beyond the void.
But Yuan knew better. It was probably his only chance of going back home.
"Do you see it?" Master Hand asked.
Yuan shook his head, more to wave off the surprise. "Yeah... I see it. It's a pretty big target."
"Then what're you waiting for?" Master Hand asked in an impatient tone. "Get in!"
This time Yuan did gulp air, ignoring the feeling of his teeth seemingly being blown away. He bit his lip as he stared at the others, whose cover looked considerably smaller than when the Talon groups rained fire on them a while ago. "Master Hand... Can you see what I'm doing?"
The eldritch sighed. "I can only wish, Yuan; the world you're in is too far for my powers of observation to reach. I can only establish a mode of transportation from there to here. Which reminds me- why aren't you-"
"Master Hand." Yuan released a sigh of his own. "Remember my background? The part with the dragon? It got in here somehow, and I need to stop it. I can't leave without it going too."
There was only silence from the other end, and Yuan felt a knot twisting in his gut. He held Drakon's hilt tighter as the dragon made another turn around the square.
Finally, the Hand of Creation made a sound akin to a hum. "This has generated many questions, child- worrisome questions. But no matter; I will leave the dragon to you whilst I keep the portal going as long as I can."
Yuan sighed in relief, even as a roar from the dragon shook his feet. "That'll be great, Master Hand. Thanks."
Master Hand hummed once more. "God speed, Smasher."
ooOoo
One round left.
Jack Morrison gritted his teeth at the realization. As he stared at the last clip in his hand, a bullet pierced the rubble beside him and dug into the ground. That didn't happen before.
Alexandra pressed herself against him more, whimpering as more bullets began punching holes through the concrete.
He growled and shoved the clip into his pulse rifle, and stood to face the dozens of Talon squads on the buildings beyond. They'll be ripping through our cover in no time.
He pulled the trigger, and beams of blue shot toward a group of men. He was able to see three get shot down before he ducked to avoid the heavy gunfire.
He turned around to check how the others were doing. The car Lena was crouching behind looked more like a metal husk of cheese; holes covered the majority of its side as bullets continued to rain on it like a storm.
Genji's cover had lost its former glory; now the rubble was barely enough to hide the metal-clad form of Genji. The cyber ninja was currently doing a mix of parrying bullets with his katana and throwing shurikens with his other hand.
A sob came from beside him, and he looked down at Alexandra. Tears were streaming down her eyes as she held onto her teddy bear as tight as possible.
She sniffled. "I want my mummy and daddy..."
Jack grimaced- it felt uncomfortable on his mask. Thoughts of what he should say ran through his head as he stared at Alexandra's teary face.
Finally, he sucked a breath and placed a hand on her head. "It's okay, kid. You're gonna be seeing them later."
Alexandra nodded, but her defeated stance did not change. Jack sighed and leaned on the debris, resisting the urge to slam his back against it.
Why am I feeding her lies? He looked up at the smoky, orange sky. It looked dead- like he should've been five years ago. Do I really have so much hope for Overwatch?
He sighed, a rumbling sensation in his throat. Do I still want to feel like a hero?
There was roar, then a crumbling sound that shook the road beneath them. He popped his head out of cover, and his mouth would've gaped open if the mask wasn't on it.
The town hall of King's Row was crumbling right in front of his eyes. Great pillars were falling to the ground, with some already lying in pieces. The roof broke apart like falling sand, and a massive dust cloud was soon kicked up, obscuring even the large silhouette of the collapsed building.
For a few moments, everything was silent. Even the Talon soldiers that had been firing held their assault rifles to their chest as they watched the cloud of dust.
Suddenly, a great shape burst out of the dust, sending it everywhere with metallic wings. The dragon roared as it thrashed in midair, shaking off the rubble that clung to its huge body. On its back was the familiar form of a red-armored swordsman, still clinging on to his buried blade.
"Blimey!" Lena yelled. "Yuan's still alive?"
A bullet whizzed past Jack's face, and he swore it would've seared his cheek if it wasn't for the mask. He growled and ducked, a storm of bullets raging above him a second later. Beside him, Alexandra whimpered.
"Sir." Genji spoke, and he turned to see the ninja swipe at the air in front of him with his katana. Moments later, bullets fell to join the growing pile around him. "I am running out of projectiles. I can use my blade to deflect, but at this range I'm not sure it would be effective."
"Just hold your ground!" he barked, resisting the urge to groan. He looked at the side of his pulse rifle, the small screen on its surface reading 7/25. Just a few shots left.
Again, he was reminded of how hopeless the situation appeared to be. But I'll push on, he thought. For the sake of the others, at least.
When the hail of gunfire above him stopped, he rose and whipped his pulse rifle in front of him. He was taking aim on a group of Talon thugs when the ground rumbled.
An ominous sound entered his ears; the frenzied whooshing of air while earthen plates shook and sent waves of crackling sound whipping throughout the land. Soon, it was all that he could hear.
He slowly panned his head to the side, and his eyes caught a sight that nearly knocked him off his feet.
Above the remains of the town hall, a circular void of purple had replaced the cloud of dust. Within it, cloud-like masses rolled through and out of sight, crackling with a hot flash of purple.Soon the ground stopped shaking, but the strange sound still persisted in his ears, with a low, bellowing boom from every flash beyond the portal.
"Bloody-!" Lena exclaimed. He turned to see her jaw practically unhitched from her mouth and her arms hanging from her sides. "What the hell is that?"
Her question was left unanswered as a roar dominated Jack's hearing for a brief moment. With a feeling of dread, he looked up to see the dragon flying straight at them. His blood froze and his heart was gripped with fear.
He shoved that aside with a growl, and he aimed his pulse rifle at the dragon's face. He pulled the trigger and let loose with whatever he had left, the pulse rounds striking the beast head on. His breath got stuck in his throat when the dragon was unperturbed by the shots and continued to charge with open wings.
"Shit!" He dropped to the ground and grabbed Alexandra, pulling her underneath him as he tried to curl as much of himself around her as possible. I can't believe I'm gonna die like this...
Another roar came, but it had an odd choking sound. He continued to hold Alexandra for a few more seconds, then he realized that the dragon should've hit them by now. He partially unwrapped his arms around the girl and leaned up to poke his head out of cover.
The dragon had turned away from them, thrashing and spinning through the air while shrieking. On its back, Yuan still held on to his sword, but it looked like he was pushing it further into the beast's nape. The boy's mouth opened wide, and Jack could barely hear the war cry.
The two flew higher into the sky, heading away from him and the others. The dragon snapped around in erratic movements, as if trying to contest control of its body over Yuan. It seemed to be winning, with its motions growing more fluid and a face on the boy speaking of a horrified revelation.
Then everything dulled. The sights and sounds were muted in a darker tone, as if they were in the theater, just minutes before the act. Then there was a blue flash, and all the color came back with a rumbling roar.
"RYU GA WAGA TEKI WO KURAU!"
Jack could feel his brain going into shock as he witnessed two blue dragon's shoot out from beyond a building, curling around each other as they traveled. Their mouths opened to release the sane rumbling roar from earlier; unlike the creaking roar of the metallic dragon, this one had a tone that commanded power.
He looked ahead of their trajectory to see Yuan watching them with an unhinged jaw. Meanwhile, the metallic dragon was screeching and clawing at the air as if to grasp- as if it wanted to get away.
The blue dragons struck- their great forms passed the other dragon like they were transparent in their ever-curling flight. Oddly enough, the metallic dragon howled like it was in pain, its entire body freezing upon contact with the dragons. When the twin dragons of blue fully passed and went past the smoky atmosphere beyond, the beast finally fell.
It didn't escape his notice that the dragon was falling directly into the purple avoid. As he watched the beast's descent, he resisted from biting his lips at the question; What about Yuan?
When the mechanical beast's body fell past the portal and out of sight, the vortex snapped inward, and with a crack released a shockwave of wind that blew away the entire area.
Jack almost fell to his rear at the force of the gale, and he ducked behind cover and swept Alexandra in his arms. For a few seconds he fought against the unnaturally powerful wind, which whipped his hair and swept tons of dust and pebbles past him.
The wind finally died down, and with a sigh he released Alexandra and let his back fall against the rubble. He closed his eyes and sucked a breath- Alexandra's muffled voice reached his ringing ears, but he brushed it aside for a few moments of calm.
When his ears were finally back to normal, a certain British voice made itself known to his hearing; "Are you okay, love?"
He opened his eyes to find Lena and Alexandra standing in front of him, their expressions showing varying degrees of concern.
He growled and stretched his back. "I'm too damn old for this. And why are the both of you standing there?"
A smirk made it to Lena's lips, and she placed a hand on her hip. "Well, it might have to do with the fact there aren't any Talon thugs pinning our ass anymore."
Jack felt his brows crease. Alexandra asked Lena why she was saying bad words, but he ignored that as he pulled himself to his feet. His foot throbbed with pain, and he was reminded that a bullet almost destroyed his ankle earlier. He turned around and surveyed the town square, a sight that raised a brow from him.
The town square had a layer of floating dust covering it, which reached his knees. The buildings that once held dozens of Talon soldiers were empty, showing no sign that they were ever there. The town hall was practically gone; only the stumps of pillars and its innermost foundations remained.
Most surprising of all was the dropship in the middle of the square, looking like nothing hectic of the sort just happened a minute ago. It had a thin layer of dust in it, though.
"What." He blinked, which Lena could probably tell, based on her laugh.
"That was brilliant!" Lena said. "It's like a light show that scared those guys back to mummy. Am I right, Genji?"
Silence was her answer, and Jack turned to look at the cyber ninja. For some strange reason, Genji was frozen like a statue, his green visor trained at the roof of a distant building.
"Genji? Hello?" Lena asked. She walked over to him and leaned down to be in level with his crouched form, inspecting him with a small frown. "You look like you were frozen by one of Mei's thingamajigs, love."
She yelped and jumped back when the cyber ninja suddenly shook his head, as if getting something off him.Which is not entirely like him.
Genji looked up at Lena, still saying nothing. Then his head dipped towards the ground. "I am fine, Tracer. There is nothing to worry about."
"Are you sure?" Jack asked as he walked to Lena's side. He felt something small wrap around his hand, and he knew it was Alexandra. He squeezed her hand. "You really look like you've seen a ghost."
Genji released a breath, but it didn't sound as if from exasperation. In fact, it was like he was happy. "Hai. There is no use for me to lie to you."
Despite the ninja's assurance, Jack still felt that he wasn't telling everything. He brushed it aside, however, when Lena asked a question that made him stop in his tracks.
"Hey," the ex-pilot began, turning to the wreckage of the town hall with pursed lips. "Has anyone seen Yuan?"
Damnit, I forgot about him. He growled and whipped around to face the town hall, although he kept a gentle grip on Alexandra's hand. "He was with the dragon before it entered the vortex! Search the area- he might still be here."
At the mention of the portal-like object, Lena's face paled as she watched the horizon. After standing up, Genji bowed his head, looking unsure. All in all, the two appeared uncertain of the boy's fate.
However, Lena gave him a nod. She made a two-fingered salute. "On it, boss."
She zipped to the distance, leaving a trail of blue. Genji brushed off dust from his metal body and nodded at him as well. "I will do my best to find our comrade. However, I am not sure if he is here anymore."
Before he could reply, the cyber ninja leaped into the air, covering several meters as he bounded forward. When he landed, he jumped off again, disappearing from sight once he was far enough.
"Soldier 76?" Alexandra said, and he looked down at her. She was giving him an inquiring gaze. "Who's Yuan?"
He sucked a breath and turned to the horizon, where dust floated and collapsed buildings littered the land. He wasn't really sure if Yuan joined the dragon into the void, or if he was buried under rubble. But I damn well am not going to leave him behind when there's a chance of him surviving.
"He's a friend, kid."
To be continued...
ooOoo
Psst... There's an epilogue.
