Disclaimer: Kamen Rider belongs to Toei and is the brainchild of Shotaro Ishinomori. Overwatch belongs to Blizzard.
Zurich, Switzerland was the only place he had seen so far that was both exciting and confusing. Departing the plane and mixing into the crowd had been difficult. Many natives spoke English, but few wanted to talk to an outsider without money. Despite this, he somehow managed to navigate through the maze of buildings big and small. Reaching his destination, however, left him with one dreaded question…
"Is this all there is?"
Only the field of graves answered his whisper. Reading the names on each slab confirmed as much. His once-excited steps had already slowed to a crawl at the cemetery's black gates. Now, his knees fell onto the path, buckling under the weight of it all. He didn't care if the concrete scraped his skin poking out of the holes in his worn pants. All he cared about was the many questions crawling across his bald scalp.
"There," he began again, "there has to be more."
Yet there wasn't when he looked around. Here he was, a lone man surrounded by acres of corpses. The sniffles and cries, though loud in the autumn air, were too far away and came from strangers he never knew. His short ragged jacket didn't protect him from the same air or the sense of disappointment.
"Did you know her?" entered his ears, a voice covered in a thick accent.
The man looked up and said, "What?"
Though not crying, the woman staring down at him seemed sad. The slight creases under her full lip or the little droop of her eyelids clued him in. Other than that, her face remained still like her slender frame until she gestured her head to the grave. "Not many knew her," the woman said again in her slow and nasal tone. "Was she important to you?"
After turning to the grave, the man stood up. "No," he said, his voice hoarse before he cleared it. "No. I never met her. Or any of them."
"I see."
In the silence, he finally recognized the flower bouquet in the woman's hands. He shouldn't have missed it, since the reds and yellows contrasted against her dark trench coat. "I… I'm sorry, I–" the man began but a cold breeze stopped him.
Already wrapping himself in his jacket, he was unabated by flying flower petals. Not by the woman. A ponytail of deep chestnut swayed with them and a few orange leaves. Of the wide eyes, one shone a natural yellow. The other, a glowing blue like the man's. A cybernetic blue. He rose, wondering about the woman's origins–
"Merde! Et ils ont déjà tenu ce putain de vol!"
Ah, French. Of course.
The man leveled himself with the woman who tossed aside the petalless bouquet. "I'm sorry," he said in his clear American accent, "about your flowers."
The French woman's fair face turned a cold pale in the sunlight. To the man's relief, her expression softened a little. "No," she said. "It's just… I had a long flight here. I had hoped the flowers would… They were his favorite back home."
The man did not need to ask. Everyone came here to visit their lost loved ones... everyone but him. "I," he said as the woman turned away, "I was looking for someone. Would you know–?"
"I'm sorry, but I cannot help. Excuse me."
The woman's high heels and sad tone echoed in his ears. His eyes, blinking with sparks, turned to the grave. Not the one he had knelt before seconds ago but next to it, the words etched into the stone.
Gérard Lacroix.
2031-2070 A.D.
Proud husband and member of Overwatch.
The man bit his lower lip. He had seen the same last words on every grave he passed by. Member of Overwatch. Agent of Overwatch. Overwatch. Overwatch. Overwatch. And as he heard, Overwatch was long gone, based on the dates.
A nearby rustling kept the man from worrying any longer. Whirling and following it, he thought it was a squirrel but found none. There was nothing aside from the impression of boots, right by another stone in a long line of graves.
The sparking blue color in the man's vision faded after he analyzed the print. He wouldn't have been worried, if not for the signature left behind. After all, only one person gave off tachyon energy. "She found me," the man said, afraid.
However, the only 'she' visible was the woman with the chestnut ponytail, now a mere dot. The temptation to ask faded after remembering her sad look, so the man turned and ran in the other direction. He didn't know if she could help. He didn't know her name, and she didn't know his. Not that he had a proper one.
XXXXXXXXXX
The time, ev er blinking with the neon signs, showed the man ran for over an hour without losing breath. Still, he panted out of fear, having already jumped over the cemetery's fence to get away as quickly as possible. In Zurich's streets, the smell of voltage clashed against women's perfumes and grass. People went to and fro, a few stares meeting his as he looked around.
"Oh, excuse me," he heard after his shoulder bumped into something metal.
Only the slanted blue eyes of a mouthless and pale Omnic, one of many in the crowd, blurred by. The same blue filled his own eyes, nothing like a typical human's. Neither a typical Omnic's either, since none would catch the trail of tachyon energy in the air as he could. That was why he had been chased from Cairo to Venice to London to here at last.
A flash to the side forced the blue-tinted vision to vanish as it slammed into the man. The other light blue hue took him off his feet and blurred all the looming buildings, vehicles, and people. Not the red scarf flying around or the dark gloves grabbing his jacket. Certainly not her face or voice filling his ears.
"'Ang on, luv. We need some privacy."
A few seconds later, the clang against the man's back drowned his grunt. His hand went for the rim of a dumpster to steady himself, the surprise taking the wind out of him. Compared to the bright open streets, the alley grew dimmer thanks to the man's pursuer who let go of him.
The same pursuer let loose her English accent. "There we are! You're in a bit of a pickle now, innit?" Her dark giggle echoed off the flanking brick walls. "Well, don't worry, luv. The cavalry's here!"
"T-Tracer…" the man said, knowing the young woman too well.
His glare went up the exposed belly to the grinning black lips on a pale face. The chronal accelerator shone off her chest, the only bit of blue on a black outfit with red highlights. In the shadow of the tall buildings, dark spikes for hair shook with Tracer's head. "Now, now, now," she said, hands on her hips. "It's not nice avoidin' your friends. We are friends, aren't we, Ock–oop!"
The man growled, having lunged at empty air. The blue line that was Tracer blinked at the alley's opening entrance. Her tongue clicked with the pistons on her gauntlets and boots. "Whoa, Careful," Tracer said, "Talon has put a lot of effort in diggin' you up. I don't wanna break you again, Ocky." Despite her dark red visor, the man knew she blinked. "Oh yeah, the boss said not to call you that, Oculus."
"Don't call me–!"
"Why not? It was on your pod. We certainly didn't name you." Tracer's grin widened while the man clamped his jaw shut. "Still makes you angry, huh? 'Mon then. Do something about it. Transform."
The man hesitated mid-step. Memories of his last encounter with Tracer screamed for him not to do it. Another part told him to forget the consequences. The two sides warred within him… allowing Tracer's taunting tone to reach his ears.
"Aw, you don't wanna? Well, a little incentive should help."
A flick of Tracer's wrist and a shot from her popping pistol decided it all. The sparks grew–not from his eyes but his waist–and expanded with every step he took to close the distance. The screams from beyond the alley made him see it. The same scene every time Tracer and her people found him.
Smoke and fire rose all around Cairo, as toppled cars lay scattered about–
At a step, his hand, once undoing his jacket, shifted and morphed.
Venice's waters grew dark from bricks and innocents filling it–
At another step, metal formed over human skin as he reached for Tracer.
A street in London filled with Omnics and humans crying over the body–
Another step. Blue returned to his vision, now coming from the helmet's slanted lenses.
Tracer's red visor met his stare after he pushed her out of the alley and against a hover car. Her grunt went silent under its slight rocking, her form tiny under him. A chrome gauntlet held her neck too, yet her smile returned. "About time," she choked out.
His free hand already veered one of Tracer's dark pistols to the side. Rearing from the other pistol, he cursed as Tracer blurred out of his grasp. "You've gotten better," she said from atop the very vehicle he slammed her into. "You weren't so fast back in London."
"Shut up!" he said, his growl made deeper by his helmet.
A scream rose after his fist fell on the car roof. Tracer had blurred away, leaving his gaze on the dented vehicle. In its broken window, he looked more Omnic than man, but he wasn't fully Omnic either. More like a man wearing an Omnic's skin, given the chrome armor and golden accents covering him from head to toe. He even had the bald head for a helmet, three dots and all. The blue light from the core in his chest and the round belt buckle didn't hide any detail.
Neither did they hide the eyes from inside the hover car meeting his lenses. The eyes of two scared little children.
He stepped back onto the sidewalk, his metal boots echoing in his ears. So did the gasps and screams of everyone running away, human and Omnic alike. All because he dented a car as if it was cardboard. It was the same result every time he had transformed. "I…" he tried to say but a flash told him to fall on his back.
His flat-toe boot rose to graze by Tracer's light trail. Getting up again, he glared at Tracer, several feet down the street. "Whew! Close one," she said after patting herself. Her cursed smile never left. "Gotta do better than that, Oculus!"
Oculus. The name, and Tracer's bullets, struck his raised arms. No one else was in the way, since almost everyone had already left or was leaving. All save for the little ones in the car behind him.
Oculus, or whatever name Tracer would call him, had no time to look elsewhere. The hail of bullets made him shift back to the hover car. Spotting Tracer's blue energy trail meant spotting more shots coming at him.
At first, it was from the front. Then, from the side. Then, from above. Every time he tried to move, Tracer was there. Again, and again, and again, until–
His scream rose with the sparks. More flew off the flat chassis-like chest armor, the same he held after falling on one knee. More screams drew him to the car, its hood now full of holes. And leaking fluid. If he stayed any longer, then… then…
Oculus used the brief respite to cast the thought aside. Not the car door after he ripped it off its hinges. "Go!" he said to the little ones scooting from him. "I won't hurt–"
The door in hand rose at the sound of shots. "Listen! Do you want to stay here?" Oculus told two shaking heads. "Then, stay behind me! Stick close to the buildings!"
With the children obeying, he followed the aforementioned buildings lining the street. Tracer's blue trail popped through and around the broken window, her shots striking the door. One went through yet he still went on with a line of smoke rising from his chest. He had no time to growl, only continue as he held up his makeshift shield. That and watch out for Tracer's presence, at least until some of her bullets ricocheted off…
… and onto the fuel pooling by the car.
"GET DOWN!"
The explosion rose a second after Oculus' yell. The torn door slammed into him and spun over with fire and pieces of metal. Among said pieces had been another hover car, whole and inching closer in the corner of his vision.
It was the last Oculus had seen before his hands and knees struck the sidewalk. The hunk of groaning metal didn't leave him. It couldn't, pressed upon his back. His own groan rose from his helmet, followed by his question. "Ugh, are… are you okay?"
Two heads under him, once trembling in fear, nodded. At least, there was that much.
"Go, then! Get out of here!" Oculus said, and the two little ones scurried out from under him, his body used as a shield. "And I'm sorry about your car!"
He didn't have to worry if his call had reached anyone. The two grew smaller and further away from the smoke… unlike a certain blue blur drawing his gaze. "Aw, now isn't that sweet?" Tracer's mocking voice whirled beside Oculus, along with her charging pistol. "Honestly, I'll miss that once Winston does his magic on you."
He wouldn't miss it or Tracer's wrist. His hand on the latter, he pulled her down and shot to his feet. Any cry fell under both the car he pushed off, as well as his helmet slamming into Tracer's face. Her head reared back, her visor cracked like the hunk of metal rolling off and away.
Given a few seconds, his hand left Tracer for his belt. The building energy leaving his buckle went into his foot as he swept Tracer's legs. Her dark spikes for hair fell into his view, and the same glaring face flew back…
… but not before he kicked her with the same foot, leaving a dissipating ring of blue energy. His sigh followed the loud thunk against another vehicle, all music to his ears. After that, there was no way Tracer could get up again–
Three shots filled Oculus' eyes, cracking one of his lenses. They didn't pierce through anything, but the shock knocked him flat on his back. A groan met his, as he slowly rose to find the blue blur in front. Gun in one hand and her other on her stomach, it was a surprise how Tracer could manage the tiniest of a morbid grin.
"Well," she said, already on her first feet, "I didn't want to do this but… Ah well, the boss won't know."
The bang from elsewhere thought otherwise. The last Oculus saw of Tracer was her empty hand and frown. "Oh, you've gotta be–!" she said before another bullet came at her.
Despite the crack, Oculus' lenses caught Tracer blurring away from two more shots. Where she went, he didn't know. He knew of the hover carrier above, its shadow falling over him by the time he got up. He also knew who landed in Tracer's old spot with a pair of blue knee-high boots. The chestnut ponytail swaying in the wind was a dead giveaway.
"It's you," Oculus said…
… and he stepped back from the same woman he met at the cemetery. A short blue jacket replaced her long trench coat from an hour ago. In her hands were no flowers but the long barrel of a sniper rifle, also blue. Her glare caught him more than anything, even the black bodysuit strapped over her curves.
What also caught him was the blue patch of armor on the woman's left arm. On said patch was a symbol, a white "O" with a broken orange top. The triangle at the center formed the bottom of an obvious "W." Oculus had only seen the logo at the cemetery, not here.
"Who…?"
The French accent cut Oculus off. "Captain Amelie Lacroix. Overwatch," the woman introduced herself, along with her raised rifle. "Now, who are you?"
AN: To be clear, I don't really play games. I just had this idea I had after seeing the news about Mirrorwatch. I did have a similar idea years ago for a Kamen Rider/Overwatch AU crossover fanfic, taking inspiration from To Binge's fan animation "Alternate Realities: An Overwatch Cartoon." Of course, the story I had in mind was different from this-despite having a protagonist with similar circumstances.