Save Him One More Time: Phase 3

Chapter 2- Russia

The door opened. A tall, muscular woman with short pink hair and a scarred face stood there. She said, in heavily accented English, "Why are you here?"
"I'm here to, to see, uh, Aleksandra?" Angela faltered. The woman's face broke into a big smile.
"Well, wonderful news for you, I am Aleksandra but please, call me Zarya. Come in, come in," she said, stepping back and motioning into the foyer.
"Who are you? Why are you here to see me?" Zarya asked, closing the door behind them. Angela twisted the paper in her hands nervously.
"I'm Angela Ziegler. I was in Africa, trying to help with the rebuilding process from the Omnic Crisis, but I'm being hunted, and someone told me this was a safe house. She told me to ask for you, and you'd help me." Zarya nodded, taking Angela's suitcase and tucking it under one arm. "Who told you about my house? Plenty of people know, but not many in Africa." Angela followed her through a door and up a flight of stairs. "Fareeha Amari. She was one of my final patients there." Zarya stopped on the landing and turned around.
"Little Fareeha told you about me?" She laughed, a loud, hearty laugh. A solid minute later, when she finally pulled herself together, she ran a hand through her hair and sighed. "Oh, her mother will love that. Just love it so much, her little Fareeha helping the angel of Overwatch." She sighed one last time and picked up Angela's suitcase, which she had dropped during her laughing fit. "Ana will be so glad to see you, Angela, she truly will. She didn't shut up about you for a solid month, when she could talk again." Angela had dropped her paper, and she gripped the railing, her face as white as her knuckles.
"...Ana?" she said, after a moment. Her breath came short and fast, and tears welled up in her eyes. "Ana Amari? She's alive?" Zarya put a large hand on Angela's shoulder as if to hold her up. "You didn't know?" Angela shook her head.
"Nearly eight years ago we were on a mission. She told us there was a sniper and never came back. She's the only team member we lost, until the explosion." A sob escaped her throat, and she put a hand over her mouth. "We all thought she was dead." She looked up at Zarya. "Does- does Fareeha know?" Zarya shook her head. "To my knowledge, no, she doesn't. Ana does not like to be seen. But I think she will make an exception for old friend like you." She set the suitcase down. "Do you want to go see her first? We can get you settled in for the night later." Angela nodded. "Please," she whispered. Zarya nodded. "Follow me." She led the way back down the stairs.

Several floors down, Zarya stopped and put out a hand. "Wait here a moment." She knocked on a door at the end of the hall.
"Ana? Is me, Zarya. I found old friend of yours, from the Overwatch. Is angel you won't shut up about." She opened the door and poked her head in. Angela heard quiet voices, and then Zarya looked out and waved Angela forward.

Ana sat on a window bench, her hair gone completely silver and braided over her shoulder. She turned when Angela walked in, and Angela saw the eyepatch that covered where her right eye should have been. She stood up and spread her arms out.
"Angela, it's been so long! How have you been?" Angela wrapped her arms around her.
"It's been too long, Ana. So much has happened since you disappeared, so much," she said, trying not to cry and failing.
Ana stroked Angela's back, tears welling up in her own eye. "Oh, I don't doubt it, Angela. I don't doubt it. But come on," she said, pulling away and holding Angela at arm's length to look her over, "you haven't aged a day! I suppose you're really on to something then! Come now, sit down and tell me everything. What's happened since I was left for dead?" Angela calmed herself, and shook her head. "Right. I don't remember much of that mission. I was shot down towards the middle of it and so I was unconscious for most of it. If you asked Gabe, I nearly died. When I woke up, he told me you were dead. Morrison told me you were dead. We all thought you were dead. Then Overwatch was shut down. We were leaving and I don't know what happened but the shuttles blew up and Gabe was-" her voice broke and she had a hard minute trying to pull herself together, "-he was killed, and Winston tells me most of the others survived, but Morrison is dead too." She wiped tears off her cheeks. "I've been busy moving around the world trying to help where people need it most, and now," her voice dropped to almost a whisper, "I'm afraid something is after me now." She looked to make sure no one but her and Ana were there. "Have you heard the reports of the Reaper? It's moving around in the same places I was, three days ago it had been seen in Cairo, where I was two weeks before. It's gone around-" Ana interrupted her.
"He's hunting you, yes. He's been hunting the others as well. He's gotten Lena already. I've heard that he's after Winston. You're simply another one on his list." Angela put her hand over her mouth. "Lena? She's- she's gone?" Ana nodded solemnly. "I haven't heard about Winston in a while but I don't think he'd gotten him." Ana bowed her head. "I don't know how to tell you this, Angela, but I hope you'll forgive me." She took a deep breath and ran her hands through her hair.
"Three years ago, after I had completely healed from my run-in with that sniper, I heard of the first Reaper sighting. Someone in Switzerland saw him poking around the old base. Which isn't unusual, people go there to see what they can get, but it's been destroyed long since and there's only rubble left. What was unusual, they said, was that he simply disappeared. Turned into dust, they said. He was there one minute, and the next, only a cloud of black smoke was left behind.
"Well I thought that was unusual, of course, and you know me, Angela, I can't resist a good challenge. I had to find out what was going on. I figured it was an old member of Overwatch, or maybe an old enemy. Turns out, he was harder to track than I have him credit for. He doesn't leave black smoke, Angela, he is the black smoke. Not a particle gets left behind and so it's very hard to track him because all I had to go on was the pattern of sightings." She paused for breath.
"He?" Angela asked. "How do you know it's a he?" Ana held up a hand. "I'm getting there. He'd been seen all over Switzerland by the time I managed to discern a pattern. So I followed him to Britain- only took him two days to get there, locate Tracer, and kill her one night in her sleep. No one saw him except me. I tried to get him but he turned into dust before I could hit him.
"So anyway, I managed to follow him back to Switzerland and his base. He's not working alone, I found others in the base. The Talon base. I'm sure you've heard of them by now. They're supposedly a new and improved version of Overwatch. Well he's working in conjunction with them, and trust me, they're nothing of what they say. I saw the sniper I lost my eye to, they haven't got much on her but the name. She calls herself the Widowmaker. I don't even think she's human though, to be honest. She's purple. All over. Her eyes are a venomous yellow and she never misses a shot.
"But back to the Reaper. He's working with Talon and their goal is not world peace. Nothing even close. I didn't see their 'higher up', but they seemed very afraid of her, the little Latina girl especially. So the higher up is trying to get her weapon ready and she's going to do something along the lines of experiments on as many people as she can. I don't know what that means but I heard the Latina and Widowmaker talking before I left and apparently the Widowmaker is a result of experiments. The Reaper is an experiment. Makes me wonder if any of them aren't experiments," she muttered, falling into thought.
"But anyway," she said, shifting in place a little, "where was I? Reaper, hunting Overwatch, base in Switzerland, works with Talon, oh yes, I remember now." She looked Angela straight in the eye, as if she was telling a ghost story. Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"I spent nearly twenty-four hours in the Talon base, trying to get out unseen. It's very hard, the Latina has security measures everywhere. And I mean everywhere. I'm pretty sure there's cameras in the vents. It was tough. I'm pretty sure they knew I was there. But I did hear a few names thrown around. Does the name Moira mean anything to you?"
Angela nodded. "Yes, she was my colleague maybe twelve years ago. I broke ties with her when I learned she had stolen my research and begun developing it to hurt people. She was the medic for Blackwatch." Ana looked confused. "She was? Which one was she?"
"Tall, thin, pale, red hair, heterochromatic. She didn't come out much. She was in her lab most of the time."
Ana nodded. "Oh. I remember Reyes talked about her a lot. He kept very close tabs on her."
Angela nodded. "He was afraid she would start some kind of illegal experiments if her left her alone."
Ana seemed to understand. "Well, I don't think he stopped her, if the Reaper and Widowmaker are any indication. I'm pretty sure the Latina had a name, actually, yes, they called her Sombra. She's young, too young to be doing what Talon does. I don't know if she was an experiment too or not. She's very handy with the tech though." Ana put a hand on Angela's shoulder.
"I'm afraid what I'm going to tell you is not going to go over very well with you. You see, the Reaper has a mask, very terrifying. It looks like a skull. But I saw him take it off, and, Angela, sit still and lean against the window or something, please, I don't want you falling and hurting yourself."
Angela did as she was told, a sinking feeling growing in her stomach. Ana moved closer and put an arm around her shoulder. Her lips barely moved as she breathed into Angela's ear,
"I saw who the Reaper is."
Angela's blood ran cold and she asked, "Who?"
Ana's arm tightened slightly, as if to comfort her friend. Her voice quavered slightly.
"Gabriel Reyes."