Chronal Disassociation Ch. 48

The first thing that Lena did as she heard the gunshot was force the person next to her to the ground. The second was to whip around her head to find where the shot had impacted. Conventional wisdom would say to find where the shooter was, and finding out where the bullet, or whatever it might have been, ended up was the first step for that.

The third thing to do should have been to get a rough estimation of the angle of attack, even as she was ushering the panicked crowd to cover. Should have been.

It was not what she did.

Instead, her eyes stayed on exactly who the shot had hit.

Captain Amari writhed on the ground as she gripped her right eye. Blood pooled all around her, more and more gushing out from the wound.

“Oxton, get out of here!”

Archer materialized out of thin air as he roughly picked her up. In one move, he had also scooped up Captain Amari and sped them out of the open. Numerous reporters and emergency services were still scrambling for cover when they did so, and the moment that he dropped them off, Archer went back out to grab anyone he could get his hands on.

It was this view that snapped Lena out of her momentary trance.

“Shit!” She bolted into action as the pilot frantically grabbed at anything she could get her hands on. Anything to stem the bleeding until Angela could get here, “Can anyone hear me?!” She shouted into her comms.

Nothing. A jammer then. Lena cursed to herself as she realized that she was stuck here until the coast was clear, or she made sure that Captain Amari could move with her without disrupting her injuries. She almost blamed Archer for bringing them here instead of where Angela was, only to realize that with the commotion, neither of them knew where the medic even was.

Therefore, the only option was for Archer to go and deal with the shooter, find Angela, then bring them over to Lena and Captain Amari. For that to happen though, the older woman needed to be alive. With the captain still rolling on the ground and making noises of utter agony, Lena didn’t exactly know what to do other than try and…plug the hole so to speak.

Basic first aid, when dealing with any sort of puncture like this was to wrap around the wound to prevent more bleeding. Or, in some cases, stuff it with some clean cloth to clog it up if it had hit an artery. That was for normal wounds though.

There was no procedure for getting shot by what could have been a sniper rifle through the eye and still being alive.

Regardless, she had to try.

“Captain! It’s Lena, can you hear me?” She tried to keep the panic from her voice. She couldn’t let it overtake her, or they’d be in even more trouble. She also couldn’t direct her attention elsewhere, not to the fleeing civilians, not to check if the gunman was already trailing on her own head.

Lena trusted that Archer would take care of it, so she had to do her damn job here and now.

Unfortunately, whatever pain the older Overwatch agent was in was enough that she didn’t reply to Lena. She just continued to twist and turn on the dirt. With a grimace, Lena tore off a piece of Captain Amari’s coat and made some makeshift bandages. With a breath, she started to force the captain’s arms from her head in order to bandage.

It…wasn’t pretty.

To say that there was damage was an understatement.

Where there was an eyeball earlier was now just a bloody hole. It was big enough that Lena could feasibly fit her entire fist through it and still have some room to wiggle around. Clearly, the shot that had hit her had not only taken out the eye, but also the surrounding bone and skull. Lena was more surprised that the shot had not pierced through the other side of the captain’s skull.

Morbid as her thoughts had become, she still marveled at the sheer will that the captain had in order to survive this.

The whole thing was less than two minutes. By the time that she had finished her rudimentary first aid, Lena was distinctly aware of more shouting in the distance. Gunshots that was distinctly Cassidy’s, and a stampede of feet that were getting further and further away.

Archer was still quiet though, not talking in her thoughts as he was wont to do when focusing on something. Likely trying to find the gunman, though considering Cassidy was shooting, there were at least more than just one.

The makeshift bandage was already soaked through, the other woman's writhing had subsided into terrifying stillness, punctuated only by shallow, wet gasps. Lena pressed harder, her hands slick and trembling.

'Come on, Angela. Where are you?'

A sudden, sharp crack echoed from the direction Cassidy’s gunfire had faded, closer than before. Lena flinched, instinctively covering the captain's body with her own, heart hammering against her ribs.

Then, a shimmer of air from behind her.

Her pulse pistol was in her hand. She wasn't fast enough, as an invisible assailant struck her arm with enough force that might've shattered her fingers. The only reason she didn't know if it was shattered was that she couldn't afford the distraction. Not when whoever it was was going after the older woman behind her.

“You look like you need some help, chica.”

Just as Lena prepared her other pistol, purple arcs of light shone, causing the invisibility to shatter and reveal an Omnic - exactly the same model as that one they found back in Havana that was invisible.

“Aannnd that’s that.”

A sharp rapport of her submachine gun. The Omnic fell like a puppet with its strings cut.

Sombra materialized from her own invisibility, dusting her hands with a smug look on her face. To say that Lena was relieved was an understatement, “Holy shit, thanks.”

“No problem.” Sombra’s smirk vanished the moment her eyes landed on Ana. "¡Dios mio!" She hissed, the playful tone gone, "That’s…bad." She was already crouching beside Lena, her fingers flying over a holographic display projected from her wrist. "Comms are muerto. Total blackout jam. Saw it drop, knew someone needed help rápido." Her gaze flicked from the horrific wound to Lena’s blood-soaked hands pressing down, "Pressure’s good, chica. Keep it."

"Angela?" Lena gasped, the word a desperate plea.

"Working on it!" Sombra snapped, her brow furrowed in concentration. Purple light flared from her device, washing over the would-be Omnic assassin, "Whatever these Null Sector Omnics are, their encryption is top notch..."

Sombra’s fingers danced across the holographic interface, purple light reflecting in her narrowed eyes, "Stubborn pendejos." She muttered, "Their firewalls are…espera…" A frustrated growl escaped her lips, "No direct signal lock. Beacon’s masked."

Lena’s heart sank, the pressure on Captain Amari’s wound feeling suddenly futile, "Sombra, please-"

"Shh, cálmate, chica!" Sombra snapped, though her voice lacked its usual sharp edge. Desperation flickered across her face, "Direct scan’s blocked...their jamming field...it’s got a rhythm." Her eyes darted to Lena’s chronal accelerator, its blue core pulsing steadily. "Your toy...its energy signature. It’s unique...like a tuning fork in static."

Before Lena could question her, Sombra’s hand shot out. A thick data-cable snaked from her wrist-comp and thunked into a port on Lena’s accelerator. Lena gasped as a jolt of foreign energy buzzed through her suit.

"Hey! What are you-?"

"Trust me, princesa! Need a resonant pulse!" Sombra’s fingers flew again. The holographic display flickered violently, streams of corrupted code battling Sombra’s purple intrusion. Lena’s accelerator hummed louder, its blue light flaring erratically. "Using their own jamming noise…filtering for Angela’s firma...Come on, come on...!"

“Oxton, what the hell are you doing?” Archer’s voice pierced through her head like a knife through butter, “I can feel the damned strain on my end!”

‘Sombra’s siphoning from my accelerator!’

“What? Shit, give me a second.” There was a moment of silence between them, “Whatever it is, tell her to hurry up already, there’s at least three damned invisible dropships near you and I can’t take them out without risking it crashing onto your position.”

Suddenly, the display cleared. A single, pulsing golden icon appeared - Angela’s Valkyrie suit beacon - superimposed over a frantic, shifting map of the chaos.

"¡Sí! Got her!" Sombra crowed, yanking the cable free. "West-Northwest! But she’s pinned down! Heavy hostiles between us and her. Cassidy’s signature is…mierda, he’s engaged further south. Distracted."

"Two blocks." Sombra confirmed, the map solidifying, "But mira, chica – a straight shot through hell." Red zones all over the map. Null Sector. Why they were here, why Captain Amari was the target, Lena couldn't answer. But they were here already, which meant that they needed to deal with them regardless.

The area was already clear of the civilians, thankfully. The Polish government would hear about this soon enough, though the fact that comms were still down meant it would take quite a while. Overwatch would likely send reinforcements, but that needed a bunch of bureaucracy that they couldn't afford.

"Your little tricks with that hunk of metal is suicide if you try to go through all this carrying the captain. Archer's busy playing whack-a-mole with dropships." She jerked her head towards the ominously silent sky where distant explosions occasionally flared across the abandoned town. "So, plan B."

Lena kept pressure on the bandage, feeling Captain Amari’s faint, irregular breaths against her palms, "What Plan B? We carry her? Through that?"

"Claro que sí." Sombra said, already holstering her machine pistol and positioning herself at the Captain's shoulders, "But invisible. My cloak can cover three if we're close. Muy close. And muy quiet."

The sheer audacity of it chilled Lena, "Invisible? Sombra, she's bleeding out! Every jostle-"

"Is better than her bleeding out here while we wait for a miracle!" Sombra cut in, her voice sharp, "My cloak masks sound un poco, visual signature completamente. We move fast, stick to cover, Angela's two blocks. It's the only shot. ¿Sí o no?"

Lena looked down. Captain Amari’s face was the color of old parchment beneath the blood, her remaining eye half-lidded and unfocused. The saturated bandage felt hot and slick. She won’t survive waiting, cleary. And Lena couldn't ask Archer to bring them over, not when he himself was too damn busy.

"Damn it." Lena breathed, the words tasting like ash. A single, reluctant nod to Sombra.

"Bueno." Sombra shimmered, becoming translucent. "I grab her legs, you keep pressure best you can. When I say go, move with me. Suave like a ghost, rápido like a rabbit. ¿Entendido?"

Lena nodded grimly, shifting her grip to Captain Amari’s shoulder, her other hand awkwardly maintaining pressure on the head wound. It felt wrong, terrifyingly wrong, to move her like this. She braced herself as Sombra’s form became a barely visible purple outline. The hacker’s hand reached out, a field of shimmering purple energy rippling outwards.

Lena felt the field cover her - or rather, she saw the moment it did. The world instantly muted. Colors dimmed, sounds became distant echoes - even the thrum of her own accelerator that she had learned to ignore dampened into nothing.

"Ahora!" Sombra hissed.

The two of them moved as fast as they could beneath the thrum of similarly invisible dropships.

…