Hey everyone. This is a story I haven't updated in over a year, since I've gotten caught up in writing other fics. So I'm going to try and get back on this. The only retcons you needs to know is that Brigitte is Torbjorn's daughter and maybe I'll get into the old Junkertown.
It took the Overwatch airship a non-stop flight of seventeen hours to go from Gibraltar to the middle of the Australian outback. Torbjorn took the reins for most of the flight, constantly saying to Brigitte that staying awake for such a long time kept his senses on alert. Though she kept insisting that autopilot would do just fine.
As the odd day changed around them due to the time zones, Hana, Lucio and Brigitte passed the time going through Hana's old Gamecube games. Jesse aimed his revolver at the edge of one of the windows, imagining who his bullets would hit if he were to shoot from this height. Mei tried catching up on her sleep, an odd challenge given the sun was still out, and she was avoiding the stresses Aleksandra was putting on their relationship.
When the airship finally headed over the Outback, the sun was in a midday position, with the desert landscape below stretching to infinity. Little signs of life. Hardly a cloud in the sky to block the sun's rays from heating the ship's interior. No settlements. Only the occasional twisted metal remains of past conflicts between junker groups.
But at last, Junkertown finally came in sight in the early evening. Appearing out of the coarse, light-brown desert, a plastic white assortment with greenery inside the walls, and more sporadic on the outside.
Down below, everyone guessed they were anticipated, since what looked like hundreds of junkers stood at the cricket field, their landing spot awaiting the arrival.
The group of eight disembarked the ship, Torbjorn already carrying some defensive equipment on carts, but the hundreds of junkers appearing to greet them, expecting to find a full force of Overwatch agents to help, were less than thrilled with that they received.
It didn't help that while Torbjorn, Brigitte, Zarya and Mei have been part of hot-weather missions before, the dry heat greeting them here made their skin feel it was going to shrivel to the texture of raisins.
"Oi mates!" Jaime staggered out of the crowd onto the boarding ramp, first giving hug to Mei before giving slaps to Lucio and Hana.
"Thank goodness you arrived," Satya greeted the team, her Vishkar associates not far behind.
"So, Overwatch," Roadman pessimistically said as he eyed the small group. "We meet again."
"Is this seriously all they sent over?" Uenuku said before muttering to Bushwack. "The Vishkar lady must not've made a good pitch."
"Overwatch's resources are spread out all over the world," Fareeha explained. "We can't drop everything else we have on our plates. So where do you plan on having us set up?" she asked Satya.
"There has to be some Australian agents somewhere. Why aren't they here?" Roadman grumbled.
"These are people I and Junkrat can trust," Satya interjected. "We've taken part in numerous missions bringing down terrorist sects and corrupt men like you seem to be dealing with here. Better than some unknown randomly assigned to you."
"Roadman, we should be fine with these guys," Stomper reasoned. "They saved our skins before, they can do it again."
"Hate to break the party, but I'll take my chances just with Vishkar," Roadman decided.
"The fuck you say?" Jamie was perplexed by the response.
"I'm grateful for what Overwatch has done for us, but Vishkar gave us this home and we have some agents to help. Have you seen their weapons? They're just lasers that won't stop till the person's dead! And don't think we're pushovers ourselves."
"Roadman, you're acting fucking insane," Mako scolded his subordinate. "We've worked with these guys before, saved your sorry ass.
"Hey Roadman's right," Bushwack chimed in. "Overwatch doesn't have the best track record in this part of the world. Why should we trust these guys?"
"I apprieciate the gesture, Satya," Sanjay directed at her, "but we have this under control."
"Now you listen here, you wallaby-riding goons," Torbjorn burst out. "We flew halfway around the world to offer our assistance in fighting some crazed maniac who's coming for you, and we're not leaving!"
The arguments both for and against Overwatch staying got uncivil from there. Roadman, Sanjay, and some of the other junkers kept rambling on how they were perfectly capable of protecting themselves. And Satya, Jamie, Mako, Overwatch, and some other junkers said their protection was necessary. Lucio even got a point in about how Vishkar couldn't be trusted to operate a place like this on their own.
"Hey, hey guys," Brigitte tried getting her opinion heard, thinking about how Overwatch did need to bring in more troops and engineers. She raised her hand trying to get somebody's attention, but the likes of Jamie, Satya, Bruce, Roadman, and the other Overwatch agents didn't pay attention, too busy arguing their case.
Eventually figuring they could get on with it without her, Brigitte made her way out of the crowd of junkers and wandered down the nearby street. Despite Torbjorn's rules about wandering off, she wanted to see the place she was supposed to be defending with everyone else.
Walking down the nearly empty street, Brigitte looked at the nearly identical, pristine homes. She had heard about how Vishkar helped provide homes for these people, despite their shady track record. She heard the past stories of the company helping Talon in secret and wiping out whole favelas in Rio to make way for their gentrified developments. But she also heard how the residents of India, Vishkar's home county, were happy with the changes.
Can't fault them for that, Brigitte thought, though the sterile plastic-like white buildings could use some more character. Hard to think the feared junkers of Australia lived in these abodes.
Passing by one house, she saw a home with its garage door open. A dirty, primitive dune buggy was sitting there as a pair of dust-covered legs in cargo shorts stuck out underneath the front bumper. The sounds of gears turning came from underneath as well. Brigitte figured she might as well introduce herself, seeing someone else interested in mechanics as much as her.
"Hey," Brigitte called out as she walked up the driveway. "You need help under there?"
"Could you hand me that 15 mm wrench?" the woman under the buggy said. Brigitte saw a bunch of wrenches to the right of the buggy with some other tools and grabbed one with a 15 on it. She handed it by the edge as a similarly dusty arm with black fingernails reached out to take it.
"Thanks dear," she responded, continuing to make cranking noises underneath.
"What are you working on?" Brigitte had to ask the obvious question.
"This buggy was left abandoned outside the walls and nobody bothered to take it in until I did."
"A nice model," Brigitte remarked. "You're really working on it now?"
"Yeah, why not? It'll be great for when I drive across the desert getting out of here."
"Overwatch is here, and everyone in town went to see them."
The cranking from under the car stopped as she slid out from underneath the buggy. Brigitte saw this woman was, aside from her cargo shorts, was wearing an inside-out grey top with the sleeves ripped off. Her blonde hair on her left side was completely shaved off, leaving her right half to tumble down normally on that side. And she had dirt and grease messing up some black make-up she had underneath her eyes, smudged from wiping her hands across her face.
"Overwatch is here?" she questioned excitedly, jumping up immediately at the woman she only just met.
"Yeah," Brigitte was taken aback. She expected the people here to at least know what Overwatch was, and had, but they didn't show the enthusiasm this woman did. "I'm actually part of it."
"Oh my god, Overwatch is here. What am I gonna do? What am I," the woman mumbled as she paced around her garage, then realized how crazy she must've seemed. She offered her hand for a handshake. "Oi, sorry I didn't get the chance to introduce myself. The name's Crank."
"Crank?" Brigitte acted a bit confused as she shook this junker's hand.
"It was the junker name I was given and I didn't complain about changing it. So that's just what people call me."
"Because you like cars?"
"Na, everybody out here does. Was a professional scientist out in Perth before I got driven out here. Where's the Overwatch people?"
"Out by the field, I think it was. Name's Brigitte by the way."
"Aight Brigitte, what is it you do?"
"I'm one of the engineers with Overwatch, working with my father Torbjorn Lindholm a lot. He's here."
"Who else is here?"
"We have agents Amari, McCree, Song, dos Santos, Zhou, Zaryanova,"
"Zaryanova?" Crank stopped Brigitte from going further. "Aleksandra Zaryanova?"
"Same one."
"Oh this is something I have to see," Crank grabbed Brigitte's hand and they both ran out the garage down the way the Swede came down.
They ran back to the crowd the German had left, only to see the arguing she had left behind somehow had gotten worse. Whatever peace Jamie and Satya tried to work out hadn't materialized. The two sides were still bickering over whether Overwatch's presence was necessary or not. Continued shouts of "Overwatch isn't needed here," "We need protection," and a few "wankers" were thrown out. It did not come to any real blows yet, but the possibility it would was not out of the question.
Brigitte and her new friend Crank their way through the crowd, with Crank wanting to get a closer look without standing right out in the open. She saw Aleksandra arguing for the side of Overwatch, hearing some sentences about helping others back in Russia in her thick accent. Crank thought her heart skipped a few beats.
"Never thought I'd see the day," Crank muttered.
"What day?" Brigitte asked.
"The day I'd get to meet Aleksandra Zaryanova."
Her attempts to meet the woman she idolized would have to wait. On the eastern wall surrounding the town, a low tone from a didgeridoo blew, but it was not loud enough to get the majority of the crowd's attention.
Then a rattling explosion broke out, a large da-doom, bwach destroying the hard light of the eastern wall. A fair amount of debris dissolved into the atmosphere, joining the rest of the beating sunlight. The supports turned into rubble, with the crumbled metal and desert dust covering the survivors and casualties.
The debating mob stopped their bickering to try and save any of the posted guards. Two survivors were found, with varying injuries to both. It was better than the caved-in heads and broken backs of the corpses found surrounding the hole in the wall. And chunks of other others, those who must've caused this destruction.
"What the fuck happened?" Mako demanded to know of his troops.
"These guys just, just came up on motorcycles and one of th-them ran their straight into the w-wall," a traumatized guard to get out. "Must've been laced with explosives.
"And another one managed to throw this up," the other junker held up a piece of folded paper bound by rope to a rock. Mako grabbed it, slipped the paper out from the rock, and unfolded it so he could read what it said.
"To the residents of Junkertown,
We let you live these past few months out of the assumption you would eventually return to the pure Junker ways. But that's not the case. In return your spared lives, I ask you surrender peacefully and join us. Together, with the Junkers united, we can make Australia what it was meant to be. And drive out anyone who seeks to change that. We'll give you three days to make your decision.
Big Entity
P.S. I'm coming for you Mako either way."
Of all the people he had pissed off in his decades in the outback, Mako knew of only a handful of people willing to try and get at him. One shot to the top of his mind, who this Big Entity was, with his blood pressure rising.
"Umm, Roadie?" Jamie asked, trying to get his attention by patting him on the arm.
"It's Floyd alright," Mako tore up the paper and dropped the pieces to the ground, trying to smother them in further with his foot.
"Wait, Floyd. The Floyd?" Jamie tried making sense of this.
"Everyone," Mako shouted, "we're calling in more Overwatch people. No questions asked."
"Roadhog," Roadman once again tried to convince him otherwise. "We can handle this just fine."
"We're not taking any chances here, asshole. We just blew up our wall there. I do not want to see what he has planned next."
The junker crowd hounded at Mako, demanding to know why they needed to rely on others for help. And why the large group was not going after whoever caused this explosion. Not to mention a few bickers in there about how stupid a name like Big Entity was, even with some crazy junker name among them. Mako ignored them all, heading to consult with the Overwatch and Vishkar members present.
"How soon can you get that wall back up again?" Mako asked Satya.
"With some simple reinforcements on top of the patched in hole, it'll be like the hole was never there."
"Call however many people you need," Mako further demanded the Overwatch group, then walked away towards the direction of his house.
10 kilometers west of Junkertown, a series of tents were quickly assembled. The sun was close to setting for the day, blazing the sky in a red-orange color. And a group of motorcyclists were hollering in the wind as they made their way back.
The same group of junkers who caused the surprise attacks on Junkertown and Perth populated the camp. They were less concerned with living comfortably than creating quarters that could be deconstructed quickly. They were nomads after all. Something their leader Big Entity stressed was one of the essential parts of being a junker.
The five who launched the surprise attack had just returned to base, jumping off their motorcycles without turning them off properly. The cycles slid on the dirt before some other junkers worked to turn them off. The five walked towards one tent as big as four of the smaller ones.
They pulled open a flap leading inside, where Big Entity and Feral Nix were meeting with other commanders, planning another attack on Junkertown on a rather poorly drawn map missing details about Junkertown and the countryside. That didn't stop them from planning further attacks.
"Entity," one of the junkers said as they entered. "Our initial strike on Junkertown was successful."
Big Entity looked up at the five with the rest of his face firmly downward towards the map. The other people surrounding the map looked to their direction shortly after.
"How successful?" Big Entity asked.
"We sent in the message demanding immediate surrender and blew up the west side of their walls. Their Vishkar and Overwatch allies appeared plenty in fright."
"Overwatch?" one of Big Entity's advisors questioned, his skin starting to shiver under some of the white makeup he had. "Overwatch is there right now?"
"An airship with the Overwatch logo was there. We believe Vishkar is there as well."
"Of course Vishkar is there," Big Entity raised his voice, preparing to chew out his subordinates. "They built the place! Did you at least kill any of the Vishkar people?"
"Not that we know of, sir."
"Idiots! They can create buildings and contraptions out of thin air! They can rebuild what you destroyed in a matter of minutes. Your attack was fucking worthless now, wasn't it? And now Overwatch is present?"
Big Entity had to sit down on the dirt floor. His body was acting up from getting stressed and it became harder to breathe. The advisors took turns making statements, making him more stressed.
"If Overwatch is here, we won't stand a chance."
"They have resources and allies all over the world."
"It's suicide to fight against them. We should turn back."
"We should fight them," Feral Nix got her word in.
Everyone turned to look at Big Entity's wife as she acted confident in her words. Big Entity himself was looking forward to her words of encouragement.
"Think of all the forces who took on Overwatch in the past. The Omnics, Talon, us Junkers, whatever number of terrorist groups along the way. True, they may all have ended up losing and Overwatch only destroyed itself on the inside, but think about what we could be if we were the first ones to defeat Overwatch fair and square. People fighting for proper freedom from their control will look to us as a shining beacon of light. They'll say, 'Oi, those junkers out in the Outback who took out Overwatch. If they can do it, why not us?"
"Feral Nix is right," Big Entity managed to stand up on his own freewill, taking a few small steps back to the map.
"Defeating Overwatch is our best chance for showing the rest of the world what we're capable of. We know Australia rightfully belongs to us and the rest of the world needs to be cleansed. The impure members of Overwatch and Vishkar will meet their end by our hands. Once we take Junkertown, the rest of Australia is ours for the taking. The world will soon follow afterwards. Are you all with me?
A rousing yell from the rest of the junkers in the tent greeted the end of Big Entity's speech.
"Very good men. Now you five goons, get out of here. We have a long night of planning ahead of us."
Soundtrack:
Beds are Burning – Midnight Oil