'Off by a couple of inches above.' Lena clicked her tongue as she checked her target. Once again, she was in the shooting range. This time, Winston wasn't there to oversee her testing out the newest addition to her kit.

"You're likely overcompensating for the recoil." Archer called out, "Remember that you don't have to worry about it, and you should be fine."

'Right, right.' Lena breathed as she stared down the gun range. The target was over at the twenty meter mark, at the very edge of the pistol's effective range. She breathed.

Forty shots rang out in the span of a couple of seconds.

Forty, as she held two of the same pistol in each hand. She had requested that Winston build another one, to compensate for the rate at which the weapons ate through their ammo. The scientist was initially confused, but had acquiesced easily enough.

'Missed, again.'

"Have you thought of just using one gun?"

'Hey, you don't get to talk to me Mr. Archer-Who-Uses-Two-Swords.' It was another piece of the puzzle that Archer had dropped for her, after she picked up her weapons. Despite him being called Archer, despite him actively using a bow, he still preferred using a pair of swords.

"Talk to me after you hit anything more than three times, alright?" She could practically hear him roll his eyes. She knew him well enough, knew him long enough, to know that he was just messing with her.

It was oddly endearing. She'd never thought that she'd regret not having a sibling, but now that she'd met Archer, and he acted in a way that she thought an older sibling would act. That, or a worried mother that didn't want to look worried.

'So how goes the job?' It was one of the days that Archer wasn't with her. They'd gotten into a rhythm now, where she'd spend the day at Overwatch headquarters and train, while Archer went to cook for the diner.

As far as Lena could tell, whenever Archer was on the roster, the diner would get a lot more traffic, which only led to the manager signing up the white-haired man more often.

Not that she was complaining. In reality, the Spirit looked like he needed an outlet more than ever. While he tried to hide it, whatever he had investigated a while back had spooked him. Not that he ever did tell her, a talking point that she would still occasionally try to get out of him.

"More hectic than usual, I'm afraid." It had taken Archer more time than normal to reply. If that was the case, then she knew he really must be busy. The man could multitask more than anyone else she knew, and if he had to focus, there must really be a lot of people there.

'Something happening over there?' She asked as she flipped the pistols in her hands. They lit up in brilliant blue, the chronal accelerator on her chest glowing with them. In short order, the guns were 'reloaded', and ready to fire once more.

She took aim.

"A lot of out-of-towners today. Apparently, they're all attending an event later today."

She fired. Out of the forty shots, two hit their mark.

'Oh right, the Shambali procession at Downing Street, huh?'

"That's the one. You heard of it?"

'Was all over my news feed today.' Another burst. The pulse pistols, while they didn't have recoil, seemed to never want to hit anything she wanted to hit, 'Shame I can't attend, would've loved to hear Mondatta talk. I heard he's just got a way with words, that one.'

Lena heard him give a noncommittal hum, one that she took as a sign that he needed to get back to work. She left him to it, while also planning to get Emily to join her at the diner later that day. It'd been a while since their last date, and Archer's cooking was to die for.

Yet another thing that didn't make sense about the man, his ability to cook. Archer cooked better than just about anyone she's ever met. He was also a Heroic Spirit, which by his own definition was a dead hero. Lena had scoured the internet in her own free time out of pure curiosity, and not once could she find any reference to someone that matched Archer's description.

That wasn't even mentioning him somehow being savvy enough to work around technology like he did. If he really was the Spirit of an old hero, then how the hell did he manage to figure out computers in such a short timespan, to the point where Lena was the one that was lost whenever she asked about it?

"Would you look at that." Her thoughts on the mystery of Archer's identity was interrupted as the man in question suddenly spoke up through their link, "Mondatta wouldn't happen to look like this, would he?"

An image of an Omnic wearing robes. A crowd of people surrounded him as he waved. A walk towards an empty table and seats, slowed by the various hands that the Omnic shook patiently. Unheard words that left people smiling as they left.

'Woah. Yeah, that's him.' Lena blinked as the image faded from her mind, 'Since when could you do that?'

"Always could." Archer sent an image of him shrugging in response, "Technically, I am still a familiar, so seeing through my eyes is a thing."

'Huh. More you know I guess.' She shook her head as a thought filtered through after Archer's words,

'Wait, does that mean that Mondatta's in the diner?'

"Yep. No wonder we're getting more people, they must've known he was coming over."

'Take a selfie with him.'

"What?" The confusion was almost palpable.

'Y'know, a selfie. When you take a camera and take a picture of yourself. I know you're a fossil and everything-'

"I know what a selfie is, Oxton." He sounded exasperated, yet amused at the same time. She herself was already laughing to herself, "I'm also not going to take a selfie with him."

'C'mon, Archer.' She whined in her head, even as she nodded to another person entering the firing range, 'How often do you get a real Shambali monk to your diner?'

"Exactly. He's a monk, Oxton, not a celebrity. I doubt he'd appreciate me asking him to take pictu-and people are doing it." Lena almost let out a yelp of victory as Archer groaned in annoyance. An image of a group of teenagers walking up to Mondatta with phones in their hands, "I'm still not taking a selfie."

'At least get his autograph!'

"...Fine." Archer sounded almost petulant, "But just this once, alright? If you want to get an autograph, do it yourself next time."

'Yay!' She grinned to herself in satisfaction. As tough as the man may make himself out to be, Lena, and by extension Emily, knew he was a big softie underneath.

A lull in their conversation once again arose, this one of companionable silence. Both of them knew that they were busy, so neither of them objected to the other's quietness. It was relaxing, bar the occasional hiss from Lena as she failed to hit her target.

It was after a good thirty minutes of shooting that Lena finally groaned in frustration, "Bloody hell, the movies made it look so easy!"

"Real life isn't exactly like the movies."

Lena jumped as a mechanized voice sounded from behind her. She knew who it was - there was only one person in the entire building who could sneak up on anyone they felt like, "Genji!" She held a hand to her chest, "Stop doing that!"

"Sorry, sorry." The cyborg laughed lightly at her. Something she thought she would never see. The Shimada had loosened up after coming back from Italy. Apparently, the whole 'going to Canada' thing that Reyes had talked about was a lie. He was actually leading an undercover operation in Venice of all places.

Of course, she would never have known this if their actions hadn't led to the public outing of Blackwatch.

Since then, Genji had decided to stay on site, not taking any more black ops missions. She knew that because he was her therapy buddy with Angela. They, and by that she meant Angela, had decided that they should join in each other's sessions. One for each of them, every week, for the good doctor to focus on them individually.

Lena was more than sure it was just an excuse for these two to meet up more.

"I would question why you're using two guns," Genji began, "But I know I'll just be left confused."

"More ammo is more ammo!"

"That only matters if you need to carry ammo in the first place." Lena stuck out her tongue as she watched the panel next to her light up: 4.8% Accuracy. She sighed as she reset the tracker.

"So, what brings you o'er here? You don't strike me as a gun guy?"

"Indeed." Genji's voice morphed into the same tone he had when they first met, "Do you recall when we had lunch at that diner?"

"Yeah? What about it?" Lena barely stopped herself from screaming in frustration as her bullets still didn't hit. She really needed to be up close and personal if she wanted to use these.

"Your friend, Kiritsugu Emiya," Her aim, what little it accounted for, was thrown off as Genji spoke, "Are you sure he is who he says he is?"

She carefully put down her guns as she slowly looked at the cyborg, "Yeah?" She kept her voice even. She didn't want to give anything away, even as she spoke furiously to Archer.

"...Ah. I knew I was forgetting something."

"If he is, then I would urge you to be cautious. Emiya…No good can come from someone with that name, I assure you." Though she couldn't see it, she imagined the cyborg was frowning, "Some would even argue that it's even worse than the Shimada."

"I don't really follow."

"You don't need to." Genji shook his head and raised his arm. For a moment, he hesitated, before grasping her shoulder and nodding to her, "Just stay safe. Angela would be devastated if something happened to you."

"Ha, right." She gave a grin that hopefully wasn't as nervous as she felt, "Always Angela, huh? You could stop dancing around it and just ask her out, you know?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." With that, the man turned and headed for the door. He gave her one last nod, one that Lena returned, before dipping out of sight.

'Alright Archer, what the fuck?'

"With everything that had happened, it honestly left my mind to mention that Shimada noticed my name when you introduced me."

'And? It's just a name right?' She carefully packed up the pulse pistols, before heading out the door. She would've preferred to get some more training in, though the inherent spread of the pistols made that a moot endeavor.

"Not necessarily. Kiritsugu Emiya was a known assassin back in the 90's, often taking bounties for more prolific criminals than not. More than once, he had caused the collapse of entire criminal empires overnight."

'So why'd you even pick that name then!'

"It was the first name that popped into my mind. You know, when you decided to introduce me to O'Hara randomly." And that was what was missing. The snark that Lena had grown familiar with.

'Okay, yeah, that's on me.' Normally, she'd rebuke his snark with her own. Not this time, not when she deserved that one, 'Then why the hell does Genji know? He wouldn't have been alive back then! Unless…Is Kiritsugu Emiya still alive?'

It would make a startling amount of sense if he was. Genji would only realistically know about the assassin if he was still active. And while Kiritsugu would be old, it was possible that he got augmentations that would make him look and feel younger, from Genji's perspective at least.

Had Archer inadvertently committed identity theft against an infamous assassin? If so, then they had a lot of issues to sort out.

Thankfully, as Archer sent an image of him shaking his head, he replied with a negative, "Kiritsugu died back in 1999. Likely, Shimada heard stories of 'Emiya' and associated my taken name with that, nothing more."

'Okay, okay.' Lena breathed a sigh of relief, 'That still doesn't change that Genji's suspicious of you. What're we going to do about that?'

"Nothing." Archer's tone was confident, "Let him be suspicious. I can avoid him if he gets too close to the truth, which I-Shit!"

'Archer?!'

No response.

At the same time, loud klaxons started going off throughout the Overwatch base. Her hands clammily grasped the grips of her pistols. She could feel her breath come in short bursts as memories of the last time this happened playing back in her mind.

"Attention all personnel:" The PA system was up and running, "Code: White. Report to your commanding officers immediately. All civilian personnel shall proceed to the evacuation areas as soon as possible. This is not a drill. This message shall repeat."

Lena didn't bother to run. She Blinked three times in quick succession, finding herself clearing large swathes of hallway. She'd made it to the training area they used, where she knew Commander Morrison was training a batch of new recruits.

Sure enough, she spotted the grizzled man staring upwards with a scowl on his face. Near her, Lena stumbled as the ground rumbled in response to an anti-air gun - one she didn't realize was operational - shot a flurry at the sky.

She looked up.

A large, purple accented airship hovered above them. Cannons mounted on its sides, every time it fired, she could hear the distant sound of screams and explosions.

More than that, she could hear the voice that stood in stark contrast with the chaos. A voice that came directly from the airship.

"Humanity, heed my words. The time for resistance has passed. Your futile struggle ends here. Stand down, accept your fate, and witness the birth of a new era."


A/N: If you like what I do and want to support me, check out my P-atreon at P-atreon•com(slash)Almistyor.

And a special thanks to: Oliver vazquez, brutalcrab and Tassimo. Heat is a pain, hope you all stay safe!