Chapter 23: Redemption

545 17 5
                                    

"Moonlight."
You blink and look up at Jack, who called your name. "Yes, sir."
"The aircraft landed." Jack stands up from the seat across from you. You fumble with your seatbelt and stand up.
"Understood." You grab your things and begin to walk to the opening door, only being stopped by Jack pulling you back by your shoulder. You turn around and to see your eyes met with his visor. After a second or two of silence, Jack jabs his pointer finger into your sternum.
"Prove to me that you're strong enough for Overwatch." His tone seems different, but in a way you can't describe. "Prove to me that you can use your abilities for good."
You stand up straight and salute to your Strike Commander. "Understood, sir."
"Before you leave, Put this on so I can see how you do on your mission." Jack clips a small camera to your jacket and turns it on. "Your mission starts now. Good luck, soldier." He salutes in return as you turn around and run out of the aircraft.
You run through the city streets and follow the map to a large warehouse on a hill. A classic place for a villain's base, in your opinion. You climb up the walls of the building and slowly open a window. You hold onto Clover as you descend the wall and drop silently to the warehouse floor. You creep past a group of guards and make a beeline to the room where the mainframe is stored. Instead of taking the stairs, you leap up and grab the ledge and pull yourself up. When you touch down you make eye contact with the last person you expected to see: your purple haired, long-nailed drinking buddy. Your heart drops to your stomach.
"You're with Talon!?" You gasp.
Sombra looks at your jacket. "You're with Overwatch!?"
"I thought I could trust you!" You both shout at each other.
You grit your teeth when you realize what you have to do. You snap Clover's safety off and begin shooting at Sombra. She quickly dodges and reaches for your gun. All of a sudden, Clover stops firing. You throw Clover to the floor and slip on your emergency knuckle dusters. You swing at Sombra, throwing hooks left and right. You've never been one for close combat, but you know how to do it. Sombra reaches inside her jacket and pulls out an Uzi. She begins firing, a few bullets hitting your right leg. You yelp in pain and clutch your leg. Without thinking, you lunge at her and knock her to the floor. Sombra's head slams against the wall behind her. You pin her to the wall as you throw punch after punch, beating her until she bleeds. After almost a whole minute, you pull your bloodied fist away from Sombra's face and let out a sigh, breath rattling. You snap your head to the left when you hear loud footsteps about to come around the corner. You stand up and make a limping run for it, grabbing Clover before you go.
Your heart is beating a million miles a minute. The last time you were this close to getting caught, you had just met Jesse. You glance back once to see over ten armed Talon soldiers, not far behind you. You begin to speed up, seeing the door to the mainframe room when you look forward. Despite your injury, you break into a sprint towards the door and kick it open with your good leg, barricading yourself inside by pushing a large desk in front of the door. You exhale slowly and limp towards the large CPU and monitor. You grab the thumb drive from your bra, plug it into the system, and sit in the computer chair. With one hand, you search the system for the information you need on Widowmaker. With the other hand, you open a medkit and begin stitching the wounds on your legs. Luckily, the bullets only grazed you. You manage to find the information, quickly skimming over the documents to see if it's what you're looking for.
"Okay... Amelie Lacroix, callsign 'Widowmaker.' Confirmed kills: eight hundred sixty-three—" you pause, blinking to make sure you were reading correctly, "eight hundred sixty-three!? Holy shite!"
You flinch when you see a message pop up in the center of the screen, saying "INCOMING MESSAGE FROM 01010011 01100001 01100111 01100111 01101001 01110100 01100001 01110010 01101001 01110101 01110011"
Hesitantly, you click the button to accept the message from the strange sender. The page loads for a second before taking up the entire screen.
"01000101 01110000 01110011 01101001 01101100 01101111 01101110 00101100 00100000 01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01110011 01110101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101001 01100110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100001 01100100 01100100 01110010 01100101 01110011 01110011 00100000 01110010 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100 00101100 00100000 01100010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01100110 01101001 01100111 01110101 01110010 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00101110 00100000 01010010 01100101 01110000 01101100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101111 01101111 01101110 00100000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01001001 00100111 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110011 01100101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101111 01110010 01100100 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110100 01100101 01110011 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101000 01100001 01101110 01101011 01110011 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00101110 00100000 01010000 00101110 01010011 00101110 00100000 01000100 01001111 00100000 01001110 01001111 01010100 00100000 01010011 01001000 01001111 01010111 00100000 01010100 01001000 01001001 01010011 00100000 01010100 01001111 00100000 01000001 01001110 01011001 01001111 01001110 01000101 00100001 00100001 00100001"
Looking at all that binary gives you a headache. You decide to save the message to your thumb drive. You close the page and see that all the information on Widowmaker has been downloaded. Just as you eject the thumb drive, the door bursts open. The Talon soldiers close in on you. Clover and the thumb drive in one hand, you reach behind your back with the other.
"Drop your weapon, we're taking you in," one soldier barks. You can't help but crack a small smirk.

"Not today."

You whip your hand out from behind your back and hurl one of Jesse's flashbangs at your failed capture party. The entire group becomes disoriented as you go into full autopilot mode and sprint past them into the hallway. You search for your planned escape route, even though there's barely even a plan anymore. Without a second thought, you climb up to Vantage Point K and burst through the windows, shattered glass flying past you. You take a flying leap as you shoot down the three guards on the roof, one after the other. Your legs tremble when you land on the ground below. You don't even give yourself time to regain balance as you stumble towards the aircraft. You swerve past bullets and run past buildings. You climb the wall of a tall building, picking up the pace when you see the aircraft hovering above the roof. A leap of faith sends you soaring towards the opening door, your heart skipping a beat when you feel only one hand grasp onto the edge. Your feet dangle countless meters above the nearest surface. You look down at the ground below, the precarious height causing you to get vertigo. Your palms begin to get sweaty and your hand begins to slip. Through the roaring jet engines of the aircraft and bullets striking the metal hull, you can faintly hear someone shout, "GRAB ON!!"
You tear your eyes away from below you to see Jack, his hand extended towards you. It takes you a moment, but you grasp on with your free hand. Jack pulls you off the ledge and drags you into the aircraft, just as the door closes. You  feel a sense of relief and exhaustion wash over you as you lay on the floor, although the latter may just be the energy drinks wearing off. Your heart is pounding out of your chest, your breath is faster than you can keep up with, your muscles are sore and your entire body is soaked head to toe in sweat. All around, you feel awful. But you've never felt better. You can't stop smiling and chuckling a little between wheezes.
You feel a hand on your shoulder lift you to an upright sitting position. When your vision focuses, you see a plastic water bottle held in front of you. You grab it and chug it like you're in the desert, causing yourself to cough when it goes down the wrong pipe. You look up at Jack, who is kneeling next to you on the floor.
"I... got... the... stuff..." you pant, placing the thumb drive in the palm of Jack's hand.
"Looks like I underestimated you, kid." Jack sighs under his breath, placing a hand on your back. "Guess you are strong enough for Overwatch after all."
You heave a sigh and laugh. Finally, you've proved to Jack and to yourself that you're cut out for a new life. You look to the ceiling as you shed a few tears, pumping your fists in the air in victory. "HELL YEAH!!"

Hey, guys!
Quick update: finals started for me, so you all know what that means! A short hiatus! I'll try to write as much as I can. Please bear with me as I get through this hellish point in my life. For those about to take finals and those who are already taking finals, I wish you the best of luck!
-Luci

Bad Name (McCree X Reader)Where stories live. Discover now