There was a definite smell of pulse munitions upon the air this night. Ozone hung heavy over the now silent streets of King’s Row, it's sharp scent contrasting heavily with the faint trace of standard gunpowder. The moon hung high above the landscape, throwing signs of a firefight into sharp relief: Pockmarks from bullets and plasma particles were splashed high upon the buildings, warring with the bright red smears of blood. Windows on several empty storefronts were completely shattered, coupled with the occasional black strip of cloth caught upon stubborn glass edges where someone had vaulted into a building. Signage had long succumbed to the carnage, likely among the first victims. Upon the streets lingered rounded potholes, a result of rockets hitting the ground at someone’s feet. More blood smears littered the streets, the bodies that had left them long since drug away. All was eerily silent until, rounding a corner at the south end of the street, shambled a wounded combat MEKA.
The bipedal war machine had obviously seen better days. Its left arm mounted flak cannon was completely crushed, as if something heavy had fallen upon it. Following this trend, the entire left side of the MEKA was looking rather ragged. The left clawed leg was dented below the knee, while the above knee section was crushed as bad as its cannon. As a result, the unit was putting most of the weight of the walker on its right side, giving the entire thing a rather lopsided appearance. Furthermore, the pitch black carbon fiber all along the left was bubbled and scarred, with the rather large teal tinted faceplate sharing the same fate. Perhaps fortunately, the miniature wings and thruster ports on both sides were completely intact. Even though this combat MEKA was in need of serious repairs, its flight systems would remain unhindered.
Of course, none of this really crossed pilot Hana Song’s mind at the moment. She was, in a single word, exhausted. Her black and teal plugsuit featured several tears in the exceedingly durable fabric; one could probably count the number of times she’s almost died just by those rips alone. Her face was streaked through with dirt and oil, hiding the teal dragon claws she painted on mainly out of habit. Her short cropped black hair was matted through with sweat, and the little bit of teal coloring on her bangs was more of a dirty green than its normal vibrant hue. Yet despite all of the signs of hard combat, Hana’s hands were steady upon the controls; her shimmering topaz eyes, full of determination. Right now she was an agent of Overwatch above all else, and it was up to her to sweep the area for further Talon activity. As far as she knew, she was the only one still in the field at this location. Her allies had either pulled back to other areas or finally called it quits for the night, she wasn’t sure. The comms have been silent ever since the exploding gas main that nearly put her out of commission. She had ordered D.Va to make repairs to its communications suite, but for the moment she was cut off from the others. Seeing as she had no way to obtain new orders nor any way of having headquarters verify Talon presence, she was going to continue to operate under the assumption the threat had not been neutralized.
So Hana pressed forward, doing her best to ignore the glaring orange warnings that lit up her operational readout to one side. She knew D.Va was currently at less than sixty percent operational capacity. She could feel it in the controls, how the battle scarred unit fought for every step forward. Despite only being a pilot for ten months, she knew every little quirk about the MEKA D.Va. She spent a vast majority of the time inside the combat walker, after all. Overwatch’s work was never done, doubly so after Winston brought the organization back. Add that to keeping quite a bit of their work out of the spotlight, without support from most of the government… well, it was a good thing D.Va was rather comfortable to sleep in, or even on.
Then, as Hana approached the end of the street, she heard voices from around the corner. The building on her left was nothing but wall on this side, so she couldn’t see who they belonged to. Still, she didn’t think they were voices she recognized. Slowing to a crawl, a flick of a finger activated D.Va’s external sound system. She cocked her head as she listened to the conversation in progress.
“--this is gonna work?” The voice didn’t belong to any member of Overwatch, and judging from the muffled quality, it was one of Talon’s masked operatives.
“It should. Headquarters really wants this city gone. Unfortunately, that damn Overwatch ain’t making it easy for us.”
“Yea, I know. That cursed MEKA pilot alone killed most of me mates.” Hana couldn’t stop a small flush of pride at those words. She may be new to the organization, but she was determined to do her share.
“Right. So, we rip open the hole, coax some big nasty through, and let it trash the city and take care of those self stylized heroes.”
A third voice spoke up then, sounding far less sure. “I dunno guys, this technology is still largely untested… What if whatever comes through slays us instead?”
“We’ll be long gone by then. And it's really not our call. Command wants the job done, so we get the job done. Begin activation sequence.”
By that time, Song had heard enough. She eased backwards and switched off her external audio. She flipped to the comms and noticed it was still staticky. Still, she had to try and get backup here. With her damaged gear she was in no condition to engage these guys alone. “D.Va to Headquarters. Come in, Overwatch.”
Nothing but more static. Groaning in aggravation she slammed a fist into the comm box and tried again. “Agent D.Va to Overwatch. I’ve got further Talon presence in the city. They’re talking about ripping a hole somewhere to summon a big bad to finish us off. Requesting immediate support.”
For a moment it sounded like someone was speaking, but Hana couldn’t tell if it was her tired mind playing tricks on her. She didn’t have time enough to wonder what to do before she was interrupted by a deep throated hum that cut through her cockpit. Whatever it was those idiots were doing, they were doing it now and she didn’t have time to wait for reinforcements. She considered just charging at the enemy and setting D.Va’s reactor to self destruct, but just as quickly discarded the idea. While she could potentially take out all targets, she had no idea exactly how many she was up against, nor how many might be in some sort of cover. And while Overwatch’s Combat Aid Network would be able to return D.Va to Song good as new again, it would be several minutes before the MEKA could be reconstructed and recalled. She really didn’t fancy taking on multiple hostiles with nothing but her plugsuit and pulse pistol. She knew she had to do something, as the hum was reaching deafening levels, so she decided to do what she did best: Wing it. Fancy planning was something Winston did. Thinking on the fly was much more par the course for the retired Starcraft 2 veteran. With a quick mental command, she overrode D.Va’s safety mechanisms and charged into battle.
Time seemed to slow as Hana veered around the corner and approached a scene that would likely haunt her dreams. Just as she had thought, these were Talon operatives; most were taking cover behind various makeshift barricades, but a trio was standing around a hellishly glowing teleporter. Or at least, that’s what it looked like. It was almost identical to Symmetra’s teleporters, except three times larger and flickering green and red instead of blue. Her enemies looked comically surprised to see her, and weapons began to rise. But with D.Va’s safeties disabled, D.Va was able to pilot the war machine with every ounce of her infamous reflexes. One of her cannons might be out of commision but the other one was no less deadly at this range. The flak cannon in question glowed green as Song squeezed the trigger, the familiar roar of pellets sounding like music to her ears.
The initial volley shredded the three Talon surrounding the teleporter. They crumpled like marionettes with their strings cut. Hana immediately jerked the controls to one side to evade incoming fire, the walker’s bad leg shrieking loudly in protest at the rapid movement. She pushed the controls inward and forward to activate her boosters, zooming up and around the low barricade more enemies had taken cover behind. Her cannon took care of them easily enough, but there were more enemies and they were starting to surround her. Regular bullets pinged off the hardened carbon fiber almost harmlessly; however, those few with pulse munitions were the bigger threats, leaving deep score marks upon D.Va’s hide. Too much more and they could punch through the armor and hit something vital. Hana backed the war machine to a wall and activated her defense matrix while she tried to figure out what to do.
The forward shield negated a great wave of fire, and just as it ended the little shootout was abruptly interrupted. The teleportal flashed a deep lavender and quadrupled in size, easily taking up the entire center of the street. Talon operatives howled in agony as some sort of chaotic energy ripped them to shreds, and from where she was Hana could feel the thing trying to pull her towards it. She gulped thickly and activated her boosters again, trying to fly up and over the building to her back. But even though she successfully went airborn, she didn’t go anywhere. The MEKA landed with a heavy thud as the reactor readout flashed an alarming red; apparently a shot had punched through the armor and hit the reactor. That shot, in addition to the overridden safeties, was taking its toll. Almost as if on cue, multiple warnings started flaring left and right. D.Va’s systems were slowly failing, and it was still inexorably being drawn to whatever the hell that thing was behind her. In a panic now, Song tried her comms again.
“D.va to Overwatch! I’m being dragged into some sort of portal that Talon operatives created. My reactor is failing and I can’t hold on much longer! I need immediate extraction! Does anyone copy?”
There was more static over her headset, before she heard a heavily accented voice cut through. “Hang on, D.va. I am already en route, heard the explosion. I’ll try to use a concussive rocket to get you out of there and collapse the thing.”
“Hurry, Pharah! I can’t---” Song was cut off as D.Va was yanked backwards. The walker’s damaged reactor couldn’t keep up with the strain, and the thing shot towards the purple portal. Hana had enough time for a panicked scream before she and her MEKA disappeared in a bright midnight blue flash. Pharah arrived only moments later. She landed heavily a decent distance from the thing taking up the street, just barely outside is pull. A few seconds later Reinhardt also showed up, his heavy Crusader armor denting the street with its steps. Pharah activated her comm and hailed Winston.
“Winston, Hana’s gone. Whatever that device is it sucked her through to somewhere else.”
Winston grunted in annoyance. “The Korean government won't be happy. We have their vote for Overwatch for the moment, but they're likely to withdraw support when they discover their best Mobile Exo-Force of the Korean Army and her pilot are gone.”
Pharah grimaced in frustration. The giant Reinhardt didn’t say anything, but he nodded towards the strange thing. Phara knew what he wanted to do with that gesture. “Winston, the thing is still here. Reinhardt and myself are requesting permission to pursue and recover D.Va at all costs.”
Pharah could hear the anxiety in Winston’s voice when he spoke next. “You two are among our most seasoned operatives. Losing you would hurt Overwatch greatly.”
Reinhardt spoke next, his accent far more prominent than Pharah’s. “We know, Winston. But we are Overwatch. And Overwatch has never been keen on leaving behind a comrade. The organization needs D.Va to retain Korea’s support. WE need Hana because she's a valuable ally to have on our side.”
There was a lengthy silence. “Go on, then. Bring her back to us. I'll have our scientists see if they can replicate that teleporter to bring you back home.” Winston cut the channel.
Pharah glanced at the silver armored Reinhardt. Despite knowing a gentle man was under that Crusader armor, a slight shiver ran down her spine. Not for the first time Pharah was glad one of the oldest Overwatch agents was on her side. She broke eye contact and double checked her Thunderbird themed armor. Her ammo printers were ready to go. Her rocket launcher was loaded with six shells. Her personal heads up display lit up her vision with numerous readouts. Her self recharging jump fuel was green.
Holstering her launcher, Pharah held out a hand. Also holstering his massive hammer, Reinhardt grasped the beautiful Egyptian’s glove. Right as the portal began to fray along its edges, the two soldiers dove through the opening and disappeared with the same flash of light. A full minute later, the portal began to shimmer violently. A full fifteen seconds before it shattered into a million pieces, a fourth member of Overwatch came soaring out of the night in a blaze of yellow. Doctor Angela Ziegler was swallowed up, and then the portal collapsed into glimmering motes of navy blue, brilliant pink, and sun gold. The only thing left behind were the bodies of slain Talon operatives and a mysterious disc that was emblazoned with a crescent moon.
The first thing Hana Song was aware of when she regained consciousness was a flickering orange light dancing across her visage. Slowly opening her eyes, she noticed that what she was looking at was a fire, and that the protective faceplate of her cockpit was completely shattered. As thoughts slowly began to return to her, she started to panic. Wherever she had ended up, that fire was far too close to her liking. Out of habit, the pilot reached a fist up and smashed it against the button to release D.Va’s safety restraints. However, nothing happened. Slightly more alarmed, Hana twisted her arm back for the combat knife she had started wearing as part of her base kit. Grasping the slightly familiar blade, she brought the weapon to bear upon the restraints still holding her within her unresponsive MEKA. As soon as they gave away, Hana scrambled out of the shattered cockpit, ignoring the plexiglass that threatened to cut her even through her plugsuit. As she drug her battered body forward, she realized that she had nothing to fear. Getting a good look at the flickering flames, she realized this was merely a campfire.
Perhaps a more welcome sight than the calm campfire were the three Overwatch operatives sitting around it. She had never gotten a chance to speak with Pharah or Reinhardt very much; those two spent far more time in the field than they ever did at Overwatch headquarters. Even so, like most of the newer recruits Hana looked up to the pair greatly. She had always told herself that one day, she’d be able to make as big of an impact on the world as those two do. The third agent was a slightly more familiar face, that of the infamous Mercy. Seeing as Angela was Overawtch’s chief of medical, the good doctor interacted with newer agents far more than other tenured members. As Hana put her hands down to push herself to her feet, she also noticed her pulse pistol lying on the ground in front of her. Grabbing it and spinning the small weapon back into its holster, Hana reflected that it felt oddly calming to be armed again. She then attempted to walk, but instead stumbled ungracefully towards the small camp.
The three around the fire looked up in slight alarm at the sudden noise, before they relaxed again. “Welcome back to the world of the living.” Reinhardt said, trying to curb his gruff manner at least a little bit. The last thing he wanted to do was scare the poor child. “How do you feel?”
Hana swallowed dryly before replying. “I feel like D.Va decided to sit on me.” She caught the canteen Pharah tossed to her with one hand, and the bundled strips of jerky Mercy handed her with the other. Song then promptly sat down and tore into her meager meal with gusto.
Mercy actually chuckled at that. “Well, considering the nasty tumble you took, that’s not too far from being accurate. Whatever that thing was it spat us out several hundred feet into the air. If I had to guess, you were already unconcious and D.Va attempted to slow your decent. Considering the state of your combat unit when we finally arrived, it only worked well enough to keep you from dying outright. I used my nanites to patch you up as best I could.”
“Well, thank you for that, then. I don’t want to think about what happened if I had been alone.”
“You can thank Winston.” Pharah spoke up now. “He was rather hesitant to let us go after you, but he really didn’t have a choice. Not only are you a valuable asset to the organization, we also can’t afford to lose the support of Korea. They supply Overwatch with a good deal of resources, on the condition that you can be recalled whenever they have need of you. Well, they can’t recall you if you’re missing in action. Mercy here, however, decided to tag along on her own.”
Mercy shrugged. “The doctors at headquarters are more than able to handle anything that crops up. I keep telling Winston my place is on the front lines, but sometimes he doesn’t like to listen.”
Hana already knew all of what Pharah had mentioned, but she was still grateful that Winston had used this situation to send some reinforcements after her. “Either way, having you three here is more than I would have expected. Any idea where we are, exactly?”
At this, the other agents shook their heads. “I don’t know, and that bothers me.” Even as he said this, Reinhardt was sending a cautious glance at the surrounding forest. “The air here is too clean. I don’t think we’re on earth any more.”
“What makes you say that? There are still a few unspoiled places on earth that were never touched by the Omnic Crisis or the factories.”
“I agree with Rein.” Pharah glanced at the extremely large full moon hanging mournfully overhead. “We’ve been to those places. Even there, you can still smell the factories. Here, its absent. And that moon is almost three times bigger than ours. Wherever we are, that portal sent us a long way from home.”
Hana had no reply to that statement. If they truly were stranded so far away from home, the only thing they could do was hold out until a way was found back. Even if the four agents couldn’t do a whole lot themselves in regards to turning home, Song knew that Winston would put Overwatch’s best scientists on the task of recreating whatever that portal was. For the moment, it was simply a matter of waiting. Still a bit lost in her thoughts, Hana’s eyes strayed unconsciously to her mangled war machine. Pharak caught her wandering eyes.
“How long do you think it’ll take you to repair it?” The Egyptian asked.
Hana made a thoughtful murmur sound. “D.Va? Probably about a day of work.”
Reinhardt scratched the back of his head with one of his giant metal fists. “Why do you call it by your code name?”
Song glanced over, uncomprehending at first. Then her eyes lit up, and she offered a small grin. “Because that MEKA is its own being, pretty much. It's not sentient, but the bond between a MEKA unit and its pilot is a very tangible thing. When the Korean government first approached me about becoming a pilot, I was rather hesitant at first. Sure, being an avid gamer gave me acute reflexes most standard soldiers simply don’t have, but actually piloting one of those things into battle against that omnic was another matter entirely. It wasn’t until I met D.Va that I finally overcame my reservations. I saw her, and it was like she was calling me. I told them she was mine, and I simply gave her my codename. Its far better than just calling her some variation of MEKA.”
“That is interesting.” The giant man admitted. “Makes me wish I had been at headquarters long enough to get to know you.”
Song waved a hand gently. “You guys had your own stuff to be worrying about. You, and Pharah, and all the others… us newer agents look up to older agents like yourselves. You were the primary reason we joined. Sure, Overwatch hasn’t returned to the glory it held in its prime. But we still do good work. You are still heroes to a lot of us.” Hana stretched her arms above her head. “Anyway, a good day’s worth of work will have D.Va good as new again. The reactor is actually made from tech Korea managed to adapt from that omnic, and it self regenerates. Any damage it takes from battle will repair itself. That’s how the Combat Aid Network is able to send it back to me after I initiate a self destruct sequence. And I have the parts to repair the walker itself, so it’s no biggie.”
Mercy yawned daintily. “Either way, that’s a problem for tomorrow. I imagine we could all use a bit of rest after the excitement we had today. Reinhardt, can you take first watch?”
“I can and I will, little friends. Die Crusader Stehen Wache.” With those rumbling words, the crusader hefted his giant rocket powered hammer over his shoulder, replaced his helmet, and moved away a little bit into the darkness.
“What did he just say?” Hana whispered, leaning closer to the other two. It was Pharah who answered.
“The literal translation is the Crusaders stand guard. It's the tagline of the order of modern knights that Rien was a part of. As far as anyone knows, he’s the only surviving Crusader.”
Hana made another thoughtful noise. “He’s in his 60s, isn’t he?”
Mercy nodded. “64, to be exact. We’ve tried to get him to retire from this sort of life on numerous occasions, but he refuses to do so while he can still swing his hammer. Fortunately Overwatch’s medical team is advanced enough to keep him rather hale and hearty.”
Song made her way over to D.Va to grab her sleeping gear from the damaged unit, pondering what she had just learned. It made Reinhardt seem all that more awe-inspiring to the young pilot. It briefly made her wonder about her own future. Back when she was still a simple pilot for Korea, she had always dreamed about ending the omnic threat and returning home a hero, resigning from the military in luxury. But after joining Overwatch, and being a part of the force of good the entire world needed… Hana was rather surprised to find that she could easily imagine herself piloting D.Va until she was every bit as old as Reinhardt. There was quite a bit more to life than just playing video games for fame and money. Sure, she was a gamer at heart; that wouldn’t change easily. Even now, she still viewed her battles as a game-- it helped keep her true to herself. But it wasn’t just about the battles. It was helping those who desperately needed someone to lean upon.
Song returned to the campfire and rolled out her pink sleeping bag. She smiled at it softly; even though D.Va and her uniform had been redesigned mostly black, pink was still her favorite color. She glanced up as she finished preparing her sleeping area, a soft frown gracing her lips as she noticed something: Neither of the female agents she was sharing the campfire with had any sort of sleeping material at all. No blankets, or sleeping bags, or anything. The frown only deepened as Pharah chuckled, having noticed what Hana was looking at.
“We’re used to this sort of thing, Hana. Most times we don’t have the luxury of proper resting materials while in the field. Usually we sleep in our armor, or combat clothes. Don’t worry about it. You’ll take the watch shift after Reinhardt, okay?”
Hana nodded slowly, still hesitating. After a few more moments, she rolled up her sleeping bag, returned it to her mech, and returned to the spot she had picked out. “If you don’t have something as comfortable to sleep with, then neither should I.” She ignored the shared look between Pharah and Mercy, instead flopping down bonelessly upon her side, back facing the fire. It wasn’t exactly cold out, but the air was certainly cool. But Hana resolutely refused to change her mind on the issue, despite the wounds in her plugsuit causing flesh beneath to goosebump. Despite this, within a few moments she was out like a light.
Then, what felt like mere moments later, she felt herself being shook awoke by Reinhardt. The titan appeared every bit as alert now as he did at the start of his watch shift. Hana yawned mightily, then nodded when Reinhardt whispered. “You’re up, little D.Va. It’s been quiet, shouldn’t have any issues. Once your shift is done, Mercy will take over.”
Hana found herself nodding absentmindedly as she double checked her pulse pistol and tac knife. Rein stoked the fire, adding a couple more logs to keep it burning brightly. He then unclasped his helmet and set it beside him, and then proceeded to immediately fall asleep, armor and all. Hana shook her head as she moved away from the camp, lightly shivering. In an effort to keep warmer, the pilot checked the perimeter of the camp. She moved in a general circle, following the treeline of the clearing they had found themselves in. After assuring herself that there didn’t seem anything that warranted undue attention, Hana moved back towards her fallen combat walker. She crawled back into the cockpit, mindful this time of the plexiglass that could still cut her if she wasn’t careful. She reached towards the back and opened a compartment, which allowed a spare plugsuit to fall into a heap upon the mangled safety harness. Standing up outside once more, she quickly and efficiently stripped off her torn suit, slipping into the fresh, cleaner one. In an astounding display of flexibility, the young woman reached behind her and tugged the zipper of the suit upward, effectively sealing the skin tight garment to her slender frame.
This task done, Hana made another pass around the edges of the camp. Once more satisfied that everything was as normal as could be while stranded on an unknown planet, she moved back to D.Va and began unloading the parts she’d need to make repairs to the machine. The Korean government had insisted on giving all of its MEKA pilots crash courses on performing field repairs, and now Hana was grateful for that foresight now more than ever. Something else she was grateful for, too, was just how sturdy the skeleton of the standard mech was. Capable of withstanding several hundred tons of force, it was very rare that the skeleton itself would collapse. What she had told the others was true: About a day’s worth of work and D.Va would be operating almost good as new. The vast majority of the repair would would come from replacing the carbon fiber shell on the left side. Once that was replaced, it would no longer hinder movement of the nanosteel ‘bone’ structure beneath.
The cannon would be a little more tricky, and probably the most time consuming. Upon closer examination, Hana determined that most of the external damage could be hammered back out-- allowing the pilot access to the inner workings of the cannon in the process. While she was pretty sure she had all the parts she needed to completely overhaul and replace sections of the cannon, she was hoping that the damage on the inside wasn’t as bad as it looked on the outside. The cockpit faceplate was a different matter entirely; she didn’t have a spare one of those. She’ll just have to make due with not having the protective screen there for the time being. Fortunately for her, D.Va used a series of hard light systems for stuff like her heads-up display; while it will take a while to get used to not having her HUD projected on the faceplate, Hana wont be completely blind if she had to engage in combat operations.
As she continued her work, she made sure to pause every now and then and patrol the edges of the encampment. But despite her vigilance, nothing appeared out of place. In fact, the forest seemed to be entirely too quiet. There were no symphony of insects, nor the call of nocturnal denizens. The only thing to be heard was the crackle and pop off the nearby campfire and the very gentle breeze winding its way through the clearing. It was this very same lack of sound that caused the Korean girl to grip her ever present pulse pistol on more than one occasion; if nothing else than to just feel the reassuring grip of the weapon. While the city girl could certainly appreciate the soft tranquility of a more rural scene, nothing about this apparent tranquility felt right. Even so, nothing came out to attack the camp. Nothing made its presence known, and despite Hana’s constant roaming, she managed to unload all of the equipment she’d need to work on her giant bot the next day.
Finally, after one last glance around, Hana looked up at the sky. While the stars were completely different from those at home, she still found these ones to be quite beautiful. They were more full, easily twice or three times as large as the night orbs she was used to. As she stood there drinking in the sight, the watch she bore on her left wrist chimed the hour. Checking it, she discovered it was now one in the morning, and time to wake up Mercy for her watch. Huffing out a puff of exhausted air, the young woman moved back towards the campfire. Quickly, her eyes darted over the three sleeping faces of her companions. They looked surprisingly peaceful while asleep; nothing like the hardened gazes of the warriors she had come to know them as. Even Mercy, who was so prone to smiles and laughter, looked like she no longer had the weight of the world resting upon her shoulders. Stepping lightly over to the sleeping woman, Hana gently shook her awake. The doctor in question was alert immediately, and despite herself the pilot felt a little flash of envy at how quickly Mercy went from sleeping to awoken.
“It's your watch, Mercy. It’s been quiet-- too quiet-- but nothing’s changed. I took the liberty of getting D.Va ready to be repaired, so don’t worry about the spare stuff around the mech.”
Mercy nodded her understanding, double checking her caduceus blaster, in addition to fitting the sword and shield combo she normally wore strapped to her back. Settling her helmet back upon her brow completed the classic valkyrie look that Mercy had adapted from ancient Norse mythology. Hana was never sure why the doctor had modified her valkyrie suit to look like a mythical creature, but she suspected it was to remind Mercy of why she fought, even though she disliked it so. As the older woman moved off to complete her own rounds, Song immediately lay back down on her side with her back to the fire and quickly fell asleep.
Hana awoke sometime later rather warm, and with a mid-morning sun beaming down onto her face. As she slowly came to, she realized that her pink sleeping bag was draped over her form, which was why she was a little warmer than she normally preferred. Undoubtedly one of the other two female agents had gotten it for her during one of their watch shifts. Hana did feel a small spark of appreciation at the gesture, but right now she was simply too hot. As she sat up to attempt to cool off her body, the sharp tang of coffee hit her nose. Suddenly she was wide awake, turning to Reinhardt to see if he had any more. But the elder man already had a second cup ready, which he was in the process of offering her. “I remember the tales of you and coffee circulating around headquarters, young Hana.”
Hana lightly flushed at the words, despite the warm twinkle in the crusader’s words. She took the tin cup with murmured thanks, taking a deep draught of the nectar of the gods in the process. It didn’t have any sugar, which made it quite a bit more bitter than she normally drank the stuff, but coffee was coffee. Feeling much more ready to tackle the day, she grabbed the standard combat ration jerky Mercy offered her and asked a question. “What’s the game plan for today?”
Reinhardt shifted his bulk slightly. “For now, we plan on setting up this clearing to be our base of operations. We don’t have supplies to truly attempt to mimic Overwatch headquarters, but we do have plenty of wood. Having a fortified location will help ease our minds, I think.”
Pharah added her two cents. “While you’re working on D.va, we’ll focus on gathering the wood we need to create a couple of buildings. Even if we only use them as shelter in the event of poor weather conditions, at least we won't be stuck outside if it decides to rain. With the three of us, the project will only take about the full day.”
“What can I do to help, then?”
“Get D.Va repaired. Having you battle ready again will give all of us a bit of extra peace of mind. I don’t particularly like always expecting to be attacked, but being stranded on a strange new world has pretty much guaranteed we’re likely to see combat with something.” Mercy then proceeded to sip her own coffee.
Song nodded her understanding, finished her meager breakfast, then immediately moved over to her wounded MEKA unit. She started by removing the damaged plating, which was simply the easiest place to start. For the next hour or so, the clearing was full of the sound of her little power drill as she worked to remove the bolts that held the plating to the exoskeleton. She carefully ensured to place said bolts into her now emptied coffee tin; losing bolts really sucked. As she worked, she could tell that indeed, the damage was mainly superficial. The entire reason the walker had issues with movement simply originated from those plates being crushed in such a way it hindered the working of the servos. She did lightly tap on the exoskeleton with a mallet, just to make sure that it was definitely still intact. Satisfied it was, Hana then moved her tools and parts a little farther away from the unit. She crawled back into the cockpit and fitted herself into the torn safety harness. It wouldn’t hold her in place until she mended it, but she didn’t need it to right now.
With a quick mental command, Hana brought D.Va online. Just as she had known it would, the reactor had repaired itself while she had slept last night-- it was now operating at its usual full capacity. Grabbing the controls, she gently eased them upwards. With the familiar gentle whirring of servos, D.Va stood to its full height once more. She let it rest there a moment, just to make sure that everything seemed fine. After a couple of seconds, the hard light systems came on a projected the operational read out. Scanning it quickly, Hana acknowledged the warning that sections of armored plating was missing or damaged. She confirmed that everything else, aside from the left cannon, had a green light. Satisfied that nothing was seriously wrong, Hana decided against trying to crawl out the broken faceplate now that she was several feet into the air. Instead, she jammed her finger onto the eject button above her. She was sucked out of the access port on top of the mech, where she did a graceful backflip onto solid ground below her.
The rest of her day was spent gradually finishing her work. She was right, the flak cannon was the most time consuming, but thankfully most of that consisted of simply making sure that the internal systems on the thing hadn’t been damaged too badly. As best she could tell everything seemed to be in working order, and when she reached into the mech to press its corresponding firing trigger the cannon glowed green and made that dull clicking sound that signified the power supply to the weapon was disconnected. Pleased, the pilot reattached the weapon and performed a last systems check, noticing for the first time that it was edging towards night once more. While she had been absorbed in her work, the other agents of Overwatch had managed to gather a sizable cache of tree logs, and were even now in the process of constructing a temporary shelter for the night out of them. Or at least, Reinhardt and Mercy were. Pharah was absent, but it was probably her turn to run a scouting patrol.
As if summoned by Hana’s thoughts, the old chief of Helix Security International came visible just above the treeline. Surprisingly enough, woman was slightly out of breath, and there was a definite air of urgency about her. She had barely landed on the ground before she was flagging the other three agents to her. “Guys, come quickly! We’ve got a situation!”
Everyone dropped what they were doing and immediately converged upon the other pilot. They waited patiently for Pharah to speak, taking careful note of her gasping breaths and the light layer of sweat beading her forehead. She had obviously ran a part of the way back before taking to the air. As soon as she had most of her wind back, Pharah told the others what was going on. “There’s a fight about twenty klicks north of here. I’m not exactly sure what about, but there’s hundreds-- maybe even thousands-- of glossy, black shelled equids attacking a much smaller group of furry, brightly colored equids. Normally I’d suggest staying out of it, but they’ve got kids down there. The black bug creatures seem to want them dead. I raced back here as soon as I could. I’m not sure if we should even get involved.”
“Of course we’re going to get involved!” Reinhardt’s voice almost shook the leaves from the trees. “We are Overwatch, yes? It is our duty to help those who need it!”
“But how will we know we’re helping the right side? For all we know the attackers could be the good guys.”
Surprisingly enough-- especially to her-- it was Hana who spoke up next. “Anyone who’s out to hurt kids in a bad guy in my book. D.Va is ready. I say we help.”
“It’ll take all of us a while to get there. Mercy and I can only fly for short bursts, and Reinhardt can’t fly at all.”
“So I’ll go in first. D.Va’s flight systems were completely undamaged in the last battle. I can get there and provide support until the rest of you arrive.”
Mercy glanced at their youngest member with concern. “Are you sure, D.Va? Against that many hostiles…”
Hana Song snorted. “Yes, I’m sure. MEKA gil-eul indohanda!” And without waiting for a response from her fellow agents, Hana leapt into her war machine. As the giant mech turned and began to lumber away to find a good flight vector, Reinhardt leaned into Mercy.
“What did she just say?”
“I’m pretty sure it translates into MEKA leads the way in her native tongue. If I recall correctly, that’s the tagline for the Mobile Exo-Force of the Korean Army. They adopted that phrase during a battle with that omnic; the only way the Korean Army could advance was under the protective guidance of those mechs.”
Reinhardt made a thoughtful noise. “She reminds me so much of myself… utterly fearless and with a heart of gold. Ah well, come, my friends! We have a battle that waits!” They turned just in time to see D.Va take to the skies, skimming just above the tree tops. The other three agents checked their weapons and tore after the Korean pilot, following the same general direction the airborne walker had headed.
Hana was ecstatic, although she did her best to not let that get in the way of her new mission. It simply felt so good to be piloting D.Va again. This little mini rush of feelings was part of the reason she could see herself doing this for the rest of her life: Charging in to protect those who are unable to protect themselves. Even though she was just a single pilot in a sea of other heroes and grey aligned adventurers, she was doing her part to help the world, and that was enough. Eventually, though, that elation faded to a back burner and her familiar battle trance made itself present. She spent the remainder of her flight going over D.Va’s systems, one by one. Her fusion cannons had their power supplies at maximum. Both of her hard light systems-- one for her HUD and the other for her defense matrix-- were ready to go. The reactor was running green, the safeties re-enabled, although she did keep a part of her mind focused on that. If there were seriously that many enemies, she might have to flip off the safety systems again. Her own recharging booster fuel was at about seventy-five percent, but with how fast she was travelling that was normal. She had just concluded that D.Va was as combat ready as ever when she happened upon the battle Pharah had warned her about.
Time slowed as the pilot cast her wide eyed gaze before her. Everywhere she looked were the black creatures that had been mentioned, green and blue eyed abominations with fangs and scraggly manes. Quite a few, she noted, were also flying about on gossamer wings. But the thing that drew her attention right then and there was several of the glossy creatures lunging in for the kill at a cowering group of pastel colored equines. In that moment rage overcame her, and she angled D.Va down into a steep dive, the wind whistling around her wings and creating a howling cacophony. She slammed into two of the attacking things with all several hundred pounds of angry D.Va. They were knocked away into several others, coming to a rest in a messy heap of black, green, and blue. Hana turned just in time to see several bolts of light screaming at her face. Her response was immediate. “Defense matrix activated!”
Hana then immediately blushed, realising that none of her comrades were here to take advantage of the fact. Old habits died hard, really. She was so used to calling out things like that she just did it automatically any more. As she let her shielding fall, Song took a moment to survey the battlefield. More and more of the bug things had taken notice of her, and took the opportunity to launch more beams of light at the towering metal monstrosity in their midst. The bolts splashed relatively harmlessly upon the hardened carbon fiber, and even more were now rushing her with weapons held in their mouths: swords and spears, although she did spot quite a few holding what appeared to be ancient bolt action rifles, like the kind one would see in a twenty first century museum. Hana only hesitated for a moment. She didn’t want to use her own weaponry against beings with such primitive equipment, but right now her concern was for the wellbeing of the quadrupeds she had placed behind her. So, she opened fire.
The fusion cannons glowed green, roaring their rotating barrage of buckshot at enemy lines. One by one they fell, but even more started to converge upon her position. To make matters worse, Hana realized that there were several isolated groups of the pastel creatures, and an alarming number of the glossy black ones were completely ignoring her in favor of terrorizing what she figured were probably the kids Pharah had mentioned. Before Hana could even attempt to change her location, Reinhardt crashed his way through the trees. He set his shoulder and charged, knocking away several attackers and even turning one unfortunate into a pulp. More attackers fired bolts from the jagged things upon their heads, but Reinhardt deployed his barrier field, the giant rectangular shield easily covering the cowering group of children. “Don’t worry, my friends!” The titan’s voice was so loud D.va couldn’t tell if she was hearing it over her headset or all the way across the field. “I will be your shield!”
D.Va saw several of the children pop their heads up carefully, staring in awe at the metal giant that so easily held the fury of the aggressors at bay. Then Mercy and Pharah appeared over the treeline, and Hana knew what was going to happen before it did. Waiting for a lull in the splash of green bolts impacting his shield, he hefted his hammer. With barely a pause, he then swing his huge rocket hammer overhead in his infamous Earthshatter move. “Hammer down!”
His hammer created its shockwave, knocking down and stunning numerous enemies. Then, flitting high above the carnage, it was Pharah’s turn. She locked herself in place and threw back her arms, puffing out her chest. Numerous ports on her armor slid open, ready to fire their payload of mini-rockets. And then fire they did. “Justice rains from above!” Came Pharah’s iconic cry obliterating every tango stunned by Earthshatter and even a few that had been a little too close to the impact zone. She drifted slowly back down to the ground after her attack was done, and at that point the glossy black creatures were about done. They fled the battlefield in twos and threes, the droning of their wings fading slowly. The four agents of Overwatch met in the middle, with Reinhardt on point , Mercy and Pharah off to either side, and D.Va bringing up the rear. They slowly moved towards the original group D.Va had rescued, who were still staring at the strange beings with a mixture of awe and fear.
Reinhardt removed his helmet in an attempt to look less intimidating, then he crouched down to the equine’s level and said, as soft as he could manage: “Hello there, little one. My name is Reinhardt Wilhelm. Do you have a master or someone we could speak with?”
When asked later, Reinhardt admitted he had no idea why he had decided to try and talk to the creatures. But the one he had addressed, a lovely lavender coat color with deep purple eyes and an indigo and pink mane with a spiraled horn jutting out of her head, replied back. “My name is Twilight Sparkle. Who-- or what-- are you? And… what do you mean by, a master you could speak with?”
D.Va could tell that this was going to end up being a rather funny interaction already.
Author's Note
By the time this is over, I might actually remember that Reinhardt is spelled with E before I. Maybe. Maybe...
They say before you start a war, you better know what you are fighting for
--Angel With a Shotgun
There was a full five seconds of awkward silence before Reinhardt cleared his throat and attempted to defuse the situation. After all, even for an agent of Overwatch it’s not everyday you meet sapient horse esque creatures, let alone creatures that can talk. And that’s exactly what these quadrupeds were. Quite a bit shorter than horses you might find on a nature preserve; certainly more colorful. The only thing that was still throwing Hana Song off were the different appendages. Some had wings, others had what appeared to be a horn, and yet others didn’t seem to have either. At the moment, however, her attention was pulled to something other than Reinhardt and his gruff embarrassment. D.Va was picking up something huge headed their way, and it showed no signs of deviating. The pilot turned her walker one eighty degrees, straining her eyes to peer through the far off treeline. The others hadn’t noticed the movement yet, too busy with their discussion with the locals. As the thing grew ever closer on the sensors, Hana let out a muffled gasp. The thing was every bit as big as the omnic that attacked Korea on a regular basis.
Immediately the young woman slammed her palm against the communications override, instantly silencing the comms of the other three and causing them to pause mid-conversation. “Get them inside! Quickly! We have a mammoth class omnic heading this way!”
They didn’t waste any time. As the original four locals darted for the safety of the narrow tunnel they had been standing in front of, Pharah and Mercy dashed out. They quickly herded the scattered groups into the same tunnel, and no sooner had they done so than the giant monstrosity came crashing out of the trees, flattening entire swaths of forest with its bulk. Getting a good look at the thing, Hana deduced that classifying it as a mammoth omnic wasn’t too far off the mark. It was black shelled, like the creatures they had fought earlier, with acid green eyes and what looked like had once been a mane. Its wings were entirely too small to support flight, but that didn’t stop the gossamer appendages from buzzing in agitation. Song would have found it funny if the ugly creature wasn’t currently barrelling towards her.
The massive thing crashed into her without stopping, rolling D.Va around under its impossible bulk and filling Song’s vision with nothing but glossy black. It also smelled awful, like it had been sleeping submerged in a muddy swamp while rolling around in sewage at the same time. Hana wasn’t entire sure how that analogy made sense, but she couldn’t think of any other way to catalogue the stench. The creature seemed perfectly content to continue its smothering attempts, but Hana had other plans. She jammed both of the walker’s weapons into the expanse of black before her and pulled the triggers. She was rewarded with a keening cry as whatever it was tried to get away from the thing that hurt, trailing acidic green ichor as it did so. It finally managed to wrangle its bulk a short distance away, and Song realized that her attack hadn’t really done much more than irritate it. It stared at her with beady green eyes, almost as though puzzling why she wasn’t dead yet. There was movement to her left, and D.Va knew it was Reinhardt.
“Crusader, you might want to wait this one out.” Song’s voice was deadly calm, and certainly not what Reinhardt ever expected to hear from the girl. “Whatever this is, it's bigger than that omnic I fight on a regular basis. Even with that armor, it would crush you beneath its weight.”
“You cannot fight this alone,” objected the knight. “You’re worried about me, but what about you?”
Hana actually giggle snorted at that. “This sort of thing is what I was drafted to handle, Reinhardt. These combat walkers, they’re designed to take a beating from anything short of nuclear weaponry. I’ve seen one of us take an omnic railgun to the face, get buried under several tons of rubble, then get back up like nothing had happened and continued the fight. All you can do right now is keep those behind us safe.”
“I do not like it, but I will follow your lead in this. You know that mech better than I.” As the metal clad man moved off, Hana’s focus returned to the monstrosity before her. It was still sitting there, and it was starting to unnerve the pilot a bit.
Why isn’t it… oh. The droning hum of thousands of wings pierced the air, and Hana now understood what it had been waiting for: reinforcements to take care of the other Overwatch agents. As soon as the smaller bugs swept in and started hammering at Reinhardt’s ever ready barrier, the giant one lunged at D.Va with an astounding amount of agility. Yet as fast as it was, Song was faster. Her hands were already a blur on her controls, juking the combat walker to one side in a display of swiftness even more impressive than the opponent she faced. She strafed to the left casually, instantly discovering that the creature wasn’t very good at turning around. Song used this opportunity to fire directly into its sides, earning herself even more angry screams as she did so. The creature flexed suddenly, and the lower half of its body crashed into the Korean war machine. Song grunted softly as she landed, the whine of servos increasing slightly as she kept D.Va from toppling over backwards. The thing was on her before she could even recover her bearings; with a jerk of the controls D.Va was again airborne, circling around the titanic being and spraying it with more flak as she did so.
Reinhardt, meanwhile, was doing what he did best: Be a meat shield. Anyone else might have been offended at such treatment, but the seasoned Overwatch agent took pride in being the barrier between the forces of evil and those in need of protection. Pharah shot rockets out past the barrier shield as fast as she could load them, but without her flight capabilities she was stuck hitting the enemies straight on as they approached. Even Mercy had joined in the fray, her tiny pistol emptying clip after clip. Once, when one of the black things had decided to just walk past the barrier in the way, she had taken her short sword and ran it through the bug’s face. At this moment, though, Reinhardt was more concerned about his shield. Contrary to popular belief he could not keep it up indefinitely, and the ever increasing cracks in its surface said it was going to break soon. “Barrier’s not going to hold forever! Any idea what we do when it goes down?”
“Charge in and swat them?” Most of Pharah’s sentence was drowned out by the surprisingly loud roar of her portable rocket launcher.
“Some plan that is,” Mercy muttered. “This is just like London all over again.”
“You and I are remembering London very differently, little Mercy. Besides, we managed to triumph there, yes?”
“Yes. But Null Sector didn’t have an unlimited amount of omnics they could send after us. These guys just keep coming. If it weren’t for Hana’s IFF transponder, we’d have no way of even knowing if she still lived.”
Right as the Crusader went to say something else, his shield shattered into a million motes of light. Countless acidic green bolts were already flying right towards the space he occupied. The big man braced himself; he wasn’t entirely sure if his battle worn armor would stand up against this strange new weaponry. Before the attacks could hit him, however, a brilliant magenta wall winked into existence. The balls of green energy hit the barrier dead on and rebounded back the way they came. All three Overwatch agents stood there, more than a little stunned. The soft clopping of hooves approached them from behind, and only then did they look down, even more awed at what they saw.
The one called Twilight Sparkle was radically different from the first time they had laid eyes on her. Her once straight as a ruler mane was sticking out in all directions, waving as though caught in an electromagnetic current. The bony protrusion jutting from her head, what Reinhardt was pretty sure was actually a horn, was blazing with purple light. Her eyes, though, her eyes were what really caught the attention. They were white. As in, all white. There were none of the purple color that had been there before, no iris or pupil. On closer inspection, her eyes even seemed to be leaking white mist from their corners. As Reinhardt slowly came to grips with her eyes, he realized that she also had appendages he hadn’t even noticed before: Wings. Considering the fact that they were the same color of the rest of her, it was no mystery how the wings had been overlooked when first encountering these bright creatures. Lastly, Reinhardt noticed that she was far taller than she had been previously. She actually came up to his just above his waist, with her horn leaving her total height at his upper torso. When she finally spoke, her voice had an echoing thrum to it. “Go, stallion of metal, mare of flight, and mare of light. I will hold this shield until I can no longer do so. Go, and save what’s left of ponykind.”
Reinhardt stood there for a few moments longer, his mind just now accepting the fact that he had been called a stallion. This realization was quickly shunted to the side as he finally caught up to what had just happened. He gave the mare a nod, hefted his hammer, and charged into the fray. His war cry thundered through the drone of insectoid wings: “Die Crusader Stehen Wache!”
D.Va heard the Crusader’s call and knew that Reinhardt had took to the field of battle. While she figured his addition to the fight meant that the pony creatures were safe, it also meant that a vast majority of the smaller black blurs were focusing on the other agents of Overwatch and not her. Which, incidentally, left the two giants in their midst to do battle. This honestly suited Song just fine. The only problem was, this behemoth was proving extremely difficult to kill. It was practically bleeding rivers, the green sludge coating the ground. Still, it kept on. It dogged the Korean pilot relentlessly, and Hana was beginning to fear the thing was simply unkillable. More than once Hana had almost activated D.Va’s self-destruct sequence, but every time she discarded the idea. Without the Combat Aid Network to reconstruct the mech after it had been destroyed, if Song was careless and lost the walker she would effectively be out of any fights that might break out in the future. Mercy’s nanites were good, but not “reconstruct a war bot in the time it takes to blink” good.
The monstrosity lunged at D.Va again, this time coming from the side and catching the pilot off guard. It settled its full weight upon the mech, and at the same time Hana felt the arms of the machine jerked roughly to the right. She struggled to move the arms back on target so she could shoot. Aside from the servos practically screaming, she didn’t accomplish much. As Hana’s mind raced to find a way out of this situation, her surroundings suddenly changed. At first, Song wasn’t sure what she was seeing. It was pitch black, and suddenly wet. Had she landed in one of the thing’s wounds?
Then the walker pitched forward, and Song realized the damn thing had managed to fit D.Va in its mouth and was in the process of swallowing the Korean piece of equipment whole. She cried out in disgusted shock as a puddle of saliva smashed her in the face, causing her to immediately start hacking and coughing. It tasted way, way worse than it had smelled. She tried to get D.Va’s clawed feet under her, but to no avail. She kept sliding downwards, entering the behemoth’s throat. Song hit the thrusters, and D.Va spun slightly so that she was sideways, but still going down. “Nope. Nope, nope, nope!” Hana chanted to herself. With a vicious growl the young pilot squeezed the firing triggers as hard as she could. The dull crack of the flak cannons was deafening in these confined quarters, and over their song of death Hana heard the titan yowling in agony. She kept firing, glad now more than ever that her cannons didn’t need to reload.
She caught glimpses of moonlight as the hard carapace of the mammoth creature parted before her guns. With another application of her thrusters, Hana set D.Va to spinning like a top, still discharging pain with her weapons. Then, at long last, Song was free, soaring through the air as she literally decapitated her gigantic foe from inside its esophagus. The thing thrashed in its death throes, causing a miniature earthquake to ripple through the clearing. D.Va landed with her feet under her and immediately spun, cannons firing non-stop as she made sure the damn thing was dead. By the time she finally stopped shooting, the area around her was deathly quiet. She was breathing heavily, hands slightly trembling upon her controls. And then the clearing suddenly exploded into cheers and whistles. Song slumped back against her repaired harness, exhausted. She noted with a detached, grim satisfaction that the remainder of the enemy were fleeing once more, and those that had been too slow were already being cut down, by the ponies they had come to rescue, no less. Though none of them seemed to carry any physical weapons, hooves and horns seemed to work just as well.
Hana finally straightened her posture and turned the mech around. As she did so she caught sight of the other agents, their faces conveying a mixture of shocked disbelief and delighted excitement. But what caught her attention as she fully turned was the radiant being standing a little ways off from the other three. It was tall, taller than the first they had seen her, with wings spread serenely and hair waving gracefully in a non-existent breeze. Even as Hana stared, slightly open mouthed, she could see little motes and sparks of light flaring through the mane. However, with her eyes fading to the original purple there was no mistaking it: This was the very first creature they had met. And then, without even realizing what she was doing, she bowed. Not just any bow, either-- a full on Hanguk-in bow, like the sort she’d give commanding officers or officials she really respected. Palms crossed, face down upon her forehead, staring straight down to the grass. D.Va mimicked her pilot, dropping down to its left knee and keeping its right out. The flak cannons, so recently discharging their cry of destruction, fell to either side of the war bot to complete the picture of deep respect.
The gesture wasn’t completely missed by the other agents, but all three of them held their tongues; this was a very unique moment. The majestic creature stepped forward a little bit and finally spoke. “Please rise, stranger from another world. You are not my subject.”
Hana shook her head as she resumed her footing. “That doesn’t matter. You… you have an aura around you. I feel as though you are someone to be feared, yet also someone who should be respected and loved.”
Twilight surveyed Song in quiet contemplation, before she finally broke into a rather delighted grin. Song discovered that the simple smile broke the spell a little bit. “It's not every day any more that I can create such a reaction from one who is not a pony, much less one who is not from this world.”
“Is that what you are? A pony?” This came from Reinhardt, who still sounded like he wasn’t entirely sure what he had just witnessed.
“A variant of pony, yes. Follow me, please. I believe the changelings will not return any time soon, so for the moment we can talk without fear of being attacked. I will tell you as much as I am able, and in return I would like some answers from you.” She caught sight of Pharah starting to reply, and with another smile the Egyptian was interrupted. “I won’t ask anything too sensitive. I gather that you are soldiers, of a sort, and I’ll be sure to avoid questions pertaining to that line of thought.”
Pharah shook her head. “I was actually going to ask why you were being attacked, but in hindsight it would probably be better to just let you explain things.”
“Thank you.” The pony gestured towards the same tunnel with a wing, and Hana noticed that almost every other pony had long since disappeared within. The ones that stayed behind seemed to be scanning the skies for threats, and Hana felt as though they might be guards. The four agents of Overwatch followed the pony as she began to speak. “I suppose I should start with an apology, for deceiving you. The form you first saw me as was not entirely my own; merely a disguise I had used in attempt to hide myself and the others under my care from our enemies.”
“Apology accepted, young pony. We understand the desire to protect those who need it.”
Twilight glanced at the Crusader thoughtfully, then chuckled. “Young? I have not heard someone call me that in a long time. I am well over ten thousand years old, man of metal.”
As one, the agents stopped and stared at their guide incredulously, Hana even craning her neck a bit to see better. The purple creature stopped and glanced back inquisitively. Understanding dawned in her eyes. “Ah. Most other creatures do not live as long as an alicorn does. How long do your people normally live?”
Mercy was the first to find her voice. “Usually a hundred or so, although nanobiology has been making great strides in helping humans live longer. Reinhardt for example, is sixty-four, and is often seen as being in his final stages of life despite the care he now receives. Myself, as another example, don’t seem to age any more. I pioneered a breakthrough in applied nanobiology and as a result, even though I’ve been alive for forty years I haven’t really aged at all since I was twenty-seven.”
“Interesting.” Twilight began walking again. “Still, this actually ties into the rest of the little history lesson. We, as a whole, are ponies. These ponies are divided into four subtypes: We have earth ponies, who have neither horn nor wings. To compensate for this, the magic an earth pony possesses reveals itself in their unparalleled strength and unique affinity for nature. We have pegasi, who have wings. Because of the wings their magic is easier to conduct, giving them an affinity for the elements; rain, lightning, snow… Some are even rather adept at flames. The third are unicorns, with horns. A unicorn has the easiest time channeling magic, and because of this, they are also the most varied in what they do. Some are rather powerful, capable of casting large spells. Others lack this power but have good control, allowing them to cast multiple smaller spells at the same time. The fourth archetype is what I am: An alicorn. Essentially, we are the embodiment of all three pony tribes: The strength and endurance of an earth pony, the agility and and swiftness of a pegasus, and the magical prowess of a unicorn. The longer we live, the more power we gain.”
“You say magic,” Hana interjected. “Do you actually mean magic?”
“Well,” Reinhardt drawled. “She threw up a massive purple barrier that reflected attacks back at the attacker after mine failed. Her horn was lit; that barrier was like no technology I’ve ever seen.”
Twilight actually giggled a bit at that. “I’m assuming your race is purely technological. Well, yes, I did mean magic. Thanks to science, we even used to have a nice marriage of magic and technology called arcanotech. Once upon a time, we could do some amazing things with it. For now, let's shelve that discussion until I get to it. To answer your question, yes, I mean magic. There is actually two different types of magic; sorcery, and wizardry. To use these magics, we interact with what we call the Thaumaturgic Field-- it’s basically a field of energy that seems to exist everywhere in the universe. It interacts with all energy and matter, including itself. When something interacts with the field, the field imparts properties to that energy or matter.
“A quark is a quark because the Thaumaturgic Field told it to be one. The field works under what we call natural physics, which are kind of like the default settings of the universe. Energy can interact with the field not just going one way, but both ways. Because of this, since biological process uses electricity, organisms with the ability to arrange energy in very specific ways can change what the field will do with the matter and energy nearby. However, it can be hard to make these changes, because the field does have quite a bit of resistance. It wants to stay the same, so it takes a lot of energy to change things, both physical and mental. This is basically all sorcery is: using thought patterns to override the field’s natural state so that it changes something in the world the way to want. Wizardry is a little different because it involves both sorcery and science at the same time; a sorcerer creates ice by thinking in a thought pattern they found that just freezes water. A wizard creates ice by thinking in a refined pattern that induces an endothermic reaction in the water, resulting in ice. Sorcery is more like brute forcing changes, which takes up a lot of energy, while wizardry takes up far less energy because it works with the natural physics to make the change.”
“Huh. I actually understood that,” Reinhardt admitted slowly.
Pharah snorted a bit. “Even I understood that, and I’m not a scientist.”
Twilight laughed. “That was the overly simplified answer; anything more complicated than that and I would expect you to be a mage yourself. Back on track, I am an alicorn. Being an alicorn means I simply do not age. It’s not true immortality mind you-- I can still be killed by any means, although my power levels mean it would take a lot of effort. We never were entirely sure why alicorns don’t age. Some said it was because we were a mixture of all three tribes. Others theorized it was our magic, while others attributed it to the fact that we represent a force in the universe and act as that force’s guardians. Even us alicorns never knew.”
“You keep mentioning ‘us alicorns’. Are there more of you?” D.Va found herself surprisingly interested in this history; surprising, considering she never really cared about such things.
“There were.” Twilight was silent for a long moment, and then when she next spoke, there was a barely hidden pain in her tone. “Once, we were four. Celestia, Diarch of the Day, and Luna, Diarch of the Night. The Eternal Sisters were the original founders of Equestria, forging the nation after centuries of conflict and dissent among the three pony tribes. Celestia was in charge of the Sun, guiding the heavenly body across the sky, while Luna ferried the Moon.”
“Wait.” Reinhardt's accent became really prominent as he got excited. “You mean they actually moved the sun and the moon?”
“That is exactly what I mean. Our celestial bodies orbit us. Continuing my discussion, the third alicorn was Cadance, Avatar of Love. While Celestia’s and Luna’s embodiment was physical, Cadance’s and mine were metaphysical. Cadance kept love alive, and in doing so, made sure that Equestria was always a bastion of harmony. As for myself… I am the Avatar of Magic. That pretty much means, I am magic. If magic as a whole had a face and a name… well, that’s me.”
“What… happened to them, then?” Mercy’s voice was soft, compassionate, just as it would be if she were talking to a patient in her office.
“Gone. Well, not really gone-- dead or what have you. Last I saw, Celestia and Luna had been sealed within the sun and the moon respectively. Cadance, as far as I’m aware, sealed herself and her Crystal Empire in time far to the north, to await such a time that Equestria was ready to begin the march to free our home.”
As Twilight finished her words, the group came upon a rather cavernous space. Glancing around, Hana had the distinct impression that they were standing in a hanger of some sorts. There were numerous bays, twelve in total, that looked as if they could fit D.Va comfortably. She had been so engrossed in Twilight’s words she hadn’t even realized the tunnel had widened out to become what appeared to be the mouth of the hanger. Her roaming eyes also caught sight of the ponies she had helped rescue, huddled in groups and looking hopefully towards their leader. As Hana studied them in greater detail, she realized that they all seemed to be mares. Every one of them, even the young, shared the general soft facial structure that Twilight did.
“Well, here we are. Some two-hundred odd mares and fillies, all that’s left of ponykind for the moment. I don’t doubt that there are more out there, but even if we knew where they were we have little means of rescuing them at this point in time.”
“So… what happened to you guys? It sounds like this Equestria had technology on par with ours. So what happened?”
“Queen Chrysalis and the Swarm happened.” Twilight said bitterly. “Those creatures we fought outside? Those are her changelings. Poorly equipped and poorly trained changelings, but changelings nonetheless. Equestria was never really hesitant to share its technology with the rest of the world, and that single mistake cost every other nation twice over. The changelings are parasitic shapeshifters; they feed off of emotional energy, especially love. It’s all they need to survive, and they can freely change their shape to anything they wish in order to get their food. Loved ones, friends, family... Equestria has always had vast amounts of positive emotional energy. Their Queen, Chrysalis, attacked once before a long, long time ago. She was fought off and defeated. We figured we’d seen the last of her. We were wrong.
“They came at us out of nowhere, wielding our own technology against us. How she managed to mostly copy everything we had we still don’t know; biometric locks should have prevented her from gleaning anything useful. Best guess is that she simply had some of her changelings shapechange into whoever was in possession of whatever it was that she wanted and disabled the locks. Well, ponies aren’t usually a violent species. Sure, we had airships and the like outfitted with cannons, and even smaller firearms mostly used for sport, but we never imagined using such things to kill others. Or rather, we knew it could be done, but never imagined our technology could be abused in such a way. And we paid for it. Within two months of the invasion she had completely taken over Equestria. Pockets of resistance were stamped out swiftly, and after she discovered an Ancient Spell to force Celestia and Luna into their heavenly bodies there wasn’t much of a will to fight any more.
“I watched my nation burn as she got rid of my fellow Princesses, two alicorns even older than I. I watched from a prison hanging from the highest spire of our capitol as she decimated everything we had worked to build. My wings had been ripped from my body. My horn shorn off and used as a trophy she wore around her neck. I had been beaten, mutilated, raped, and stuffed in a cage as the ultimate revenge, as I was the one who originally defeated her the first time. I was in that cage for fifteen years as the rest of the world fell to her armies. Those who didn’t join her willingly were killed outright or sent to fuel her war machine. But her greatest mistake of that day was not killing me outright. If not killed, an alicorn can heal anything with enough time. I repaired the damage done to my body. I regrew my wings, regrew my horn, and fixed my shame. And through all of that time, I plotted. I had no delusions of rescue, but I still planned. Then low and behold: A veritable army of mares flooded into the now abandoned capitol with the sole intent of rescuing me. Even greater, they had knowledge of a single piece of Old Equestrian technology sitting derelict and still hidden.”
There was a long bout of silence after Twilight’s tale came to a close. It was a lot of information to take in at once… and yet, all four of them could emphasize with the talking purple pony. After all, the first and second Omnic Crisis were just as brutal. It was Reinhardt who broke the silence first. “I am Reinhardt Wilhelm, little pony. I am a former Crusader, a knight order of my home country Germany. Currently an agent of Overwatch, still sworn to protect the innocent wherever it is needed.”
“I am Fareeha Amari, otherwise known as Pharah, formerly a soldier of the Egyptian Army. I am currently the chief of security for Helix Security International, on loan to Overwatch as a show of good faith between the two organizations.”
“Doctor Angela Ziegler, otherwise known as Mercy. Currently head of Overwatch’s Head of Medical Research.”
Everyone looked to Hana next, and she couldn’t stop the little smile lighting up her features. “Name’s Hana Song, callsign D.Va. Or Pilot Hana Song of the Mobile Exo-Force of the Korean army if we’re getting fancy, but we’re not getting fancy. Either way, we’re here now with no way of going home. Let’s see what some of Overwatch’s best can do to help ease your burden.” Hana wasn’t exactly sure where all this confidence was coming from, but she rather liked it.
Twilight paused in the middle of approaching her ponies. “You would do that? Help aliens you barely know? I cannot pay you. I can’t even guarantee your safety.”
Reinhardt let loose his rumbling chuckle. “Our gear isn’t just for show, you know. Overwatch has always been about fighting the good fight, despite what the rest of our world might think. We’re unable to go home, and we have experience in battle with equipment to match. Let us help you.”
Twilight stared at the four for a long moment, like she was seeking for deception. However, she found none; the faces before her appeared resolute, and above all, trustworthy. And the one called Hana had dealt with a behemoth by herself… “Well, I’m not really in a position to refuse. I will accept your aid, whatever you may provide.”
“That is good to hear.” Pharah finally holstered her rocket launcher, only now realizing she had been carrying it in ready position the whole time. “So, you mentioned that your rescuers had knowledge of something that might help in your fight? Where is it? We may be able to help in its retrieval.”
Twilight smiled again, and Song found she really liked that expression despite the fact that it was still tempered by weariness. “You’re standing in her. Welcome to the EAF Spellflare. The only known airship to have survived Equestria’s fall.”
Author's Note
This chapter was brought to you by:
So... yea. Not entirely sure what I feel out this chapter. This is the direction I had decided to take it in long ago, but... I dunno. Feel like readers simply aren't going to like it. Although that could be because I just pulled an all-nighter to finish this chapter and start a few other chapters I need to get done... I'm probably just really tired.
I also feel that Angel with a Shotgun is a song that really fits D.Va (even if her mech weapons aren't technically shotguns) and I kind of tried to capture that theme here. How did I do?
Hope you enjoy nonetheless, and a big thank you to MeeptheChangeling for allowing me to borrow the most simplified explanation of magic I've ever read!
