2Sequel to Final Battle.
Thank you for all those who reviewed that story and showed interest in a sequel!
Your faith has been rewarded!
Sins and Sorrow
Morrison had given the order. Forget about him.
Gabriel Reyes.
For he was nothing more than a ghost. A hollow, forsaken jar. Sullen, suffocating ash.
Then Jack had disappeared away into the night when she had finished with him. But of course, how could she abandon a former comrade?
How could she abandon the one who discovered her, who along with Reinhardt raised her under their care, until she was old enough to decide, to choose her own life?
How could she turn her back on him?
Simple. She could never do that.
So when all traces of Jack Morrison were nothing more than the thin caked layers of blood on her hands from the surgery, she collected her gear and returned to the site. Her former home. The devastated Eden. Ruined paradise, and desolated beauty.
But then again, she decided, an organization that hypocritically fell to the inside corruption and violent rebellion that it had sworn upon itself to defend the world against had no right to continue existing. Angela, reflecting on the demons of cruel irony from her past, decided that ultimately, yes, it was for the best that Overwatch had been dismantled. It was nothing more than a failed machine, of which the cogs never bothered to work together anymore. It was an abandoned dream, consisting of wasted years spent on nothing more than a hopeless fairy tale. She was nothing more than an angel in the aftermath of a complete genocide against the saints. A remaining sliver of an era where knights, mages and samurai had once banded together to try and bring peace to a failing universe. That had clearly not gone well.
Their lion's heart had been claimed by the imprisonment of time and the inescapable grip of aging mortality. Their mother bear robbed of her soul by the demons that had baited her out into sacrificing herself completely for her children. The engineer now spent his waking hours downing his sorrows with liquid addictions rather than persevering with repairs to equipment, and more importantly, to his soul. Their alpha had crumbled more and more with each loss sustained, and with time, his pillar of resolve shattered, and he became nothing more than a blind and broken man, screaming and howling for vengeance.
Those were the fates of the heroes that she had once looked up to. Practically dead weight to all those around them. Dead in personality, dead in their own lives.
But he would be different. Of that she was sure.
That's why she had combed through the pieces of stone. Why she had agonised herself pulling away at the oppressing boulders and the crushing pieces of despairing slate stones to get to what remained of him.
Gabriel Reyes was no ghost to her. No clown. No traitor. No failure.
Just a poor, desolated husk.
But she would save him. Like with every other (successful) patient, she'd make sure he'd live to fight for what's right another day. She had done this before. And yes, she has failed before. But she wouldn't fail this time. She would pull out all the stops this time. Never again would she witness a hero die in front of her. Never again would any soul with a piece of benevolence in them face complete and utter oblivion. Not while she stood. Not while she breathed.
Pain is the first thing that registers in his mind once more as he is reincarnated back into the Universe. It had always been a part of his life. Even his own birth with his long late mother had been a stressful one, to say the least. She had almost lost him and herself, and so she had spent her parenting years drumming a code of honour into his head. But it seemed that it was all for nought, for only the lessons in aggression remained, and the power of peace nullified by his quest for fame in notoriety.
Even when he was a boy, he found harm amusing in a twisted way, whether it be upon others or on him. He found it curious, and intriguing, and in a technical way, kind of empowering. That was why it was his only drug for life. And now it was his curse.
The agony wasn't going away. He could only moan in unending suffering as his bones creaked and grinded forever, as his muscles and flesh decomposed and stitched themselves back to their former pre-mortem status. He had been in physical torment before his death, and the price for coming back to life was making that torment constant and forever. It would now always been there. He had been cursed with what was an awesome wish. A twisted blessing. He could now live his life the way he always wanted. Forever.
Hell, he wasn't even sure he could die now.
Funny how he was still fixated on death even after making a miraculous comeback.
"I find it most amusing that you wish for the end even though this should be like a new beginning for you," Mercy quipped in that playful tone doctors used when trying to keep a patient calm whilst working on them, and seeing their bare organs and vitals. Clearly she was naïve to his predicament.
"Not to plagiarize Winston, but by my calculations, you should be fully restored within the next 20 seconds."
20 ticks on the clock came and went. Gabriel's groans morphed into roars.
"No," muttered Angela, her arms dancing about as she flashed from one piece of her lab equipment to the other, "Nonononono."
"You little b****! What have you done to me?! ARGH!"
The frightening roars turned into tortured screams.
"Please no," Angela wheezed, hyperventilating now. Dreams and hopes flashed before her eyes, of what she had done, what she had wished for, what she had worked for, and what she had failed to do. What she would always be destined to fail to do. She had been warned many times throughout her medical career that there was always an unfortunate soul that she'd never be able to save in time, and how she shouldn't try to play God, and meddle in the intricacies of delicate mortality. She had tossed all those teachings out the window, and now, a dear member of her only family was paying for it.
Reyes had found her and adopted her, nurtured her amongst the seemingly immaculate atmosphere of the Overwatch organization. Along with Reinhardt, Reyes had brought Angela on trips across the world, to see the beautiful miracles of life in all places humanly possible to access, to bear witness to God's work and how his hands guided the souls of those who worked to preserve all that was good about mortal life. She had vowed to follow in the footsteps of these people. And for a while, she was succeeding, riding high and enjoying humanity for what it was. How childish was her dreams. How foolish was her methods and way of thinking. How useless was she as a whole.
It was while Angela Ziegler was being consumed by her own darkness that the grim being roared and devoured her.
She was so helplessly pathetic and useless. Oblivious to his thousandfold times worse agony that he grew f***ing sick of even watching her any longer.
What was left of Gabriel Reyes, the ashes that remained of his galvanized corpse blew away into the self-willed breeze that emanated from his mortal mind. His heart may have been non-existent now, but the consciousness of his soul would always be there, screaming for vengeance, and howling for longing. For acceptance that would never be his. For pride that would never be credited to him. For love that others would always reject him from. For the feeling of the basic wants that a living being deserved to have. But he was no longer a living being.
He was just a sinful wraith, always silently screaming in neverending torment. He was a monster conceived by his own sins. A shadow of sorrow that could never be wiped from his isolated existence. He was alone in this cruel universe of tragedy and pain. And it would always be that way for him. Now and forever.
Wandering by one's self into the dark and empty abyss of the nothingness of mortality. Facing with no one by your side the eyes of oblivion, the terrifying blackness of limbo, always feeling the stinging tears of your own regret. For an eternity to come. But it would never come. Not for him.
Not for Gabriel Reyes anymore.
What had she done?
In her own limbo, she clutched her hands together, close to her stilled heart. Whatever that thing had done to her, she was medically certain that she was in a coma of sorts, a temporary taste of death on her tongue. And it tasted cold, and excruciatingly bitter. The angel knew that she'd come back around, that God knew that it wasn't her time yet, but even so she trembled heavily in her cocoon of darkness, her ebony stasis prison.
She had sinned greatly, defied the strings of fate and the universe, to save a demon. An outcast. A disease. She had exalted herself above her own station in life, to play the messiah to lepers and criminals with no second thought to her own vices. And it seemed she was paying the price for it all. She wept alone in the eternal darkness. Her heart wailed, but her lips were locked. Her eyes were sealed. Crushing pressure ensured that none of her muscles flexed one bit. She was a prisoner of death, and she'd only be released when she did her time, paid up for what she had done, all the strings she had pulled and all the excuses she had made to cover up her reproachful actions.
Oh God, she couldn't even breathe in here.
Was this what… Genji had felt like in the days before she had "rescued" him?
Was the pain Gabriel was in a cursed reflection of what could've been after the Shimada's own resurrection?
Would Genji be condemned to a fate like Gabriel's some time? Soon, or far? Now, or later? Perhaps when it came, would it last forever? This was all too much to bear.
Lord, help me, please…!
God did hear her desperate cries, and she awoke on the floor of her shattered, ruined lab. It was nothing short of looking like a henhouse. Ironic then, considering that with Ana Amari gone, Mercy had to step up as "Team Mom" of the younger and newer Overwatch recruits.
I'm alive. And I will not waste this chance.
That sounded so much like Genji, to the mind of the angelic worker.
It was then that she resolved that she would find him again after these 5 long years. She would reunite with him, and do a better job of being his caretaker. His saviour. Perhaps… maybe even his lover.
He would need one to be able to escape the pit of a shunned and isolated existence.
But she could do it this time. Of that she was certain.
Angela Ziegler didn't for one second think that bringing back Overwatch would be a divine move made by the fates in Heaven.
But if it was brought back, she would rejoin.
Find Genji first, and then rejoin.
For people may die. Ideals may die. Morals and codes may fade into the history books.
Faith may waver. Belief may dissolve. Generosity could turn to greed, justice to vengeance, and love to hate.
But heroes… they were immortal.
Heroes… they'd always live on in glory, forever.
Heroes… who were they?
They were wonderful, extraordinary souls.
Who would never, ever die.
