Weeks pass. She spends her days at headquarters monitoring Jesse and Genji alternately and together when possible, meticulously updating spreadsheets and triple-checking the figures from having them constantly wired up.
Angela is no closer to finding out why that line of code was activated, and her weekly reports to Winston feel redundant. Luckily he hasn't been pressing her for progress and seems grateful simply to be kept in the loop, but she hates that she's still here, two months later, no closer to a solution and with no real idea of when this deployment will end. There's an undercurrent of unease about how quiet everything has been, shared amongst all five of them, but nothing has happened, yet, leaving all of them in a perpetual state of limbo.
It doesn't help that her crush on Junkrat feels more intense now than when she was back in the UK, persisting despite their distance – perhaps even because of it. They haven't had a chance to voicechat again as they keep missing one another's calls. Even the texts have been sporadic, but Angela knows it's down to his total change of schedule. Junkrat is enjoying himself in engineering at least. That's the most important thing of all, to her.
She's long since stopped hoping she'll be sent back to England soon, anyway. Christmas seems impossibly far away. There's been no word of a Halloween party but that isn't surprising when all of the agents are on active assignments. Maybe there won't be any socials now until the new year.
September moves into October, and with it comes the autumnal shift of colour, lush greens turning into oranges and reds. Angela is happy today, wearing a coat now that the weather is cold enough to warrant one. It's a Saturday afternoon, late October, and the sky is rippled with clouds, pink and lilac from the sun's descent. She's waiting for her train home from Shibuya after a day of shopping, and the breeze of the train rustles her hair and coat as it pulls in. Angela loves autumn more than any other season.
She hasn't heard from Junkrat for 16 hours, which is consistent with him going out for Friday after-work drinks like before. She misses him, as she has done since the day she arrived here, but now she isn't so bothered when it's been a little while since they've talked, holding his typoed assertion of missing her in the back of her mind whenever she starts to worry. When her phone does ring she's fresh off the train at Setagaya, though it isn't Junkrat. It's Genji. Angela answers with a smile, wondering if he wants to meet up for coffee tomorrow.
"Hello, Genji!"
"Zenyatta's been kidnapped."
Angela freezes.
"He – what?" she says, the most awful of weights crashing down inside her.
"He's gone, Angela, he's – he's been kidnapped!"
As it always does in Overwatch, everything happens at once. Angela is on the next train to headquarters when a communication comes through on her phone saying there's been an explosion in a Russian omnium, followed quickly by another in Egypt. She rushes through reception when she arrives, straight up to the Japanese teleconference room. The others are there already. Jesse and Hana look terribly worried, but Angela focuses only on Genji, his red eyes and the frown that's etched deeply over them.
Winston and a bunch of corporate suits are on the line, their faces projected onto the screen in here. His bosses, it would seem. He's explaining the situation as it stands. It appears to be Null Sector – or rather, two vocal proponents of it who managed to slip beneath the radar and set up camp here in Japan. Winston believes that the explosions elsewhere are decoys, designed to distract from the abduction of Zenyatta. All available agents are actively assigned and the emergency research team are on the case, pinpointing Zen's whereabouts based on the statement provided by Genji and by the intelligence they've been accruing for the last two months.
Well, good to know that there's been progress after all, Angela thinks, training her face into something neutral as Winston tells them this. Would've been nice to have a heads up.
"So, when're we heading out?" Jesse asks, arms folded across the table from her. He doesn't look impressed with any of this, either.
"Not until we have his exact location," says one of the suits.
"We should be out there ourselves, looking for him!" Genji shouts, years of composure giving way to his temper. Angela wishes she could put her arm around him but feels uncomfortable doing so with Winston and his bosses looking, so instead she rests her hand gently over his back.
"This is an operation months in the making," says another suit, irritated. "We can't afford to just give ourselves away here. Rest assured, you will be deployed immediately once we can do so."
Months in the making. Brilliant.
Even Winston doesn't seem pleased by this, but evidently his hands are tied. They discuss the plan for when Zenyatta is located and anticipate an agent despatch within the next six hours. Once the videofeed ends, Genji clenches both of his hands into fists and slams them on the table, cursing loudly in Japanese. Hana, on his other side, reaches over and hugs him, but Angela and Jesse just look at one another in silent, mutual acknowledgement.
This is what they've been building towards. This is it.
Night has fallen when they're in the helicopter, gear on and adequately briefed. Genji is twitchier now than ever. Angela can feel his leg shaking from the other side of the cabin, and she unbuckles her seatbelt, darting over so she can sit beside him and tightly grasp his hand.
"We'll get him," she says, gently confident. He's fully suited up, making it impossible to see his expression. He stops shaking quite as much, though – grasps Angela's hand tightly in return.
"I hope so," Genji says, the tremble in his voice pinching at Angela's throat. Her heart aches for Zenyatta, but she know it won't be aching nearly as much as his.
The helicopter flies high above Tokyo, moving north-east towards Ibaraki prefecture. They arrive at a gigantic factory - the newly decommissioned omnium, responsible for the faulty processors. It's in a secluded rural area, surrounded by rice paddies with a single dirt track leading onto a main road. An odd location for an omnium, but there's no time to question how something like this secured government approval in the first place. The copter's doors open up and one by one the agents jump out of it, onto the grass below ready to head inside and find Zen.
The main entrance is locked down. Apparently their covert operations are coming to an end, because Hana is instructed through comms to blast it open with her MEKA, and then they're going inside, into the darkness of a steel sarcophagus.
There's no electricity connected to the building so they're dependent on the lights from Hana's mech and Angela's staff. They're able to cautiously make their way through the reception area, arriving at a split corridor – one way leading to the warehouse, the other to the administrative side of the building.
The mission team back at HQ are providing comms, telling them to move slowly and to split off – Genji and Hana through the warehouse, Jesse and Angela through the administrative area. Angela doesn't like splitting up and thinks it would be far better for them to go as a group, but the strategy is to pincer the enemy, and none of them are in a position to question the information that's been dripfed so far.
"Think that boy'll be able to stick to the plan?" Jesse asks, sounding concerned. They're heading up a long staircase, guided by the light shining from Caduceus.
"We can only hope he will," Angela says. Genji's teamwork has improved tenfold since he started, but she isn't so sure about his mindset now that Zenyatta's safety on the line. She hasn't seen Genji upset like that since the initial days of his training. There's nothing they can do, anyway. He's old enough to know what he's doing.
It's eerily quiet, their footsteps echoing as they travel up and up. The warehouse must be huge from how many flights it takes, but eventually they come to the top. Normally Angela would decode the door blocking their way ahead, but with no power Jesse has to blast it open by force, stepping inside quickly with his gun out ready. Angela whips hers out, too, but there's nobody in here – no sign of life. It's an open plan clerical area which seems to run along the length of the building, though they can see a corridor at the end that should lead through to the manager's offices, and then again to the CEO's, if their intel is to be believed. Angela looks around. There must be twenty rows of desks just in this office alone, with cabinets lining the walls from floor to ceiling. Everything is neat and tidy – unused looking, even. Jesse is instructed to walk carefully through, but he heads over to the windows which offer a view down on the warehouse below instead. Angela joins him, swallowing as she looks.
The southern entrance opens and the green light from Hana's MEKA shines through, illuminating enough of the factory for them to get an idea of what it's like down there despite being drenched in darkness. The warehouse is enormous. All the production equipment is still down there, its decommissioning so recent that nothing has been covered. Pulleys hang from the ceiling and the walls are densely filled with what appear to be hundreds of metal storage units. Conveyor belts, empty racks, steel cutters – it's a structured maze of machinery, with Angela recognising much of the technology as being top of the line. This omnium must have cost millions.
"Too dark to tell what's down there," Jesse mutters. "Feels like the blind leading the blind, here."
Angela holds a finger to her lips. They're on a push-to-talk link with the comms team but she wouldn't be surprised if they're listening in.
"We gonna get a plan now or what?" he asks then, addressing them. A chilling pause follows. "McCree here, do you copy?"
Nothing.
"Well. Looks like we're doing this the hard way," he sighs. "No comms."
"No," Angela says. "Come on, that – that's a joke."
The look on Jesse's face tells her that it's not. Angela tries herself but the line is completely dead, and she shakes her head, making a disgusted sound.
"Our first real assignment and they can't even give us this," she hisses. "Where's all that money going? Things were never like this when it was Jack on the other end of the line!"
"Hey, c'mon now, Mercy. This ain't so bad. Those suits wouldn't have helped us anyway," he says, nudging her. Jesse smiles, but it's strained, and she can feel his unease in the way he turns to the window, the pull of his eyebrows as he watches Genji and Hana make their way through the warehouse. They should really start heading down through the offices, but Angela stays beside Jesse, watching the other two work their way through the warehouse.
"You guys lost your comms too?" Hana asks, her voice clear in their ears.
"Of course," Jesse says.
"Ugh. What a bunch of morons."
Jesse chuckles, a quiet sound that fills the empty office nonetheless. Angela steps closer to him, glancing around and behind them. The hair on the back of her neck is standing on end, conscious of the deathly silence surrounding them.
"Wouldja have it any other way?" Jesse asks her. Hana laughs, the clunking of her MEKA's footsteps ringing around the warehouse.
"Nope. Hard mode's fine with me," she says, confidently. Being in her MEKA always seems to absolve her anxiety. Was it really three months ago when Angela was watching Lúcio comfort her in the boardroom back in London? Now that they're here time seems to have flown past.
They haven't heard a thing from Genji, though.
"Genji, can you hear us?" Angela asks, watching him move swiftly over the equipment that's keeping the MEKA behind. He's dexterous anyway but Genji's movements are more erratic than usual, like he's hyperaware of anything that might lead them closer to wherever Zen is being kept.
"Copy that," he says, eventually. Angela breathes again, relieved that their group interlink is still working.
"Make sure you stay with ," she instructs. "It's just us and them, now. We need to stick together."
Angela just wishes she knew where 'they' were. Their brief stated that the targets are two human Null Sector activists, but to expect a significant omnic presence upon entry. Zen is being held at the most northern point of the facility, so each pair needs to head up together, if they're still going to try the pincer technique.
"You think there's a basement?" Hana asks. Her MEKA is moving a little faster now, less cautious to match Genji's stride.
"Negative," Angela says. "We were told that i—"
All of a sudden the walls around them start shaking violently, and a long, low groan echoes around the warehouse. Angela holds Caduceus out to steady herself, her other hand reaching to Jesse, holding onto his cybernetic arm. The rumbling around them reverberates through her body.
"Earthquake?" she asks, but it doesn't feel like one, not quite. Jesse shakes his head. He's scowling out of the window, and when she watches his eyes widen in horror, dread cuts through to her core.
"No," he says. "Them."
Angela turns. She thinks they're fairy lights at first – hundreds of them, lighting the surrounding walls of the factory so suddenly it's dazzling. But they start to move, slowly, and as Angela's eyes adjust to the brightness she watches as the storage units making up the factory walls begin to creak and shift – the cause of the violent shuddering around them.
No. They're not storage units. They're omnics, uncurling from where they've been built into the walls. The creaking of metal joints is a gut-wrenching sound that takes Angela straight back to the Uprising crisis, and while they appear to have a basic chassis – head and torsos attached to spindly arms and legs, little more than skeletons – they're moving quickly, the scrape of steel on steel piercing through the facility as they crawl from the walls like mechanical spiders.
The MEKA's light is drowned by the glow of a hundred sets of eyes. Visibility is no longer an issue, but the magnitude of the situation is a crushing weight on all of them. Genji and Hana stand back to back, encircled by the horde. They're surrounded.
"Oh, god!" Angela says. "McCree, we have to get down there, we—"
"Shit," he says. When she shoots a look at him he's clutching his cybernetic arm, grimacing from the effort of trying to hold it still. It's spasming wildly, the motors inside it that are usually silent now whirring like they're being overclocked. This happened once before, a precursor to its loss of power.
"I can- I've got the fix – I can fix it!"
Angela pats down her Valkyrie. Where's the port, the port with the patch, she attached it to the suit, just needs to plug it into him and-
"We've got this!" Genji says, the shing of his drawn sword coming through his comms. "Go on ahead!"
Angela glances back out of the window, feeling sick as a swell of omnics hits the MEKA like a tidalwave. Hana screams in shock but grits her teeth halfway through, turning it into a ferocious growl.
"McCree! Mercy! Go and find Zenyatta!" she calls out, canons firing and blowing off a dozen of the omnics crawling all over her. Shrapnel sprays through the air only for the blown apart units to be replaced by a dozen more a second after, piling onto the MEKA like a pack of metal wolves. Genji slices through them like butter but there are too many for him to take on his own, and he jumps up onto one of the conveyor belts - higher still, then, onto a platform overlooking the main production line. The omnics follow him, a deafening clatter filling the warehouse as half of them merge into one giant swarm. In the second it takes for him to reach for his shuriken they loom up over him, eyes channelled into a spotlight on their target. They swallow him whole, and Angela watches, horrified, as they drag Genji down from the platform and up through the warehouse, until they're in the darkness, out of sight.
"Oh my god," she says, a dry sob as Genji's comms produce static before dying out. Her hands are shaking when she finally releases the port from where it's been attached to her bodice, going to plug it in only for Hana to scream again, abruptly, a piercing shriek in their ears. It's not a sound of shock this time. It's a sound of fear, cold and dreadful, pulled from her stomach.
"I- I can't move!" she cries. Angela can see the MEKA is twitching but stationary, covered in omnics, and they can hear Hana's hands on the joysticks, the thunk thunk thunk as she yanks them, willing them to move. "It's – I can't – nothing's working!"
Please not Hana as well. Angela plugs the port into Jesse's arm, begging it to download quickly, please, please just hurry up, they need to get down there, they need to help. Oh, god, how could they have been led into this? What were they thinking, coming in so unprepared?
"Hang tight, , we're coming!" Jesse shouts, but Hana is still shrieking, the hammering of metal on glass followed by an ominous crunch.
"I can't - can't – can't do anything!" Hana tells him, choked by fear. His arm is still spasming from where the patch hasn't worked and Jesse curses, then, disengaging it entirely, throwing it away from his body and down onto the floor. Now he's without an arm – no way of easily reloading his gun.
Angela's insides curdle, the realisation dawning on her that all of this tech – all of her tech, on every member of the team – has been afflicted by whatever it is Null Sector have brought here. She should've fixed it. This is on her.
"Watch out!" Jesse shouts, then. He tugs Angela away from the window with such force it makes her shout too, but she clings to him immediately as he fires a shot at the window to shatter it. He takes aim at the omnics on the MEKA, gunshots ringing out as he blasts them off the cockpit, but it doesn't make any difference. More of them just keep crawling back.
"Bailing out!" Hana shouts, forced to eject.
"No!" Angela cries, releasing Jesse's arm. She steps up onto the windowpane.
"Mercy, stop!" Jesse yells, throwing his gun down to swipe at her, trying to get her off it.
It's too late. Hana ejects, and Angela jumps from the windowpane. She holds her arms out ready to swoop down to her, to try and shield her from the horde, but her wings don't spread, don't activate at all.
Her suit has lost power, too.
Angela crashes against the floor. The clatter of her suit alerts the omnics to her presence. They slither towards her from where they'd been ready to envelop Hana, leering over Angela instead, like they can smell her nanotechnology, ravenous for it. She panics, trying to push herself onto her hands and knees, but when she looks up there must be thirty sets of eyes peering down at her, a tower of omnics waiting to descend. Jesse is shooting at them from the window, blasting bits off of them, but the tower is too big, shifting, growing. Angela flinches, holding Caduceus out in a horizontal line in front of her. Her last defence.
"MERCY!"
The shout comes from above, and an explosion hits the front of the tower like a bolt of lightning. It bursts on impact, shrapnel filling the air like confetti. Angela shields her eyes from the heat of the blast and jerks back as something – someone - thumps down in front of her. When she peeks above her arm Angela's breath escapes her as a sob.
It's Junkrat.
"Cover your eyes!" he shouts, not looking back. He's facing the omnic tower, his body a shield between her and them. The tower is trying to repair itself, building up again. Angela does as she's told and Junkrat throws out a doubled up concussion mine, its blast so powerful she can feel it in her bones. When she squints between her arms she can see that the flames from the explosion reach the ceiling, destroying most of the surrounding machinery. The remaining omnics disband before swarming together again amongst the debris, disappearing off towards the northern end of the warehouse.
Junkrat turns around to face her, crouching down, frag launcher dropped to the floor. His face is coated in soot from the blast but his eyes are clear and shining as they look into hers, and when he reaches out to cup her face in his hands, Angela sobs again, tears welling up from the swell of emotion inside her.
"Are y'hurt?" Junkrat asks, his voice thick with- something, she can't tell. He's scowling, looking over her with urgency.
"I- I'm fine," Angela breathes, the only words she can think of now that he's here. When she manages to smile at him Junkrat's scowl loosens into a look of concern.
"Christ, Angie, what'm I gonna do with you," he says, then, smiling like he's relieved. The way he's looking at her - the softness in his eyes - makes something in Angela break.
"Oh, Junkrat," she whimpers, dropping Caduceus to put her hands over his. Tears spill out over her face but Junkrat gently brushes them away, his metal thumb cool as it wipes the moisture off her cheek.
"Tch. And y'call me hopeless," he says, quietly, so reverently. He's gazing at her still, but the softness in his eyes is too much for her to bear and Angela starts to cry in earnest, overwhelmed by it, by him. He instantly pulls her close, shushing her, arms coming around her waist to tug her body flush against his. The adrenaline coursing through her isn't quite enough to cancel out the pain from where she fell, but she grabs him back immediately, arms over his shoulders and hands gripped in his hair, needing to know that he's real, that he's here.
"Bloody scared me half to death," Junkrat murmurs. His breath is warm against the hair behind her ear and Angela shudders, trying to stifle her sobs.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, and when Junkrat squeezes her a pained groan escapes before she can stop it. He jerks back away from her looking petrified – but he holds her arms even now, like he still doesn't want to fully let go.
"You are hurt!"
"I- I'm not, really, only from where I fell," she tells him, grateful to have ebbed the flow of her tears. Junkrat finally does let go of her then, frowning as he grabs hold of Caduceus. He presses it into her hands.
"Use it."
"But it's not, I don't think it will-"
"Just use it, wouldja?"
Now he just looks angry. Angela holds his gaze but it's clear to see he's not willing to budge on this. As she suspected, even Caduceus is no longer working, though thankfully there's enough residual charge in it that she's able to get a small burst of healing. Angela exhales a shaky breath as the pain dissolves, and Junkrat leans in again, wiping away the tear streaks left on her face.
"Right, that's better," he says, eyebrows drawn together. "Can ya move?"
"Yes, I think so," Angela says, fragile now that she's stopped crying. Junkrat takes her hands in his and eases up with her, and then she's back on her feet, looking up at him where he's standing tall in front of her.
"There we go," Junkrat says, gently. He still looks worried, and Angela just stands there as his eyes flit over her, dazed.
"I- I can't believe you're here," she says, then, hitched where her breath is shallow. She squeezes his hands, unable to vocalise the thank you sitting in her throat, feeling like there's so much, too much that she wants to say to him in this moment.
"'Course I'm here," Junkrat says. "Wouldn't wanna be anywhere else right now."
Her heart soars. He smiles at her, something almost bashful about it, and her chest tightens when he squeezes her hands back. He's gazing at her again, an amber look of warmth and reverence, and on instinct she dares to give his hands a little tug, just enough for him to take a step forwards, closing the space between them.
"Oh," Junkrat says, eyes widening like he wasn't expecting this, and Angela is so overcome with all the things she wants to say that she almost forgets where they are, caught in the current between them.
There's a heavy jingling coming from behind that snaps her out of it. She jolts, turning sharply to look, but it's Roadhog jogging over to them, Jesse beside him. There's a pulley from the ceiling swinging behind him – he must've used it to get down. Angela only just remembers to let go of Junkrat's hands when they approach, a burst of hope filling her chest to see that they have even more support than she thought. Winston must have known that their team wouldn't have been enough. Thank goodness.
"Mercy! Christ alive, you scared the living shit outta me jumping out like that!" Jesse says, scowling at her on his approach. He seems relieved, though. Roadhog stands beside him, and Angela could swear she sees him giving Junkrat a thumbs up from the corner of her eye.
"I'm sorry, McCree, I just- I had to try," she says. "I didn't realise that was going to happen, that even my suit would…"
Her eyes drop to the space between them then, crushed by the burden of her failings.
"This is all my fault. If- If I'd been able to figure out the problem then maybe we wouldn't have been so unprepared."
It's nice to hear Junkrat and Jesse both scoff at this but it doesn't lessen the guilt. Jesse reaches out then, patting her shoulder with his remaining hand.
"This ain't your fault in the least, doc," he says, firmly. "I'm just glad to see you're alright."
"'Course she is," Junkrat says, all nonchalance as he grabs his frag launcher off the ground. He grins when Angela casts a look over her shoulder at him, though, a certainty to it that manages to ease off a little of the burden after all.
Angela frowns, then, glancing past Junkrat up ahead. The MEKA is abandoned and in a terrible state, cockpit obliterated, legs and canons crushed and chunks of pink metal scattered over the floor around it.
"Oh my god," she says then, suddenly gripped with an acute fear. "Where's ? And- Genji?"
"Lúcio got her," Roadhog says, tipping his chin to gesture behind them. "Brought her back to reception. Couldn't tell you where Genji is, though."
"Oh no," Angela says, the reassurance of Hana's safety not nearly enough to douse the flames of her anxiety for Genji. She clutches her chest, thinking of him being swallowed up by the horde. The second abduction today. "We- we have to find him!"
There's an echoing clatter from the other end of the warehouse, a sound of metal on metal that's approaching fast. All at once the four of them bristle up, Jesse brandishing his gun and Roadhog stepping forward, his enormous hand gentle as he pushes Angela behind him.
"Stand back," he tells her. She grips Caduceus, swallowing down her fear as best she can now that she's shielded by the three of them.
Sure enough, another swarm comes into view. It's impossible to tell if they're the same omnics from before or a new batch, all manner of parts jumbled together from where they've aggregated into one. The explosion annihilated enough machinery to create an arena of space between them that's littered with burnt metal, and the swarm approaches like the tide coming in. Even where she's standing shielded behind the boys, Angela can make out a glimpse of green from inside the shifting mass.
"He- he's in there!" she yells, but Junkrat throws his metal arm out to stop her when she goes to move forwards.
"Don't you dare!" he shouts back at her, a snapped command that's halting enough to shock her. Suddenly the omnic wave halts as though it's hit an invisible wall, and a single golden omnic appears from behind the swarm.
It's Zenyatta. Angela gasps as he glides up onto a conveyor belt, elevated enough to have a clear view over everyone, and it's immensely comforting that he appears unharmed. The sight of him should be assuaging, uplifting - but instead the aura emanating from him is ominous, coils Angela's belly into a thick knot of dread. He makes no motion of acknowledgement when she calls out to him, nor does he seem to be moving with his usual grace. That's when Angela notices that the lights on his head that should be blue are yellow – that the orbs floating around him aren't round, but hexagonal.
Beside him, then, stand two humans – young men dressed in casual clothing. One of them is much shorter than the other and is holding a console of some sort. Considering they've just brought Overwatch it its knees, there's nothing striking about them at all. If anything they look like students. Angela swallows, no longer comforted from seeing Zenyatta unharmed. What have they done to him?
"Shit, they've got him wired up," Jesse says.
"Fucking knew it," Junkrat says, bitterly.
The swarm hulks itself into a tower like before, but rather than advance on them it seems to heave – and then Genji is abruptly spat out from inside it, his suited body clattering bonelessly against the floor. Angela cries out for him, once again halted by Junkrat when she jerks forward to go to him, and then the omnics disband, lining up like an army before their eyes. The men laugh.
"There, you can have him back," the tall one says. "Don't worry, he's not dead."
Angela chokes, their words cutting right through her. They seem to cut through Jesse, too, from the way he recoils in front of her. Junkrat and Roadhog, standing side by side, nod at one another before hunkering down - and then the shorter man points over to Angela.
"C'mon, sweetheart, aren't you worried him?" he leers. "Go and take a look!"
Angela can't stand it anymore. Against her rational judgement she shoves Junkrat's arm aside and rushes out, ignoring him when he shouts at her to get back, when Jesse shouts too. She falls onto her knees beside Genji's discarded body, turning him over, and uses what little charge remains in Caduceus on him. He twitches then, and he makes a groggy sound, starting to pull himself up.
"Genji? Oh, thank god! It's me, it's Mercy! Angela! Can you hear me?"
Angela smiles, relief washing over her when he sits up. He turns to face her slowly. For a moment, he doesn't move at all, perfectly still as he just seems to look at her.
"H... Help me, Angela," he says then, so quietly that it's chilling. Angela hesitates.
"What – what's wrong?"
Genji's entire body surges at her. The movement is so fast Angela has no time to react. He shoves her hard against the floor and her breath dies in her throat, his hands on her neck, clamping together, crushing it.
"G- Genji-" Angela chokes, scratching at his hands to try and pry him off her.
"Angela – I - I can't stop!" Genji cries, distraught. His grip tightens and he shoves her once again, and Angela thinks he's going to break her skull or snap her neck outright when all at once he's wrenched off her.
Roadhog's brute strength allows him to throw Genji out across the floor, and as soon as he scrambles to his feet, Junkrat is in front of him.
"I don't fucking think so, mate!"
He punches Genji square in the face with his metal fist. The force is enough to knock the visor and faceplate clean off, and Genji collapses over onto his back, yelling out in pain.
"Ohhh, nice one!" the taller man laughs. "Wasn't expecting that!"
Roadhog and Jesse are beside Angela in seconds, helping her sit up as she gasps to get her breath back, light-headed from where she was knocked, nauseous from the jeering of the man ahead. She watches Genji pull himself back up, blood running down from his nose. Junkrat marches over to him, frag launcher back in his metal hand, taking aim. As if things couldn't get any more hopeless, Zenyatta is just silently watching over this. Angela hopes desperately he isn't conscious to see this – to see what Genji is doing. It might break his heart even more than it's breaking hers.
"I'm not trying to attack you, my body is moving on its own!" Genji says, desperately, and she can see in his eyes that he's horrified.
"Ch'yeah, I'm sure it is," Junkrat spits, voice drenched in sarcasm. "Let me guess, those humans telling you what to do, are they?"
Junkrat fires at him. Genji deflects the grenade with his sword before dashing forwards and slashing at him, only to be blocked by his metal arm, the clash loud enough to make Angela wince.
"Stop it!" she cries, voice breaking and hoarse. "Junkrat, he's being controlled!"
"I bloody well know that!" he shouts over to her. Genji lands a sharp kick on his stomach then, sending him flying back. Beside her Roadhog flinches, and Angela clutches her chest as Genji then advances with a jerking step, like he's battling himself even now. His eyes are wide, frightened, so obviously at odds with what his body is doing. Junkrat pulls himself up, grimacing with his human hand over his stomach. The men just seem to be laughing at them, enjoying the show.
"We gotta take those guys out," Jesse murmurs, nodding over to them. "Mercy, I'm gonna need that pistol of yours. Things are gonna get real nasty, real quick, and I need as much ammo as I can get."
Angela hands it over without question, another layer of guilt to add to a growing pile now that everything is falling apart around them.
"If we move now, that army's gonna overwhelm us," Roadhog says, quietly.
"Gotta figure out a way of gettin' over there – pickin' 'em off."
"We can't do anything that'll put Zenyatta at risk," Angela says, voice cracking. Jesse nods instantly, but the low, unconvinced rumble that comes from Roadhog seems to imply that he doesn't agree. Angela glares up at him, wondering if he knows that this is supposed to be a rescue mission, but his face is hidden as always behind his mask, watching in silence while Genji and Junkrat fight one another.
Angela grimaces, feeling useless, helpless. What are they supposed to do? If she could – if one of them could aim for the shorter one without him noticing and get in one good shot, they could destroy the console from his hand, if that's what they're using to control Zen. But then what if it's not, and the army of omnics comes crashing down on them? Would they be swallowed up like Genji too?
Until they can figure out a plan they're stuck in this, a salvageable mission that's turning into a living nightmare and unfolding right before their eyes.
Genji runs at Junkrat from where they'd knocked one another back, and Junkrat throws his metal arm up again, sword striking it, nails over chalkboard as metal scrapes against metal. Both of them are spattered with blood from Genji's nose and the slashes over Junkrat's exposed chest, and while Angela knows Junkrat is only trying to defend himself, watching him like this, all fire and ferocity, is terrifying.
"I'm telling you, this isn't me!" Genji insists, shoulders tight from the force of holding his sword against Junkrat's arm.
"I know it isn't!" Junkrat says, overpowering him with a forceful shove. Genji stumbles back but retains his footing. "It's that fucking omnic!"
Oh no, Angela thinks, heart sinking.
"Zenyatta is not to blame for this," Genji says, sword pointed at him. Junkrat spits out a mouthful of blood and laughs.
"Y'mean to tell me the omnic presiding over this ain't responsible? Don't kid y'self," he snipes.
"Zenyatta is one of us!" Genji shouts.
"He's one of them!" Junkrat snarls.
"Junkrat!" Angela yells, shocked. Even Jesse recoils beside her, but Roadhog is silent.
"What're you talking about?!" Jesse calls out, bewildered. "Zenyatta isn't the enemy here!"
Junkrat doesn't look at either of them. "Sorry," he yells then, "but I ain't convinced!"
Angela covers her mouth. What – what's he thinking? Has he gone mad?!
"If you dare touch him," Genji starts, a heavy threat left hanging in the air between them. Angela watches powerlessly as his eyes narrow – as he steps closer to Junkrat, something more controlled about his movement now. It frightens her to think that it might be of his own accord, this time.
"What? You'll kill me?" Junkrat sneers. His face is all soot and blood, eyes piercing, grin menacing.
"I wasn't trying to," Genji says, the words ground out. "Now, I am not so sure."
"Genji, stop it! Stop this!" Angela cries out, wanting to scream at this nightmare that's turning into hell.
"Thought as much," Junkrat laughs, a humourless sound. "And it's all because of him!"
All it takes is Junkrat aiming upwards – at Zenyatta – for Genji to dash towards him, sword drawn.
"I'll destroy you!" Genji shouts, slashing at Junkrat's metal arm over and over, wanting to hurt him now, wanting to kill.
"Do your fucking worst!" Junkrat shouts back, his metal arm a bludgeon, striking against the sword with heart-stopping force.
"Please, we have to – they're going to kill each other!" Angela sobs, grabbing hold of Roadhog's arm to find he's already tensed, already surging forwards to step in.
"Now!" the taller man says. He shoves the shorter one, and then the lights on Zenyatta's head flash from yellow to red. The army of omnics under their control rush forwards and Jesse alone is left standing in front of Angela, Roadhog storming over to Junkrat. With no gun of her own and no healing she can give, all Angela can do is wield Caduceus as a weapon as the surge of omnics heads right for them - but her eyes are stuck on Genji and Junkrat, heart hammering, knowing that this is the result of her failings. All of this is her own fault.
"Eat shit, assholes!" comes Hana's voice, followed by two neat blasts from her pistol.
All of a sudden the men cry out in agony, collapsing over the conveyor belt and onto the charred flooring below. The lights in Zenyatta's head shift from red back to blue, and he groans, then, clutching his head. Lúcio appears, there to grab him as his body sinks, and as he does the omnics clatter lifelessly to the ground. Genji falters, too, and in that split second Junkrat just about manages to stop himself from punching him again, recoiling as Genji collapses at his feet.
"Took your time, didn't ya?" Jesse calls over, and Lúcio lifts his head, horrified as he looks out over the devastation left in front of them.
"I tried to get us through as quickly as possible but they were crawling around everywhere," he says. Hana kneels down beside him, then, both of them checking over Zenyatta.
Angela rushes to Genji, running past Junkrat to get to him. She's on her knees before him again, and when she turns to look back at Junkrat, stood with Roadhog by his side, she's relieved to see what she's hoping is remorse on his soot-covered face.
"Ah, that was so satisfying," Hana laughs, then, standing up. "C'mon, guys, that was baby tier! Easiest shots of my life!"
Angela is preoccupied using her healing beam on Genji now that it's working again, but she can hear Jesse give an ever-suffering ugh behind her. She's grateful for it, though – indebted to Hana for swooping in like this and rescuing them with two shots from her pistol. When Genji is sitting up again, the blood from his nose already drying, Angela allows her body to slump from the overwhelming of knowing that finally, finally, this awful mission – this endless deployment in Japan - is over.