#the map is gibraltar second point

[limelocked]

in this world there are thousands of thousands of shipping lanes for boats to go through, looking at a map is crazy about it

however

there are about 5 points in this world where if the people who control it says No you cant go here, then you might just be fucked

panama canal

strait of gibraltar

suez canal

cape of good hope

AND

malacca strait

(via canadian geographic)

this is from an interactive map that shows the ships travel during the year of 2012 but its not limited to this year

now!

we all know that the yemeni houthis are shooting at israel owned or israel bound ships passing through the red sea

yemen has, by doing this, cut the suez canal out of the equation for a Lot of ships owned by zionists, not just hindering trade at the southern port on the red sea by forcing inbound ships to go all the way around the cape of good hope and into the med to get zionists trade goods

NOW!

(via al jazeera)

this deserves to be talked about because youll never guess where malaysia is

the strait of malacca is i think historically the most used path between the indian ocean and east asia, and malaysia is one entire half of it and owns port klang which is one of the worlds busiest ports and on the top 3 at LEAST in the region (source i saw said 12th busiest in the world and second in south east asia after singapore but im no expert)

malaysia doesnt NEED to shoot at ships because banning israel from its ports is devastating on its own, like if the entire strait were to be closed off (if indonesia and malaysia got together and not only banned them from ports but also their water space) then no boats can go from israel to or from china. with the suez canal you can go the long way round the cape of good hope but there are really limited option if youre locked out of malacca strait

malaysia doing this is good and cool because even if its not effective at halting trade at all its still a gesture and a half

its like gibraltar going No :) about letting you out of the mediterranean

#palestine #geopolitics #tel aviv #jerusalem #okay im not at all an expert on this but malacca is my favourite waterway on earth #get out of my way gay boy i say and push over panama canal to go lust for the strait of malacca carnally #i may be entirely wrong on everything but the importance of the strait itself and yknow what im willing to live with that burden #im a fan of the strait first and a person second #but yeah no im not a boat person just a malacca fan

[academic-thoughts]

Atlantis and It's Evolution

J.R.R. Tolkien feigned to uncover lost documents when he wove various ancient myths into the lore of Middle Earth.  This is a technique originated by Plato in constructing Atlantis.  Plato claimed he found a source in Egyptian recounting the stories of Atlantis.  His “translation” into Greek is the justification for several phonetically Greek names.

Although Atlantis was not the most significant element in Plato’s dialogues, it has inspired the imagination of successive generations and become a cornerstone of fantastical storytelling.  Nor was it the only fantasy tale in Antiquity, as Lucian of Samosata wrote A True Story in the Second century A.D. to mock the genre of fantasy as a travelog.  Tales beyond the edge of the map of the known world were quite popular in Antiquity.  Of them all though, Atlantis is the only one still widely known by almost everyone in the World and certainly by every adult in the Western World.

In 360 B.C., Plato penned the story of ancient Athens defeating Atlantis.  Plato was discoursing upon the ideal civil state in two dialogues, Critias and Timaeus, written as sequels to The Republic.  In his dialogues, he discusses two different states.  One is the wealthy and luxuriously decadent world power of Atlantis, while the other is the almost spartan ancient Athens.  Plato’s ideal Republic is a system in which men and women are both educated and equal, but only within their state-assigned class, and only the warrior class rules.  Personally, I believe that this system is remarkably similar to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

These two Platonic dialogues both reference Timaeus’ ancestor, Solon as the wisest of the seven sages and lawgiver of Athens who visited Egypt, where he heard the tale from several Egyptians.  Salon told Dropides who told his great-grandson Timaeus, from which Plato found the tale.  It is a tale of a great island, just past the Pillars of Heracles (the modern-day Strait of Gibraltar) in the Atlantic Ocean.  The Kings of Atlantis descended from Poseidon and Cleito.  Atlantis was the source of the metal Oreichalkos, which is only a bit less valuable than gold.  Although Plato places Atlantis 9,000 years into his past, he inserts Athens into the tale as an ally until Atlantis becomes corrupt and imperialistic in its decadence.  Morally superior Athens defeats Atlantis in war, freeing the entire conquered world.  Then Atlantis is sunk beneath the waves with earthquakes and tsunamis as divine retribution for their corruption.

The dialogues are an allegory designed to caution the people of Athens from becoming too decadent or imperialistic.  Plato warns against the decay of morality in favor of decadence, and imperialism, and he cautions against transgressing divine morality. This caution against doing folly may have been influenced by Plato’s experience of the Peloponnesian Wars and by the events and choices made by Athens leading up to the Wars.  His cause was performed for the Panathenaea Games in honor of Athena and may be seen as state propaganda.

Plato’s claim to the historicity of Atlantis is belied by his dating of Athens as an ancient contemporary, making it over 9,000 years old in Plato’s time, older than ancient Egypt, and requiring a reminder of its past by Egyptians.  This is about as realistic as Tolkien’s feign.

Still, people are inspired to look for a grain of true history within Plato’s account.  Some point to the destruction of Knossos and the Minoans from the eruption of the Thera (modern Santorini) super-volcano in the 1,600s B.C.  Others say the “sea people” accused of precipitating the Bronze Age Collapse around 1,200 B.C. may be the source of imperialism or refugees.  Others note the Wars between the Greeks and Persians in which Athens defeated the much larger Persian navy and established itself as the region’s naval power may have been an inspiration.

Perhaps some of these accounts are accurate inspirations, but they do not suggest Atlantis existed.    In the 1880s, Ignatius Donnelly authored Atlantis and the Antediluvian World.  He argued that Atlantis was not a myth, but the birthplace of humanity’s first civilization prior to Noah and the home of the Nephilim and their giant offspring.  He argued that ancient peoples of Europe and America worshiped the Atlantean kings who colonized Egypt, Mesoamerica, and Western Europe, from which we derive Aryans.

Within the context of the 1880s, the remains of the city of Troy, long believed to be a Homeric myth, had just been discovered.  Other archeological sites were slowly being explored, including Knossos and Mykene.  Most people still believed the Biblical flood as literal, with all cultures having an apocryphal flood story, Plato’s timeline placed Atlantis well before Noah.

Donnelly’s theories were adopted as state propaganda by the Nazis.  The Nazis argued they are the living descendants of the true Aryans who survived the fall of Atlantis.  They argue the Atlanteans were superhumans who fell not from divine judgment of their corruption but by intermixing with “lesser races”.  Only by purifying Aryan blood, and removing corrupt lesser races, could the superhuman be restored to rightly rule the world.

In more modern times, people still search for Atlantis, saying Plato had some details of time or place wrong.  Without any real evidence, people have placed Atlantis in the Canary Islands, the Guelb er Richat (Eye of the Sahara), Minoa, and Bulgaria or the Black Sea, amongst other possibilities.  They repeatedly source Egar Cayce, a supposed psychic.  He supposedly had thousands of genuine readings.  He claimed the Atlanteans had been reincarnated as the American people from the United States.  

“Be it true that there is the fact of reincarnation, and that souls that once occupied such an environ [i.e. Atlantis] are entering the earth's sphere and inhabiting individuals in the present, is it any wonder that—if they made such alterations in the affairs of the earth in their day, as to bring destruction upon themselves—if they are entering now, they might make many changes in the affairs of peoples and individuals in the present?" (pg 50 Edgar Cayce on Atlantis by Edgar Evans)

"In Yucatan there is the EMBLEM of same. Let’s clarify this, for it may the more easily be found. For they will be brought to this America, these United States. A portion is to be carried, as we find, to the Pennsylvania State Museum. A portion is to be carried to the Washington preservations of such findings; or to Chicago." (page 89 Edgar Cayce on Atlantis by Edgar Evans)

In the Discovery series Hunting Atlantis, author Stel Pavlou and volcanologist Jess Phoenix, who has a Bachelor’s in history and a Master’s in geology, say Atlantis existed in 4,900 B.C.  They say Plato “based his timeline on ancient Egyptian Kings’ Lists” for his date of the 9,000s B.C. and it was in Bulgaria on the Black Sea.  However, Plato did not have access to these King Lists and any version accessible today is known to have been altered.

In the National Geographic series Drain the Oceans, the show slowly showcases four underwater environments.    All except the third are merely natural environments that are played up for drama, admits the series.  However, the third environment, an ancient town named Pavlopetri,  is a genuine Bronze Age town that had sunk below the sea due to the rise in sea levels and other natural disasters. It seems as if the idea of Atlantis was used simply to garner views instead of something genuinely investigated.

Most people are content to enjoy Atlantis as little more than an interesting setting for adventure stories.  J.R.R. Tolkien had Numenor as a fictional island setting in the first two ages of Middle Earth.  It was the first great kingdom of men, but it was corrupted by the fallen angel Sauron into attacking Valinor, the undying land of the elves and angels.  As punishment, the Creator destroyed Numenor by an Earthquake and tsunami in the second age of Middle Earth, a few thousand years before the Lord of the Rings where Sauron was finally defeated.  This is Tolkien’s Atlantis.

Disney adapted the idea in Atlantis: The Lost World and the sequel, Atlantis: Milo’s Return.  Disney’s original movies have Atlantis still existing in a giant cave under the ocean with its air pocket, and the Atlanteans being trapped primitives aware of the outside world.  Disney’s sequel took inspiration from Donnally’s book.  The characters leave Atlantis to travel to the surface world for further adventures in Norway and Mexico and in other nondescript places before returning to Atlantis and then bringing it back to the surface.

The video game Assassin’s Creed Odyssey has downloadable content titled Atlantis DLC, allowing for a story with some time exploring Atlantis, almost as a set-aside.  The first two chapters are set within the Underworld.  The content involving Atlantis only begins in the third chapter.  Atlantis was merely set dressing for the story.  While the setting is as Plato described, the characterization is less true to Plato.  The in-game Poseidon admits to routinely sending great deluges when the Atlanteans prove themselves to not be worthy of mercy.

Others believe that Atlantis was a historical civilization that existed 11,000 years ago.  It’s simply that such knowledge has either been purposefully hidden or lost.

In Secret Origins, the author relays his ideas of  how Atlantis actually existed and how such knowledge might have been kept secret.  He “quotes” Plato, Edgar Cayce, Ishmael Perez, Helena Blavatsky, and Matthias De Stefano, all without citation.  The author merely expects his viewers to believe his claims.  It was certainly an interesting and educational set of videos.

Atlantis seems to have become a lost city-state starting around the late 19th until today with figures such as Ignatius Donally and Edgar Cayce.  Up until then, the city was considered nothing more than a fable and parable created by Plato to flatter Athens and warn of the folly of men.

Acknowledgments:

Louis D’Angelo

He played Assassin’s Creed Odyssey's Atlantis DLC

[purplekoop]

So to sate my very specific curiosity, I (with some help from my more workshop-adept friend Spice) made an Overwatch Workshop script that lets you quickly and easily measure two points on any in-game map, then outputs the result in feet! The game internally runs on meters, but I live in the US, and also collect the official figures (and have a vague interest in making a to-scale diorama set to display them in one day) which use a 1/12th scale that makes converting from in-game feet to real world inches in that scale extremely easy.

The code is F30BH if you're interested in using it yourself! The controls are simple: primary fire to set one end point, alt fire to set the second, and reload to reset both points. The normal actions for these inputs are disabled. I might go back and add more features eventually, like a unit toggle or extra controls, but that'll be for when I can run the game on my laptop or if I get really bored in the meantime. I think I also left it set so the only map enabled is Watchpoint Gibraltar, but you can change it manually yourself by using the relatively user-friendly custom lobby settings.

Have fun uh... measuring! Look, I know there's gotta be more than just one person in this fandom who finds that sort of thing interesting.

#overwatch #overwatch workshop

[drawtilyouredead]

Super Supportive Shimada Siblings! S4 I love seeing these two having each other’s backs. 

Support me! (Ko-fi and Patreon) / Commission Info

#overwatch #genji shimada #hanzo shimada #shimada brothers #drawtilyouredead #dtyd #the map is gibraltar second point #genji #hanzo #shimada #young skin #comic #supportive #you may tag this however you wish ♥

[imagine-overwatch-heroes]

Coming Home | Soldier76 x Reader

Pairing: Soldier76 x Reader (They/Them) Rating: M for blood / violence Word Count: 2663 Summary: After the recall it is time to find your way back home. After some effort you just manage to drag yourself back to your commander with your last ounce of strength. Warnings: // Blood 

"And what exactly are we doing here?" "Recruiting a new agent. Kind of." McCree shook his head and threw his cigar to the floor, stepping on it with his boot to put out the embers. He looked at Soldier:76 out of the corner of his eye, but didn't dare talk back. Together with Genji, he stood behind the commander, both silently staring at the huge factory building in front of them. It was a run-down area and for miles there was nothing but crime and violence. And this was the place where the new agent was supposed to stay? "They can't have a clean slate if they've been living in this shithole...," growled McCree grumbling sullenly, and Genji also tilted his head thoughtfully. Soldier:76 however, tensed his shoulders and went off, stepped through the entrance to the hall, and the two agents followed him with extreme caution. "You should still know them well," said the commander quietly and the three of them ventured further into the interior of the factory hall. Machines and discontinued models of an old Meka series filled the hall down to the last inch; it was more of a storage room than a factory. From the distance, a metal clang approached, but it was still several hundred meters before they reached the source of the sound.

"What do you mean?" McCree asked and he climbed over a pile of rusty metal bars. "This agent saved your ass back in Marseilles. Good agent, we need them." replied Sodlier:76 and immediately McCree growled angrily. He grabbed his superior's shoulder and stopped him from going any further into the darkness. "Are you insane?!" the cowboy hissed emphatically, and Genji didn't seem too thrilled that you of all people should find your way back to the Overwatch base after the recall. "Morrison, they only caused us trouble! Constantly disobeying orders - I thought you were such a fan of obedience?!". "I'm well aware of that!" 76 snarled at McCree, and with a jerk he evaded his firm grip. "But in case you haven't noticed, I am no longer Strike Commander Morrison. And right now we need agents with a decent moral compass!" "Moral compass," Jesse repeated disparagingly, and he reached for a cigar, too upset not to smoke. "Damn it, Jack! That person is trouble!" "You can wait for us at the pickup point," growled 76, and he looked at Genji, who didn't bother to act the way McCree did. The cyborg didn't like you back then, but that was before he met Zenyatta - he was an angry man back then, now he was almost curious to meet you and talk to you. Maybe you had defeated your demons and had become a different person, too? "Who knows, maybe they're even in contact with Talon by now," the cowboy tried again and he looked at Soldier:76 with a fiery look. "Jack, think this over carefully." "To the pickup point, agent." the commander replied coolly. McCree cursed softly, yet he obeyed the order and turned around, snapped the latch on his holster and stomped off, out of the hall and back into daylight.

The factory building ended in a small extension - it was a room full of pinboards and large screens, a metal table in the middle, loaded to the top with papers and files, maps and notebooks. In the midst of the chaos of information, you stood with your back to the door and listening to the footsteps of your visitors. "Jack, oh my - what a surprise, really." You sounded bored and did not even look up from your screen. "You're late. Thought you'd come to me much earlier." "Very funny.", he rumbled and let his gaze wander over the screens and pin boards on the walls. "What's all this?" "A project." you replied evasively and finally turned to him, greeting Genji with a nod. "So you're still looking for Talon agents." Soldier:76 asked further and he came a little closer, looking at the largest screen littered with lists and geographic data. "Pretty daring, all by yourself. You're really asking for them to find you." "I know why you're here." you changed the subject and put a stack of files on your crowded desk and sighed deeply. "And you can leave again. I have no more patience for Overwatch business." "If you continue to look for Talon so conspicuously, they will find you - and you know that." Soldier76 continued. "But if you come back to Overwat-" "No!", you hissed and gave him an angry look. "Jack, I want nothing more to do with you! I thought I made that clear in our last conversation!" For a moment he was silent, wanted to say something to you, but you didn't want to hear it. Your last meeting hadn't gone too well, it had been a mixture of broken hearts and the end of Overwatch. Back when he was Jack Morrison. Back when everything ended in a huge explosion in Switzerland. There was no need for you to relive those terrible memories. "Go away." you growled and turned away. "Now." "We didn't come all the way over here just to-", 76 started, but you cut him off with an impatient growl. Did he really think he could just walk in here and pack you in like a piece of luggage? He hadn't lost his arrogance! Even though he called himself Soldier:76 instead of Jack Morrison, he was still the demanding and proud man of his day. Genji watched your interaction in silence, but he decided to intervene before the situation escalated. "I think that we can help each other," he tried to appeal to your logic, but you just waved away impatiently. Since when was the cyborg such a peaceful contemporary? At your last encounter it almost degenerated into a fisticuffs and suddenly he tried to act as a middleman? "Get lost, both of you!" you repeated emphatically and opened one of the notebooks. A clear hint that this conversation was over and whether Soldier:76 wanted to or not - he had to disappear without you. He seemed to realize that at that moment, too, and he turned to Genji, nodded invitingly, and after a brief sideways glance at you, the two of them disappeared again into the shadows of the hall.

Who would have thought that a bullet wound hurts that much? Shot shattered the skin, dug deep into the flesh and even if you didn't know for sure - it felt like the splinters were stuck in your bones. The burning sun in Gibraltar didn't make it any better and the stony cliffs didn't provide any shade to protect you. With your last ounce of strength you had made your way to the old Overwatch base, but you couldn't drag yourself much further. Your tired eyes saw a blonde woman and you didn't have to look twice to recognize her. It was Angela Ziegler, the talented doctor Overwatchs. Even then she had been a true miracle worker, saving patients that other doctors would have given up on - Genji for example. How lucky that you met her of all people! "Hey, Angela-!", you tried to draw attention to yourself as you stomped out from behind one of the communication towers, one hand on the metal paneling of the tower and the other on your bleeding shoulder. Your escape through what felt like half of Spain hadn't gone too smoothly and in the end the dogged Reaper had caught you not far from the watchpoint and a load of his shotgun had grazed you. A powerful slap in the face and the loud crackling suggested that the warm blood on your lips was caused by a broken nose. That bastard really wanted to make it personal by kicking you in the face. Seemed as you had angered the Reaper, huh? Blue eyes turned to you in wonder and Mercy's face collapsed completely when she recognized your silhouette. She seemed to be enjoying the sun a little bit herself, for once she didn't bury herself in her research and the infirmary. When she saw you, however, she immediately ran, came towards you and carefully grabbed you by the shoulders. "Mein Gott, what are you doing here, I- Oh no, your shoulder, let me see..." "Jack," you brought out between the bloody lips. "Get me Jack. Now." "Dear, you really must come to my ward, I have to..." Mercy tried to talk to you, but you silenced her forcefully. "A-Angela, I have to talk to Jack," you groaned and sank to your knees, followed by the blond doctor who caught you. "It's Talon, he was right, I-" "Lena, go get Jack-I mean, go get Soldier:76!" Mercy instructed the shocked tracer who watched the carnage and looked somewhat startled. Up until a few seconds ago, the normally vivacious agent had been feeding a few seagulls on the cliff, but once she noticed Mercy rushing up to you, she was on the spot, watching you with big, worried eyes. On Mercy's orders she nodded and with a blue veil she disappeared into the base, looking for the Commander. "Let me see." Mercy pushed down the collar of your top and briefly examined the wound on your shoulder. "A deep wound, looks like a shotgun..." "Reaper," you responded, briefly. "These inferno shotguns are unpleasant at close range, hah." "You're lucky that it didn't hit you full on." she replied, slipping the blouse off her shoulders to press the cloth onto the wound to stop the bleeding at least a little. "Your nose looks broken, but I'll have to examine it more closely." "It's okay, really-" you tried to get rid of her, but you didn't stand a chance against the stubborn doctor. She squeezed the wound on your shoulder and grabbed your upper arm with her free hand to pull you up from the floor. A painful moaning escaped you as you stood on your own two legs and Mercy worriedly watched out for Tracer and Soldier:76 but there was still no sign of them. "Okay, you're going to need a pressure bandage...," Mercy murmured, more to herself than you, looking toward the base entrance. "There's a first-aid kit in the conference room, I'm going to get it. It'll only take a few minutes. You stay here and I mean right here, you got that?" You nodded silently and she took your hand and pressed it against her blouse on your shoulder. "Press it gently. It's best to sit down again and don't move. I'd like to take you to the infirmary, but it's better if the first-aid kit comes to you first." The blond doctor explained and her blue eyes looked at you worriedly. "Don't run away, okay?" "Very funny," you gasped and Mercy hurried away, hurrying into the base to at least get a pressure bandage on your injury. Your shoulder was burning and the dazzling pain seemed to spread further and further into your body - alone it was much harder to bear. Your eyes looked around searching for agents, but there was no one to see but you. Was Soldier:76 really so stupid and had the security so lax? On shaky legs you dared to take a step forward, but you regretted it instantly. Your knees were soft like rubber and your legs almost gave way, but you were able to hold yourself upright with the last of your strength. Tracer was fast like the wind, what took her so long? The rumbling of heavy military boots on metal made you sigh with relief and you saw a figure coming towards you - it was Soldier:76. Finally. "Jack-!" you tried to call out to him, but your voice was fragile and you produced nothing more than a hoarse groan. Fuck, your shoulder hurt so much! Bravely you took another step forward, but your broken ribs made every movement a torture and Mercy's blouse was soaked with your blood. Your knees softened under all the pain and adrenaline and you almost fell over in front, but at the very last moment you felt him grab your waist and catch you. Your body leaned against his chest and you leaned your forehead against the cool texture of his leather jacket, relieved to see him. "What happened?" 76 asked immediately and he helped you sit down, took the cloth from your shoulder and examined your wound, pulled his brows together in concern. "Talon." you choked out and tried to take deep breaths, but your muscles began to shake uncontrollably. How could it be so warm and so cold at the same time in Gibraltar? Your skin shivered under painful goose bumps and your shaky hands clung helplessly to his leather jacket. "Jack, I- It hurts." you moaned and tried to wipe the blood from your face with the back of your hand, but your bleeding nose was burning like hell and quickly you let it go. "I know." he replied, and his hand stroked your hair, running down your cheek and up to your chin to lift it. "You took quite a beating there." He sat down on the floor beside you, grabbed your upper body with great care and pulled you towards him so that you could lean against his chest. Every breath was worse than the previous one and your broken ribs felt like your chest was being crushed with force. "I hate it when you're right.", you muttered and buried your face in the crook of his neck, smelling the blood and the leather of his jacket. An amused snort briefly shook your position, and if he could laugh at your remark, you were probably not in mortal danger - even if it felt that way. "Sucks, now I have to work for Overwatch again." "It wasn't that bad back then," he replied and you felt him gently pushing a strand of hair out of your face. "You were the one who robbed me of the last nerve." "Hah, true." you sighed and looked up at him. Since when was it so hard to keep your eyes open? "Jack, he wasn't looking for me. He wanted you." "That was to be feared after all that happened." he replied in a harsh voice. For a brief moment, he looked old and exhausted, as if the chase between him and Gabriel Reyes would exhaust his last strength - but as quickly as that moment had come, it disappeared again. "I was hoping that nobody except me would get hurt though." "Your security system sucks, by the way." "Mmh, we'll really have to increase them if someone like you can just walk in here." he agreed with you and behind you the sound of heels on the floor was heard. Mercy hurriedly ran towards you, a first-aid kit under your arm and a little pale in the face. Of course, she was a rock in the surf, collected and calm as usual, but seeing you again after all these years had been a surprise for the blonde doctor. She fell on her knees next to you and immediately started to work on your wound, applying a handful of compresses to stop the bleeding. "Take them to the ward," she told Soldier:76 and he nodded, stood up and with the greatest of care put one hand under your back and the other under the back of your knees. You were picked up from the ground by the commander as if you were as light as a rag doll and Mercy continued to scurry around you, checking your pulse and asking you for more injuries. Except for your shoulder, broken ribs and a probably broken nose, you didn't seem to be injured any further. "Jack..." At your faint murmur, he pressed you a little closer to his chest, but said nothing. Even if you didn't want to rejoin Overwatch, having Morrison at your side was reassuring.

#overwatch #soldier76 #Jack Morrison #soldier76 x reader #jack morrison x reader #reader insert #overwatch imagines

[screechthemighty]

I can’t think of a title for this, and therefore feel weird posting it to AO3, but I also didn’t write over 1k words of Caustic getting dunked on not to share it, so...here’s a thing I wrote. Maybe I’ll post it to AO3 later if I can think of something for a title. Also, this is the closest to writing something canon-compliant you will ever see me write.

CW: Racism/xenophobia, character hate (Caustic), google translate/Papago Korean and Hindi (open to corrections, alleged translations at the bottom). 

----------

Getting paired with Crypto and Caustic was the worst thing to happen to Elliott all week.

It was bad enough that he wasn’t overly fond of either of them (Caustic less so than Crypto, guy gave him the creeps), but they’d been glaring daggers at each other since the whole Crypto is the traitor! No, Caustic is the traitor! thing that had gone down back on Talon. It threw off the vibe. Elliott found himself nervous-rambling more and more as the match went on, which just got him some daggers of his own, which just made him nervous-ramble more, and at this rate it was going to be a miracle if they actually won.

I can’t work under these conditions, he thought as he crouched behind cover, eyes desperately scanning the new environment. Caustic had already put up traps around the room and Crypto was flying his drone around, trying to figure out how screwed they were. They knew it was going to be a bloodbath—there were way too many teams left and it was a late-game ring, that always ended badly—but if they could just avoid the worst of it…

“Have you found anything yet?” Caustic said, in a tone that could only be described as sneering.

“ 나는 여전히 일하고 있다.,” Crypto responded absentmindedly. Elliott didn’t know what that meant, but if he had to guess based on context, it was probably something like, Hold your horses, I’m trying. This part of the map must’ve been absolute shit for drone flying. Too many buildings. “ 왜 현수막을 못 찾겠어 …”

Caustic scoffed. “Fine. Hide behind your language then, coward.”

Elliott froze. Oh, boy. If the vibes had been bad before, they were worse now. Crypto’s gaze snapped up to meet Caustic’s with a glare that was the reason the phrase if looks could kill existed. “I’m still working,” he said slowly, like he was talking to a toddler. “I can’t find a banner. But I haven’t found any evidence of squads nearby.”

“That’s good, right? That’s great news!” Words flew out of Elliott’s mouth before he could stop them. “Not dead yet, right, buddies? Eh?” Crypto had turned his attention back to his drone, leaving Caustic to glare at Elliott. “No? Okay. Shutting up now…”

Once Crypto finally found a banner and confirmed they were in the one tiny portion of the remaining map that didn’t have any squads nearby, and pinged the next ring location, they pushed ahead to set up a possible ambush. Everything was in place, gas traps and drones hidden in little nooks to catch anyone fleeing the ring, and Elliott had even found a triple take, which was pretty great. He was just starting to get into the groove of an ambush when…

“I want to make something clear.”

Uh-oh.

Elliott turned around, bracing himself for an argument. That sounded like an Elliott did something stupid voice from Crypto, and he wasn’t even sure he had done anything yet. Elliott was relieved—then terrified—to see that tone was actually meant for Caustic.

“I’m not hiding behind anything.” Crypto didn’t even sound angry; he just sounded cold. “You might still be hung up on Talon, but I have other things to worry about. I have absolutely nothing to say to you and I’m not going to deny myself my own language to soothe your pointless paranoia. 걱정이 되면 한국어를 배울 수 있다*.” And then, because this situation couldn’t possibly get more intense, Crypto stepped right into Caustic’s personal space. “And if I wanted to call you a small-minded xenophobic viper, you would know my meaning very plainly, Doctor Nox.”

Having four older brothers meant Elliott was pretty good at smelling when a fight was about to break out. And this was definitely, dangerously close to coming to blows. “Hey, uhhh, friendly reminder, all three of us get in trouble if you two start friendly firing,” Elliott said, physically inserting himself between the two of them. That involved getting way closer to either man than he really wanted to, but it was better than the alternative. “So maybe, crazy thought, Caustic can apologize, and we pretend it didn’t happen for another five minutes?”

“I have nothing to apologize for,” Caustic said.

“I don’t want his apology,” Crypto interjected.

“Whatever! I don’t really care! Just don’t kill each other! Okay? Anyone wanna help me actually do this ambush or what?”

They backed down after that. Elliott doubted anything he’d actually said changed their minds. They were probably just sick of the forced physical proximity, but he’d take it as a win. Okay, only a partial win. He was still stuck on a team with the two of them and way too many other people in an increasingly small ring.

“Hey, Crypto, how do you say I’m gonna die in Korean?”

“You’re not going to die,” Crypto sighed. Then, “But it’s 난 죽을 것이다.”

“…y’know what, I’ll work on that pronunciation later.” Or he’d forget the second he was out of the ring. That was more likely.

Shockingly, Crypto was right. He didn’t die, because they somehow won. Crypto and Caustic must’ve turned that latent aggression they were feeling for each other against the last of the competitors. That was fine by Elliott. As long as they weren’t killing each other while he was on the team.

Of course, when it was over, he immediately dished to Ramya about what went down.

“That rubber-coated tosser said what?!”

“Yeah, it’s weird, right? If Crypto had something to say, he’d just say it. Trust me, I know he hates me.” Elliott didn’t think Crypto had ever talked shit in Korean—though it’d probably be pretty obvious from context if he did. Wouldn’t be the first time Elliott had been called a dumbass in a non-English language. “And if I’m understanding what Gibraltar said, Caustic threw him under the bus, so what’s the deal? If you start shit, you don’t get to be pissy if you get shit back. That’s like…the rules.” A brief moment of self-reflection said that was probably hypocritical of him to say, but at least Elliott had some awareness of how shit worked. Again. Four older brothers. He knew the score.

Ramya snorted dismissively. “You really think a guy like Caustic thinks the rules apply to him? Or that it’s just about whatever happened on Talon? Speaking of...” Caustic was lurking nearby, stalking down the hallway as if this were still the arena and he was looking for his next victim. “Hey, Witt, watch this. Doc!” Ramya waited until Caustic was looking at her, then did that thing Brits did that looked like a peace sign but was actually basically the middle finger. “ अपने आप के लिए, गधे हो अपनी राय रखें।.**”

Caustic froze, eyes narrowing as he ran over whatever it was Ramya said. Elliott was genuinely nervous he was going to do something about it, but Caustic kept on walking, scoffing noisily as he went. “गधे!***” Ramya called after him.

“Uh, are you sure that’s a guy who want to be antagonizing?” Elliott asked nervously.

“What’s he going to do about it? Try to hurt my feelings? Call me ignorant? Hah!” She went back to her project. “Joke’s on him, I speak three languages and know how to make a gun from scratch. What does he do? Make fart bombs?”

“Wait, three?!”

“…eh, two and a half. I haven’t spoken Punjabi in a while. I’ve probably forgotten some bits. Point being, he can’t say shite about me.” She grinned mischievously. “And he’s going to have to get used to not knowing what I’m saying about him.”

Oh, no. “I shouldn’t have told you about this,” Elliott groaned. “He’s going to think I’m an accessory. I don’t want any part in this.”

“Too late.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

He really didn’t. That was the worst part.

Oh, well, at least Crypto would probably find it funny. Elliott might not have been friendly with him or anything, but he had to admit: after Talon, the guy could probably use something to cheer him up.

.

.

What any not-diagetically-translated lines are supposed to mean even though they probably are wrong because Google Translate (hopefully the copy-paste of the Korean and Hindi are like...readable).

*“If you’re worried, you can learn Korean.”

**“Keep your opinion to yourself, asshole.”

***“Jackass!“

Also, technically Crypto said “Why can’t I find the banner” not “I can’t find a banner” but I don’t think he’d give an exact translation of him talking to himself anyways, just the gist of what he meant.

#apex legends #my writing #my fanfic #disclaimer: author is white and not a minority language speaker #so as always take my take with a grain of salt #but as a covert crypto stan I wanted to give him a chance at a rebuttal #since the writers aren't backing down from the line #also Rampart is an agent of chaos and I don't write her enough #character hate #caustic hate

[moroccanroots]

The little-known great history of the creation of Morocco & Medieval Morocco

Known as the Cherifian Empire, the Kingdom of Morocco is a 13 century old state. On 5 February 789,Idriss Ibn `abd Allah al-Kamil, an Arab prince driven out of Baghdad, founded the state, and thus became the first ruler in the history of Morocco, commander of the believers, recognized by the Berbers of Volubilis of the Awerba tribe.

Mausoleum of Moulay Idriss I, located at Moulay Driss Zerhoun in the prefecture of Meknes 

In order to understand Morocco as it is today, it is important to understand the transition between the eight dynasties that succeeded one another and their roles in the evolution of the country. The last dynasty is the Alaouite dynasty reigning from 1664 to today, at the head of Mohammed VI, twenty-third monarch. 

۞ 𝟳𝟴𝟴 - 𝟭𝟬𝟱𝟱 : 𝗜𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗱

In 788, birth of the first Muslim dynasty, of Middle Eastern origin. 791, the Moroccan State was created. Idriss 1st, descendant of Fatima and Caliph Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed. السلام, fled Arabia to escape the massacre of his family and settled in Volubilis, later founding the city of Fez, which, after his death in 792 - assassinated by an agent of the Abbasid Caliph - became the capital of the Kingdom under his son, Idriss II, who succeeded him at the age of 12. 

Idriss II, created a mixed government that has survived until today called "al Makhzen" (translated "the power"), a mixed makhzen that brought together Berbers and Arabs, the makhzen was consolidated by all the dynasties that succeeded one another on the throne of Morocco, whether they chose Fez, Marrakech or Meknes as capital. Idris II, in spite of his young age, ruled his country with an iron hand to the point of rallying all the tribes and populations to his cause. The latter will take care of the construction of the city of Fez in 803, and died in 828. The administration of the Kingdom will be entrusted to his sons, then to his brothers, while the city of Fez will prosper economically while being a religious and artistic influence. In 857 and 859 the city will prevail itself of prodigious achievements, in particular the mosques Quaraouiyine and Andalusian. At the beginning of the 11th century, the aura of the reign of the Idrissides will reach Cordoba before the divisions in Moslem Spain and the conflicts with the Ommeyades, Fatimids and Arab invaders coming from Egypt cause their disappearances in 1055.

Of white and emerald color, the Al Quaraouiyine University began to be built in 859, during the reign of Idriss I. It is probably the oldest university in the world

۞ 𝟭𝟬𝟱𝟱 - 𝟭𝟭𝟰𝟰 : 𝗔𝗹𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗱

Map of Morocco during the Almoravid era

The Almoravids (in Arabic المرابطون (al-Murābitūn) "The warrior monks", in Berber (Imṛabḍen), "the people of the ribat") are a dynasty of Sanhadjian Berber origin, from the Adrar region, who were nomadic between present-day Mauritania and Tafilalet in Morocco. This dynasty was created under the impulse of a Sunni preacher of the Souss, Abdullah Ibn Yassin, of the tribe of Jazoulah, he set himself the goal of "purifying" Islam in the Empire, because Shiism and paganism was growing. They decided to build a religious fortress (which is said in Arabic "Ar-Ribat") on an island off the coast of Mauritania, for this reason they will be called the Al-Mourabitounes, latinized in "Almoravides".from the 11th century to the 12th century, they constituted an empire encompassing the western Sahara, the western part of the Maghreb and part of the Iberian Peninsula. The Almoravids subdued all the reticent populations, pushed back the Fatimids towards the East, put an end to all the ephemeral states (Nekor, Sijilmassa, Berghouata) and unified Morocco once and for all. Youssef Ibn Tachfine, the first sultan of the dynasty, founded the city of Marrakech - the name derived from the tmazigh 'Amur'n'akuch' meaning "Divine Land" - which became the capital of the Kingdom around 1070. This same name among the Castilians, Navarrese will be transformed into "Maroccos" which will give "Morocco" in French, the current name of the country. Ibn Tachfine will then deal with the political unification of Morocco and Muslim Spain. Through him, the Andalusian civilization will spread to the Maghreb before conquering Spain until the Ebro. Ibn Tachfine thus succeeded in attaching part of Spain, Portugal and Senegal to his empire. Ali Ben Youssef, his son, succeeded him in 1106 to reign there for 37 years, and the Almoravids destroyed the sub-Saharan kingdom of Ghana, on the banks of the Niger, in 1058, before moving northwards. He finally crosses the Strait of Gibraltar to rescue the Umayyad emirs, who are facing the offensive of the Christian king of Castile Alfonso VI (assisted by a famous knight, the Cid). From the 1080s, the conquests began towards the east of Algiers. In summary, the Almoravid dynasty conquered a huge territory from the Sahara and Marrakech controls all the trade routes from North to South (the trans-Saharan caravans) and from West to East (the trade caravans or pilgrimages) leaving for Egypt and Mecca. In addition, the Royal Guard was established by Youssef Ibn Tachfine in 1088, still exists today and is recognized as the oldest military corps still active. From this Almoravid dynasty, the "bey3ra", a ritual whereby any defeated tribe or tribe that rallied to the empire swore allegiance to the Sultan, King and therefore recognized itself as Moroccan, also survived.

The qoubba al-Baadiyyn or al-Barudiyyin or Almoravid is a religious building in Marrakesh erected in 1117 by Ali ben Youssef. It constitutes the last vestige of the Almoravid dynasty. The qoubba was the ablution center for believers going to the mosque.

۞ 𝟭𝟭𝟰𝟱-𝟭𝟮𝟰𝟴 : 𝗔𝗹𝗺𝗼𝗵𝗮𝗱

Map of Morocco, during the Almohad era

The Almohads are a Berber dynasty from a religious movement driven by the religious preacher Mohammed Ibn Toumert located in the High Atlas 100 km south of Marrakech, who claims to be the Mahdi (the guided) supposed to return at the end of time and preaches the return to a faith in the oneness of God. The Berber confederation of Masmoudas, originally from the High Atlas began its work of unification of religious precepts. It will be the first time and the last time that the Maghreb will be unified under the same authority. After his death, his disciples, the Almohads (Al Mouhawwiddun, "who proclaim the divine unity") went to war against the Almoravids. The Almohads officially took Marrakesh in 1147, they kept it as their capital and conquered the Maghreb as far as Tripoli. The Almoravid and Almohad dominations extended over both continents, which earned Morocco the name 'Empire on both sides'. When the Almohads took Andalusia, a cultural fusion was created: the creation of Hispano-Moorish art. Mixture of forms and materials from Morocco and Spain. This is the case of two well-known monuments, the Koutoubia in Marrakech and the Giralda in Seville, both built in the second half of the 12th century.

Tinmel Mosque, located in the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco, a legacy protected by UNESCO this mosque was built in homage to Mohammed Ibn Toumert, founder of the Almohad dynasty, intellectual and scientific revolutionary.

۞ 𝟭𝟮𝟰𝟰-𝟭𝟰𝟲𝟱 : 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗱

The Medersa Attarine, one of the jewels of Merinid art located in Fez, it was built between 1323 and 1325 by Sultan Abu Said Othman. It was named after the adjoining souk of perfumes and spices: the souk el-Attarine. It is located near the Quaraouiyine.

The Marinids are from a Berber tribe zenet originating from the east of Morocco, Tafilalet-Oriental. It conquered Fez, made it its capital and imposed itself as the successor of the Almohads, from whom they took Marrakech in 1269. It will be the last Moroccan dynasty to intervene episodically in Andalusia where they won some notable victories between 1275 and 1340, but their defeat in Tarifa against a Castilian-Portuguese coalition marks the end of their interventions in the Iberian Peninsula. The administration of the kingdom was entrusted to his sons, then to his brothers, while the city of Fez prospered economically while being a religious and artistic influence. In 857 and 859 the city will boast of prodigious achievements, including the Quaraouiyine and Andalusian mosques. At the beginning of the 11th century, the aura of the reign of the Idrissides will reach Cordoba before the divisions in Moslem Spain and the conflicts with the Ommeyades, Fatimids and Arab invaders coming from Egypt cause their disappearances in 1055. Abou El-Hassan, supreme chief of the Merinid dynasty, will then try to reconstitute the Empire around 1331 from where the conquest of Tlemcen in current Algeria and from Tunis to current Tunisia in 1347, but without managing to keep Algeciras, in Spain in 1340. In 1348, the Black Death and the rebellions of Tlemcen and Tunis will mark the decadence of the Merinids who will not succeed in driving back the Portuguese and the Spanish, allowing them, also through their successors the Wattassides, to settle on the coast. The resistance will be organized around the brotherhoods and marabouts from where the Saadian dynasty will emerge. The Merinids had a great impact on the Cherifian Empire: great intellectual development through the construction of many universities; artistic - development of Hispano-Moorish art at its peak, an open-mindedness regarding religious rites (birth of Sufism) and an architectural amplification: construction of many palaces, mosques, new towns, sanctuaries, citadels ...). Fez finds once again, its radiance, being a capital highly prized by the sultans of the dynasty and will become one of the main cities of Islam and the development of knowledge. At the same time, Moroccan historiography was born: the first book that tells the history of Morocco is: 'Rawḍ al-qirṭās fī ākhbār mulūk al-maghrab wa tārīkh madīnah Fās' translated 'History of the Sovereigns of Morocco and the city of Fez', published in 1326 by Ali Ibn Abi Zar, written in the royal palace of Fez under the request of Sultan Abu Said Othman II. This work thus still marks a claim of Morocco as a full-fledged country, sovereign, conqueror and nation-state. The book, retraces the history of all the dynasties: from Idriss I, to the Almoravids, Almohads then Merinids. The book has been translated into several languages under several titles, in France it is known as 'History of the Sovereigns of the Maghreb - Morocco & Spain', it is available on digital libraries (Gallica). In 1465, Sultan Abd Al Haqq II in power since 1420 is executed, slaughtered by the population of Fez, he will be the last sultan of the Merinid dynasty. The population of Fez will put thereafter an Idrisside to the power, but this one did not last a long time on the throne, in 1472 it will be overthrown by the cousins of the Marinids, the Banu Wattas (Wattasid) which governs Morocco.

Map of Morocco during the Marinid era

۞ 𝟭𝟰𝟳𝟮-𝟭𝟱𝟱𝟰: 𝗪𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗱

Morocco under the reign of the Wattasids

It is in a context of decline that the Wattasids, a small dynasty of zenet origin, ruled in Morocco: the country is going through several political, social, cultural and financial crises. In Andalusia, the Christians gained ground until January 2, 1492... "the disaster" (as it is called by Arab historians), Mohammed XII of Granada, called Boabdil by the Castilians, becomes the last ruler of Andalusia. He was defeated and asked to give the keys of the Alhambra Palace to Queen Isabella of Castile and Fernando II of Aragon, their union and victory over the Muslims sealed and founded the kingdom of Spain, and on March 31 of the same year, the Jews were expelled from Spain. Morocco being the closest country, had to take in hundreds of thousands of Jewish and Muslim refugees. A few years later, the Spaniards threatened the North African coasts and their thirst for conquest. A new power came to put its grain of salt in the conflicts in the Mediterranean Ocean, the Ottoman Empire. In 1515, they came to protect the Muslim populations of the kingdoms of Tlemcen, Bougie and Tunis. From 1520, relations between Moroccan and Turkish pirates were created to counter the Europeans and to take revenge for the humiliation suffered in Andalusia.

1530 to 1555, the neighboring territory in Morocco officially became a Turkish colony, the regency of Algiers. The people of the regency of Algiers were named by the Turks "Slave of Selim I" and the Wattasids were close to the Turks, who supported them against the Saadians. 1509, a new family takes importance in the Souss (south-central Morocco), a new dynasty which takes for capital Marrakesh, the Saadians, of Arab Chorfa origin (descendants of the prophet) who totally drive out the Wattasids in 1554 not having kept their promises to contain the advance of the Spanish and Portuguese.

۞ 𝟭𝟱𝟱𝟰-𝟭𝟲𝟱𝟵 : 𝗦𝗮𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗻

The Saadian Tombs are a historic royal necropolis in Marrakech, Morocco. They date from the time of the Saadian Dynasty, and in particular from the reign of Ahmad al-Mansur. They are located immediately south of the Kasbah Mosque, inside the royal kasbah district of the city.

In 1554, near Fez, a battle took place between Saadians and Wattasides supported by the Ottoman army. In fact, the Wattasides had decided to make a deal with the Turks: supreme recognition of the authority of the Ottoman Caliph in exchange for military aid. The overwhelming victory of the Saadians consolidated their power over the whole of Morocco with the capture of Fez in 1554. The Saadian dynasty is a cultural renaissance, Marrakech becomes again the capital of the Empire, a city that was in decline since the Merinids, Wattasides had chosen Fez as capital. Their popularity begins when in 1578, a fallen Saadian prince of Morocco goes into exile in Portugal where he asks the help of Sebastian I (Kings of Portugal), Portugal a country that held possessions on the Atlantic in Morocco. The battle of Oued El Makhazin or "Battle of the 3 Kings", opposing Morocco and Portugal put an end to the lives of the two kings: Mohammed Al Muttawakil, King of Morocco and Sebastian I, King of Portugal died. The third king - hence the name of the battle - was Ahmed Al Mansour (the victor) because it was he who led Morocco to victory after the death of his brother and took his place as King. After this catastrophic event for Portugal, the country was annexed by the Spain of Philip II for almost 80 years, and in 1591, Morocco under the same sultan, Ahmed Al Mansour decided to conquer and fully control the caravan routes and gold mines in Mali, putting an end to the Songhaï empire, and the ransoms of the prisoners made during the Alazarquivir battle earned him the nickname of 'The Golden One'. The Saadian dynasty will then extend to Tambouctou and Gao.

Map of Morocco during the Saadian era

۞ 𝟭𝟲𝟲𝟲-𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁 : 𝗔𝗹𝗮𝗹𝗮𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗲𝘀

Map of the Alawit dynasty circa 1700

The Alawites originally came from the Hedjaz region in the Arabian Peninsula, they settled in Tafilalet called by the Berber pilgrims of the region during the Merinides period. They are also called 'Alawids' to avoid confusion with the Alawits of Syria who are a Shia ethnic and religious group. This tribe will remain discreet for four centuries. Then in 1620-1635, Moulay Cherif, head of the Alawit family, irritated by the Christian influence in Morocco as well as by the instability and anarchy that reigned in the country divided into several administrations and threatened by foreign powers, decided to found his dynasty, encouraged by the inhabitants of Tafilalet who felt threatened by the members of the Zaouïa of Dila and their chief Abu Al Hasan Al Samlali. Moulay Cherif succeeded in challenging by force of arms the remnants of Saadian power. He and his sons will contribute to the unification of Morocco and the reconstruction of a central power shared between Fez and Marrakech.

The beginning was difficult in the Alawite family between the brothers Moulay Rachid and Sidi Mohamed, The latter will be known to have set up the treaty of 1647 with the Pasha of Algiers after having seized Oujda and raided Tlemcen. However, his heavy defeat against Mohamed El Haj of the Zaouïa of Dila - who had proclaimed himself Sultan of Fez - will push his brother to rebel against him, and he will end up killed by his brother's armed forces during the battle in the middle of Angad. Moulay Rachid proclaimed himself Sultan and became the first Sultan of the Alaouite dynasty. Proceeding by violence and murder to the spoliation of the Jews, he amassed a treasure that enabled him to form an army of mercenaries with which he was able to conquer the main Moroccan cities (Taza, Fez, Ksar el-Kebir, Meknes, Tetouan), annex the Rif region (1666) and, after seizing Marrakesh (1669) and the Souss, finally extend his domination over the whole country (1670). Moulay Rachid became particularly popular in Europe thanks to his diplomatic relations with France, many military purchases and negotiations on the fate of the Christian captives of Salé. Moulay Rachid was also congratulated by the King of France, Louis XIV for his conquests. However, the tensions between Morocco and the United Kingdom became increasingly important because of the support of the latter towards the Rai Khadir Ghailan, a competitor of Moulay Rachid and the occupation of the English on Tangier, a city that Moulay Rachid will try to recover. Moulay Rachid is described as an intelligent ruler, at the head of several military and strategic constructions to facilitate trade and communication between the regions of Morocco as well as the construction of incredible religious buildings. Only 2 years after recovering Marrakech, Moulay Rachid died following an accident while riding a horse.

Oued Sebou Bridge, located in Fez, built by Moulay Rachid Ben Cherif, it is a strategic construction linking the city of Fez to the north of Morocco, Rif.

Not having any descendants, it is Ismail Ben Cherif, his brother who will proclaim himself sultan in Fez and will become one of the most emblematic personalities in the history of the Alawites, indeed his reign corresponds to a period of apogee of the Moroccan power such as it will be often compared to the Sun King, Louis XIV. He will have ruled in Morocco for 55 years, it is also the man who will have reigned the longest in Morocco and this in any dynasty confused. He strengthened the central power, the makhzen, reorganized Morocco and ensured its pacification. He founded the city of Meknes and set up his capital, which will take the nickname 'Versailles of Morocco'.

One of the famous constructions of Moulay Ismail known to be a king builder, the royal palace Dar El Makhzen located in Meknes and the basin of Adgal in the same city

In 1684, Moulay Ismail succeeded in recuperating by force Tangier which was under occupation by England for about twenty years, at his side 8000 men, a single battle causing 350 deaths, the very weakened English demand a truce. 1681, the King of England, Charles III signed a peace treaty with Moulay Ismail in which will be guaranteed weapons and return of Moroccan prisoners in exchange for food and safe life for the English who will eventually leave Morocco by themselves with their governor Admiral Lord Dartmouth. Nicknamed "bloodthirsty king" by the Europeans, Moulay Ismail will have fought victoriously against the Ottomans of Algiers and their vassals, chased the Europeans out of the ports they occupied, liberated Larache, Assilah, El-Mamoura and Tangier. Moulay Ismail is also known in popular culture, the Sultan is officially recognized as the greatest progenitor of History by the Guinness Book of Records that he had with his four wives and 500 concubines, which represents about 1171 children. After the death of Sultan Moulay Ismail, seven of his sons are fighting for the throne which will cause instability in Morocco and lead to its division. The second half of the century (the 18th) was rather calm thanks to Mohammed III (grandson of Moulay Ismail) who consolidated a rather long power 1757-1790 and who maintained friendly diplomatic relations with the Westerners (who during the two preceding centuries were demonized by the fall of Granada and the occupation that the Portuguese made of certain coastal cities of Morocco). In particular, Morocco became the first country in the world to recognize American independence in 1778 when the ports were opened to trade. Moroccans, both tribal and national society, have always held to the nation, even in so many crises, the tribes did not forget to send their chiefs to support the Sultan and promise him loyalty, as seen in this engraving of Hassan I.

Explorated sources:

Source 1 - Source 2 - Source 3 - Source 4 - Source 5

#Morroco #Moroccan History #Histoire du Maroc #Moorish #Moors #Berbers #Arab #Middle-East #Umayyad #Caliphate #Monarchy #Moroccan Architecture #Andalusia #Islam #Muslims #Islam History #History Facts #Africa #Europe #Europe History #History #Painting #Architecture #France #Culture #Ottoman Empire #Sultan #Mongol Empire #Sunni #Sunnimuslim

[chrome-wind]

The Emotions Of A Simulacrum

Okay what imma do is post the link to my a03 page for those who like to read on their website. But i know not everyone likes tapping a like which is fair! XD imma post it below as well if i figure out how to do the right thing. 

Let me know hwo you find it thou! 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24144814

Pathfinder, Gibraltar and Revenant where approaching Kings Canyon for this game, Revenant didnt like being grouped with Gibraltar.. well anyone other than Pathfinder and Wraith really. Wraith was an exception because Revenant admires her skill for someone as distant as she was. He’d never admit that to her and still looked at her for the skinsuit she is but since Pathfinder spends so much time around her, Wraith has just “grown” on him to say the least. Gibraltar fares too much and always put his team before himself and Revenant hated it. Pathfinder pointed at Runoff jiggling excitedly. “I think we should land there!” “You might be of use to me yet..” Revenant shouted over the wind. “You got it brother!” Gibraltar shouted back jumping out of the drop ship performing a backflip as he went. Pathfinder took Revenants hand slightly as placed his optic on Revenants cheek “Good luck friend!” He said softly “I don’t need luck..” he scoffed as he gripped Paths hand tighter, he could feel the cold air blowing between his joints and the warmth of Paths hand between his which filled his head with warmth. But a feeling in the back of his mind was distracting him, something felt off like being able to tell when it’s about to rain. There was a tang to the air of sorts and Revenant could tell something was wrong. Pathfinder jumped out the ship, followed by Revenant as they headed following Gibraltar. After a short while the team had found what they needed, taking out a couple of squads that had either followed or happened to walk upon them. Pathfinder becoming the new kill leader with 4 kills, “You’re the new kill leader brother!” Gibraltar said down the comms, Revenant didn’t say anything but Pathfinder didn’t think anything of it. Revenant wasn’t even paying attention he was still put off by something. “Sniper ammo here” Revenant shouted down the coms to Pathfinder who was eagerly searching for anything he could find useful. “I could use that” Path turned and started heading back to Revenant. He had moved quite far from his team not realising that Revenant and Gibby where just outside of skull town scoping out the area. Path ran through some smaller building just below the hill to skull town finding a purple body shield noticing that his friend only had blue even though Revenant had already found one but insisted he didn’t need one. Gibby already having a purple evo shield didn’t need it. “There’s a Body shield here level 3!” He said but not hearing a response from his friend. “Revenant? I have a better body shield for you here! I will search for the next ring so, I’m sure it’s not far.” Path looked at his minimap to see how many squads where left but couldn’t make anything out, the map looks wrong. It was glitching and cutting out. Pathfinder was confused but Crypto must have emp’d somewhere close by. Nevertheless Pathfinder made his way to the nearest recon beacon and started the interface. After a couple of second... nothing the map didn’t show his new location for the ring and now the map was barely on the screen. He made out the faint locations of his teammates who where approaching skull town. Path set up a zip line towards the top of the hill, while approaching the hill some static cam through the comms. “Path!” Revenant shouted through the static. “Revenant? I can’t hear you correctly my audio sensors are acting up.... Revenant?” The comms went to static again. Pathfinder was confused he had never had this problem before, he always made sure he was in top performing quality before entering a game. Before he could continue his trail of thought he heard gunfire that was close by he sprinted up the hill finding his team just out side of the houses to skull town under fire. Pathfinder slid to a halt pulling out the longbow providing cover from above. Revenant shot round to begin firing back only to realise it was Pathfinder, loosened his stance and let out a shallow breath. Pathfinder took his eyes away from the enemy to spot Revenant and waved, smiling with his emojis. “Where the hell have you been MRVN?” He shouted down comms but no response came from Path. Gibraltar looked up a Revenant “We need to fall back! Path will keep us covered.” He shouted, Revenant grunted in acknowledgment and turned back to throw his silencer in so they couldn’t follow easily and providing a slight amount of cover for a couple of seconds. Revenant could still feel chills going down his spine sensing something was wrong. Pathfinder made a decent cover for his two friends as they ran towards him, Pathfinder was pleased to see that they were okay. Suddenly a shot came from behind Pathfinder knocking him off balance from his perch. “PATH!” Revenant shouted in anguish watching as Pathfinder fell from the cliff side and onto the floor, rolling down a slope to the bottom. He bolted to a nearby building and placed his totem and rushed in to help.. Mirage appeared from the dust trail Pathfinder had left as he crawled desperately to his team. “It’s game over Tin can!” Mirage said cockly raising his flatline tip finish off his kill. “Bringing down some destruction” Gibby shouted throwing his dome out above Pathfinder watching as Mirage was taken out by the bombardment. Revenants shadow appeared and watched as Pathfinder was sprawled out across the floor looking somewhat relieved to see the dome shield with the explosions above it. Revenant turned to the hill to see Bloodhound in the distance. Taking aim the shadow made a perfect shot eliminating the squad with a headshot and immediately tending to Pathfinder. “You idiot! Why where you behind cover!” His shadow screeched as he brought out a syringe inserting it into Paths fibre mesh behind in his neck. Gibraltar ran to his dome “The shield about to break! We need to go!” Gabbing Pathfinders shoulder bars and pulling him to his feet the shadow dragged his friend to the nearby buildings providing him with meds and shields. Then ran back to “help” Gibraltar. Revenants spine was still tingling. Was that not what he fear, he thought to himself. If anything worse could happen he wanted to make sure he’d put Path first this time. Gibby burst through a door that was providing cover for a bleeding out enemy as the shot forward from the body of the grenade, sporadically moving backwards away from Gibraltar how proceeded to finish the Wraith. The shadow stopped dead in his tracks the floor began to rumble and shake. His balance began to fail as the floor shook violently and a crack shot past his feet, the shadow watched as a building collapsed into the floor, It turned and ran towards Pathfinder “Get our brothers! The floor... it’s falling!” Gibraltar shouted down his comms as the static finally broke. The shadow ignored Gibraltar and sprinted to where Pathfinder was. As it reached the door a grenade came out of nowhere sending Revenant back to his totem. “AAAAGGHHHH!” He screamed in anger as he smashed his fist into the wall pushing himself out the door and began to climb his building. The ground shook and began to engulf his building. Revenant scrambled to climb the skeleton as the floor beneath him gave way losing his grip falling to a ledge hitting the side of his head on the hard rocks awaiting his fall. Determined he staggered to his feet still seeing the building that he left Pathfinder in “Pathfinder!” He exhaustedly shouted down the comms to receive nothing but static again when a slight voice can through. “Revenant.... “ “I’M COMING!” He shouted as he climbed the falling rocks approaching the top he felt another quake pulling him self to the top of the skeleton losing his sense of direction and his breath from climbing so quickly. Finally making eye contact with the building Pathfinder was in watched as cracks appeared closing in on the boarders of skull town. Not again, I’m not losing him again in a match! He thought to himself. Revenant sprinted down the sides of the bones throwing his body into the side of a bone and watching as the building collapsed into the cracks. “PATH!” Revenant shouted stretching his arm out, hyperventilating as the sound of sirens began to sound. Revenant stayed in the position as a drop ship appears above where the building was lowering a claw picking up rubble with pathfinder on top. Revenants body heated with fire as he watched Pathfinders body being retrieved from the ground. The other legends that had survived to fall began to circle around the cliffs of rubble all staring at the same thing. Revenant calmed his breathing and shot up and stared at the figure before him... “Come to kill me... little girl” he said, aggression in his tone. “Some day...” Loba retorted. “But for now” she raised her pistol at him. A drop ship appeared from the sky and teleported them all aboard. Wraith watched as the skull sank into the ocean below and gripped Wattsons hand tighter, Revenant quickly pushes passed the medics and ran into Paths room. Seeing him lying there, bruised and battered from the rocks that had crushed him. Revenant slowly took Pathfinders hand which was bent and contorted gripping it slightly. Feeling the dents in Pathfinders hand and gently squeezed his friends hand tighter. “He is going to be alright” a medic said going to place a hand on Revenants shoulder then seeing Revenant glancing at her as she lowered her hand. Revenant didn’t move from his position and probably never even noticed the action being to enveloped in Pathfinder state. “Re..ve..nan..t” Pathfinders voice vocaliser cracked into existence. Revenant took Pathfinder other hand “I’m here. I’m... I” Revenant couldn’t finish his sentence as he lowered his optics to Pathfinder broken and cracked screen to see a distorted smiling emoji. The medic got up to leave the room “I will leave you two alone” “Thank you.” Revenant muttered

Loba standing on the edge of the door frame had heard everything.

#Apex legends #Apex Revenant #Revenant #Apex Pathfinder #Pathfinder #Revfinder #Apex Wattson #Wattson #Natilie Paquette #Apex Wraith #Wraith #Renee Blasey #Apex Bloodhound #Bloodhound #Apex Gibraltar #Gibraltar #Mokoa Gibraltar #Mirage #Apex Mirage #Elliott witt

[flickwatches]

Toronto vs Vancouver: Civil War

I decided to follow an Overwatch league on here for the season.  I wanted to avoid a team with too many favorite players, a top tier team, and an APAC team (I gotta sleep).  I thought about Vancouver, Boston, maybe even Houston.  Boston released Soon, pissed me off. Third Impact 7k buyout leaks with Vancouver came out but I let it slide.  I like too many players on Houston and I stopped believing in them.  But than I saw Toronto and its rebuild.  KDG, Heesu, Sado, Na1st, Michelle, and Lastro.   Power pieces on an unproven team that wants to be good.  I didn’t know which team to choose still so I let the first game of the season for Vancouver and Toronto decide who I would pick.  

Vancouver Pros:

I love Dalton.  Dude has been grinding for a very long time and deserves every bit of success he has earned.  Huge fan of Teru from O2 Blast.  Even bigger fan of FRDWNR for surviving this long.  Dude is a nut.  I still remember Frdwnr winning the Second Wind 1v1 tournament.  Roolf is a veteran.  Fire gets a chance to be the main main support.  Linkzr rebirth on a team in need of firepower. 

Vancouver Cons:

I’ll keep it short, Shredlock is a weakness (I hope he improves) but I really don’t want to be writing about Shredlock the entire season.  Also the Org is scummy.  Cut Runaway.  The official original #1 Fan Favorite Runaway.  How you release the most loved team in the history of Overwatch.   And when you wanted to start small you wouldn’t pay out a small 7k buyout for all of Third Impact.  Sigh. 

Toronto Pros:

After trying to build a team from scratch.  After trying fan favorite local talent.  You invested money in proven coaches and players.  The org wants to win.  The org wants there fans to be happy.  Toronto is trying to do good things.  Shoutout to Karq, Agilities, and Fran for being content creators for Toronto.  Now lets list the roster.

Aztac

Ansoonjae

Lastro

Sado

Beast

Michelle

Na1st

Logix

Heesu(god)

Will get more into each player later on but I just wanted to list them as Pros for now. 

Toronto Cons:

I miss Agilities and Surefour.  I wish the pandemic didn’t exist so I could consider traveling to there local events even though it would be quite a drive for me. I don’t have a lot of cons they seem to be willing to invest in the team.  Could of done more for the last 2 rosters and staff.  They struggled to keep it together last 2 seasons. 

The Battle:

Vancouver vs Toronto.  The Battle for Canada.  The Battle for my love (and hate).  I can’t keep avoiding this.  I knew Heesu mite be special this season when he was playing over Carpe at the end of last season. I knew how good Na1st was on Fusin Uni back in the day.  Happy to see him in OWL.  Sado is a veteran and looks much better on a non-contender for best team in OWL.  Michelle got perma benched on Seoul for some reason.  Logix is good and great when its online play. 

Wow, ok.  I’m just talking about how amazing the Toronto roster is.  

Map 1: Busan

I want to point out that Shredlock didn’t look that bad on Wrecking Ball.  Toronto looked strong.  Heesu started to showcase his future Role Star level of play.  Toronto dominated the meta Rush and Dive plays.  Vancouver struggled with objective priority.  Which player would be responsible with contesting the Objective. When playing Wrecking Ball and Tracer usually one of them is responsible for touching point.  This problem showed thruout the entire match.  At one point neither Shredlock (Ball) or Dalton (Tracer) touched point while Na1st (Tracer) was capping. Forcing Linkzr to roll onto point to contest the cap.  Forcing FRDWNR to peel for Linkzr which left Roolf alone as Zen.  Toronto contested point and in the same motion turned onto the suddenly lonely Zen and killed him.  While Shredlock and Dalton only attacked the Toronto backline.  Toronto traded faster and more efficiently.  While taking point control.  

Toronto hard dominated Vancouver first map.

Map 2: Eichenwalde

If Vancouver was your average team the timebank they created on defense would of made the map winnable.  But Toronto is obviously better than Vancouver (especially at Rush).  And dying efficiently isn’t enough to win. Vancouver at least show cased its ability to lose fights and start the next fight well.  They played as a team.  Toronto at one point spawn camped Vancouver so long during Streets that the payload rolled back to first point.  The Castors coining the phrase “Touch the payload challenge”.

Toronto walked away with this win even if they were forced to walk a little slower than expected. 

Map 3: Watchpoint Gibraltar

Some people would say Toronto threw this map by playing its bench but KDG and the coaching staff wanted to make sure every player got to play first game.  They put out Heesu, Logix, Beast, Michelle, Aztac, and Lastro this map.

This was obviously Vancouver’s best map. Double Bubble meta with no Rush.  Linkzr had more power over the map as hitscan on high ground.  The biggest factor was the payload almost getting to the end of Shuttle phase forcefully making Vancouver play the objective correctly. 

Both Frontlines played the Double Bubble positions and cooldowns very well.  A lot of great plays and team fights broke down correctly for both teams.  Winstons making correct jumps, getting the bubbles, using there own bubbles correctly.  Solid cleave and good primals.  Zaryas played really well and Anas supported extremely well.  The DPS had a field day with how well fights went for both teams.   

Titans played there best and won there first map of the season.  Even Shredlock looked good. 

Map 4: Hanamura

Look at us, playing a map 4.  Vancouver looked like they had a chance.  They didn’t.

Hanamura was hard Rush vs Rush.  Toronto was good at Rush and Vancouver was bad at Rush.  FRDWNR tried really hard to hold it down but with no Cooldowns and too far away they eventually C9′d the match away.  

Toronto played the Meta better and had the better team.  Don’t be surprised if Toronto is a top 5 team in the West this season. 

Conclusion:

Hello Toronto. Hello Defiant. And most importantly, Hello Heesu.  I cannot wait to watch every Toronto game this season.  Heesu and Na1st look strong. Lastro is still great.  Big fan of Beast even if everyone else is down on him.  Logix will get his chances on certain maps and metas.  I hope they commit to this team and staff long term in Toronto.  Not sure which jersey I’ll be buying this season.  I’m not sure what the Defiant catchphrase is but Lets Get Rebellious or something. 

PS Its 5am and I’m about to watch APAC.  Sorry for any mistakes.  

#Overwatch League #Toronto Defiant #Vancouver Titans #Overwatch #Esports

[born2battle]

Second Tenure on the LOC~~ Rajouri Sector ( J & K )

      In view of my posting to an active operational area in J&K, I had to leave Deolali at short notice, after an emotional farewell from the ‘Home of the Gunners’. I reported in Rajouri in the first week of May 1989. Sanjivani   with the children & my parents came to Jammu later, after the conclusion of the school session. It was certainly a herculean task for Sanjivani to personally organise the packing of almost 40 packages, sending them by truck to Jammu & thereafter undertaking a long train journey with the whole family. On arrival in the ‘Ace of Spades’ Division, I was promoted as a Lt Col and welcomed into the core Team of the Division HQ. Next day was devoted to extensive briefings in the Operations Room. These gave me an overview of the operational & logistics plans in the entire Sector  extending from Poonch, Rajouri upto Naushera along the LOC & in depth upto the Pir Panjal Ranges.  

      I had studied the history of gallant battles in this Sector during the previous Wars. In 1947/48, soon after the Partition, Pakistani raiders had captured Rajouri by 07 Nov 1947 despite stiff resistance by the Hindus and the Sikhs. It was recaptured by 19 Infantry Brigade on 12 Apr 1948. Simultaneously, Poonch Garrison withstood a siege from Nov 1947 and was maintained by air supply until it was recaptured after a link up was established from Rajouri on 21 Nov 1948. Naushera & Jhangar also witnessed fierce battles under the command of Brig Mohammad Usman who finally made the supreme sacrifice and was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra for his exceptional gallantry. His bold leadership as the saviour of Naushera earned him the title --- Naushera ka Sher!! In 1965 War, Pakistan again attempted armed infiltration in all these Sectors, nicknamed Operation Gibraltar which was defeated completely. I was very keen to relate this knowledge of previous battles during my area familiarisation in each Brigade Defended Sector & Battalion Defended Area.

       The familiarisation program lasted one month and was really hectic but extremely educative. It enabled me to grasp the essentials of the concept of operations and the design of battle in each key defended locality, in every Infantry Battalion. Most of the posts had to be accessed  only on foot since they were in mountainous terrain and close proximity to enemy posts. I observed the peculiar routine followed on the LOC, both during day & night. The most amazing aspect was the pattern of exchange of fire across the LOC, almost every night. These were termed as Cease Fire Violations(CFV). Such exchanges were aimed for effective domination but resulted in a variety of battle casualties due to injuries by bullets, splinters, blasts in the minefields & mortar shelling. It also resulted in damage to the trenches/bunkers/shelters/gun pits which had to be repaired urgently. Battle Field Surveillance Radars were also deployed at vantage points to maintain all weather surveillance. Patrolling was a daily activity to detect, defeat and destroy any infiltration attempts. Helicopter sorties were frequently launched to detect any activity in infiltration launch pads in POK. Eternal vigilance and operational preparedness was the highest priority... 24×7 throughout the year. Interestingly, the intensity of exchange of fire increased whenever new Battalions were inducted. In addition, there was heavy firing at the time of festivals on both sides & invariably during India-Pakistan Cricket matches!!

       In Jun 1989, Sanjivani & ANA ( an acronym for our children ) came to Rajouri during the summer vacation. It was their first visit which gave them a glimpse of the ground reality of life at the LOC. My busy schedule continued round the clock. I had to visit the forward Posts and the depth areas whenever there was any special incident, while my family members enjoyed their vacation in the salubrious environment. Yet, we found time to visit nearby sites. We began by visiting the Hall of Fame, near the Division HQ. It had the slogan- “Ajeet Hai, Abheet Hai” which was really captivating. Thereafter, we went to Dhani Dhar Fort, which was the highest feature in Rajouri. On the Independence Day, we visited the defended locality at Pir Badesar which gave a dominating view of the enemy posts in close proximity & the depth areas in POK. It was so exciting for our children to observe the activity at the Posts on both sides of the LOC.

     My daily routine began with going to the Operations Room at 0600 hours in the morning for the collation of all the Situation Reports from each Sector, by sunrise. All the firing incidents were then marked on the maps & analysed  before submitting the summary to the higher HQ. Thereafter, at 0800 hours, we had the daily operational briefing for the GOC & the staff officers at our HQ. Similar process was repeated at sunset daily, after which plans were finalised and orders issued for implementation on the next day. To sum up, the office timings extended well beyond 12 hours. 

     I was usually part of the Recce Group which was tasked to carry out ground recce not only of areas on the LOC but also of depth areas. Thus, it gave me an exposure  about the important role of supporting Arms & Services in the LOC scenario. I was particularly impressed with the method of logistics support for supply of ammunition, rations and fuel, right till the remote Posts by using mules of the Animal Transport Battalion. Medical support plans were equally commendable for prompt response, emergency treatment & speedy evacuation of any battle casualty till the Base Hospital.

       My parent Regiment was located in BD Bari (near Jammu), approx four hours away from Rajouri. I availed the opportunity to visit the Unit, attend the Raising Day functions on 01 Aug and connect with the Jat Balwans after almost three years. Thereafter, we went on a pilgrimage to Vaishno Devi which was a sublime experience chanting “Jai Mata Di”, all the way. I returned to Rajouri immediately since I was already assigned the responsibility of escorting and briefing the IAS Probationers visiting our Division Sector for attachment training. It was yet another educative interaction.      

       On a few occasions, I got a chance to accompany the GOC during the recce by helicopter sorties. It gave us a different perspective due to a birds eye view of the terrain and deployment on both sides of the LOC. Such latest inputs as also the Air photos proved their worth in periodic refinement of our plans, after deliberations in Sand Model Discussions. Such reviews were particularly useful for planning and executing counter infiltration operations. I can never forget one such helicopter sortie when our GOC along with the Artillery Brigade Commander & Staff Officer ( Intelligence ) took off from Rajouri for recce of the forests in the depth areas, which were likely to be used as hideouts by the infiltrators. Unfortunately, the sortie did not return as per the flight schedule. The tension increased since the helicopter was out of radio contact and was not spotted from any of the Posts. Aerial search sorties were launched immediately but could not trace the helicopter. Simultaneously, ground patrolling was carried out extensively. Finally, the wreckage was traced in the snow bound terrain, only after seven days. This tragic incident was specially unnerving for me since I had seen off the recce mission from Rajouri helipad on that fateful day!!

        In the winter vacation, my family came to Rajouri once again just as the snowfall had commenced. Our children were specially delighted with experiencing the warmth of the fire place at my residence. At some locations, they witnessed the utility of the Bukhari as well. Heating of snow that accumulated in huge drums for obtaining water for daily requirements, was again a unique experience, specially when the water in the pipeline used to freeze in sub -zero conditions.  It was the right season when we could visit Thana Mandi & Poonch to witness heavy snowfall. We also visited Budha Amarnath temple --- the oldest shrine in Poonch District. This unique Shiva temple is located at 4600 feet in picturesque surroundings. It is a popular belief that without visiting this temple, Amarnath Yatra cannot be completed. 

        On completion of two years in my extremely challenging assignment, I reflected on all the aspects of professional learning which I could consolidate under the guidance of different GOC, Brigade Commanders & Battalion Commander. However, there was one more major tactical operation which was destined. In Jul 1991, we detected that a group of infiltrators had come across the LOC during the rainy season and established themselves with weapons & ammunition, in Kerni village in Poonch Sector. In retaliation, we launched a counter attack with heavy Artillery support and evicted the intrusion within a week. Cease Fire was declared and both sides agreed to a Flag Meeting to restore the status quo of the LOC. The meeting was conducted at Chakan di Bagh, designated crossing point at the LOC. I was detailed as the representative of the Division HQ and the Flag Meeting itself was certainly a memorable experience.

         In the first week of Apr 1992, I was delighted to receive the good news about my approval for promotion. It was soon followed by another thrilling news---my Posting Order as CO 98 Field Regiment. I felt blessed that my aim of commanding my Regiment (Jat Balwans), where I was born in 1971 War was achieved! It was a nostalgic feeling to leave the ‘Ace Of Spades’ Division having the reputed memento~ ‘MY FLAG, MY COUNTRY’

   This Blog will be followed by a sequel by Sanjivani who will narrate her experiences out of the trove of memories in a Separated Family accommodation at Jammu.

#Fauji Life #fauji #life at LOC

[laurazepamwrites]

The Chemicals between us ~ Chapter 1

The numbers on the digital clock screen turned to 03:00 am. The watchpoint was silent save the few still functioning Domiciliary bots quietly moving through the corridors and the screech of some local wildlife far off in the distant. The world was dark and still and peaceful. No sane person would be awake at this hour.

She didn't feel sane.

It was that dream again. The suffocating nightmare that woke her up most nights thrashing and tearing off covers before finally leaving her huddled in a ball, dampened with cold sweat and whimpering. Mei’s breathing had finally slowed enough to a steady rhythm. Slowly and tentatively she sat up brushing her tousled hair out of her face. She wiped away the tears with her palms and took a deep breath. The only light in her small room came from the soft blue glow of Snowball the Droid silently charging nearby.

She had been in Gibraltar for 2 months, part of a skeleton crew in a forgotten watchpoint for a forgotten organization. She certainly had concerns of coming here, she still did. The Petras act made any overwatch activity illegal and its participants prosecuted. Mei was struggling to come to terms with her malfunctioned cryostasis and now had ten years of change in the world to catch up on. Seven months ago Winstons message had woken up the eco point, waking Mei up to a world that had abandoned and moved on without her. She threw herself into her work, there was years of data and information stored in the various ecopoints around the world. Not strictly working within Overwatch but still having to get permission from the UN to access the sites, this was made even more complicated by the fact she was declared dead. She had to work, if she stopped she would think, then dwell, then sink into despair. She had no family left, her sister had grieved and moved on with her life. Her mother had passed away whilst Mei slept and her own father no longer recognized her and murmured that his little Xiǎoxuě was gone as he rocked back and forth in his room in the nursing home.

So she had worked and travelled, occasionally checking in with Winston who urged her to always let him know where she was. She had put this down to guilt on his part as head of science in Overwatch. She had never confronted her feelings on blame. She buried them, donning her well known cheerful optimistic persona, and worked. It wasn't until her friend Dr Angela Ziegler had called her, telling her to look at a recent article in the news from Greece. A former Overwatch agent had been found murdered at their family home. Further research showed they were not the only former agents killed. She had angrilly called Winston demanding answers, now realizing why he needed to know where she was. She and other agents were potentially marked people. For all Mei knew she was walking around with a target painted on her. It was a long and an emotional call, Mei also learning that Commander Morrison and Captain Amari were both alive and moving against Talon.

Mei didn't want to be involved in a war. She joined Overwatch for scientific purposes, to better the world and preserve it for future generations. Now being an unassuming climatologist for Overwatch had potentially put a mark on her head. Now she was urged to go to Gibraltar where past agents answering the call could work against a terrorist organization and the looming threat of a second crisis brewing in Russia. New recruits had even been silently brought in based on merit and skill. The Mech fighter Hana song, newly recovered from injuries sustained whilst single handedly fighting omnics. Lúcio Correia dos Santos, a freedom fighter, revolutionary leader and musician. Aleksandra Zaryanova, Sergeant within the Russian defence forces and former Athlete. Brigitte Lindholm had come with Reinhardt and was a highly skilled armourer. Fareeha Amari had also travelled to Gibraltar and had stayed despite a heated argument with her Mother. Even two Omnics Zenyatta and Bastion had joined their ranks. All fighters, all skilled combatants. Mei was no soldier. She could barely call herself a fighter. She was a scientist and she felt useless here, cut off from the eco points and only so much data to work from.

Still, at least she was safe here. Wasn't she?

She looked at the clock, 03:55. It had taken her nearly an hour to settle after her nightmare. A few more hours and she would be in the morning briefing. She moved her hand along her bedside table feeling for the small lamp and turned it on, squinting slightly at the sudden light. She put on her glasses and picked up her tablet, absentmindedly scrolling through the latest news, a headline caught her eye of the two criminal Junkers who had apparently blown up a corporate building in Sydney, their whereabouts now unknown. She gave a soft ‘hmph!’ They had travelled the globe near as much as she had. How on earth had they not been apprehended yet?

‘How long before ‘you’ are apprehended?’ Her mind asked. She ignored the question and continued to scroll through headlines...An interview with LumeriCo CEO Guillermo Portero… Speculation on Dva’s ‘supposed’ dismissal from duty...Lucio’s cancelled tour...Tensions in Russia, a climbing death toll…murders….

Mei sighed. She was still emotionally charged and worrying news would not help her relax. She shivered slightly and pulled her cover back over herself, settling back into bed and began playing a silly game on the tablet. It wasn't long before she fell back into an uneasy sleep.

Jack Morrison walked into the 07:00 morning briefing and looked around the room. Winston was talking to Fareeha who stifled a yawn. To her left Lucio, Hana and Lena avidly spoke about a race around the watchpoint. Jack noted to maybe nip that in the bud before someone breaks their neck. Next to them was Mei, sitting quietly holding her tea in both hands, smiling politely when Angela sat down beside her. Torbjorn was sitting back in his chair, both hands folded on his stomach as he dozed, grumbling a curse as McCree used his prosthetic to light his match for his cigar then proceeded to put both feet up in from of him. Zarya gave him a distasteful look from across the table.

 ‘This isn't enough’ He thought to himself. A team of barely twenty people with very limited resources operating under the radar against a large, well funded, terrorist organization. And things were only getting worse. He cleared his throat and the chatter died down, eyes turning to him.

 ‘Good morning, as you know those not here are currently on assignment and will be due back soon. We are still pursuing leads in Iraq, Western Africa and Russia, however we need new intelligence before assigning any agents to the field there. I won't have anyone going in blind whilst we are this limited. Now, I called this meeting this morning because my sources have traced known Talon agents moving across Australia.’

Jack turned on the large projection in the centre of the rounded table bringing up a map of Australia and highlighting towns and cities of the sightings.

 ‘Now..we have a pattern. They are moving purposely, town to town. It's my belief that they are following these two…’ Jack brought up two photos of the Junkers Mei had read about much earlier that morning. ‘...If you are not aware who these two are, The one in the mask is Mako ‘Roadhog’ Ruthlege. Mercenary for hire and Killer. The other, possibly more dangerous one is Jamison ‘Junkrat’ Fawkes. Demolition and explosives expert. Both from the settlement called Junkertown in the Australian outback. After their little crime spree around the world both touched down In Adelaide. They've certainly been keeping quiet until totalling a building in Sydney. Since then they have been on the move, coincidently being in the same areas as Talon. Whether they have been hired by Talon or being followed I have yet to learn. But what I do know is either way I want them in. They Are too dangerous to let Talon have and if Talon do want them than I want to know why..yes Jesse?’

McCree had lazily raised his arm to speak. His gave his cigar a long drag before he spoke. ‘I know of these boys Jack, got a pretty bounty on their heads. Now they’ve slipped through every sheriff in every countries fingers. What makes you think we can find them?’

‘Genji is currently in Darwin northern Australia, he's been surveying theirs and Talons movements for over a week, he’s been using old contacts who are less than savoury but they had the information on where they may be. He’s sure he’s got a location down. A team will be on route tonight.’

Winston cleared his throat ‘Err..Commander Morrison? Surely If Talon wanted to hire them they would have approached them by now? It seems a great deal of effort to track them the length of the country. What could they possibly want from them?’

‘Maybe they want more firepower?’ Suggested Torbjorn.

‘No they got plenty o’ that’ said McCree, stubbing out his cigar on his prosthetic hand ‘I heard a rumor from an old Aussie bounty hunter looking for those two..he told me the kid supposedly found something in the Omnium ruins. Something valuable.

Zarya scoffed ‘Anything shiny is valuable to those scavengers. Its nothing’

‘Regardless,’ continued Jack ‘We get to them before Talon does. Myself, McCree, Winston and Lena will be leaving tonight. We’ll rendezvous with Genji at his location, find them and bring them here.’

‘Here?’ asked Fareeha in a worrying tone ‘Im sorry commander but is that a good idea? You want two criminals who take fun in destroying things..here?'

Zarya nodded in agreement. ‘They bad people, you bring them here this whole base blow sky high.’

‘We have a lot of valuable equipment and wouldn't our data be at risk if-’ Began Mei, until Hana thrust her arm in the air for attention.

‘Ooo ooo! Can I ask them about the Mech fights they have?’

Lucio laughed ‘They’re not here to hang Hana.’

‘Have you seen those things Lu? All spikes and flamethrowers and then there's the undefeated champion called Wrecking ball and no one knows what he-’

Winston coughed getting the young girls attention whilst pointedly looking at Jack who stood with a look on his face that suggested his patience was wearing very thin.

Hana gave an apologetic grin ‘Opps, sorry’ she whispered and settled back into her seat.

Jack sighed. The scars on his face taut as he frowned.

‘Talon wants them so I want them’ Said Jack with a steel stubbornness ‘They can choose to cooperate and come quietly or kick and scream, I don't care. What I do care about is knowing Talons next move. Once I get the information I want then I’ll toss them to the authorities. Any more questions?’

If there was no one spoke. Jack grunted.

‘Good. Those going we leave at 12:00 hours and with good time touching down at 22:00 hours, prepare yourselves and the Orca. Lena I want you to make sure stealth and auto modes are good for flight.’

Lena saluted ‘Aye aye!’

‘Everyone staying here, wait on your orders. Amari is due back tonight, should our mission in Australia be successful or not we will debrief on return, but for now you are all dismissed.'

The room began to empty slowly as Jack stayed behind, seemingly studying the holographic map in front of him. He glanced towards the door as the final person left, watching it shut completely. Once he knew he was alone he turned off the large projection and brought up a smaller screen in front of him. He types in a code, a small ping noise signalling granted access. Jack glanced at the door again, then proceeds to type on the interactive screen in front of him. He was contacting someone.

  :Are you sure they are at the location you gave me?

He typed He stared at the screen, waiting on a reply. Another glance toward the door. What felt like an eternity passed when finally a return message popped up on screen.

  :You know it's polite to say hello first?

Jack grunted, and swore under his breath. He was not in the mood for games.

  :Is the location correct? :……………

He waited.

 :I am offended you have to ask… :(

As Jack began to type a rather angry reply another message appeared on screen.

  :Location correct. Keep your Ninja on visual. Strike team moving tonight. Time unknown.

  :Why these two?

 :The Tank is disposable. They want Fawkes. I don't know why.

 :Anything else?

 :I give it two days before you try to kill him.

 :Anything important?

  :No, but do let me know why Talon wants him.Did I tell you no one wants to tell me anything here? I feel so left out and the big bosses are very angry after your cowboy got involved in the great train heist. Whatever he threw into the canyon was vital.

  :Just do your job. Both of them.

  :Oh how you two sound so alike.

 :I mean it. And be careful.

 :Im offended. You know one slip up and i'm dead? Dr Lucky charms will do the deed herself. Now she really doesn't like me.

 :Signing out

  :Wait!

  :What is it?

 :….You know it's polite to say goodbye!!

Jack signed out hoping it was as passive aggressive as it possible could be, deleting the message file as he had done for years and turned off the projection. He stood for a moment as if deep in thought before sighing deeply and walking to the door, letting it softly shut behind him.

#overwatch #meihem #jamison fawkes #mei ling zhou #junkrat #fanfic

[brosencrantz]

We arrived at Gibraltar thirty minutes ahead of schedule, a long, languid descent watching our plane’s shadow wander across the desert-camo bedspread of Andalucía: towns scattered like patches of powdered chalk, solar farms glittering like golden medals. The pilot made a long, full circle of the Rock for our benefit; where most of Spain had been cloudless sky, it sat glowering underneath a hazy hat of stratus, as if asserting its authenticity as a piece of Britain-outre-mer through sheer defiant overcast.

The Gib-side border post at La Línea de la Concepción flies the flags of the UK, Gibraltar, and a circular gold design against a dark blue background: the Commonwealth of Nations. The road to Spain is also the airport’s runway, and we walked across the huge, humid emptiness towards the immense face of the Rock, freckled with foliage and firing ports, its silhouette broken by the signals base at its peak and the looming lump of the Moorish castle at its hip.

The little details of Gibraltar jump at random between extremely British, thoroughly Continental, and uniquely local. People drive on the right in the sort of vehicles you expect in Spain, but stop at the exact same traffic lights with the exact same buttons as back home. Telephone boxes are the Gilbert Scott classics; postboxes are the same design as at home but have black hats and details; buses are red, but a dark oxblood rather than London Transport scarlet; the tower blocks in the northern district have the same sort of names and lettering as postwar council estates back home, but paint jobs, AC and serious shutters appropriate for the south side of Spain. A war memorial commemorates “THOSE WHO DIED FOR THE EMPIRE.” It’s charming but uncanny, like wearing cultural bifocals that keep slipping in the humidity.  We advanced up the main drag, observing British shopfronts and Spanish pavement habits, to our Airbnb on a side lane just past some government buildings and giant Playmobil figures. We assumed the immense numbers of Gib flags, Union flags and red and white bunting overhead were artefacts of Gibraltar Day (the day before we arrived) rather than an Orange Order-style statement.

We stopped at Casemates Square for a full English (perfectly authentic, though no more than decent; sachets of British vinegar and Spanish mayo, and coins the same shape and metal as back home but minted with different designs). On the docks, we found the crown jewel of the Morrisons empire: shining white, glossy and modern on the outside, with shades above parking spaces to protect against the Mediterranean sun. Inside, it was almost exactly like the one in Burton on Trent. Weird.

“It’s not THAT depressing. I think it’s rather clever, actually.”Looking at a map, two things very clearly define the geography of the town: first, the difference between the “old town” of dense alleys (mostly Regency or Victorian, mostly rebuilt after the devastating siege of the late 18th century) and the “new town” of high-rise estates built on land reclaimed from the harbour. Second, the immense bands of defensive architecture between the two: Victorian battery upon Georgian bastion upon Spanish star fort upon Moorish curtain wall. Casemates Square, the main town plaza, is named for the rows of vaulted artillery positions that line it; it even has an iconic depressing gun with a helpful plaque (which, sadly didn’t explain how they stopped the ball from rolling out. Lots of wadding and a couple of prayers, I expect).

It’s almost impossible to look anywhere in Gibraltar without bumping into some sort of fortification (at one point I literally glanced into a flowerbed and found a plaque explaining that hello, this was once the Devil’s Tongue Battery) which makes it more or less My Perfect City. Huge old 32-pdr batteries perch above street corners; Armstrong 12” RMLs, rare in the UK thanks to their substantial scrap value, just sit in the street with nice new coats of paint; most of the bollards in the city seem to be honeycombed old cannon (including, a rarity in the role, carronades!) Much of the old defensive layout is obscured by Gibraltar’s sheer City-of-London density, but the walls, bastions and batteries are all still there, some turned over to moped parking or rooftop restaurants, some to linear public parks. The latter parts are scattered with war trophies (lots of captured Russian cannon from the Crimea) and monuments to the fallen of various nations in various wars: everything from quiet stone plaques to a massive American triumphal gate with two giant gold dishes stamped with big eagles.

“I’m Queen Victoria, and this is my favourite part of Gibraltar.”

From the King’s Bastion, we saw an understated Star of David on a wall picking out the Nefutsot Yehudah synagogue; a little beyond it was the rather more extroverted Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, an Anglican affair which from the outside looks like a Moorish leisure centre done up in Russian-style bright pastels. Inside, it has the lovely, sunlit, airy feel of a good 18th century church, except that every single architectural detail is wrong. The utterly banal God-pop music playing in the chapel of St George gave it a fairground feel quite at odds with the serious historical substance and the memorials and mementos lining the walls.

Beyond it, past the town’s Southport gate (possibly the only building anywhere bearing the arms of both Queen Victoria and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, plus a natty pair of Pillars of Hercules*) was the Trafalgar Graveyard. An assortment of mostly-Napoleonic war graves, many with cannonballs or mortar bombs perched on top of them, its mournfulness was no way offset by the loud parakeets or the huge monarch butterflies flapping and gliding around, and it felt a clear and worthy antecedent to the Victorian obsession with baroque, industrial-scale cemeteries. (The info boards play up the presence of Trafalgar casualties, but skate past the obvious fact that those killed outright in the battle would have been buried at sea; the Trafalgar dead buried here are those who died of their injuries some time after the battle, having made it back to Gibraltar while suffering horribly from mortal wounds. I suppose I can see why they don’t dwell on that.)

Thinking ahead for the next few days, we scoped the cable car station up to the top of the Rock (a constant looming presence whenever we glanced to the east, its cloud-cap continually drifting out to Algeciras and dissipating above the bay) and in doing so stumbled across the Alameda, or the Botanical Gardens. The Gardens were charming, well-kept and, like everything else in Gibraltar, full of artillery. Ranges of interesting cacti and succulents, more 12-inch RMLs, tinkling fountains and babbling artificial brooks in shady artificial groves, 18th century bronze howitzers, a great big bronze dragonfly perched by a pond, a Wellington monument with some dinged-up mortars, an Australian set so perfectly authentic a whiff of gum-tree made me think unbidden of kookaburras and shiver.

* Plus ultra.

it is Rock o’clock We arrived at Gibraltar thirty minutes ahead of schedule, a long, languid descent watching our plane's shadow wander across the desert-camo bedspread of Andalucía: towns scattered like patches of powdered chalk, solar farms glittering like golden medals.

#adventures #adventures on jebel tariq

[rattlung]

aight homie i just finished a sandwich, let’s fucking go

(I have this thing where i firmly believe that crypto’s drone is like find familiar in dnd. just the idea of him sitting in a room with his squad and feeling secure enough to log onto the drone and get all this information and relay it to them, only to log off and find that they left already gets a cheeky little laugh out of me

also you’re gonna have to forgive all the inconsistencies with the areas such as building layouts in this compared to the game. i’m just rlly missin kings canyon and my brain refuses to process the new map well enough to remember what half the stuff looked like lmao)

and why are crypto and mirage always on the same team but their third gets switched out all the time? who knows. let it be a mystery 

i chose established relationship btw :^)

----=----

Mirage hated when the ring closed in in Fuel Depot. There were just too many angles to watch for, too many buildings to hole up in, and too many points of interests to rotate from. Ending up there before the ring caught up usually meant fighting too many squads at once without a break in between.

At least one of the teams had Pathfinder on it. He and Mirage were both perched on separate roofs across from the other, using the back wall and AC units for cover, keeping an eye on each other through the thick plexiglas. Every so often, they’d peek out and fire a few shots off, sometimes hitting, most of the time not.

Once, Mirage had gotten him good, the sound of Path’s shields shattering after two direct hits with his Wingman. Pathfinder immediately fell back into cover, but he upped the volume on his speakers to call out, “Amazing shots, friend!” 

Mirage laughed and ducked behind his own cover to reload the pistol. “You’re not so bad yourself, for a bot!” 

He couldn’t see him anymore, but he could still hear Pathfinder’s cheerful, “Thank you!”

Shaking his head, Mirage settled down to check his ammo. He could stand to continue his and Path’s weird little competition, poke him down some more to whittle away at his meds, but he wanted to be sure he had enough for the last fight. With the way things were, it was going to be a big one. He could see the alarming red glow of Wattson’s fences through the windows of the building Pathfinder had been standing on. There was no sign of Wraith, but Mirage knew she’d be close if not already knocked out of the match.

Caustic, his other teammate, had hunkered down in the smaller, single-floored house off to Mirage’s right. Every door was blocked off, denying entry to any enemies - and teammates, something Mirage was sure he did on purpose. 

There wasn’t any movement anywhere else in Depot, but there were two more teams left that weren’t accounted for. Capitol City was close, but the amount of space that wasn’t being burnt up by the ring was small. If both teams were out there, they would have clashed by now, thought the only shots Mirage heard so far were his own and Pathfinder’s.

Crypto had muttered something about hunting them down a while ago. He’d hopped up onto a desk left behind on the top floor of Mirage’s building, tossed out his drone, and focused on the holo screen in front of him without another word. That had been about ten minutes ago and he still hadn’t said anything yet. Every so often, Mirage would catch sight of a green light zipping in between the little valley separating Depot from Capitol City, so he assumed the chase was still on.

Mirage looked back out over his AC unit and saw Pathfinder doing the same. Quickly, before he could tell himself no, Mirage fired his Wingman once, twice, and didn’t find his mark. Pathfinder ducked back again, anyway.

“Those were warning shots!”

Behind him, through the open door, he could hear Crypto speak. “Gibraltar’s squad,” he announced shortly. “Racing the ring.”

“Loud and clear,” Mirage replied even though he knew Crypto couldn’t hear him. Anything the drone couldn’t see or hear, neither could Crypto, at least when the remote was active. And the drone was way out there, toward Capitol city right where Mirage had expected a team to be. All three teams accounted for.

Wait, four teams. There were four teams left.

That was probably why he could hear footsteps beneath him.

Mirage jolted up to his feet and sprinted back inside, flinging the door shut behind him before Pathfinder could get any crazy ideas. He headed for the stairs rather than alert Crypto, because it might have been Caustic, and he didn’t want to look stupid and panic over a false alarm that would aggravate both of his teammates.

The door downstairs swung open and Mirage could hear the hollow clanking of metal canisters, the sound of boots hitting metal too fast to be Caustic.

Bangalore, then. Mirage had spent too long running from that sound to not recognize it. It was a little lucky, though. He’d fought her enough times to know that she could get a little too eager for a kill; seeing a target with its back to her tunneled her vision. Mirage could handle her, he just needed to take the fight downstairs and away from his stationary teammate.

Who knows, maybe the fighting would draw Caustic out of his little rat hole and he’d actually contribute on his own volition for once. Doubtful, but a man could dream.

Mirage picked off a grenade from his belt and rolled it down the stairs after pulling its pin. He hoped the tapping of metal on metal was enough to grab the soldier’s attention, but if not the following explosion would do the trick. Mirage ran to the door at the opposite end of the room, using the noise to cover his movement, and vaulted over the railing.

He dropped in front of the open garage. Seeing no sign of Bangalore, he sent in a decoy to test the waters for him. It ran calmly in at its own pace and stopped the second it hit a wall, appearing as if it were looking out the window. He almost thought Bangalore had retreated to another building when a single shot cut through the decoy’s head and Mirage heard the ping of the tech on his left shoulder go out as the decoy shimmered away.

Still in the building then. 

He pulled another grenade off his belt and threw it toward the corner he’d seen the shots come from. This time, Bangalore answered with the thumping pop of her smoke launcher dropping a thick cloud that smothered the first floor. Mirage cursed, hearing steps cross the room right before the grenade went off - steps that went toward the stairs.

Mirage ran into the smoke toward the sound, ignoring how he couldn’t see a foot in front of him, and pulled his Carbine out from where it’d been resting along his back. Once out of the garage area, the room beyond it was small so it didn’t take more than a few seconds to come across Bangalore through the haze; she let him know he’d found her by swinging out with the butt of her Scout. Mirage ducked under it narrowly and came back up using his shoulder, shoving Bangalore back. If it was hand-to-hand combat she wanted it, it was hand-to-hand combat she was not not going to get. She’d win that any day of the week. What Mirage needed was distance and enough room to aim without firing from the hip.

A blue light began to glow through the slowly fading smoke and Mirage heard the mechanical whirring of a Peacekeeper warming up just in time to lurch away. The spread was more controlled and easy to avoid thanks to the attached choke, but if Bangalore even got one shot in on him, he’d be in a lot of trouble.

The smoke was mostly cleared now and Bangalore rose her Peacekeeper to aim at the first figure she saw, blinking before she could pull the trigger. Mirage stood in front of her, one hand on his hip and grinning like he’d done something to be proud of. To his right, Mirage fired off a round from his finger gun, pretended to blow smoke from the barrel, and winked at her. In between the three of them, Mirage seemed to be checking the state of his hair in the reflection that wasn’t there in the glass of the window. Somewhere off in the back, Mirage waved over the shoulder of Mirage almost like he was trying to get her attention.

Bangalore scowled harshly. “Son of a - “

Behind her, Mirage thumped the back of her head with his Wingman. “Quite the prebi - predippa - “ He winced at himself, pulled the trigger. “Bad situation,” he finished as a purple death box clattered to the floor. “Bad situation, got it.”

“What happened?”

Mirage turned to see Crypto at the bottom of the stairs. He didn’t seem particularly panicked, just eyed the several Mirages that littered the room and the door that was blown out - presumably from one of the grenades he’d thrown earlier. Mirage looked around, too, like it was his first time seeing the chaos himself, then down at the crate Bangalore had left behind, and finally back to Crypto.

“Oh, nothing, honey,” he said, waving the other off to match with his put-on dismissive tone. “Just another one of those salespeople, don’t worry about it. I told them we weren’t interested.”

Crypto’s brow rose and if it wasn’t for the small, tiny snort, Mirage would have thought he wasn’t amused. “Good work.”

The smile dropped from Mirage’s face. “What?”

Crypto’s head tilted. “Good work,” he repeated slowly, coming off more like a question.

“Oh,” Mirage said, though he still sounded confused himself - or maybe shocked. He pulled himself together quickly. The showy grin returned and he shrugged. “Oh, yeah, well, of course. What else did you expect?”

Crypto’s curious look didn’t fade away, but he must have decided to spare Mirage any questioning. “Two teams left. We are almost through.”

Mirage nodded and pulled off his pack, mostly as an excuse to get out from under the scrutinizing gaze. “Right, yeah, just gotta patch myself up real quick.”

“Take your time,” Crypto told him, heading back for the stairs, hands in his pockets. “Caustic isn’t going anywhere.”

----=----

Usually when Crypto ventured out further into the drop ship it was when he knew no one else would be in the halls, and even then he liked to have his drone with him. Elliott jokingly referred to it as the “buddy system”. Any time Crypto would leave, Elliott would notice that the drone would lift from its docking station to follow him and he’d call out, “Wait, don’t forget your buddy!”, like maybe the drone was following him as a preference rather than just being programmed to track and follow Crypto’s position.

But that was Elliott, always putting personality and character into anything. 

Today, though, that wasn’t possible. Not after it’d been shot down late in the match earlier that day. He’d been forced to leave it back at it his dorm, laid out on his desk waiting for repairs. Ones that would probably take up the majority of the evening if he got distracted, which he probably would. He still showered quickly, because it was best to get started even if it was tedious.

The mess hall was loud when he passed it and full enough that no one noticed him when he slipped by. They weren’t landing that night as the morning block schedule started tomorrow for the games, so everyone must have gathered to make a mess in the kitchen together rather than spend the night alone. Crypto remembered hearing Gibraltar mention Pathfinder’s stew during the day, but had shrugged off the invitation despite the general interest of seeing how well the robot could pull it off.

He was more interested in the quiet of the dorms. With Octane gone, there was bound to be plenty of it. Every time he even thought about the speakers Octane had set up, pointing out of his room, Crypto felt the corners of his mouth twitch down involuntarily. He never said anything, though, because Octane was nice. Actually, joining the Apex Games forced him to learn several different skills; most were for survival, like how to tune out a lot of incessant noises.

However, when he crossed into the threshold of the dorms, there was still music blaring through the sitting area - music that came from his room. Crypto ventured closer and stopped in the doorway, coming across the sight of Elliott stretched out on his bed, and waited for the other to notice him.

Which didn’t take too long. Elliott let the magazine he’d been reading drop onto his chest then onto his lap when he sat up to smile at Crypto. “Oh, hey. I figured you’d be sneaking around somewhere.” He leaned over to paw at the remote left on the desk and the thundering rock lowered into a more bearable volume. “I fixed your drone, by the way. There wasn’t much I could do about the casing - that’s one gnarly bullet hole. It’s up and running, though, but I would still run diagnostics. Anyway, I was wondering what you wanted to do for dinner, because everyone’s in the mess, but there might be some of Path’s stew leftover by the time they all leave. If not, though, lemme tell ya, I got the best recipe for - what? Oh god, what?”

“You fixed my drone?” Crypto asked, voice tight despite his efforts put into appearing unworried.

“Well.” Elliott threw a look over to where the drone was docked, its eye glowing a faint green. He looked back at Crypto nervously. “Well, now I’m not so sure because you’re acting like maybe me doing that wasn’t very intellella - a very good idea.”

Crypto moved over to the desk, picking up the drone’s control cube and effectively putting his back to Elliott. He didn’t want the other to see his expression or to let on how genuinely worried he now was. There were a dozen different kinds of firewalls he’d implemented into the drone’s software, ones that - if they weren’t passed through carefully enough - could brick the entire system entirely. It was for safety, mostly, since the drone stored quite a bit of data that he technically wasn’t supposed to have. If Elliott had hit even one of those, it was likely Crypto would have to reboot the entire drone. That could take hours depending on how severe the damage to the hardware was. Which, like Elliott had said, was pretty severe. If that were the case, he probably wouldn’t be able to use the drone in the games tomorrow, but - 

But besides a slightly distorted screen, the remote communicated to the drone with maybe only a quarter of a second of lag. On the dock, its green light grew more intense and buzzed with power.

Crypto’s shoulders slouched and his head tilted quizzically.

“I’m sorry,” Elliott burst out suddenly. “I probably should have asked - or just, y’know, not even touched it. I just stopped by to wait for you and saw it laying there and thought I’d do you a favor, but - “

“It’s fine,” Crypto told Elliott, and also himself.

The other seemed hopeful, yet still a little unsure at the surprise lilting in Crypto’s tone. “Yeah?”

“Ya,” he assured, turning just enough to show off the functioning holo screen before he snapped the control cube shut. He wanted to ask how he’d managed it, but judging by the shocked expression on Elliott’s face Crypto imagined he wouldn’t get much of a straight answer. In a sense, the trickster still managed to create more work for him, since he now worried about the effectiveness of his security protocols, but he’d work on that later. For now, Elliott really had done him a favor. He pocketed the cube and aimed a small smile at him. “Thank you.”

For a split second, Elliott’s features lit up. A genuine, relieved smile curved his lips and Crypto knew that if something actually had been wrong, he wouldn’t have told the other. That scared him a little bit, implications of what that could mean caught him off guard, but in favor of enjoying Elliott Witt’s smile, he decided he just wasn’t going to think about it.

Because it was gone soon enough, replaced by a cheaper grin that still wasn’t bad to look at. “Don’t mention it,” Elliott told him with a nonchalant shrug. “All in a day’s work. Actually, mention it if you want to, I’m not gonna stop you.”

Crypto scoffed and rolled his eyes. “I think I’ll restrain myself for now.”

“If that blew you away,” Elliott continued, pointedly ignoring him. “Then wait until you get a load of my pork chops.” He paused and gave Crypto a considering look. “That kinda sounded suggestive and weird - but I promise, they’re really good.”

----=----

“We need to push someone.”

Mirage pulled back around the rock he’d been looking out from behind to level his teammate with an annoyed and disbelieving look. “Yeah. Yeah, okay, Wraith, let’s push someone - here’s our options.” He pointed down further into Thermal Station where he’d been watching the boxed in, electric hum of fences. “We got Wattson and Gib’s fortress of solitude, or - “ He then jerked his head to gesture up toward the train tracks high above them, “ - Bangalore’s fun and interactive ‘Shooting Fish in a Barrel’ game. Let’s just push one!”

Wraith narrowed her eyes at him, teeth gritting at the sarcasm. “The ring is closing, Mirage.”

“What do you want us to do, Wraith? We can’t go left without giving Bangalore a clear line of sight. There’s no way we head into Thermal without Gibraltar calling down his bombardment on us on our way in, and even if we did make it, we’d be walking straight into Wattson’s fences. She probably has her weird, generator thing set up, so it’s not like we can just flush them out with ‘nades. No matter what, we’re caught out.”

It really was an unlucky circle. They had landed out at Epicenter and had too many fights that lasted too long; most of the match was spent running and out-healing the burn of the ring. By the time they’d caught up and were able to catch their breath, they were left out of position as the other teams made it there before them. If it hadn’t pretty much cost them the game, Mirage would have found petulant joy in the fact that Wraith really couldn’t prove him wrong.

She looked over at Crypto, who’d been passively watching the argument and looking like he had no intentions to intervene. Wraith rose her brow very pointedly in a nonverbal question Mirage couldn’t catch. 

Before he could snap, ask, What are you looking at him for?, Crypto shrugged one shoulder. “I’ll take care of it.”

That seemed to satisfy her, because she threw a thankful look up to the sky.

Mirage looked between them. “Take care of what?”

Neither answered him. Crypto’s hands pulled from his pockets and his focus went into the control cube, his drone buzzing to life and zipping around their cover.

Wraith stepped passed Mirage to follow it. “Get ready to move,” she told him, blue sparks crawling around her right arm. She clenched her fist and the air around it popped in a high pitched, suctioning sound. Left behind was a small, pulsing orb with a trail that connected it to Wraith as she took off in a sprint around the very edge of the ring. Straight for Thermal.

“Uh, team?”

The popping of a G7 above them startled Mirage and the dirt kicked up at Wraith’s feet, but she was too fast. Weaving in and out of boulders and using the haze of the storm to her advantage, she was able to avoid the shots until it was all downhill into the factory. Just above her was the green light of Crypto’s drone, keeping pace.

Then, the sky darkened after the low, rumbling call for mortars and Mirage heard himself crying out, “What was the plan, here?”

Before the ground started shaking and explosives started blasting the dirt in smoke and fire, Wraith slid down the decline for the extra momentum and kicked off the ledge right above the platform.

They’ve got a shot on you.

The barrel of Wattson’s Devotion glinted from the glow of the lava when it lifted to aim at her. She could hear the energy start to burn as it fired up. 

You’re in danger - move!

“Phasing,” Wraith called into the comms, and with her left hand she pulled. Like a curtain, reality opened for her and she slipped right through.

A few seconds behind came the drone, its green aura already shifting to something much more intense, to blue, to white. It hung above the fortified platform, pulsing, pulsing, until it burst out in a massive wave. Fence nodes sizzled, circuits fried, and the electricity buzzing between them died out. The dome shield Gibraltar had thrown out at the first sign of an oncoming attack fanned and faded away. Even the Interception Pylon hidden behind a stack of crates went dark.

Wraith stepped back through and the second she did, she punched a hole to finish the tunnel. “Portal’s placed.”

The air distorted as something passed between it, and out from the roiling black exit came Mirage, Peacekeeper preemptively raised and ready to fire. Gibraltar’s shields shattered easily on the first hit, knocking him back against the platform’s railing and sending his own EVA-8 blast wide. On the second hit, Gib was down. Mirage cocked the shotgun and turned, but Wraith was already standing above the electrician’s deathbox.

“Only the two of them,” she remarked, twirling the kunai in a competent flip, showing off a job well done.

“That,” Mirage went to add, “must have looked so cool.”

Another surge announced Crypto’s arrival through the portal and Mirage rounded on him instantly.

“Babe, that was sick! That’s gonna be in the highlight reels for weeks, no doubt about it. I didn’t even know you could do that with your drone.”

Minutely, Crypto’s eyes widen and his mouth opened, but nothing came out. Quickly, he snapped it shut and just tried to school his expression when too much time had passed in between the intention to speak and actually speaking. Mirage still stared at him expectantly - shrewdly, even - so Crypto escaped by cutting his gaze away entirely, purposefully focusing on nothing but the deathbox Gibraltar had left.

Huh, Mirage thought, perhaps a little too excited. He sidled up next to the other to pick through some ammo for himself, but mostly so he could reach around Crypto to get a better look at his face and barely hid the fact that he was doing so. Mirage was utterly delighted to find that the apples of his cheeks were a good shade or two darker than usual and he couldn’t help but grin at the sight. 

Crypto caught him staring soon enough and glared. He snatched the scope off of Gibraltar’s dropped EVA and ditched the box entirely, pulling the collar of his coat up higher to block Mirage out as he stormed away.

Mirage would have to make it up to him later, definitely. But for now? For now, he was just going to enjoy knowing that fact that maybe he wasn’t the only one who enjoyed showing off. 

======

plot twist, they BOTH like getting praised.

anyway sorry for the weak ending. was caught up on it for some reason and i tried like five different versions and didn’t like em but i figured getting it out there was better than staring at it. the prompt itself even kinda lost its way tbh but we be out here y’know we’re just chillin

also after wraith’s short i just imagine her and crypto as those types of friends that you had in high school when someone says some dumb shit and you immediately find each other’s eyes across the room and just give each other that long suffering look. 

proof read once, so if there’s mistakes let me know - and thank you for sending something in, sorry i barely followed it !

#apex legends #cryptage #crypto #mirage #elliott witt #tae joon park #kon's a writer

[segadores-y-soldados]

Reunion: Shadows at High Noon

McCree: This is all your fault, Reyes!

Reyes: I’m never gonna hear the end of this, am I?

McCree: I’m sure I’ll get over it…eventually.

Reyes: Good.  Because I’m gonna need you, Jesse.

---

Ashe: …Jesse McCree.  Been awhile.  You promised you’d write.

McCree: Well, Ashe…I’ve been kinda busy.

---------

Sombra has always been a core component of the “Reaper is a double-agent looking to enact retribution on Talon” theory (or “Masquerade theory”, if you want a snazzier name) - in fact, I’d argue that Sombra is the core component of the theory.  While most of my analytical content in the last year has really focused a lot on Gabriel Reyes/Reaper, Moira, Jack Morrison/Soldier: 76, Akande Ogundimu/Doomfist, Talon, and their respective connections to Retribution, Sombra has never stopped being relevant to the discussion.  If anything, she is the network, the axis, the center that keeps it all together.

And that is a pretty literal description of her and her role.

In most of these posts, I’ve avoided discussing McCree directly because, well, there simply wasn’t as much evidence about his connections to the “masquerade” that Reaper, Sombra, and likely Soldier: 76 and Ana are playing with Talon.  Prior to “Reunion,” this is the evidence we had that McCree was at least on Sombra’s radar:

A picture of him along with a picture of Jack Morrison in Sombra’s room.

An image of him connected to Overwatch and Ana (who is unmasked, by the way), and the word “Escanear” (Scan).

And a comic panel of him maybe meeting Sombra at the Calaveras bar in the Castillo area of Dorado.

Granted, this isn’t poor evidence by a long shot.  The evidence around Soldier: 76 and Ana is much more ephemeral, but with logic, there’s enough ways to sleuth through the contradictions and outright lies by Reaper and Soldier: 76 to deduce that there is something going on (again, this says nothing about how much Soldier: 76 and Ana approve of Reaper and Sombra’s plan, just that they’re aware of it in the present (Recall-Masquerade-era)).

The last piece of evidence that seemed to hint at McCree’s role in the Recall-Masaquerade-Searching-era was a key interaction from Retribution:

McCree: This is all your fault, Reyes!

Reyes: I’m never gonna hear the end of this, am I?

McCree: I’m sure I’ll get over it…eventually.

Reyes: Good.  Because I’m gonna need you, Jesse.

---

The final line by Reyes certainly implies he had plans for McCree after the Venice Incident - that he would need McCree to do some sort of work for Blackwatch...and for Overwatch as a whole.  However, it was hard to say exactly what Reyes had in mind.  For example, it could be argued that Reyes anticipated more openly aggressive moves by Talon or other extremist groups, such as Null Sector:

And we know that he specifically used McCree as the agent to sneak into the hot zone of London and get ground-level views and images of the situation.

But with “Reunion”, we now have much more overt evidence that McCree is “up to something” -

That “something” being that he’s actually doing work either for Reaper (through Sombra) or following Sombra’s own objectives.

(An extremely long post under the cut.)

(TL;DR: Jesse McCree appears to still be operating under a set of mission orders from either Gabriel Reyes himself, or he is cooperating with Sombra who is effectively coordinating former members of Blackwatch (such as McCree and Reaper) and Overwatch (Soldier: 76 and Ana Amari/“The Shrike”) either on her own terms or on her own “objectives” that she was given by Reyes.  While no specific parts are set in stone, the story of Overwatch is implying that Sombra is running a massive network of coordinated roles between characters like Reaper, Soldier: 76, Ana Amari, possibly Zarya and/or Symmetra, and Jesse McCree himself.)

Again, this says very little about how much McCree approves of the plan, just that he’s in on it.  Like all of Sombra’s relationships - canon or implied - there’s a level of ambiguity about how much each character fully trusts her, how much they want to work with her, and if there’s some sort of compromising, deal-making, or blackmailing going on.

Personally, I believe that all the characters Sombra is connected to - canon or implied - are willingly working with her.  Michael Chu’s exact statement on how Reaper “views” Sombra is that he knows she is “effective” at what she does, which is a part that has three main roles.

The first role Sombra has is:

Reaper: Try to stick to the plan, Sombra.

Sombra: Look, someone has to be ready when all your careful planning doesn't pan out.

Be his backup.

You know.

In case he gets himself trapped again.

The second:

Play “the fool” to Reaper’s “loyal commander” act.

By this, I mean that Sombra provides the “distraction.”  Like any good “smoke and mirrors” act, Sombra is the distraction for Talon members to focus on while they start to increasingly rely on Reaper and continue to pull him into the fold and chain of command.  By pretending to undermine each other, Sombra and Reaper do a tactical sleight of hand on the other Talon members to effectively boost Reaper through the ranks while still passing information to Sombra herself.  Both Sombra and Reaper achieve what they want while still being able to cover each other’s back should something go wrong (you know, like Point 1 above).

Sombra does this role very -

Very -

Very -

Sombra: Isn't it a little embarrassing to get beaten up by a monkey? Doomfist: Have you ever been hit by a giant, genetically engineered gorilla? I could arrange it for you...

---

Moira: Started any wars lately? Sombra: I'd have to check my schedule.

---

Sombra: Ah, my favorite spider. I wonder what sort of web you're spinning now. Widowmaker: It'd be a shame if something happened to you on our next mission. A real pity.

---

Very well.

Note how in the second image shown that Sombra says, “You’re making me think you don’t trust him,” and Doomfist immediately replies with, “I don’t trust anyone.”  It’s pretty clear the implication of his words are directed towards Sombra herself (though we miss whatever her reaction is), but this is followed up with the in-game interactions between Sombra, Doomfist, Moira, and Widowmaker, which makes it much more blatant that no one in Talon trusts her, but that she’s too “effective” to not work with.

(Additionally, note how different her interactions with Reaper are:)

Sombra: What are we doing today, Gabe? You don't mind if I call you 'Gabe,' do you? Reaper: Stick to the mission. --- Reaper: Try to stick to the plan, Sombra. Sombra: Look, someone has to be ready when all your careful planning doesn't pan out. --- (On Oasis) Sombra: So what are we doing here, boss? Reaper: I need to pay a visit to a friend. (Moira)

---

Reaper “tolerates” Sombra much better than the other Talon characters, which again, plays back into their dual-roles of the masquerade they’re playing.

The third role that has been hinted at but not shown outright in canon story events or materials is:

Sombra’s “network.”

Again, while this isn’t shown or stated outright, there are too many details in-game and in the comics that show Sombra having connections with at least three other characters: Soldier: 76 (Jack Morrison), The Shrike (Ana Amari), and Jesse McCree.  This is partially due to Sombra being the “ultimate plot convenient” role and also due to actual canon which demonstrates she’s been in contact with certain people.

Lynx-17 knows that Sombra has an established connection with Soldier: 76, though they do not seem to be fully aware of Sombra’s connections to Ana (probably because Lynx doesn’t realize Ana is still alive and is hiding as The Shrike).

In-game, both Sombra’s room and the Necropolis are littered (quite literally) with evidence that implies Sombra is managing a network of rogue Overwatch and Blackwatch agents (again, to stress, this does not imply how much anyone likes working with her).

She knows who Jesse McCree and Jack Morrison are.

She knows Ana’s masked persona of “The Shrike.”

She appears to either be establishing or facilitating connections between McCree and Ana.

And on Necropolis:

She’s giving Soldier: 76 and Ana updates on Reaper’s movements.

Note that since the Necropolis map was made before “Masquerade” was released, Reaper’s (and Sombra’s) visit to Venice isn’t included in the map.  However, the other locations all have actual events or connections to them:

Los Angeles, California: “Reflections”

Numbani, Nigeria: either the “Museum Heist” or retrieving Doomfist from prison

Watchpoint: Gibraltar: “Recall”

Oasis, Iraq: visiting Moira’s lab

Volskaya Industries in St. Petersburg, Russia: “Infiltration”

Again, the game makes it pretty clear that Sombra is the one doing this.

All the shots are from “Infiltration”.

This exact shot is from Sombra’s perspective.

(She might even be sending Jack and Ana live footage from the Volskaya mission.)

Like I said above, it’s easier to logic out that Sombra is working with Soldier: 76 and Ana than it is that she’s working with McCree directly.  So much of Overwatch’s in-game details of environmental storytelling are tantalizing and imply a significant amount, but rarely do they show anything super concrete.

For example:

Does Sombra know who McCree is?

Yes, she does.  We can say this with certainty.

Is she working with McCree?

Prior to “Reunion” the answer to this would have been “I can’t really say one way or the other.”

But then “Reunion” came out.

And the evidence got much more overt.

---------

On the fringes

Like the Recall-Masquerade-era Soldier: 76 plotline, the implications of Sombra’s work and information is easier to suss out when we work through “Reunion” logically.

In Soldier: 76′s plotline, there are numerous gaps where the easy answer to the questions are “Well, Sombra.”

How did he know Ana was “The Shrike”?

Well, Sombra.

How did he possibly coordinate “the trap” with Reaper to lure Ana out of hiding (to come protect him)?

Well, Sombra.

Why would he and Sombra work together?

Well, Reaper (okay, that one’s a little different, but still.)

Obviously, this is a simplistic summary of things: there’s a lot more going on with the Reaper, Soldier: 76, Sombra, and connected characters plotline (such as Moira, Doomfist, Talon, Retribution, etc), but basically...

We have been shown Sombra knows who Soldier: 76 is, that she knows what his motivations and interests are on a personal level (Reaper), that she knows how to “bargain” with him somehow (re: the Lynx-17 panel), and that she appears to have facilitated the “trap” between him, Reaper, and “The Shrike”.

This applies to McCree almost to a tee - 

Down to literally helping him “set up” a situation where he can recruit an ally.

As I wrote in “Reunion: Quick Bites” and “Echo Notes”, even though the short only has two main chunks of dialogue, there’s so much going on in the details that it’s actually a pretty sizable burst of expanding McCree’s plot and his character.

Taking it step by step:

1. Echo: the crate and key.

Again, just repeating what I said in “Echo Notes”, Echo’s crate is currently being transported by some sort of military train (which is also hauling more munitions and weapons).  It appears to be moving roughly east to west (we’ll get into that again later).

A train this fully-armed would never have a public timetable or schedule - if it’s even on one.  It may very well be an infrequent, single-trip transport.  That means finding this information requires digging deep.

Or, you know.

Hacking some sort of confidential military system.

Don’t get me wrong - McCree is smart, and I have no doubt he set up the whole situation in “Reunion.”

But he’s consider a vigilante and is wanted by the United States law enforcement.

Gonna be a little hard for him to just walk into a military base and do the intel-digging by himself.

Good thing that’s something someone else is very, very effective at doing.

Like Soldier: 76′s story, Sombra fills in the first big “plot hole” in “Reunion”.  In fact, it’s almost unfair to even call it a plot hole, because it really isn’t one: Overwatch has been slowly building the implication and connections in Sombra’s network for two years now (since her release).

The team doesn’t want to tell you that she’s helping McCree: for starters, that’s the worst way to do a story (“show, not tell”).

Secondly, the lead writer himself wants you to figure this stuff out:

“One of the things we really like doing with Overwatch is playing with perspective.  We utilize perspective when we analyze or when we tell stories about characters, what they’re thinking, what their goals are.  And we have a lot of unreliable narrators.  We want people to pay careful attention to what characters think about in particular situations.  We want them to use their judgment and their knowledge of a character’s thoughts to come up with their own ideas about the universe.” (Bold for emphasis)

- Michael Chu, GDC Spring 2017

The stuff about McCree has been in Sombra’s room in Castillo since the map was released in May 2017.

The animated shorts take several months - likely up to a year - to make in advance, but even then, this means the Castillo map and all its easter eggs and lore details existed well before Story and Franchise started storyboarding “Reunion”.  I would argue that “Reunion” was actually specifically written to help build these links between Sombra and McCree, again, with just enough specific “gaps” in the story and just enough tantalizing wording by McCree to “show, not tell” those connections.

If Echo’s crate is being held by a military branch, institution, or a security force contractor like Helix Securities, it’s likely that her key was also being held by that same group, but in a different location.

This is obvious from the fact that McCree already has her key at the beginning of the short.

It has to have been in a different, separate location than Echo herself.

If what McCree implies about Echo is true (“they want me, but really, [Overwatch] needs you”) then Echo is being set up to be a strong character.  Keep in mind that game balancing means she will never be, you know, unkillable - even Reaper dies in-game - but she’s certainly important to the former organization, and likely will be a powerful ally for the small, ragtag Recall team from a lore perspective.

This is a standard “spy thriller”/“secret treasure” trope in media: the “key” to unlock something Really Super Special is in a separate location.  It’s especially common in video games, where a developer can quickly expand a quest by making the key a separate object to locate and retrieve first.

And if Echo is as powerful as McCree implies, then it makes sense that the organization “safeguarding” her physical body would remove the key and put it in a separate, secret location, especially if it’s another military base.

Because who’s going to be crazy enough to try and physically infiltrate a hostile, militarized base all on their own?

(It’s almost like there’s a pattern here.)

And this leads to:

2. “Well, Ashe...I’ve been kinda busy.”

So Sombra figures out the location of both Echo’s crate and her key.  As I said in “Echo Notes”, we don’t exactly know where either of these are, just that the train is moving from east to west.

Given that we know now for sure that Deadlock Gorge is in Arizona, this means - in extremely broad terms - that Echo’s key was closer to Arizona (or even in the state) than her crate at or around the time of “Recall”.

Or at least -

That the key was closer to McCree than the crate was.

Granted, it’s possible McCree already had the key or was given it by someone else, but considering again that a non-Overwatch organization is in command of Echo’s crate, it seems unlikely that the U.N. or organizations like Helix Securities would just let an Overwatch agent hold onto the key after the formal disbandment of the group.

And it seems especially unlikely that they would let a former Blackwatch agent and currently-wanted “outlaw” like McCree to hold onto it.

I think it’s much more logical that Sombra found the information for both Echo’s crate and the key, and then passed this intel onto McCree.

After all -

McCree is actually really, really good at sneaking into places and/or fighting his way back out.

And he specializes in heists.

Specifically heists of military-grade goods.

McCree had already made a name for himself as a member of the notorious Deadlock Gang, which trafficked in illicit weapons and military hardware throughout the American Southwest, when he and his associates were busted in an Overwatch sting operation.

- McCree’s Hero Profile

In fact, the covert ops mission that McCree is actually really, really bad at is:

Moira: McCree...we need to talk about your...Italian accent.

McCree: Well, I watched a bunch of old Spaghetti Westerns.  I thought it was pretty good!  Bone-a serr-a, signora.  Can I-a get chu-a somethin’ ta drink?

Moira: Please, never do that again.

---

Reyes: This mess was all worth it to see McCree try and pass himself off as a waiter!

McCree: I thought I did just fine.

Reyes: ...You got fired from your cover job, Jesse.

McCree: The lady was being rude!  She had it coming.

---

Going undercover.

(We’ll come back to this.)

Basically, I think it’s a lot easier - and actually pretty decently established in McCree’s character and lore - to reason that Sombra got the intel about Echo, handed it off to McCree, and let McCree do what he does best:

Steal stuff.

But then something interesting happens.

Recall occurs.

It’s possible McCree gets the key after Recall, of course.  The timing of him actually getting the itself isn’t super important - just the fact that he already has it at the start of “Reunion” really implies a lot.  But because most of the Recall-related shorts happen within a few days to a few weeks of “Recall” itself, it seems pretty likely that everything is kicking off all at once.

(In fact, I’m of the mindset that Reaper intentionally botched the “steal the Overwatch agent database” mission in order to push Winston into making the decision - the little clip at the end is very vague but seems to imply that Reaper is actually quite pleased with Winston’s decision.  The entire mission is pretty pathetic in its design, and Reaper has several opportunities to kill Winston but never does.  Yes, I am aware that Winston has plot armor, but it’s real weird that Talon’s using tasers when electricity puts Winston in super charged mode.  But this is tangential, tbh.)

Again, while never stated, it is implied that several things begin moving and happening all at once, either directly because of Recall (e.g. Genji’s confrontation with Hanzo in “Dragons,” Mei’s awakening in “Rise and Shine,” Reinhardt’s decision in “Honor and Glory,” and now McCree’s shootout in “Reunion”) or as an overall consequence of Recall.

One of these is:

Soldier: 76 beginning a series of attacks and thefts from “multiple former Overwatch bases”.

So this is something that a few followers pointed out (and yes, something I had been considering for awhile):

Are Soldier: 76′s movements and attacks on former Overwatch bases being coordinated by Sombra, possibly in tandem with McCree’s work in the Southwest?

The answer is, possibly disappointingly, “I can’t say for sure either way.”

But it is interesting.

We already know that Sombra has some sort of connection to Soldier: 76.  When exactly that connection is established is tricky to place: it could come after “Hero”, when she’s potentially able to strike a deal with him to get him to leave Dorado (e.g. “Ana Amari is alive.  Want to know where she is?  Get out of my city and I’ll send you the info.”).  It could also come before that: we know Jack Morrison is pretty restless in the time between the fall of Overwatch and Recall (a span of 6 years), so they could easily have made contact with each other during that period.

There’s also the very tantalizing - if a little bit shoehorned in - possibility that Olivia “Sombra” Colomar is a Blackwatch agent.

There’s a single line in the second page of the Blackwatch Venice Mission dossier which states:

“Agent [REDACTED] also secured a position [REDACTED].”

There is the possibility that this line reads something like “Agent [McCree] also secured a position [as a waiter at Antonio’s restaurant]” or something...

But I don’t think it is.

For starters, McCree’s name is actually declassified in the memo:

In fact, the four main agents in the mission are completely declassified, so while it’s definitely possible that one of their names is in the Redacted spot, it seems unlikely.

It’s also possible that there is a future Blackwatch character we haven’t actually seen or met yet in the story.  I’m not counting that out yet.

But I think a lot of people miss a few critical details about Sombra:

Sombra’s teddy bear Arturito has an Overwatch logo on it.

And though she absolutely was associated with Los Muertos:

Her relationship with the gang is more ambiguous and ambivalent than her Hero Profile implies.

And this is something I’ve said with stuff like Moira, and which is now pretty clearly demonstrated by things like Wrecking Ball and Ashe:

Team 4 deliberately leaves large gaps in character stories so that they can potentially fill those gaps with other connections or characters in the future.

People were shocked when they revealed that Genji was explicitly a Blackwatch agent and not just an Overwatch agent, but prior to that moment, nothing in Genji’s Hero Profile or his known backstory explicitly said that he was not a Blackwatch agent.

Similarly, in all the teasers, messages, and lore details that we knew about “Hammond”, nothing ever stated he was an ape or a monkey.

With Moira, her Hero Profile actually implied she was a Talon agent before she ever joined Blackwatch.

“...The shadowy Talon organization had already been supporting her for years, aiding her experiments in exchange for utilizing the results for their own purposes.”

(And frankly, I take a good deal of pride in having read the clues correctly for this well before the mode was playable: [Tweet 1] [Tweet 2])

And now Ashe.

Personally, I think Ashe is complicated because it’s pretty clear she wasn’t actually intended to be anything more than a single-short character (which has been stated several times by Story and Franchise and Team 4 alike), so while she was never originally part of McCree’s backstory, there was enough room in his story for her to be placed in.

Point is:

We go through this song and dance every time a new hero or plot twist is revealed.  Sometimes - like with Moira or Wrecking Ball - the implication is already there, or the absence of evidence does imply something more.  Sometimes - like with Genji and Ashe - there’s enough of a gap in a character’s history and backstory that something can be developed in a way the fans weren’t expecting.

So here’s the thing about the idea of “Blackwatch Colomar”:

Is there space in Sombra’s backstory for this “plot twist” to exist?  Yes.

Will Team 4 actually do it?  Only they know.

But as this entire post has shown:

Sombra has numerous connections to numerous characters - many of them Talon-aligned, yes, but several of them are former Overwatch or Blackwatch agents.  Hell, she’s even connected to Zarya at this point, and Zarya is effectively a non-aligned character at the moment.  She is implied to be the only character Reaper trust remotely genuinely in Talon, implied to be giving information to Soldier: 76, and is now implied to be working outright with McCree.

People seem to think that unreliable narrators can only work if they’re forcing a limited perspective on a situation or concealing “bad” truths from the audience.

But that isn’t necessarily true.

An unreliable narrator can conceal good intentions just as much as they conceal bad ones.

McCree: Is this what we’ve become, Gabriel? Gabriel: Blackwatch has always had one purpose: to do the real work of keeping the world safe.  I thought you had the stomach for it.  Looks like I was wrong.

And, as storytellers, the Overwatch development team is not beholden to tell you the truth - good or bad - either.  They’re creating a story: they would much rather show you Sombra’s intentions - or Reaper’s, or Soldier: 76′s, or McCree’s - than tell you outright.

They’re not going to tell you that Sombra has a soft spot for Overwatch.

They would rather show you.

And to loop this all the way back around:

They’re not going to tell you how McCree got the information about the key -

And they’re not going to tell you how McCree knew the crate was on the train because -

"All I want is that crate.”

The dialogue shows more about his character and the situation than literally stating it.

So before we move on, just to summarize:

How did McCree get Echo’s key?

Well, Sombra probably told him after hacking some Helix or military system for it.  McCree’s covert ops specialty is conducting heists and thefts, particularly in military bases, cargo, and supplies.

Where was the key located?

In the Southwest United States, or maybe somewhere on the West Coast.  Just in the west, I guess.

Why was Echo’s case being transported?

Probably because whatever organization was “safeguarding” it started getting nervous about Soldier: 76 locating her first.  Or because Recall was initiated.  Either way, the organization runs the risk of her getting found and effectively rescued by either Soldier: 76 or Recalled Overwatch.

Why would Sombra help McCree and/or Soldier: 76?

Because it’s entirely possible for a character to be both ambitious, chaotic neutral, and renegade in nature while also being nostalgic, sentimental, or entertained by “the good guys.”  It is canon to Sombra’s character that she actually does her hardest to motivate others to change themselves, to see the truth, or to find empowerment through information.

“Which brings me…to ‘Perspective.’  One of the things we really like doing with Overwatch is playing with perspective.  We utilize perspective when we analyze or when we tell stories about characters, what they’re thinking, what their goals are.  And we have a lot of unreliable narrators.  We want people to pay careful attention to what characters think about in particular situations.  We want them to use their judgment and their knowledge of a character’s thoughts to come up with their own ideas about the universe.  You know, I’m asked often - with characters like Sombra or Soldier: 76, you know, ‘Are they anti-heroes?  Are they villains?’  And I think, you know, you look at someone like Sombra, and it’s all about looking at, ‘What does she want?  What is she willing to do to get it?’

“And you have to remember that when she’s telling you something, she’s serving her own ends too.  So you know, you have to kinda make the decision for yourself.  And I think you can take a character like Soldier: 76 - like obviously, he has this mission that he is on that he believes is good, he seems to be sometimes willing to do things which are… maybe not super heroic, and so it makes him complicated.  We always have a lot of fun, uh - every once and awhile we’ll try and plot all the characters on like the traditional D’n’D alignment scale, and I think, you know, it’s fun exercise, but at the end of the day, I think what’s interesting about characters is that those alignments change depending on what situation you put them in, what’s important to them, and what decisions they have to make.”

- Michael Chu, GDC Spring 2017

Sombra can be and is the same character who has the ability to tease Reaper with a nickname only his “partner” has been allowed to call him, both as a reminder of what she knows about him and a callback to his internal motivations (protecting Jack).

In this regard, this aligns Sombra with characters like McCree, Soldier; 76, and Ana in methods and ideologies more than people realize.  In the Recall-Masquerade-Searching era, none of these characters have any qualms about “breaking the rules” at this point, and yet all of them still find their motivations to be unified by a few things:

A sense of personal, often ambiguous justice.

A belief in protecting the innocent - but also punishing those who commit crimes.

The adaptability to work well “in the shadows”.

And mixed emotions on the newly recalled Overwatch.

And all this harkens back to:

Gabriel: Blackwatch has always had one purpose: to do the real work of keeping the world safe.

3. “You’ve never been one to shy away from a good tip.”

Let’s say that Soldier: 76′s actions - regardless of if they’re being coordinated with McCree’s via Sombra or not - do actually drive Helix Securities or whatever organization is holding Echo to desperation.  They fill up a train with military weapons and her crate, hoping to transport it east to west to the other side of the country.

Perhaps they’re concerned that Echo’s key has gone missing, but they’re significantly more worried about the dude with an autoaim visor who just got the upgraded version of his favorite gun back.

This plays into McCree and Sombra’s hands pretty ideally -

Because what’s McCree really, really good at?

Heists.

And why is he good at heists?

Because even when he’s working alone, he still knows how to orchestrate them.

Because even though it’s been decades since they’ve actually last met -

McCree can still read Ashe like a god damn textbook.

Big train full of big guns, big bombs, big weapons?

That’s the kind of “merchandise” Ashe just can’t resist.

Work smarter, not harder.

The dialogue between McCree and Ashe implies that he was the one who “tipped off” the Deadlock Gang about the train:

McCree: Well, Ashe…I’ve been kinda busy.

Ashe: We’re pretty busy ourselves, so it’s awful convenient you showin’ up today.

McCree: …Yeah, you’ve never been one to shy away from a good tip.

Ashe: Hey!  We worked hard for this score!  You best move on now.

---

And even though it’s been decades, McCree still manages to get under Ashe’s skin right away.  She doesn’t realize what McCree was actually implying (that he was the one who tipped off the gang), but instead bristles at what she thinks is the slight in his comment (that they get “easy tips” and therefore do “easy work”).

However, the whole conversation is meant to show you that McCree deftly set up the gang to basically do the whole heist for him.  He rolls in after his phone call to the diner (which is actually operated by the Deadlock Gang), and thinks he has a enough time for a slice of pie and a cup of coffee.

He’s just a little bit off, though, because he only has time for two bites and one sip.

(But to McCree’s credit, maybe that’s all he wanted.  He thinks the coffee at the diner “tastes like boiled dirt” anyways.)

So just a short one:

Who tipped off the Deadlock Gang? 

Probably McCree, because he needed a way to get Echo’s crate off the train and he’s not really interested in repeating “Train Hopper”.  Also because it looks like the military train was automated and running on a fast schedule.

4. “I’ve got some business to attend to.”

McCree: Well, that’s a story for another time, but I got a call.  They want me, but really, they need you.

(McCree starts to walk away.)

Echo: Jesse, wait!  What are you going to do?

McCree: I’ve got some business to attend to.

(McCree takes Ashe’s bike.)

McCree: Say hi to the monkey for me.

Echo: Monkey?

McCree, laughing: Scientist.  Whatever.

---

At the end of the short, we get one last hint about what McCree’s been up to, where he’s been, where he’s going, and - more importantly - who he’s been around.

Again, just like Soldier: 76′s story, the timeline of McCree’s story skips ahead from the end of “Reunion” to this particular scene:

This is just like Soldier: 76 in that Soldier is literally shown in Dorado -

And then this is his next actual appearance in the plot.

The only thing that appears to have occurred in between “Hero” and “Old Soldiers”?

It’s hinted at in “Searching”, Sombra’s room in Castillo, and the Reaper sightings image in Necropolis.

Either Sombra is already connected to Soldier: 76 before “Hero”, or - like Zarya - she makes some sort of deal with him to get him out of Dorado and put him on the path to find The Shrike.

We can only guess at what McCree does in the few month span between “Reunion” and “Reflections”: perhaps he messes with Deadlock and Los Muertos some more.  Perhaps he tracks their trade routes and arms-purchasing partners.  Perhaps he keeps an eye on Helix-run facilities in the U.S.  Perhaps he collects a few bounties.  We don’t know for sure, but again, he leaves “Reunion” on Ashe’s bike and appears several months later in Dorado.

Again, the story isn’t going to tell you why he’s there or what he’s doing, especially if the Masquerade subplot is steadily being built up, but at this point, the evidence is pretty strong.

All in all, when we phrase it as a series of questions and look at the details provided throughout the game, comics, and shorts, we get a few straightfoward answers:

How did McCree get Echo’s key?

Sombra probably found the information and passed it off to him.  McCree did what he does best and snuck into some sort of base and stole it.

How did McCree know Echo’s crate was being moved?

Again, the simple answer is that Sombra found the information.  The group keeping Echo may have been worried about Soldier: 76′s actions or Recalled OW making moved to get her back, so they shipped her crate off with a bunch of other weapons.

What has McCree been “busy” with?

And

What is the “business” McCree has to “attend to”?

This one goes all the way back to “Retribution.”

McCree: This is all your fault, Reyes!

Reyes: I’m never gonna hear the end of this, am I?

McCree: I’m sure I’ll get over it…eventually.

Reyes: Good.  Because I’m gonna need you, Jesse.

---

The straightforward answer is that McCree is still working as an underground Blackwatch agent.

As a reminder, another core component of the “Masquerade theory” is that Moira was the traitor who sold out the Venice Mission to Antonio, his forces, and probably the whole of Talon.

A key part of understanding Retribution is the realization that only four people knew the mission was occurring in the way that it was happening.  These people were: Gabriel Reyes, Jesse McCree, Genji Shimada, and Moira O’Deorain.  Jack Morrison and Fio the Blackwatch pilot knew the mission “was happening” but they did not have the details about it, and therefore are unlikely to have been the ones to have compromised it.

In fact, there are several interactions in Retribution that pretty blatantly imply this:

McCree: Aww, even though we snuck that surveillance system into Antonio’s office, our intel’s a little spotty. Genji: Next time, you should leave it to me.  I can spy upon our enemies - unseen…and undetected.

A surveillance system was secreted into Antonio’s office and yet the Blackwatch team still missed key intel - because it is implied that someone on the team warned Antonio that his office was bugged.

Through the interactions with McCree and Genji, the player is meant to learn that both these characters are genuine and did not betray Talon.  McCree is 100% furious about how the mission goes sideways, and Genji shows time and again that he hates criminals to a very personal and actually pretty harmful level (the implication being that a lot of his lingering resentments over his own family and brother are still present on his mind and emotional state).

That leaves Gabriel Reyes and Moira O’Deorain.

The game wants you to believe that Reyes somehow betrayed Blackwatch and Overwatch, but again -

What it shows you is actually very different:

Moira: Pity we’ll miss the masquerade - I have the perfect costume. Reyes: Didn’t think that would be your scene. Moira: There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me…

(source)

Moira: You did what needed to be done, Gabriel.  Don’t apologize. Gabriel: I never have, and I don’t intend to start now.  Someone has to be the one to get things done.

McCree: Better to kill them now than wait for another surprise attack! Moira, to herself: …ha, ironic.

McCree: …You seem awfully calm. Moira: I take it all in my stride.

---

The game wants you to play the detective and figure out the actual story being broken up and semi-concealed by four different, limited-perspective, unreliable narrators.

In fact, this is exactly why McCree becomes the lead narrator of the event, even though Reyes himself was the narrator in the comic.

This narrative shift has been used multiple times in Overwatch story events.  The other obvious one is Uprising, where the comic is from Morrison’s perspective but the event shifts to Tracer narrating the intro and outro.  However, you can see similar shifts in narratives in comics like “Old Soldiers” (starts with Soldier: 76, switches to Ana mid-way through), “Reflections” (starts with Tracer with interjections by Winston), and “Binary” (starts with Bastion, switches to Torbjörn).

And there are also many, many instances where a secondary POV character is implied but not explicitly told.

The list includes:

“Legacy”: main POV - Ana; implied POV - Widowmaker

“Masquerade”: main POV - Doomfist; implied POV - Reaper

“Searching”: main POV - Zarya; implied POV - Sombra

“Retribution” (the game mode) itself is effectively one of these, but with two implied POVs: McCree has become the main POV, but Reyes and Moira are the secondary, implied POV, and it is up to the player to sort through the mess of interactions and heightened emotions to realize the truth.

However, even if you don’t unlock the best interactions that show this, the ending by itself literally does:

It’s also pretty easy to figure out that - well - despite his anger, McCree doesn’t actually leave Blackwatch after the mission.

In fact, something Reyes says in his debriefing - to Morrison, Amari, Lacroix, and McCree (through the window) - convinces all of them that: 1) Reyes himself can still be trusted, 2) McCree and Genji can still be trusted, and 3) something much bigger than Antonio is threatening to undermine them.

Again, the game doesn’t tell you this, but it does show you what it is, 8 years later:

Moira: Our courageous cowboy… The years haven’t changed you much, have they, Jesse? McCree: Well, they certainly haven’t changed my feelings about working with you.

---

McCree: Always thought hiring you was a mistake. Moira: The best mistake one could ever make.

---

Soldier: 76: You were a disgrace to Overwatch.  If I had known what Reyes had been planning, I would never have allowed it. Moira: It seems to me that it was convenient for you not to look too closely into Gabriel’s business… (Audio link)

---

McCree and Soldier: 76 believe that Moira betrayed Blackwatch.

Soldier: 76′s statement is clear, McCree’s is more vague but still gets to the point.  Interestingly, neither Soldier nor McCree ever state directly that they think Gabriel Reyes betrayed Overwatch and/or Blackwatch.  Soldier: 76 alludes to “what Reyes had been planning”, but he never says what that “plan” actually was, and if you’ve followed this blog long enough, you know that I believe Soldier is referencing Reyes’/Reaper’s plan is his reverse-infiltration of Talon.  

But here’s the other thing about McCree and Soldier: 76′s awareness of Reaper’s goals:

It doesn’t actually imply their respective approvals of this method.

And we come back to the “issue” with Sombra again:

Connected characters don’t actually have to 100% like or approve of another character’s ideas, methods, plans, and strategies to cooperate with them.

It does not mean Sombra is or isn’t blackmailing them (or Reaper or Ana).  It does not mean that they do or do not like Sombra or Reaper’s methods.

It is entirely possible for characters to have the same “good” intentions and the same aligned objectives without actually liking each other’s methods and tactics.

Like I said above, I personally think all these characters do actually get along, even if they occasionally frustrate or irritate each other (or disagree over methods).  Taking “Retribution” and “Uprising” as windows into the different characters’ personalities and interactions before the fall, we see many examples where characters who are still allies or friends after the fall disagree or banter around with each other.  Canon character who will eventually cooperate with each other in Recalled OW are Tracer, Reinhardt, Torbjörn, and Genji, and again, if this Masquerade theory is correct, then Reaper, Soldier: 76, Ana, and McCree are also still working together.

That said:

There’s a lot to imply that what Reaper and Soldier: 76 are doing in the present-day is simply a more extreme version of the roles they have always played with each other:

They’ve both gone “rogue”, yes, but one of them (Reaper) is playing “the bad guy” in order to convince Talon he’s 110%, totally serious about being part of their organization, while the other (Soldier: 76) is playing “the fallen hero” in order to convince characters like The Shrike (Ana) to join their plans.

I can’t really stress how much McCree’s actions in “Reunion” effectively parallel Soldier’s in “Old Soldiers”.

Everything from getting intel from Sombra, “setting up” a trap with a “rival” (personally, I think Ashe was 100% unwitting about McCree’s intentions, whereas Reaper’s actions and words in “Old Soldiers” are so blatantly out of place that it’s pretty easy for the informed reader to realize they’re fake at this point), down to the actual recruitment narrations.

“But I got a call - we’re getting the band back together.  They want me, but really?  They need you.”

The twist though?

(“You need me, Jack.  You need someone to watch your back.”) Ana is not Echo.

And she quite literally “flips the script” on Soldier, to the point where he even jokes about it.

And like, even the last “conversation” in both the short and the comic parallel each other:

Ana: Just tell me one thing.  What around you going to do when the fighting’s over?

Echo: Jesse, wait!  What are you going to do?

Soldier: 76: I’m a soldier, Ana.  Our war’s never over.

McCree: I’ve got some business to attend to.

I’d say that Sombra’s network of characters currently works like this:

“In the shadows” half: This half is composed mainly of Reaper and Sombra.  This group is reverse-infiltrating Talon.  Sombra runs the distraction element in order to get the other Talon member to trust Reaper more.  Meanwhile, Reaper passes on information to Sombra that she either can’t access or isn’t “digital” (e.g. the identities of the Talon leaders).  Because Reaper is deep undercover, he can’t be caught being “friendly” with Soldier: 76, Ana, McCree, Winston, and/or Tracer, but because Sombra is effectively passing (or stealing) information from Soldier: 76, Ana, McCree, and Recalled OW, Reaper is still able to coordinate missions with them.  Many times, Reaper does something that “accidentally” causes these missions to fail (e.g. bringing tasers, not killing Winston, stepping on Winston’s glasses, etc).  This group is an extreme version of Blackwatch.  

Characters with a decent likelihood of joining this group in the future include: Widowmaker (if she can break her brainwashing), Moira (depending on if she picks Reaper over Doomfist), possibly Sanjay and/or Symmetra.

“Rogue vigilantes” half: This half is composed mainly of McCree, Soldier: 76, and Ana.  This group has ambivalent feelings about both the plans for reverse-infiltration and recalling Overwatch.  They’re not really for or outright against either plan.  These characters have their own sense of justice and either do not agree with Reaper and Sombra’s methods or are not capable of enacting them.  However, this group still has a massive pool of shared and individual skills that can still be effective in other situations, such as heists and thefts, information collection, bounty hunting, and “fringe support” in case something goes wrong.  This group is an extreme version of Overwatch.

Characters with a decent likelihood of joining this group in the future include: Zarya (who is “lost” after “Searching” and looking for a new purpose), Hanzo (who rebukes both Genji’s offers and Doomfist’s, but who is interested in Ana’s methodologies), Symmetra (who will likely defect from Vishkar in the future)

In fact, while it isn’t 100% canon, I don’t think it’s a surprise that one of the OWL finals sprays included this group:

The other three sprays include two “canon groups”: Winston, Mei, Tracer, and Emily, and Reinhardt, Brigitte, Torbjörn, and Bastion.  So while the above group of Hanzo, Zarya, Sombra, and McCree isn’t confirmed canon, it is definitely an interesting clustering of characters.

And this brings me to the very last part:

5. “Scientist...Whatever.”

McCree: Say hi to the monkey for me.

Echo: Monkey?

McCree, laughing: Scientist.  Whatever.

If the rest of the short didn’t implicate McCree’s connections to Sombra and Reaper, then this part sure as hell did.

There are only two other characters in the entire playable Overwatch cast who call Winston the incorrect and joke term “monkey”:

Athena: Winston!  He’s going to have all agents’ locations!

Reaper: I’ll be sure to send them your regards, monkey.

Winston: I’m not a monkey!

Reaper: (laughs)

Winston: I’m a scientist!

Reaper.

And:

Sombra: Isn’t it a little embarrassing to get beaten up by a monkey? Doomfist: Have you ever been hit by a giant, genetically engineered gorilla? I could arrange it for you…

Sombra.

The inclusion of McCree calling Winston “the monkey” wasn’t just a cute joke: it’s a pretty blatant reference to Reaper’s dialogue with Winston in “Recall.”

Considering McCree isn’t supposed to be in contact with his old commander and is also supposed to be mad at him, this is a pretty telltale sign of what he’s actually doing.

I went back and looked over Michael Chu’s statement about Reaper and McCree’s interactions in the Recall-Searching era and perhaps unsurprisingly, he doesn’t actually state that they’re not in contact with each other.

(source)

Question: “Some time back you said that McCree and Reinhardt don’t know that Reaper is Reyes.  Do they not know because they’ve never met face–errm, mask-to-face, since the incident? I get the feeling that if McCree and Reaper met, McCree would know almost immediately who was under the mask, and Reinhardt would figure out if he fought Reaper in battle (because his only quote, “Traitor!”, is triggered when he kills him).”

Michael: “To clarify about the Reaper/Reyes thing, yes it is because they have not met in the “current day” of Overwatch. The interactions in the game are meant to be what ifs. I do think that McCree would know that Reaper was Reyes if he encountered him.”

What he says, quite literally, is that “they have not met in the ‘current day’ of Overwatch.”

And this is the exact type of vague wording that allows the team to do things like Blackwatch Genji, or Retribution Talon Moira, or hamster Hammond, or create Ashe.

Michael does not say “they haven’t met since the fall of Overwatch.”  He does not say “they’re mad at each other.”  He doesn’t say “they never communicate after the fall.”

This gives him a lot of room to change this situation as needed.  McCree and Reaper could have met before Recall.  They could have met up two, three, four years ago.  They might not have met at all since the fall, and only communicate through Sombra, in which case, McCree picked up Reaper’s bad habit of calling Winston “monkey” through her.  

They just literally haven’t met since Recall, through Reunion, through Reflections, through Masquerade, and probably through Searching, a time period which spans roughly one year to eighteen months (Recall occurs in Spring 2076 to Masquerade in Feb-March 2077 to Searching which is after Orisa is built in 2077).

And the final possibility:

Michael Chu just straight up lied about it.

Because again, the team has no obligation to tell you the plot of their story.

People seem to think that the developers have to be honest with them, especially when answering direct questions about the character or the game.  This isn’t true at all.  In fact, literally only a month ago, Bill Warnecke blatantly stated that “This patch does contain some balance tweaks and bug fixes, but it isn’t large due to any secret data preloading.” when that exact patch actually contained Ashe for the PTR.

Michael Chu has every right to be cheeky and vague when answering plot questions, and he actually does that pretty frequently:

Just like a magician has every right not to spill their secrets, writers and development teams have every right to keep major plot points, characters, and gameplay changes secret until they’re ready to share them.

Granted, this in turn means that you have every right as a customer not to support them.  You shouldn’t take inappropriate or poor taste answers as replacement for good customer service or good fan interactions.  If you find answers or statements unsatisfactory, you have every right to stop supporting the game or its developer.  I’m saying this specifically because there’s one Big Name Game and Developer currently generating a ton of talk about horrific customer service and complete disregard for fans.  Activision-Blizzard itself is not free from criticisms, and several aspects of Overwatch are part of that larger discussion.

But over the last two years of playing this game and becoming deeply invested in the story and world it is building, I’ve come to realize that many fan expectations for the team and for Michael in particular are extremely unfair.  You wouldn’t expect your favorite book author or show runners to spoil their own content, and you shouldn’t expect that from a video game writer either.  As I said in the paragraph above, this is separate from criticisms about poor fan interactions or poor customer service, or even separate from discussions about game design and game writing.  I think there are arguments to be made that the writing in Overwatch struggles in many spots, or is too vague, ambiguous, and ambitious in other spots (such as Retribution, which had several subplots which went directly over most of the fandom’s heads), but expecting the lead writer to just tell you if McCree, Sombra, and Reaper are still paling around or working together to bring down Talon and help Recalled OW is in poor taste on part of the fans.

Summary:

To bring it all together, here’s how McCree fits into the Masquerade theory:

Eight years ago, the Blackwatch Venice Mission goes wrong.  Reyes discovers that his “new doctor” Moira O’Deorain has betrayed Blackwatch and is a double-agent for Talon.  He convinces Morrison, Amari, Lacroix, and McCree that Blackwatch and Overwatch as a whole are at serious risk of being compromised and endangered.  Morrison suspends the Blackwatch division but allows Reyes, McCree, and Genji Shimada to keep operating as agents.

Reyes - with or without the other characters’ approval - beings making plans to reverse-infiltrate Talon to enact retribution on them and bring them down.  At some point, he makes contact with Olivia “Sombra” Colomar.  She may or may not be a Blackwatch agent herself.  

However, the Venice Mission has shown Reyes something else:

McCree: Is this what we’ve become, Gabriel? Gabriel: Blackwatch has always had one purpose: to do the real work of keeping the world safe.  I thought you had the stomach for it.  Looks like I was wrong.

McCree is not the agent capable of going deep undercover to protect Reyes’ back.

As I’ve written in “Long Reasons” and “Retribution and Reapercussions”, there are multiple instances in Retribution where McCree isn’t fully “in” on the delicate cat-and-mouse game Gabriel and Moira are playing.  Gabriel is balancing a very difficult situation where he must keep Moira on his side because she is quite literally the only person who will keep McCree and Genji alive during this mess, whereas Moira doesn’t realize her cover has actually been blown and is still willing to go along with Gabriel and the team because she thinks she can still slip back into Overwatch without a hitch.

McCree, however, is sort of stuck in the unfortunate spot of being our “main protagonist” so he gets all the narrative clues without really figuring out what’s going on.  In a classic spy thriller trope (or perhaps better as an ironic Holmes and Watson moment), McCree is the Watson or Lestrade to Reyes’ Holmes in this event (particularly funny given that McCree got a Sherlock Holmes skin for the Anniversary event immediately after).

What this does show, however, isn’t that McCree somehow isn’t smart or isn’t clever - “Reunion” very clearly shows he can be and is both.  Instead, “Retribution” shows that McCree just isn’t very suited for the “real work” of going deep undercover and stringing smart, intelligent, ambitious, and uncompromising characters like Moira, Akande, Maximilien, and Sanjay along.

McCree “plays the fool” well in Retribution because he doesn’t fully get it in the moment.

Sombra, on the other hand, is much better suited for this role: she “plays the fool” well enough to distract other Talon members and draw their attention while letting Reaper “reap the rewards” and make the organization rely on him more and more.  They need him to keep an eye on her, they need him to be an unkillable commander, and they need him to help shore up the slacking and ineffective Talon leadership.

And it works.

Reaper gets a spot in the council.

Sombra gets more critical intel about Talon’s structure and its connections to other organizations - such as Sanjay and Vishkar, which she can use to potentially turn characters like Symmetra away from Vishkar’s control.

Again, we don’t know exactly when this cooperation between Reaper and Sombra began, but it’s plausible it started just before the fall of Overwatch or shortly after.

Reyes needs someone to cover his back because as he goes deeper and deeper into Talon’s clutches -

His “partner” Jack Morrison cannot follow him.

(Not that Reyes wants to jeopardize Morrison, to be honest.  Protecting Jack is Gabriel’s whole motivation to begin with.)

And one of his most trusted agents is absolutely terrible at going undercover:

Moira: McCree...we need to talk about your...Italian accent.

McCree: Well, I watched a bunch of old Spaghetti Westerns.  I thought it was pretty good!  Bone-a serr-a, signora.  Can I-a get chu-a somethin’ ta drink?

Moira: Please, never do that again.

---

Reyes: This mess was all worth it to see McCree try and pass himself off as a waiter!

McCree: I thought I did just fine.

Reyes: ...You got fired from your cover job, Jesse.

McCree: The lady was being rude!  She had it coming.

---

Instead, between “Retribution” and “Uprising”, Reyes starts putting McCree back on the types of covert ops missions he’s good at: sneaking into militarized hot zones, conducting basic reconnaissance, and setting up heists and thefts.

By “Uprising”, this appears to suit both the commander and the agent just fine.

But in the timespan between “Uprising” and the fall of Overwatch (approximately 1 year), things take a dramatic turn for the worse.

Reinhardt his forced to retire, a decision Torbjörn is furious with.  We don’t know if Jack was forced by his own superiors to make the decision, or if he made the choice to potentially protect Reinhardt (either from double-agents or from harming himself in battle, tbh).  However, this begins to isolate Gabriel and Jack from a support network that kept them secure from Talon.

And then at some point:

Ana loses a critical sniper battle against Widowmaker -

And Gabriel and Jack’s greatest ally is suddenly “dead” to the world.

Either shortly before or shortly after this, McCree leaves Overwatch.

It’s likely that McCree left for his own protection, otherwise he could’ve easily ended up “like Ana”. 

...Or worse.

(It is strongly implied that Jack Morrison survived the Swiss Base explosion because he is genetically “enhanced”, something which McCree doesn’t have.)

Again, it isn’t surprising that McCree’s story effectively parallels both The Shrike’s (sharpshooter disappears and returns later as a bounty hunter) and Soldier: 76′s (commander and soldier loyal to BW/OW disappears and reappears later as a vigilante pursuing his own idea of justice).  The three characters are unified by this trope and have connections to Sombra.

It also isn’t surprising that Sombra is essentially "a shadow” of the roles that Morrison and McCree had for Reyes prior to the fall: she is a reminder of all that Reyes stands to protect (Jack, the partner who called him “Gabe”) and the agent he considered “effective” and saw great potential in (Jesse, the agent he recruited).  But in many ways, Sombra is far, far better suited to operate as Reaper’s partner-in-crime - the shadow to his smoke and mirrors - as he goes deeper and deeper in infiltrating Talon than either Soldier: 76 or McCree is.

Both Soldier: 76 and McCree are much better at blunter approaches to intel collecting and reconnaissance, and both are better at recruiting allies than Reaper’s “masquerading” persona.  They appear to be operating on the fringes of both Talon and Recalled OW, searching for other methods that can work in tandem with Reaper and Sombra while not compromising either character’s cover.

And just to really hone it in:

[Such a short statement belies its astonishing truth: We have not seen the last of Overwatch. Being dismantled by the UN only drove them into the shadows.]

We really should have expected this from the moment Overwatch launched.

I mean -

The developers told us to pay attention to the shadows.

#long post #mccree #jesse mccree #sombra #olivia colomar #reaper #gabriel reyes #soldier: 76 #jack morrison #masquerade theory #my essays #my writing #this took me like a month to even attempt #end me #reunion #retribution #uprising

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If you're discovering Kings Canyon looking for loot, after that sure, you probably want to remain armed. Yet if you remain in a hurry-- trying to, state, get to squadmates in demand, escape a sticky circumstance, or elude the ring-- you'll want to holster your tools. The default command to do this is to hold the swap weapons switch (triangle on PS4, Y on Xbox One) or press 3 on COMPUTER.

Running right into a slide along level ground offers a small bump to speed up, particularly if you leap out of the slide at the end. Yet if you're heading to a lower altitude, there's no reason not to slide. In the abovementioned follow-up video, an unarmed gamer slid downhill at a blistering 11.9 m/s-- almost 61 percent much faster than the leading running rate. Despite having a weapon drawn or being intended, the sliding speed was 11.3 m/s, which equates to a speed increase of roughly 53 percent over sprinting.

Below's a protip to put everything together. In Pinnacle Legends, your character's health and wellness and guards don't recharge by themselves; you have to recover them with palatable items such as Syringes and Shield Cells, specifically. Each recovery thing takes a couple of secs to use, and also you're at risk throughout that period-- trying to sprint while you're recovery will certainly cancel the process. Nevertheless, you can absolutely recover while you're sliding, with no movement speed fine. So why not kill two birds (as well as probably a Bloodhound) with one rock?

Learning to relocate while you're in the air is just as important as the ground video game, since your prospects in a match of Peak Legends will often hinge on where you make a decision to land. Obviously, Apex Legends Hack the arbitrary generation of equipment plays a big duty, even in locations that are intended to have high-tier loot, however there's absolutely some ability involved in responding to the old-time concern of "where we droppin', gang?".

APEX LEGENDS HACK BYPASS: Do You Really Need It? This Will Help You Decide!

It's simple sufficient to go for an area of Kings Canyon that's along or near the course of the dropship. Yet if you're wanting to reach a distant location of the map, arriving will need some deft handling-- as well as a fundamental understanding of physics.

It might feel like the best method to optimize your variety (i.e., straight range) as the Jumpmaster-- which, by the way, is constantly the 3rd person to pick their personality (unless they don't in fact choose one)-- is to fly right in advance, or as close as feasible to it. But if you take stock of the gauges that show up on the right and also left sides of the screen while you're decreasing in, you'll quickly understand that that's not the instance.

Because great loot can be difficult to find, and also because your survival in a congested area depends on picking up weapons before your adversaries do, rate is of critical importance throughout the decrease. Pick a landing area asap, as well as launch. While it might seem to make good sense to wait till the dropship is more detailed to your target, you'll typically get there first if you launch earlier-- as long as you keep your speed in that 130-140 array. (The caution is that the maximum array with the bobbing method is 1,300-1,400 meters. Sound your intended target, as well as aim at the ping to see just how away it is.).

[overdrivels]

The Way to a Heart (11)

I am ridiculously and eternally grateful to @dickbutt-writes-again who has so patiently listened to me whine and helped me fix up this chapter, witnessing me wreck this chapter 4 times and still cheering me on. THANK YOU!!!! ♡♡

This chapter is a little rough, so Alcohol as a Coping Mechanism tag is applicable here.

<<Chapter 10

Hanzo is drunk—ridiculously so even by his own admittedly compromised standards.

Rain water soaks his clothes down to the very fibers and they cling to him like an ill-fitted second skin. The pounding in his head is only muted by the chill and the desperate writhing in his skin which bids him to get up, get up, get up, but that is hindered by the heaviness in his limbs. It's a good thing he cannot move—the sloshing in his stomach is relentless and revolt if he were to do so much as breathe too hard.

He closes his swollen eyes.

Where had he—where had it all gone wrong?

The past few weeks had been going relatively well. He had finally, finally grasped something resembling normalcy (if avoiding Genji and gorging himself was considered 'normal').

A shuddery breath leaves him slowly in a plume of mist that's pierced by the still-falling rain. It's not coming down as hard as before, luckily: relentless sheets that threatened to wash away the summer and his foolish self—too busy chasing after the blinding warmth of alcohol to care—off this rooftop and straight off the cliff and into the raging sea below. Now, it's nothing more than light pitter-patters against his face, gentle reminding him not to succumbed to the siren's call of a dark oblivion, and willed him to face reality.

Yes. Reality.

He had involved himself too much, ran away too much, dallied too much, so when reality caught up to him, he found himself cornered and woefully unequipped to handle it all. Even with all he's learnt in life, he found himself lacking in things such as reconciliation and courage—courage; when half his life could be summarized in daring acts that would make most cower just upon hearing of them.

He became too caught up in a pace that he thought he was in control of.

The beginning of summer's end was marked by Mei's timely return, and with her, souvenirs. Tiny, wrapped pieces of jerky was well-received by everyone and devoured in an instant. (It was worth noting that you had seemed particularly upset about it all despite being offered your own package, making short work of small talk, and their portions just a fraction smaller—Ana laughed it off quickly, claiming you to be 'cute' and pouting about everyone ruining their appetites.) There were sweets (white rabbit candies, gummies, and other unfamiliar items that were all delicious), imported teas, snacks, and lost daring of all, copious amounts of alcohol that, if Mei had been flying a commercial flight instead of 'Air Orca', would never had been allowed aboard. Just that alone removes the bits of disappointment at the lack of pineapple cakes that he didn't ask for.

Even better, Winston had begun to dole out missions. Though it was not yet Hanzo's turn, the anticipation keeps his spirits up. In the meantime, Hanzo was able to convince an eager Winston to give him access to detailed plans of the entire base and surrounding area under the guise of fortifying the base's defenses. (Apparently Fareeha was on charge of doing a risk assessment of the base and upgrading the security systems, but did not yet have the chance to complete it.)

The maps he received are incredibly dense, both in size and information, and he has to chunk it out in more manageable sections to study. He learns of the surrounding areas first—they were the first files and he is in no particular rush, the kitchen nor the treasure was going anywhere—such as the Moorish Castle and the Siege Tunnels of Gibraltar, both which have been partially restored and reconstructed for the Watchpoint's use once upon a time. The maps become his nighttime study and bedtime stories, but they don't keep him asleep for long; they are nothing against the insistent tittering in his veins that jolts him awake at night.

Originally, Hanzo avoided going to the kitchen in the middle of these spells as frequently as he used to, but there is only so much he can bear alone without sufficient distraction, and the kitchen was as good as any where he’s not left alone to this thoughts. So, one night, he caves.

It’s difficult to feel bad about it, too, when the kitchen lights are still on and you greet him with the same sort of welcome you would during any other time of the day, and tell him to draw up a stool to sit at the long, empty service window. He does so and sits, folding his hands at the counter, and then he’s reminded of Japan in that way: people who stayed alone at the bar-style tables of izakaya s and ramen shops and twenty-four hour fast food chains, refusing to go home to their families after a vicious night of drinking just to return to work in a few scant hours. He supposed he’s no different from them now.

You ask no questions other than the usual: “What would you like, Agent Hanzo?” for which he is grateful for.

“Anything.”

If he sounded weaker than usual, you didn’t say anything, and for once, you don’t tell him to enter his order into the terminal. Instead, you turn around and get straight to work, letting the steady sounds of your bustle speak for you. The stove clicks, porcelain clinks, water falls, and the consistent whisking and chopping give him something to focus on despite having nothing to do but wait. Each sound is a chant, a verse of a spell that sinks into his skin, skittering up his skull, filling in the crevices and forcing out something else darker bit by bit.

It’s not until you slide him his tea and snack that he realizes that the feelings that chased him away from his bed did not follow him here, or if it did, they did not remain for long. Your quiet presence on the other side of the counter remains casually vigilant, as if daring the sludge to return.

It’s strange. He never really liked having anyone observe his eating habits—it made him far too human, too vulnerable—but he found he didn’t particularly mind. Maybe he’s even a little grateful—not that he would ever voice it—that you’re willing to sacrifice your sleep for him and tend to his childish nightmares without so much as a complaint. He should probably feel guilty, but it’s hard to when you’re so accommodating. And if you ever feel angry, he’ll at least know, that the most mean-spirited thing you’ll do is merely la a slice of pepper in his food. He has nothing to fear.

Though, he has to constantly remind himself that even a mouse will bite a cat when cornered, and not to make light of you or take complete advantage of your hospitality.

But even so, he conveniently forgets, ignoring the possibility of that danger and stretching out this sense of comfort for as long as you would give it. More often than not, after that, he’s up before dawn breaks, sneaking in a quiet, secret moment before the base comes to life.

Luckily, you don’t seem to mind at all and it’s hard to feel guilty when you greet him just as brightly as you would any other time of the day, adjusting to his company with a prepared pot of tea and a small snack of your choice. Eventually, you even share jovial stories of the ‘good, old days’ among the sounds of your knife or stirring. The sounds were steady in their rhythm to the point of hypnotic, sending shivers up his spine and sinking into parts of him that he didn’t know existed, chasing away any lingering doubts. It’s not unpleasant; he enjoyed it—it was relaxing in ways that he didn’t think possible.

In return, he shares the less gruesome stories of his time on the run. There were undoubtedly parts that he could not share in polite company, and the amount of censoring he has to do puts into sharp perspective that he hasn’t been a particularly ‘good’ person—not that he’s ever claimed such a thing. But the number of ‘safe’ stories he could share with you is embarrassingly small.

Despite all that, he still returns, slowly learning more and more about all that you do.

It should frighten him to say that it’s become a habit, and the excuse that it’s for the treasure feels like a feeble afterthought.

Though, it’s hard to worry of those things when you ask him, “Would you like another serving of bread pudding?”

Immediately, he replies, “Please.”

His empty plate is immediately cleared off the counter and replaced with another bubbling piece of indulgence that he does not hesitate digging into even as you’re saying, “Be careful, it’s hot.”

As always, it’s mouth-wateringly soft, not quite as hot as you proclaim it to be, but still enough to make everything else feel cool by comparison, filling his belly with a comforting weight. There’s no raisins in it this time, no added textures to the bread pieces that have now melded into one. Cinnamon permeates his senses and the rich, silken taste of eggs wrap everything up into a neat package. The sweetness almost makes his toes curl and the corner of his mouth lift.

“Is it better with raisins? Or without them?”

“Without.”

“How’s the sweetness?”

“A little too much.”

“Understood, thank you.”

Amidst his eating, Hanzo almost misses you scribbling these notes down in a notepad before it’s shoved away into the pocket of your apron.

“You keep notes?”

“Yes, there are times I must adjust recipes or remember things for later, so I keep a notepad around.”

“How old-fashioned.” Though, he cannot say that he does not do the same.

You shrug, unperturbed. “Pen and paper is preferable in the kitchen. Too much technology tends to complicate things.”

“Is that so?”

You hum, a little inquisitive and you turn just slightly to give him a better view of the kitchen, gesturing vaguely inside. “Head Chef used to think that having complicated machinery in the kitchen makes your skill dull and takes away that...human element. Though, ‘human’ is kind of…subjective. But even now, we don’t have very fancy equipment.”

The archer understands the concept well. Despite Japan’s technological advancements, the residents of Shimada castle insisted on doing things the ‘old fashioned way’. Even his father was of the same mind: reliance on technology undermines one’s foundations. Yes, one could use guns or poisons to kill or have GPS track a person’s coordinates, but when you don’t have access to such conveniences, you have no choice but to rely on your own skill and knowledge—the basics.

He just didn’t think it also bled into the realm of cooking.

Bitterly amused, he thinks that if your Head Chef ever met his father, they’d probably get along. Though, he can’t remember his father partaking in many Western foods.

“So your Head Chef valued skill then.”

Haltingly, you say, “Well, yes, but…” He looks up when he hears you huff, his curiosity is immediately piqued. “Head Chef always went on and on about what makes good food.” You tick off each on a finger. “Good ingredients, good skill, and...lots of love.”

He almost balks.

Love?

As if sensing his skepticism, you wave a hand around. “I know, I didn’t believe him at first. But over time, I think I get it.” Your voice turns soft, twisting his stomach in an agonizingly sweet and painful way. “And I think I have to agree.”

He raises his cup to his lips to hide his sneer, and douses that bitterness with a large gulp of tea. 「What nonsense.」

But he was no chef. What could he ever know of what ‘love’ was in cooking? What does he even know of the concept itself?

Was it a tool? A feeling? Something lost and buried by the sands of time?

Unwittingly, he searches for an answer inside himself, but comes up empty. The word just does not lend itself to any experiences he can remember, none which he can attribute to it.

Slowly, he lowers his cup and stares down aimlessly at the sill.

What is ‘love’?

What meaning, what experiences can be attached to such a vague and general word?

The experiences he could potentially attach to such a word fall quite short. For Hanzo, the word is inadequate and far too simple. How could a single word ever express the varying weights of the different types out there? Loving a food is different from loving a person, and similarly, loving a parent is different from loving a lover; the severity of their meaning is so far apart, and yet, they’re still expressed with the same word.

English is a far too strange and distant language.

So what sort of love do you put in your cooking?

What sort of ‘love’ has he consumed?

And the twisting in his stomach becomes larger, threatening to consume him instead, in a feeling that he cannot name. It is not dark, but it has the potential to be more terrifying than those that haunt his dreams. It makes his skin feel too tight and releases a jitter in his veins not unlike the moments before he steadies himself to fire an arrow. That tension almost makes him want to leave.

“Is that the secret of the Cellar?” he asks sarcastically.

“Oh, that again?”

You lean against your side of the sill, arms crossed, but not angry. Contemplative, maybe.

The relief is instantaneous, flushing the tightness right out of him, when you take to the change of subject easily. That relief nearly overshadows the fact that he may have just gotten you to speak about something forbidden.

“Love...is not something that you can just put in a jar and leave it down in the Cellar. So, no, that’s not it. But, I guess you can say that it has something to do with it. Maybe?”

“Maybe?”

“...what do you think the the treasure is, Agent Hanzo?”

He tries to call the exact words that McCree gave him. “It is something that sustains the Watchpoint.”

He watches your reactions carefully—a thoughtful raise of your hand to your chin, a slight tension in your posture that borders between leaping at some truth and holding back to feign ignorance.

“What do you think can sustain this place, then?”

A question for an answer, is it? Fine, he’ll play this game—if only to get away from the uncomfortable and unfamiliar discussion of ‘love’.

There is a million different answers to your question. Alcohol, for one—it’s the answer that McCree gave. Money, is the next obvious one. Considering that you have hinted at the fact that you are more involved in Overwatch’s finances than strictly necessary—really, how do you know if the Watchpoint is capable of hiring another chef or not—it is likely that there is a vault beneath the kitchen, the last place anyone would look (other than the unused bathrooms scattered around the base that, despite the cleaning bots best efforts, look like they were imported straight from a horror game). Then there’s equipment, power generators, bots, and a number of other things.

However, the question sparks a memory. This very question has been posed to him long ago in his youth, confronted with the reality of being the clan’s scion and eventually, master. Replace ‘Watchpoint’ with ‘clan’ and his answer is simple.

“Its people.”

You falter, hand from your chin dropping as you consider his answer. A jolt of excitement makes him straighten in his chair. Is he correct?

“That’s a...very good answer,” you say slowly. The excitement in his gut quickly wanes at the tone of your voice. It sounds as though you’re not quite sure yourself.

“But is it correct?”

You seem to meander between thoughts. Quietly, you confess, “I don’t really know anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

Your arms come down and fold neatly on the counter between you both. If he lean forward just a bit, he could grab hold of them and not let go until you give up the answer. But he watches and waits for your answer.

“You see, Agent Hanzo, I am very used to the Cellar. I’m sure some of it is very valuable, but to be very honest, I’m not...very sure which is the true ‘treasure’. I know what I consider to be a treasure, but I don’t exactly know what the Head Chef meant.”

Slack-jawed, he stares.

If you are lying, then you’re doing a very good job.

Very slowly, he asks, “So you chefs risk your lives to protect something that you don’t even know of?”

“No!” Your hands immediately balls into fists against the counter. “No, that’s not the case. There is— ” You choke on the words and then Hanzo glimpsed it with an out-of-place glee: victory. So you do know.

He leans in deeper into the window, and you step back. He can barely glimpse your face, but tactics like this is most effective when you’re level with the other person, but he’ll have to make do. He needs a bigger push, big enough to make you spill. You’re almost there, riled up, and likely to spill.

“Chef.” It’s in his grasp. “I understand this item is of utmost importance to you.” It’s so close. “And it would be wiser to have all the agents protect it.” If he can just break you—“But without knowing what it is, it could be destroyed in passing. It would be in your best interest to…”

What is he doing ?

“...to continue doing as you have.”

The relief from you is palpable as he draws back, slow and controlled. His heart is hammering in his chest, turning his nerves numb. The tantalizing answer was so close and all he had to do was just…

He forces himself to take a sip of his tea, wincing at the cool temperature.

“Chef, more tea.”

“Yes, of course.”

The teapot and teacup is cleared, and he watches you waltzing around the kitchen to fulfill his order. Folding his hands in front of his face, he wonders if he had just let something precious slip out of his grasp, if he had failed to make the mark, if he’ll ever get a second chance.

Though, when he finds himself with another serving of tea and another snack, he finds it hard to regret the decision too much. He’ll get to the answer soon, there’s no rush.

And he didn’t rush.

While he’s tempted to rub this into McCree’s face, he has to keep this quiet for now—if the gunslinger knew that you had begun to loosen up, he might dive in and attempt something himself, ruining his plans. No, Hanzo keeps these conversations close to him and your time even closer, lingering just up until the time the sky begins to lighten and the hints of dawn splashes into the cafeteria.

The conversations following do not encroach upon the treasure, but they do touch upon something more personal, giving him a better view of the person behind the dividing wall.

“And because of Patissier Woo, I don’t like handling chocolates. She’ll make you eat the chocolate if you mess it up, which sounds great, but when you have tons of it, it’s disgusting.”

“If it was such a waste, why did she not eat it herself?”

“She was an omnic.”

He nearly chokes on his tea. So there were omnics in the kitchen. Just as he had thought in the beginning.

Insensitive as it may be, he asks, “How did she make anything if she could not eat?”

“She took precise measurements and always took notes. She was one of the people who taught me about looking at people’s dishes to find out their likes and dislikes. Actually, a lot of the other chefs had that habit, too. We even compiled a database with everyone’s preferences.”

“Oh? Is it still being used now?”

“Of course!” You sound awfully proud. “It contains years of data from the Strike Commander down to the gardeners with allergies and everything. It’s really useful.”

“Is this data accessible by everyone?”

You take a moment to think. “It shouldn’t. It’s kept here, and I don’t think even Athena has access to it.”

“Ah, is that so? How reassuring.”

Occasionally, among the stories, you dole out gems like this and it makes piecing the puzzle together all the more satisfying.

But not all of these meetings are so carefree.

It’s slowly becoming more apparent that you’re getting distracted, troubled. It’s small things at first that he chalks up to fatigue: letting the kettle whistle for too long, missing a spot when you’re wiping down the counter. However, it becomes apparent that a lack of sleep is not the only thing on your mind.

Hanzo enters the kitchen at your unspoken meeting time as usual, but to his surprise, Winston is already there. The sight of the gorilla at the service window shocks all the sleep from his system and he unconsciously suppresses his breath—hiding himself and listening.

“I promise, we will do everything in our powe—”

“You don’t have to do anything, Winston.” Even from this distance, Hanzo could hear the uncharacteristic iciness in your voice. “Everyone risks their lives. I don’t. This is the least I can do.”

Winston leans forward, hands on the edge of the sill, seemingly exasperated and frustrated. “We are worried for you, and I’m sure your colleagues are as well.”

“They’re fine ! I c— we chose to do this, and I don’t want to take it back.”

“At least take some time off, you’ve been—”

“I’m fine !”

Winston, and even Hanzo, is taken aback by the volume of your voice. It echoes fiercely into the mess hall, the high, domed ceilings trapping the sound and twists it into something more haunting and lasting.

You huff angrily. “If you do not want have anything to order, Winston, please...just go.”

“Chef…”

“Please.” Hanzo watches as you grab Winston’s massive hand on the counter and give it a squeeze—a motion he could feel inside himself despite not being anywhere near. “I’m fine. Everything will be fine. I promise.”

Every bit of Winston’s stance projected reluctance and doubt even as he pulled away, seeming to hold onto your hand as long as he could. He looks like he wants to say more, but then shakes his massive head and makes his way out of the lonely cafeteria on his fists, completely bypassing Hanzo who took to the shadows. Up close, he could see the frustration on the scientist’s face. Whatever you both were talking about, Winston seems ridiculously worked up about it, and Hanzo wonders if he shouldn’t try to find out.

The door slides shut, casting everything back into silence, but Hanzo could still hear the echoes of your voice—angry and so reminiscent of the time you tried to force him to leave the kitchens.

Even a mouse will bite a cat if cornered.

Is it safe to approach? Should he draw back for today and leave you alone to process your thoughts and cool off? It would be the smartest idea, the safest for him.

But what about you?

You said so yourself, you’re fine .

And Hanzo knows it’s a damn lie.

Against his better judgment, he approaches the service window. It shouldn’t matter, it shouldn’t bother him at all—months ago, he wouldn’t have cared. Now, it’s a little different. These past few weeks meant something . You mean something a little more than an estranged cook now.

Silently, he watches for a few moments when he gets to the window where Winston stood.

You’re roaming around the kitchen some distance away, a stormy expression set on your face and a tightness to your jaw. Ingredients for something gathered in your arms as you begin chopping away, a little harder and a lot messier. The sound is jarring rather than comforting, violent rather than relaxed. He’s almost wary of calling out to you in case you’re startled into taking out your own hand. The archer waits until you’ve set down your knife to reach over and take some leaves and shove them into your mouth.

“Chef.”

And he almost feels guilty when you whirl around, hand just inches away from knocking your knife over. It was good then that he did not call to you while you were still working. You wipe your hands quickly on your apron—a little dirtier than usual—and make your way to him. Before your face disappears entirely behind the upper part of the window, he sees the weariness in your eyes, in your face, the tension in your jaw and shoulders.

“Good morning, Agent Hanzo. What can I get you?”

No matter how well you try to hide it, the exhaustion is apparent in your voice. His answer never leaves his mouth despite it being open. Lately, he has let you decide for him, but in your current state, it may not be a wise idea. He must have reached some quota of bad decisions already, anymore may prove disastrous.

Eventually, he waves his hand. “I’ll leave it up to you.”

“Certainly. One moment.”

You don’t even get very far before he watches you slam your hip into a counter, too shaky on your feet to get very far before hunching over a counter.

“Chef!?”

“Hrughk—I’m fin, I’m fine, Agent Hanzo. Just...give me a minute.”

He waits a moment, but observes no change, no intervention from Athena, and against all good judgment, he goes around the bend to open the doors to the kitchen because you are decidedly not fine and likely haven’t been for a very, very long time.

At the sound of them opening, you struggle to raise your head. At distance, he can tell that you’re ridiculously unwell even through the thinly-veiled anger you’re directing at him.

“No, you can’t be in here. Get out.” Another timely lurch renders your warning ineffective.

He resists the urge to roll his eyes. He’s not so much of a monster as to leave you and watch you struggle. That’s tasteless and highly unnecessary. Even his kills were swift, leaving the least amount of suffering and regret. Though, he cannot say the same for Genji, not with the way his brother had humiliated him and made him suff—Hanzo shoves that thought of his mind. He cautiously makes his way toward you, carefully eyeing the items in your vicinity for anything you could throw at him (though he doubts you’d hit him even if you were completely well).

“I will call Dr. Zielg—”

“No!” Then quietly, “No, she’s sleeping. This is…normal.”

You would have to forgive him if he didn’t believe you. You look nothing short of unhealthy and it’s likely no one else notices with the way you conveniently hide your face behind the overhand of the service window. Whoever designed it clearly did not want the chefs to be seen or wanted to discourage interactions between the two worlds that it separates.

Here, there is no such barrier and your suffering is laid bare for him to see.

A prickle of panic rises in the back of his neck. The fact that you have abandoned your duty of protecting this place only shows how severe the situation is. A hand closes in on your shoulder and pushes you more upright and he does it with more ease than he would have expected.

“Chef. Focus. What do you need?” he asks gravely.

Listlessly, you wave at some vague direction. Hanzo’s not even sure if you know what you’re gesturing at, not with your eyes closed and brows knitted together in a tight and pained expression.

“I need to…get my medicine.”

“Where?”

For a moment, you don’t answer and Hanzo thinks you may have passed out,but you raise your head, eyes narrowed and face scrunched up, and trying to wave him away. If he didn’t know you were in pain, he would think you were incredibly annoyed. Perhaps you were. Perhaps this is not a state many have seen you in.

Two deep breaths later, you push yourself up and start batting away at his helping hand. You don’t seem keen on relying on his help and he’s not one to impose it on someone who does not want it (not that the opportunity has come up often).

As you pass, however, the sounds of a rumbling catches his attention. It takes him a moment to realize it was your stomach.

You don’t even seem to have the energy to be embarrassed about it.

“Don’t follow me,” you warn darkly, boding no compromise.

He’s tempted to do so just to spite you—it’s not as though you could even attempt to resist in your condition—but stays where he is to watch you press a hand against the Cellar door (of all things), which beeps after a moment and slides open far swifter than should be possible for a door of such thickness and size.

The door reveals a hallway or a tunnel, dotted by flickering lights that slowly turn on in your presence as if welcoming you. There could be doors on the side, but it’s difficult to tell. Some posters, aging and peeling, are plastered inside. The floor is covered in a different tile than that of the kitchen, and every so often, the scruffy tile is replaced by a strip of something grainy. It’s notably dirtier than the floor in the kitchen, well-used and a little ill-maintained.

And you stand there, gathering your breath, haloed by the doorway as its only defender and current refugee.

It would not be hard to attack you from behind, knock you out, and find out the truth of what lies beyond. But the thought of doing it this way—too easy, too cowardly—makes his lip curl and something vile curl up inside. Assassin as he may have been, this is not a mission of that sort, and you are not a target.

The door closes the instant you pass the threshold, bringing an end to his brief moment of contemplation, firmly keeping him out and leaving him alone in the desolate kitchen.

He never guessed he’d be allowed to stand here without the threat of you chasing him out. This would normally be a very ideal situation, but he’s already passed up the easy chance to go into the Cellar, it hardly seems worth the effort.

Now that he’s not being attacked or waiting for an ambush, he can study the place more leisurely. It’s not much different than the last time he was here. He runs a hand over one silvery counter and comes up with nothing. Everything is still meticulously clean, but evidences of having been used—scratches, stains, the general feeling of worn-ness, if that makes any sense—is visible on every centimeter of this place.

The walk-in freezers are lined with more items than before and previously empty containers are now fulfilling their purposes. Darkly, he wonders what happens if these were to go empty. Maybe it’s happened before and he just never noticed, or you never gave them the chance to notice.

He grabs a glass from a neatly lined shelf and fills it with water from one of several sinks and waits, fiddling with his communicator in his pocket just in case he needs to call Dr. Zielger. If you require medicine, chances are your problem is not something his meager medical knowledge could help with.

There’s also the other possibility of you collapsing on the other side with no way of calling for help. In which case, you’d likely die without anyone having known. Unless…?

“Athena.”

He almost jumps when he feels rather than hears the AI’s voice coming from the communicator he has in his hand. “Yes, Agent Hanzo?”

“Are you in contact with the chef at the moment?”

She pauses for a bit before answering. “Affirmative. The chef currently has a communicator and as such, I am able to establish contact if required.”

Hanzo stares at the Cellar door; now you’ve become a part of its secrets. If you truly perish behind that door, the secret of its bowels will likely go down with you provided that no other chef returns here. Even worse, no one except for himself would know what happened. Would you even have the strength to call out for help? Would you have the presence of mind to call Athena? Would he be able to open that door himself without preparations?

With those thoughts plaguing his mind, he grips the glass tightly in his hand and the communicator in the other, eyes intently on the door, waiting for it to open.

A minute becomes two, then five, then ten.

The panic at his neck, previously muted, becomes an insistent pressure that churns his nerves. He’s waited long enough. “Athena. Establish contact wi—”

The door slides open in that instant and you walk out, a little steadier, but no better beyond that. You tilt your head as though confused.

“Ah, you’re still here?”

He does not grace you with an answer, a little indignant, and instead hands you the glass he’s been holding. It’s lukewarm now, but it’s better than nothing. You blink at his gesture, a little unsure, and staring at his offering like you’ve never seen it before, but he has no time for this and thrusts the glass in your direction again. “Drink.”

Your hands tremble as you take the glass from him, and Hanzo is all too aware of your touch—a little too warm, your grip a little too weak—and the feeling of it lingers even as you move away. His own fingers tingle and he flexes them to get rid of it.

“Thank you.”

You drain the cup, refill it—nearly tipping onto him as you try to do so, and he has hold you by your upper arm to keep you from falling over—and finish it off again.

“You took your medicine then?”

You nod.

“Do you need anything else?”

You shake your head and tug your arm away with a lot less force than he knows you can exert. He lets you go, but keeps a watchful eye as you make your way back to the Cellar door and press your back against it, sliding down until you’re sitting on the floor, the glass gripped loosely in your trembling hands.

The quiet is disconcerting, made even more so by this situation.

Here he is, a grown assassin, babysitting a cook. This situation feels far too close to memories he wants gone and buried lest they imposed themselves here, dredging up the same emotions that led up to his willing participation in a tragedy.

Without prompting, you begin to speak. “I should be the one asking you if you need anything. I'm sorry you have to see me like this, but please, don't tell anyone.”

Though your remorse different sharply from those distant memories. He crosses his arms, looking down at you sternly, but not unconcerned. “If you are unwell, why are you working?”

“I'm not sick or anything. It's not contagious.”

“Then what is it?”

You fidget with the glass in your hands, and more than once, Hanzo thought it would slip from your hands. You keep your eyes down, shoulders hunched in, guilty and ashamed. It seems that the sympathy that he had long thought evaporated in his youth still exists somewhere and he bends down until he’s squatting on the floor.

“I have…stomach ulcers and…acid reflux,” you murmur. Regardless of how quiet you try to be, your words echo clearly in this space. Hanzo’s eyebrows rise in surprise. He wasn’t aware—not that he had any reason to be. “I can’t—I mean, I can, but…eating is difficult and sometimes I just…forget.”

You fall silent and don’t offer any explanation as to how this came to be. There’s no reason to pry, especially if you’re not feeling particularly forthcoming with it. And somehow, he gets the sense that this was meant to be kept under wraps. Another secret of yours that you have seemed him worthy enough to share with.

Somehow, it feels like a very precious responsibility. Far too precious for him to be holding.

He wonders just how many other people know. Dr. Zielger and maybe Winston.

“You do not seem to be in the habit of forgetting things.”

You laugh, but it rings hollow.

“Madame Zielger said it would be handled if I were diligent about it, but…I’ve just been...busy.”

He supposes he understands and has no premise to lecture you on—he himself has been subjected to something similar about his liver and other issues that he had pointedly ignored throughout the years. While there are a good number of underground doctors in Japan and even more outside of it, he hadn’t taken the time to undergo a general physical, only visiting them for immediate emergencies and nothing more. Though, most of the time, his avoidance is on purpose and may or may not be stemming from his desire to feel something other than the zombie-like fog he's been encased in during the past ten years. But what distracts you so? Surely it can't be your duty that keeps you from your health. Is cooking for a base of under twenty people really so strenuous that you can neglect your health?

...or are you also running from something? Punishing yourself for something?

The thought makes his mouth go dry.

No. Not everyone is like him. You, least of all.

Derailing himself from the intrusive line of thought, he grasps upon something else. “Why do you call her Madame…?”

You look up, a little surprised and then you raise the glass to your lips, a poor attempt to smother the smile that takes over your face. It’s a softer look, a better one, one that knocks something loose inside his chest and makes breathing simultaneously easier and harder. “It was something the Head Chef used to do. I guess I just picked it up. That and maybe a few other habits.”

“Such as?”

Slyly, you grin. “That's a secret.”

“Hmph. Aren’t you full of them,” he says dryly, but with none of the barb.

It just sounds like another challenge to him.

That night felt like the beginning of something less distant, like some wall between the both of you have thinned. (Even more so now that he had your contact information to remind you to take your medicine—Hanzo really does not want to find out what happens when a chef is unavailable.) It's difficult to not want to throw this encounter into McCree’s face as well—he had seen the inside of the Cellar whereas the rest of Overwatch could not so much as get near it. It's an accomplishment that keeps his mood up.

That is, until you decided to be a meddling nuisance.

Hanzo can’t help the grimace that takes over his face at the memory that landed him up here in the first place.

He had been called down from his room for dinner—a little unusual as it was well before the time where the word ‘dinner’ no longer applied to whatever meal he was eating, however, he dismissed it even though something in the back of his mind tingled with suspicion. But it’s you, he had reasoned. What harm could you do? Give him more bell peppers?

He huffs a laugh to himself. You wouldn’t be so cruel as to waste food unnecessarily and feed any of them something you know would be ill-received.

However, the reason he was called down would have been far worse, far crueler than he would have imagined.

The sight that greets him is not unlike a party; everyone on base is there, drink bottles decorate the table and there’s a carefree chatter that fills up the incredibly large space with more ease than expected.

But what surprises him most is the fact that you’re standing there out in the open, waiting, and he has to take a moment to process it. You wear an expectant smile on your face, a bowl and ladle (too short to hit him if he kept his distance properly) in your hands.

“Bout time you got here,” grouses Torbjörn.

“Have a seat, Agent Hanzo. Everyone’s been waiting for you.” You gesture at the table, but he instead keeps his eyes on you, stricken a little by the contrasting imposition of a memory and the reality before him.

You look a lot less angry than he remembers. It's difficult to see you when you're working in the kitchen even if he is leaning into the window. It's different. You stand a little straighter, perhaps to be more presentable, and your posture is awkwardly formal like a newly hired maitre d’.

A snarky comment comes to the surface, but he holds his tongue. It’s the first time he’s ever seen you out here and it would probably not end at just one single pepper this time if he were to say anything about it, so he just nods his thanks.

He takes a step forward to do so, but he stops short, the reality of the situation slamming into him with knee-buckling speed as soon as he sees the table in its entirety.

There’s only one seat available at the table and it’s right at the edge of one of the long, long tables, right beside Genji.

Hanzo’s jaw tenses to the point of pain, his breathing slows and gains a weight that steadily crushes his insides.

He can feel everyone’s expectant gazes on him.

“Come on, come on, we’ve been waiting!” shouts Junkrat. He’s shushed by those surrounding him, but Torbjörn is already drinking something and mumbles, “Come on, prince. Ya going to let your problems keep us from eating? Peh.”

“We’re having jjigae! Come on!”

“Join us!”

“Reinhardt, don’t move so much, you’ll hurt your back again.”

His stomach twists violently, and for the second time ever, the acute sense of betrayal stabs at him—of everyone here whom he had expected to stay out of his personal business, of everyone here whom he trusted.

His thoughts trail off and he doesn't even know why he ever assumed any of that at all.

Anger, still slow, but soon to be broiling in his gut, makes him discard the possibility that it may not have been a scheme of your own volition or because some other meddling fool asked for it. It does not matter; this is for him to solve and his private life is not a circus to be put on display for everyone else to gawk at and attempt to fix. He is an adult. He is a Shimada. And while he will regret a chance to eat, he bites out, “I am not hungry.”

The mixed chorus of his name only fuels his desire to make himself scarce that much quicker.

“Wait, Agent Hanz—!”

“Leave me!”

He swings behind him half-heartedly, not really thinking, but he feels something against the back of his hand and then his stomach falls into the ground when he hears it: a sharp crash and the splash of liquids.

The tension in the room is as oppressive as the silence, but he does not bother turning around, doesn’t look anyone in the face, doesn’t look you in the face.

“Hanzo. Brother, yo—”

“You have no right to call me that!” And then, 「What ‘brother’?! What ‘Hanzo’?! Neither of those things do not belong in your mouth.」

「You—!」

He powers straight out of the kitchen, doesn't even listen to the clamoring behind him, and into his room where he fishes out the alcohol Mei had so graciously bought him from her trip. He hid himself away on the rooftops of the Watchpoint where he was sure no one would look or dare reach before he drinks himself into a stupor. The result of it is himself, here, waking up to the splash of rain trying to choke him, with nothing but the darkened heavens blanketing the skies, and the pull of a hangover, reminiscing on the past few days.

He clenches his teeth and exhales.

Foolish.

All because of your needless meddling, because of this stupid group’s interference, all his plans have gone up in flames.

He had lowered his guard, had tricked himself into believing something that was not reality.

There was no one to blame but himself. It was his fault he did not handle business faster, that he was such a coward, that he had let a false sense of sentimentality get the better of him.

In the end, he really didn't come to terms with anything.

He didn’t gain anything from coming here—to Overwatch.

He just ran away from it all.

‘Coward.’

Being called “brother” by someone he didn’t truly acknowledge as his brother was unsettling and painful. Being called plain “Hanzo” by someone who could have been (may actually be) his brother is even worse.

But who could he blame?

It was himself who decided to use his first name as an alias—he hadn't thought he cared, didn’t think it would matter here, so far away from Japan and away from traditions and—

—he thought he could have a new start here.

That he could begin moving toward a future again.

But he didn’t account for just how horrifying it would be, how terrifying it is to face your past or own up to it. Why is it so hard?

—“ Hanzo! Brother!”

“You have no right to call me that! ”—

Genji always knew how to ruin things with too many careless words—the clan, his position, his own relationships. But maybe in that same vein, Hanzo may have also ruined things with too few words.

Despite the cold, his body and eyes burned.

Is the coward’s way the way of Shimada, Hanzo?

A shaky sigh escapes him.

He’s so very tired.

He should return inside.

Carelessly, he raises an arm and flops it over across his torso to use as leverage to turn himself over. He gets about partway, leaning heavily on his other elbow with his vision swimming, before he notices a movement.

Hanzo watches with a moment’s of drunken indifference as the bottle that Mei had brought him, partially empty, begins to roll away.

He stares and stares until it gets about halfway away before he's stricken by a panic and lunges for the bottle. His entire body slips against the rain-slicked roof. His arm and shoulder sweeps off the sloped edge. the bottle rolling right off away from him and falling into the dark depths below. He could only hang precariously on the edge in muted horror—both at his actions (for a mere bottle , for heaven’s sake) and the loss of the remainder of his drink. The fear colder than the rain seeps into his bones and the ground simultaneously rushes and runs from his vision.

He thinks he hears the crash, but then he’s absolutely certain he hears shouting after. Hanzo lets his arm and head fall, teeth clenched tight as his stomach contents writhe for freedom.

If this world had any mercy, it would not be you who witnesses him breaking yet another thing. But at this point, he’s not even sure he deserves it.

“Agent Hanzo?!”

He withdraws his arm from the edge of the roof and struggles to slide himself deeper toward the center.

He’s not a coward.

He’s just has a sense of self-preservation.

A metal bowl rolls some short distance from the table it fell from until it knocks into the foot of a fallen omnic, still sparking at the neck and chest. The bowl clatters, almost an impromptu drumroll that heralds the shadow which drops over the fallen man, who curses just as rapidly as he blinks, trying to get his vision free of shimmering spots.

"Overwatch Operational Department, field logistics division ex-agent, Tanuja Singh Deshmukh?"

The chef’s head snaps up, eyes flashing, teeth bared.

“My name is Asim .”

Chapter 12>>

#the way to a heart #my writing #alcohol as a coping mechanism #why is tumblr site on mobile doing this #I put a read more in there for a reason damnit #twtah