The majority of this chapter is Roadhog narrating past life events.

"As you all know, the junkers grew out of a group I had a particular role in. The Australian Liberation Front, or ALF for short. Anyone who knows about Australia after the first crisis knows why we formed. The country itself was spared from most of the heavy fighting, but the government decided to appease the Omnics living here. By giving them vast stretches of land and greater rights for those who lived in the cities.

Of course, people like me and my new wife, Matilda, we didn't like the Omnics already. And we were some who just wanted to be left alone. Just in our patch of land near Wagga Wagga. But them just coming in and taking what was ours, giving them to the machines. Oh we were rightly pissed? And what do pissed-off people do? We organize.

Calling ourselves the Australian Liberation Front wasn't my idea, but we spread and recruited quickly, mainly in the areas far away from major cities out east. When some people come from Tazmania to join the cause, you know you're onto something.

When we had the numbers, then we thought about getting physical. Getting weapons and all that to make our points clear. Funny how we all agreed that violence would be the answer. No pussy protesting for us. So we either made our own weapons and guns, or we ventured out to steal them. And our units formed up from there, which were just who we were comfortable around.

There was one unit in particular that gave us all plenty of headaches though. Commanded by one Floyd Kelly and his girlfriend, Steph Jones.

The only rule we had for joining was you had to hate Omnics. Fighting against the omnics was what we're all about. But other than that, anybody who wanted to take part in the war we were fighting, we'd let 'em in. No questions asked.

Except Floyd, he'd ask some questions. Questions about their loyalty to the cause. If their actions or thoughts would get in the way of a better Australia. He'd do that to who he thought, in his own words, could get in the way of the ALF's master plan. Plan of what? Destroying Omnics? It shouldn've been more complicated then that. But he had visions of what we should do once we won. Ones that had ideas even seemed out of date for us.

Floyd was nothing but an opportunist. And Steph was an enabler. But he was a surprisingly good rallier of troops. And we needed the numbers to fight.

It started out simple enough. Dress up in whatever Mad Max gear we have and storm cities, taking out whatever Omnics we could find. Letting them know they weren't welcome. Harassing the leaders to get them to stop promoting Omnic rights. But of course, when someone deals with adversity, their resolve only gets stronger. It's like that on both sides.

Eventually, we'd have enough. The government was only going to favor Omnics more and more. Omnic rights, the wave of the future.

One we had no intention of letting happen.

So we found exactly where the Australian omnium was, Warburton. Prime outback material. Built on an indigenous community. Only fitting we'd screw them over one more time for the sake of the future.

I still remember the place. A huge grey factory rising out of the red dust. With plenty of roads leading into it. Tight security, since the government wanted to protect their investment. Some other buildings for human workers to stay at, never knew if the automation would ever stop working.

It was all ours for the taking."

Mako had to pause to use his inhaler. Recounting these events from decades ago made him fairly winded.

"We had an armada of trucks. Old, abandoned, rusty on the outside, fixed them up the best we can. Then we tricked them out like those cars from The Road Warrior.

Every leader had their own squad of troops, leading them into battle with their trucks. I was driving one such truck, with Matilda in the seat next to me. I wasn't wearing this gas mask then, so I was breathing normally. And I can still remember Matilda's face. She had sunny blonde hair, freckles on her cheeks, and, to me, a smile that could outshine the desert sand."

"Oh brother, hog, get on with it!" Jamie was growing impatient, as he'd heard this story a few times already.

"Pipe down, ya little shit," Mako snapped back at him, taking another breath of his inhaler, feeling the next part was going to take a while.

"Floyd's group. Oh they were something else. He tried convincing the rest of his unit to wear facepaint, which they didn't. He was riding on the back of his lead truck, Steph by his side, raising his shotgun in the air.

So he was standing on the rear of his truck, thinking he was so fucking clever blasting Pink Floyd out of his truck's speakers. Shouting out 'I don't need no arms around me!' and 'Run! Run! Run!' Needless to say, the other legions kept their distance from him.

The people and omnics guarding the place were expecting us. I mean it's hard to hide when you have black and rusty trucks heading our way in the open Outback. They had the place on lockdown. But we were more prepared.

We had the works. Machine guns, rocket launchers, any spare handheld weapons we could find. And we just stormed the place. Made little work of their barriers to get on the grounds.

When the coast was clear, a bunch of my and Floyd's unit managed to find a door and get inside the Omnium.

There was one problem. None of us had any idea where to look. None of us had been inside an Omnium before, so we had no idea where to destroy it.

So we just wandered. Me, Matilda, my men, Floyd, and Steph. Trying to find anything that powered the whole thing. Wandering across whole sections of conveyor belts, other assembly sections, repair shops, and a part of delivering the bots. It was huge, to say the least. And plenty of omnics were thrown our way to protect the inside. They're all buried in a scrapheap somewhere.

Then, amid all the fighting and wandering, we found it. The Omnium's power core. Sure, there were signs saying "Warning: radioactivity present. Please wear protective gear." But we didn't care. All we knew was to just destroy the thing and our job would be done.

My squad were looking out for any omnics while Floyd and Steph went straight in, trying to sabotage the power core. They didn't know what they were doing. Hell, if I was sabotaging it instead of them, I wouldn't know what I was doing either.

More omnics came to fight us, but they were pretty feisty this time, trying to stop us at all costs. I lost plenty of good men that day in that omnium, most of them fighting by my side. Trying to hold 'em off.

Then, something over the speakers said. "Warning: meltdown in progress. Please evacuate and get to bunkers."

"Mako, we gotta run!" I remember hearing Floyd shouting, starting to run away.

"Did you do that?"

"Run! Now!"

"The fuck did you do?"

"Just pushing buttons, ripping wires out, then this counter started going off!"

"Floyd!" Steph shouted. She was lagging behind the rest of us and, in her stupidity, decided to hold off the oncoming Omnics instead, thinking her guns would be enough.

"Steph!" Floyd shouted as he ran back, shotgun in hand to help her fight them off. There was a lot of thinking without second thoughts that day.

Me and Matilda knew we'd never get this golden chance again. So we left them behind, thinking the world would be better off without them.

I wasn't the fat man you see right now. I could at least move around back then. So we bolted out of there, trying to remember how we got there in the first place. Even then, the whole place started falling apart. Steam bursting out pipes, machines

We only got out in time before the explosion blew off the side we escaped out of. Thank god it wasn't completely nuclear. Some of the omnics must've gotten to it in time to prevent that. But busted metal was sent everywhere.

The force threw us far enough away that I didn't get too many injuries. Some burns and cuts that could be handled. But I looked back, trying to see where Matilda landed.

Her body was underneath some of the giant metal thrown from the explosion. I ran back, and tried to dig under the dirt, trying to reach her that way. When I did reach her, some of the metal pierced her back and legs, blood trickling out, staining the dirt.

She was dead before I could reach her.

As I carried Matilda's body back to the rest of our units, they asked me what happened to Floyd and Steph. And I said the honest truth. We left them to die inside the Omnium, didn't even give it a second thought. And they didn't pay mind to it either. We just buried Matilda somewhere outside the grounds and left.

What was done was done, no amount of reflection could change what we've done. The destroyed omnium eventually bathed everything in a 200-kilometer radius in some kind of radiation. Honestly, at that point, breathless after destroying the thing, it was the last thing we worried about.

So, there was no need for the ALF anymore. We took on new names to hide our past associations and split off into the various junker groups that roamed the outback since. Funny how we all agreed on the fact there was no way civilization would take us back, so we didn't even try to go back. We knew we'd fucked the place up big-time, so the least we could do was own up to that.

The group I ended up with, the largest one who built the original Junkertown, got along pretty well. We only scavenged out into the outside world whenever we needed too. Or when we felt someone else was stepping on our turf. But we didn't mean any more harm. And that's the life I lived, until a fucker named Junkrat came along.

Of course, we heard stories about what the other bands were up to. The one's who resorted to raiding the cities more often. And their names would make their way back to us. Some of them, we'd hear particularly brutal things about what they did. Like an attack out on the Gold Coast. Normally, raiding junkers would just rob, take what they need, and get out as soon as possible. These guys, they graffiti the place with what they think is cool. Last I heard, there was hammers and worms, and calling people maggots. And most of the people dead weren't white. Some of the dead were saying, letting everyone know they were faggots. There wasn't a doubt in my head Floyd and Steph were the culprits.

If anyone can organize an attack on Perth, and be crazy doing it, it's them."

The crowd wasn't sure how to react. Did Mako have more to say? Did he have any advice to give? They were holding their breath waiting for more information, but none came.

"So that's who we're up against?" Satya was the first person to ask when Mako finished.

"If they ever come around here, yes."

Satya had heard enough, and in her head, knew exactly what needed to be done here. She separated herself from the rest of the group hearing Mako's story and headed back in the direction of the Vishkar airship.

"Sat, where ya going?" Jamie followed his girlfriend.

"The sensible thing to do. Call Overwatch for backup."

"Overwatch?" Jamie panicked. "What do we need them for? Thought you said we can handle things."

"I said we could handle three trucks of stangers. I did not account for an army of insane nomads being a genuine threat for us."

"Come on, we can handle them. Besides, Roadie said we don't know if they're even coming this way."

"Jamie, your instance isn't going to help your cause."

"Overwatch ain't coming here, Sat. This is my place, for us junkers. It's only right we defend it on our own terms."

"Jamie, we helped Overwatch take down Talon. And you even helped their operations on more than one occasion. Why the hesitation now?"

"What about it being my place don't you get?"

"Considering I designed this place, I might have more of a say than you actually."

"Sat, you don't know the kind of people we got here. We've been training them in case someone would attack us. These people are fighters."

"As amusing as seeing a force trained by you must be, you have actual soldiers at your disposal. Protecting innocents against threats larger than themselves is what they do. There's no shame in asking for help. You think you're the head hauncho? King Jamison Fawkes the first? Well best you act like it and protect your subjects properly."

By now, the two had reached the Vishkar ship. Jamie knew calling in Overwatch would at least be sensible, protecting the sheltered here. But given how most of the people were driven out of their homes or were lost souls, they still had ambivalent views of the

Best she see for herself.

"Fine, fine, call Overwatch if you want," Jamie finally gave in. "But don't be surprised if trouble comes."

"Thank you," Satya boarded the VIshkar dropship, making her way to the communication's screen, and starting a call to Gibraltar. Given the 8-hour time difference, she had no idea who would be awake to receive her messege. But sure enough, someone did answer. "Hello, Winston, . . . Satya here. There's an issue developing in Australia I think requires Overwatch's help."

Finally, more Overwatch people show up next!

Soundtrack:

World Destruction – Time Zone (Afrika Bambaataa & John Lydon)

Elephant – Tame Impala