Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Foreword: If you read the prequel to this novella, "Always Was The Better Shot", then you already know what's in this foreword. If you haven't read the prequel, you should go read it, otherwise nothing will make sense.

Anyways, I gotta still put this all down so I don't get sued, so here we go:

Just a few things of note: I do not own Overwatch, Blizzard Entertainment, or any other company, game, or form of media associated with the previously mentioned parties.

I do not own the universe that this novella takes place in, nor any characters or organizations in this story that make appearances in the game Overwatch, or any related forms of media that Blizzard Entertainment has released.

I do however own this story’s plot and storyline, so don’t you dare steal it. You have been warned. Another thing you will notice in this story is this: Blizzard Entertainment changed the name of the hero Jesse McCree to Cole Cassidy following some internal contention.

Rather than try to make it so Elizabeth Ashe always knew McCree as “Cassidy”, I decided to make it so that Jesse McCree changed his name to “Cole Cassidy” or, more accurately, his name was always “Cole Cassidy” but he took on the name of “Jesse McCree” following the Omnic Crisis.

As stated in the newly released comic for Cassidy, titled New Blood, it says that he would be no longer hiding. As such, I took it upon myself to say that he is no longer hiding his identity, and therefore going back to his original name, “Cole Cassidy”. Blizzard Entertainment has not endorsed or promoted any such decision by me, this is simply my own choice for my story. Call it artistic licensing. With that being said, please enjoy.

Chapter Text

The Keppler mine was established in 1996 by the foolish son of a corporate giant who was trying to make a name for himself. The man had heard legends of a vast wealth of iron, silver, and gold that lay hundreds of feet below the earth outside the city of Wexford, Arizona, where the Keppler mine was to be. So the fact that he was a boob with a D- average in high school, along with being a hopelessly gullible fellow, led him to being struck with gold fever.

So, after begging his father for a reasonable sum of money, convincing him that there would be a guaranteed return on the investment, the fool purchased a mining company and had them construct the Keppler mine. Sadly, all the mining company found after years of mining was dirt, rocks, and more dirt. They would come across the occasional vein of iron or copper, but these veins soon dried out, and the operation was later declared unprofitable.

The Keppler mine was shut down and abandoned for years, until Marco, leader of the Diamondbacks, busted out of jail and stumbled across it while on the run. So, it now served as the new base for The Diamondback Gang, and while it wasn't as good as Deadlock Gorge, where the gang had previously held residence, it served its purpose as a hideout.

The locals thought the mine was abandoned, so nobody but the stupid teenager trying to impress so and so ever ventured near it, law enforcement would pass by it without a second thought, and the massive quarry and infrastructure of mineshafts within served as a hidden base for the gang. It was the perfect place to rebuild the gang and stay hidden.

Or so they thought.

The sun rose on a Thursday morning, shedding its golden light on the Keppler mine as well as the surrounding Arizona desert. The birds were chirping, the bunny rabbits were frolicking, and the entire mine was on fire.

Now, this wasn't typical for Arizona, unlike California. There wasn't enough shrubbery around the mine, or plant life in the state of Arizona, for this to be a wildfire. No, the fire had come from multiple explosives thrown from bikes owned by The Deadlock Gang as they mounted an assault on The Diamondbacks.

Hell had come to the Keppler Mine. And her name was Ashe.

The mounted Diamondbacks, led by Ashe, kept circling the mine, throwing explosives at anything that resembled a structure or a human being. By now, everything outside of the mine was a blazing inferno; Diamondback bikes, buildings, anything outside of the mine, all engulfed in flames.

Ashe pulled up just outside of the wall of flames, dissatisfaction written all over her face. This ain’t enough , she thought, looking around at the hell she had brought to Keppler mine. All this stuff’s replaceable. She turned her gaze towards the entrance to the mine, barely visible through all the flames.

“You five!” she shouted, pointing at some gang members that had pulled up behind her. “Stay outside and make sure nobody but us comes out of that mine! If you see so much as a rat’s nose peeking out, blow it up!”

Ashe fished into a satchel hanging off the side of her bike, grabbing a bundle of dynamite. She looked around at the rest of her crew. “The rest of you, come with me. We’re goin’ in.”

There was a great deal of shuffling as the remainder of the gang dismounted from their bikes and grabbed their weapons, forming up behind Ashe as she strode towards the mine’s entrance. A few gang members moved ahead of her and put out sections of the fire with some portable extinguishers, clearing a path straight to the mine’s entrance. Ashe stopped just outside of the mineshaft, turning to look back at her gang.

“Alright, like I said earlier, our goal here is to capture the Diamondbacks. Only kill ‘em if you have to, but we need Marco alive. Understand?” She fixed them all with a steely glare, waiting to see nods from each and every person, before turning back towards the mineshaft. “Good. Let’s get this done.” With that, she strode into the darkness, her crew following close behind her. 

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It was dark in the mineshaft. Very dark. Ashe was barely able to make out light fixtures set into the stony ceiling above them, but when she found a switch to turn them on, she found the power was dead. Probably cut by Marco. It was pretty smart, Ashe had to admit. Cutting the power would force her and the crew to use flashlights, which meant that Marco and his gang would be alerted to their presence long before Ashe and her gang detected them.

Pretty clever of Marco. But not clever enough. Ashe reached to the back of her belt and unhooked something from it. Night vision goggles. As she placed them onto her face and secured them over her eyes, she could hear the rest of her crew doing the same. Once she found out that Marco was operating out of a mine, she figured that she’d best bring something that would help her and the crew see in the dark, in case something like this happened.

Everything came into focus as her goggles powered up, showing her surroundings in shades of green and gray. The mine was extremely complex, with multiple tunnels branching off from the main shaft and delving deeper into the mountain. Finding Marco in this labyrinth would be tough, and he surely knew the mines better than Ashe did.

She stood at an intersection of tunnels, her brow furrowed in thought as her mind wrestled with multiple dilemmas. Splitting up her gang to cover more ground could prove to be fatal, but keeping everyone in a group greatly increased the time it took to explore the maze. Speaking of time, with every second that the Deadlock Gang sat waiting for orders, the better chance Marco had of escaping. Ashe snapped her fingers, spinning around to face her gang.

“Lauren!” she said, her voice hushed. Lauren moved to the front of the crowd, showing up a pale greenish-white through Ashe’s lenses.

“What’s up boss?”

“This is a perfect time to test out our new toy,” Ashe said, “Fire it up.” Lauren nodded her head, before kneeling on the ground and unslinging the backpack she wore. Setting it gently on the ground, she quickly unzipped it and pulled out what looked like a thin hockey puck.

She pressed a few buttons on it and it came to life, whirring softly and hovering a couple inches off the ground. Lauren then took out a tablet and turned it on, pushing her goggles onto her forehead so she could see the screen. After giving it a quick glance, she looked back up at Ashe.

“We’re good to go.”

Ashe looked around at the rest of the crew as Lauren stood up. “Alright Lauren, start scouting out all the mineshafts here, and tell me which ones go deeper into the mountain.” Lauren nodded, before tapping a few buttons on her tablet. The “hockey puck” shot off down a mineshaft to their left, Lauren’s tablet showing footage of whatever the device was seeing. After a few minutes, Lauren looked up at Ashe. 

“It’s a dead end boss.”

“Then choose a different tunnel.”

Lauren tapped a few more buttons on the tablet, and a minute later the “hockey puck” went zooming past them down another tunnel. Lauren’s new toy was Silenar Manufacturing’s prototype LTP-20 recon drone, designed for speed and stealth in gathering data, footage, and layouts of surrounding terrain and structures. Ashe had stolen it from a Silenar convoy a few weeks back, planning to sell it to the highest bidder on the black market. Thankfully, she held off making any deals with potential buyers, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to utilize it here.

A few more minutes passed, with Lauren coming up on three more dead ends. Finally, on the fifth tunnel, Lauren was able to strike gold, despite the fact they were in a barren gold mine.

“I’ve got a tunnel that leads deeper into the mountain. There’s evidence that it's used a lot, and I’m getting heat readings down one of the sub tunnels.”

Ashe put a hand on her shoulder. “Good work Lauren, keep mapping out the tunnels and try to find us Marco.” She turned back to the rest of the crew. “Alright gang,” she said, pumping the lever of her Viper rifle.

“Let’s go get that son of a bitch.”

Chapter Text

It was uncomfortably hot in the mine. Hot and dry. Ashe could feel the sweat trickling down her neck, and could swear she saw heat waves in front of her.

The least Marco could have done was steal some A/C units, Ashe thought to herself, wiping yet more sweat from her face. She looked back at Lauren, who was walking behind her with her eyes glued to her tablet screen. 

“You sure you can find Marco’s heat signature with how hot it is in here?”

“That’s now how thermal scans work boss,” the blonde woman replied, not even looking up. “We’ll find Marco easily enough. Take a left here.”

Ashe turned left at the T-junction they just arrived at, noticing the signs of inhabitance that littered this new hallway; food wrappers and drink cans lay strewn across the dirt floor while baubles and trinkets hung from the mine’s support rafters.

Marco and his crew were definitely around here, and they were definitely still slobs. 

“You’re sure there’s no secret escape route that Marco could take?”

“The mass of heat signatures hasn’t moved, so probably not,” Lauren responded, now being guided around the piles of refuse by Travis, her eyes still on the drone’s live feed. “Speaking of which, we’re getting close.”

“How close?”

“Like ‘If we speak any louder they’ll hear us’ close.”

Ashe turned back to look at the rest of the crew. “Alright gang, walk lightly and keep your mouths shut, we’re almost there.” She continued stalking down the mineshaft, occasionally asking Lauren for directions.

Blessedly, as they ventured deeper into the mine the temperature noticeably got cooler. After a few minutes Lauren whispered, “They’ll be down the next mineshaft to your right.” Ashe didn’t need Lauren to tell her that though, she could already make out the sounds of agitated conversation coming from what could only be Marco’s crew.

The rest of the Deadlock gang members could hear it too; any whispered complaints or grievances were suddenly silenced. Silently motioning to her crew, Ashe crept to the entrance of the diverging mineshaft, the unintelligible arguing becoming understandable.

“This is all your fault! You’re the one who made the deal with Talon and decided to steal from the Deadlock gang!”

“My fault?” That was definitely Marco, his oily voice easily recognizable to Ashe. “If you weren’t all so useless in a fight, we wouldn't be down here in the first place! Need I remind you that because of the deal I made, we’ll all be getting richer than our wildest dreams, on top of getting revenge on McCree?”

“Save it Marco!” This was a different voice from the first, female this time. “We haven’t been paid yet, and now we have Ashe and her gang out for our blood!” A dozen different voices started clamoring angrily, throwing accusations at Marco.

“This ain’t the first time you got us into deep shit!”

“You’re a horrible leader, who thinks only about himself!”

“We’re always going from bad to worse, thanks to you!”

Ashe carefully peered around the corner, taking in the scene that lay before her. There was a crowd of people standing in a large opening, illuminated by lights strung from the ceiling.

From the looks of it, this was the main part of their base. Piles of crates lay in one corner of the clearing, while couches, chairs, and other various pieces of furniture cluttered another.

A bunch of other tunnels branched off from this cave, some placed higher on the cavern walls with ladders leading up to them, but from what Lauren said, none of them lead to the surface.

Marco was standing in front of the pile of crates, his hand resting on the handgun slung at his hip as he argued with his crew, backed up by a few of his more loyal cronies.

The conflict continued to escalate, with more Diamondbacks getting involved and shoving their faces into Marco’s.

With any luck, they’ll all fight it out and then we can come in for cleanup, Ashe thought hopefully, as she watched the events unfold. 

And so it was with extreme misfortune that Jordan, the tallest of the Diamondbacks present, banged his head against one of the mineshaft’s lower hanging rafters as he approached,

shouted an obscenity during one of the quieter moments of the argument taking place, and alerted all the Diamondbacks to the Deadlock gang’s presence.

“Quiet!” Marco shouted as Ashe whipped her head back around the corner. “Did you all hear that?” There were a few tense moments of silence, with Ashe and her gang being as quiet as possible, scarcely breathing.

“You two,” Ashe heard Marco say, her heart sinking, “Go check it out.” Ashe signaled to her crew to get ready as the sound of two people approaching their position grew louder.

Sitting and waiting for Marco’s thugs to draw near, she was surprised that the sound of her heart beating traitorously loud in her chest didn’t give her away.

The sound of footsteps became louder, and soon the shadows of two Diamondbacks became visible on the mineshaft floor. Clearly Marco’s goons weren’t trained in stealth. 

A figure rounded the corner, its features shadowed against the light shining down the mineshaft behind him. In the split second that it took him to have his eyes adjust to the darkness, Ashe fired, sending a bullet into his sternum with a crack! The force sent his body stumbling into the opposing wall just inches in front of his friend.

The woman wheeled around, running back towards the rest of her crew. “BOSS! THEY’RE-” was all she was able to get out before blood spurted from her mouth, the result of the bullet that buried itself into her spine, courtesy of Ashe.

Before her corpse had hit the floor, chaos erupted in Marco’s cavern, gang members shouting in confusion as they dove for their weapons and sought cover.

“They’re here! Double shares for anyone who kills a Rebel! Quadruple for anyone who kills Ashe!” Marco bellowed to his followers, ducking down behind the nearby crates and peeking over at the entrance to the clearing.

Ashe sighed, starting to tug the goggles off her head. No point in using them now, not unless they could cut the power to the cavern. Unless… She looked over at the rest of her crew who were readying their weapons.

“Alright crew, you know what we’ve gotta do. Get in there, and get Marco. Oh, and no explosives!” Ashe gave Travis a stern look as he sheepishly tucked some ordinance back into his satchel. “We don’t want to be blowin’ up anythin’ in there that we can make a profit off of. We may as well make some money out of this, right?” Ashe smirked at the chorus of cheers from her gang.

“Alright gang, let's do it!” With that, she grabbed a grenade from her belt and flung it around the corner into the cavern.

There was a loud PFFF! as the grenade dispelled its contents, releasing a large cloud of smoke that filled the mineshaft. As soon as the wall of smoke went up, an earsplitting roar of gunfire erupted as more than a dozen guns started shooting down the mineshaft, their eager users hoping to kill any Deadlock members who took the opportunity to rush into the cavern.

“They never learn,” Ashe smirked, leaning comfortably against the mineshaft wall as a flood of bullets flew past her, colliding with the opposite wall. She took the opportunity to triple-check the contents of her rifle, making sure it was fully loaded and ready for action as the gunfire continued.

All at once, the gunfire stopped with the audible clicks of empty guns floating down to Ashe and her crew. “Amateurs,” she pumped the lever of her Viper rifle and then swung into the mineshaft leading to Marco’s cavern.

Even though her thermal vision goggles were only intended for finding people in the dark, in this case they also provided her with another function; finding people through smoke.

Ashe was able to easily pick out half a dozen people hiding behind crates and other equipment as they reloaded their weapons. McCree often complained to her that she never played fair, or by the rules. Well, it was about time she made her own rules. She squeezed off six quick shots, changing targets before even checking to see if she managed to hit them. Not that there ever was a doubt in her mind; she didn’t miss easily.

“They’re coming in! Shoot them you idiots!”

From what Ashe could see through her goggles, the orange and red bodies inside the cavern were no longer reloading, and were raising their weapons to resume the firefight. She whirled around to the few crew members that had followed her.

“Get down, now!”

The gunfire resumed in full force as Ashe threw herself to the ground, feeling the heat of the bullets that flew over her. With difficulty, she pulled her rifle out from under her, lining her sights up with the few heat signatures that were peeking around some crates. Sure, she could shoot through the crates, but what if there were valuable goods inside? No point in taking the risk of damaging something potentially valuable.

Not that it was important though, what was important to Ashe was getting Marco. And knocking out some of his teeth. 

Ashe fired again, this time making sure to kill the gang members closest to her to make some breathing room. The rest of the Diamondbacks started running deeper into the cavern, no doubt catching wise that Ashe could see them while they couldn’t see her.

“Uh boss? The smoke is clearing out,” Travis said nervously. It didn’t look that way to Ashe, but that was probably because of the goggles. Oh well. She moved up into a crouch, keeping her eye on the retreating figures in front of her.

“I made some room for us, so get up there and grab some cover!” Ashe started crouch running towards the crates in front of her, the bodies behind them slowly turning a dark red as they grew cold. She could hear the rest of her crew doing the same, fanning about behind her towards other protected spots.

Once she was safe behind a sturdy looking crate labeled with “Caution: Heavy”, she tugged off her goggles, momentarily blinded by the brightness of the cavern. Through the temporary glare of bright light, she was able to make out the remaining Diamondbacks climbing up ladders into the higher tunnels.

They knew there was no way out but past Ashe. They just wanted to have the high ground, make Ashe and her crew come to them. Smart.

Oh how she wished B.O.B. was here. He could have dealt with all these goons in about two minutes and come out of it no worse for wear. Ashe would have brought him, but he was too big for the mineshaft, and too loud for the stealth part of the mission. Probably for the best though, who knows how Marco and the gang would have responded if B.O.B. was involved.

They might have started using explosives to try to blow him up, and Ashe did not want to have to rebuild him again . The first time was hard enough thanks to McCree. I’m gonna make sure to slap him for that once I get him back , Ashe thought with annoyance. 

If you get him back , the annoying, logical voice in her head said. 

Not if, when I get him back! Ashe responded angrily. Shut up, I’m tryna concentrate! She raised her rifle and shot a straggling Diamondback halfway up one of the ladders. Not very fair, but she was playing by her own rules. 

“Hey boss, how’re we gonna get up there? They’ll send us to hell if we even get near those ladders.” That was Jordan, the walking tree who blew their cover earlier.

“Hmm, good question. Lauren! What’s up in those tunnels!”

Lauren fiddled with some buttons on her tablet and a few moments later her drone sped past them, zooming parallel up the ladders and into the tunnels. After a minute, in which the gang heard startled shouts and gunfire, the drone came speeding out of the tunnel and into the next.

A while later, Lauren looked back up at Ashe. “It looks like those are their sleeping quarters boss. Like I said, no way out.”

“So, if I threw some dynamite up in there, I wouldn’t be destroying anything potentially valuable?”

“No, why?”

Ashe just shook her head. Lauren was a brilliant scout, but she could also be on the dim side sometimes. She searched through the gang members hiding behind the various crates and other obstructions nearby until she found who she was looking for.

“Travis!”

Travis looked over at her, a bit nervous. “What’s up boss?”

“Do you still have those explosives on you?” Travis nodded, unslinging his satchel and pulling out a few explosives. “Good, toss them over to me.”

“What? Why? You said we shouldn’t use them!”

Ashe facepalmed, before glowering at the dark-skinned man. “I know what I said! Now toss ‘em over or so help me, I’ll send you up those ladders first!” Travis gulped and carefully tossed the explosives over to Ashe. These explosives were the type she loved to use; they were lightweight, incendiary, and packed a punch. Nodding her thanks to Travis, she set her rifle down and stood up from behind her cover.

“What are you doing?” Lauren gasped, trying to pull Ashe back down, “You’re exposed! They’ll shoot you!”

Ashe pulled her arm out of Laurens grasp, rolling her eyes. “Relax, Marco’s gang couldn’t hit water if they fell out of a boat.” She drew in a deep breath and yelled as loud as she could. “Hey, Marco!”

Her voice echoed off of the cavern walls, making it sound like there were four of her in the room. Her voice was the only thing to be heard though, as Marco didn’t reply. “I’ve got a bunch of explosives in my hand, and you’ve got no way out of those tunnels up there! I know you’re as dumb as rocks, but I’m sure you can figure out where I’m goin’ with this!”

Still no response. “Come on out, and I’ll let you live, or stay in there, and I’ll send you a gift and blow you to kingdom come! Your choice!” Still, Marco made no response or sign that he had heard her. Looks like Ashe needed to be more persuasive.

“Alright, since you’re too much of a coward to do this yourself, I’ll ask your crew to make the decision for you! I heard your argument back there, and I know you guys are tired of Marco being a pain in the ass! Either you give up Marco and surrender yourselves, or I’ll make this mine really haunted and let your souls roam these shafts for eternity! Your choice!” As soon as she said that, Ashe heard the sounds of a scuffle and saw movement in the centermost tunnel.

A few moments later, the remainder of Marco’s crew were fleeing the tunnels and scrambling down the ladders, a resisting Marco in tow. They had all left their weapons behind and were putting their hands behind their heads, save for two Diamondbacks who were holding Marco captive. Ashe turned to her gang and motioned for them to follow her.

One by one, the Diamondbacks knelt on the cavern floor, flinching as Ashe tossed an explosive from one hand to the others. Well, she may as well have fun with the capture of her rival gang. “Celina, cuff ‘em,” she said, tossing the explosive high into the air and making everyone around her cringe in fear. A wiry brunette grabbed some handcuffs from her bag and set to work cuffing the unresisting Diamondbacks.

Ashe walked down the line of Diamondbacks before coming to a stop in front of Marco. A livid bruise was forming on his forehead from the scuffle he had with his gang, but that did nothing to distract Ashe from the intense hatred and anger in his eyes.

“What’re gonna do to me Lizzy?” Marco snarled, trying to break free from the two gang members holding him in place. “Gonna send me back to jail? I broke out before, I’ll break out again.”

Ashe crouched down in front of him, smiling into his livid face. “Oh Marco, prison’s too nice of a place for you. I’m going to take you someplace you’ll never get out of.” She turned back around as Celina handcuffed him.

“But first…” Ashe spun around, swinging hard with her right fist directly as Marco’s face. Her fist make solid contact with his nose, making a satisfying crunch as his nose broke and his head snapped to the right.

“That,” Ashe growled, as Marco looked back up at her, loathing and murder in his eyes, “was for McCree. And this,” she said, grabbing her rifle and raising it above her shoulders, “is for me.” Marco’s eyes widened in a panic as she brought the butt of her rifle down into his temple hard.

Marco’s eyes rolled back up into his skull and he slumped over onto the ground, the blood from his nose pooling around his head. Ashe glared down at his unconscious form, struggling to keep her anger in check.

After a few moments, she looked back up at the rest of the gang, taking in the frightened expressions on the Diamondbacks’ faces. “Alright everyone, grab these idiots and get moving. We’re going home.” With that, Ashe rested the rifle onto her shoulder and stalked out of the cave.

Chapter Text

Cassidy drifted aimlessly in a sea of nothingness. It wasn't exactly peaceful, like floating in a bathtub. More like drifting down a river, sensing there was a waterfall ahead but not knowing exactly how far ahead. Quiet, but with a false sense of security. Where am I? He didn't have the faintest idea. How did I get here? He had no clue about that either.

He could have been here since the beginning of existence for all he knew, destined to stay in limbo until the end of all existence. And so, he continued floating, effortlessly adrift in a place where time had no meaning, and both light and dark combined with one another to make something entirely new. 

"Wake up!"

Cassidy felt a blow on his face and he was pulled out of…well, wherever he was. His eyes snapped open, blinded by a harsh light fixed above his head. After a few moments, his eyes adjusted, taking in his surroundings.

A dark empty room came into focus, empty save for a large mirror that was implanted into one of the walls. Cassidy looked down to find his arms and legs secured to a large metal chair, his person stripped of weapons and armor.

He then noticed a shadowed figure standing close to the left side of his chair, wearing a metal helmet, the optics of which were glowing red.

Talon.

It all came flooding back as if in fast forward; meeting Ashe at the diner, having a shootout with the Diamondbacks, planning a heist with the Deadlock Gang, infiltrating the train, fighting Talon, a flash of pain and then… nothing.

Cassidy started shifting in his seat, straining against the clamps that held his limbs in place, looking around for a weapon he could use to escape.

"It's pointless to struggle," the masked figure said in a robotic tone, its voice warped and changed by the helmet they wore. Cassidy watched them warily as they moved closer to him. The trooper leaned down, placing their hands and the arms of the chair as they inspected Cassidy.

"To think, after all the traps we laid for you, all the soldiers we sent after you, every run-in we've had with you, we finally managed to catch you, in the act of what you gained notoriety for." 

"If it took you this long to catch me, I must be really good, or you just be really bad at your jobs," Cassidy smirked.

The trooper straightened up, folding its arms over its chest.

"I would have expected nothing less from one of Blackwatch's best agents. To have captured you any sooner would have been… disappointing."

"Can't say I'm glad to make you satisfied."The Talon operative moved over to a table that stood nearby, facing away from Cassidy. They reached up and pressed some buttons on the back of their helmet, causing the helmet to power down and loosen up. The trooper pulled off the helmet, releasing a volume of wavy, dark red hair.

When they turned around, it was revealed that the trooper was a startlingly attractive woman in her mid-thirties, with green eyes and pale skin. She grabbed a folding chair that was leaning against the wall and set it down in front of Cassidy, sitting opposite him.

“I believe introductions are in order,” the woman said, a South-African accent apparent in her speech, “my name is Lydia Davids. I already know who the famous Cole Cassidy is.” Cassidy stared stonily back at her. Lydia shifted in her chair, sighing.

“Despite what you may think, Overwatch and Talon are more similar than you realize,” she said, regarding him intently.

“Really? I wasn’t aware that Overwatch was a terrorist organization that attacked civilians for no reason,” Cassidy spat.

The woman chuckled, leaning forward so she could look Cassidy right in the eyes. “Overwatch is practically a terrorist organization in the eyes of the world government! It’s why all their activities are illegal!” She swept her hair back behind her ears, a smile toying around her lips. “Overwatch and Talon have the same goals. They want to make the world a better place, make humanity stronger and more durable in the face of conflict. Overwatch sought to end conflicts that could destroy humanity, always ready to respond to problems that threatened the human race, always willing to seek the most peaceful solutions.

“Talon wants to strengthen humanity so when conflicts do arise, which they always will, humanity can weather them with absolute certainty and overcome them easily.”

Cassidy rolled his eyes. “And you plan to accomplish this by destroying people’s lives, starting fights and wars in the hopes that whatever is left of humanity will be stronger.”

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Very few in the world can understand our grand vision, and can see the bigger picture. In the end, humanity will look back and thank us for what we were able to bring about. They will see the wisdom in our actions, the purpose behind it.” 

Cassidy responded with a glare that could have melted through steel. “Talon is nothing but a gang of petty criminals who want to glut themselves on the spoils of war.”

“You think we’re criminals?” Lydia looked genuinely surprised. “Tell me Cole, who are the real criminals in this world? The ones out in the world robbing, stealing, raping, and murdering? Or the people who stand by and let them do so? Who is more corrupt, the drug dealers and mobsters who rule the streets of Los Angeles? Or the governments who never strike at the cartels or mob bosses who support them?”

Cassidy remained silent. “You’ve taken the law into your own hands countless times Cole, and you’ve brought forth real results. You call us criminals when Talon seeks to destroy the conniving, the criminal, and the corrupt.”

“You say that you wish to destroy these things, but these things are exactly what you do.”

“We use these methods as a means to an end,” Lydia waved her hand dismissively, “Sometimes in order to accomplish what nobody else can, you must do things that many consider unsavory. The results of what we aim to do outweighs the means that we use to obtain them.”

She leaned forward, gently grabbing Cassidy’s face. “Weren’t you ever tired of fighting a hopeless fight? To see the same criminals that you threw into jail walk out with a smile, all because the judges at their trials were paid off and corrupt? Weren’t you ever tired of tearing down dozens of shady operations, only to watch hundreds more take their place, all because politics got in the way of rooting out these organizations at their heart?”

Cassidy pulled his face out of his grasp, looking away from her and she gave him a dazzling smile. A convincing smile. 

“You could join us and be part of something that changes the world, Cole. Something like Blackwatch, to fight the unjust and fully purge the world of all those who are corrupt. You could bring justice to this world.”

“I doubt you’ll let me join that easily,” Cassidy scoffed, “There must be some sort of catch.”

Lydia laughed, placing a hand on Cassidy’s knee. “Is it that obvious?” She looked back up at Cassidy. “Well, now that you mention it, there is one thing that we need from you. The location of all former Overwatch agents outside of Talon.”

Cassidy gave a scornful laugh. “You can’t be serious. You think I’d just betray my friends to an organization that tirelessly worked to undermine everything Overwatch did?”

“You must understand Cole, we need to know where your friends are so we can help them understand why we do what we do! Just like I’m doing with you! Your friends being out there in the world can seriously mess up our operations, make it more difficult for us to help humanity.”

“And if they don’t buy into what you’re gonna tell them? If they decide that they don’t want any part of what Talon has to offer? You’ll what, let them go on their merry way?”

Lydia gave the gunslinger a sad smile. “You know what’ll happen Cole. We can’t let anyone stand in our way,” the Talon operatives said, sounding regretful. “ Like I said, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, even if the world can’t see this is what they need. We can’t can’t let them keep getting in our way, messing up what we’re trying to do, even if they’re your friends.”

Cassidy shook his head, his face determined. “I’ll never tell you where they are. Even if I did want to join your terrorist group, I wouldn’t send my friends to their deaths.” He looked up at her with a fiery gaze. “You may as well kill me now.”

Lydia stood up and sighed, genuine sorrow in her face. “I’m sorry Cole. I really hoped that we could come to an understanding and work with one another. Unfortunately, you are the only former Overwatch member we have in our custody, which means that you are our only lead to the remnants of Overwatch.”

The stunning redhead stroked the side of his face before walking to the room’s exit. She opened the door and paused, looking back over her shoulder. “I believe you when you say that you’ll never let us know where your friends are. But that won’t stop my superiors from trying to get it out of you anyway.” She left the room, closing the door behind her.

A few minutes passed, in which Cassidy contemplated the entire exchange between him and Lydia. She really seems to believe that what Talon is doing is right, he thought. She genuinely believes that the results outweigh the methods. Before he could follow that thought, the door to the room slammed open, admitting three burly Talon troopers carrying dark briefcases.

They set them down on a table to the side of the room and opened them, revealing a series of instruments nestled inside. The smallest of the Talon troopers strode over to Cassidy, roughly grabbing his face and pulling it towards them.

“Alright boys, it’s time to get to work.”

Great.

Chapter Text

“Are you sure this is necessary?”

Ashe looked up from the knot she was tying. “Necessary? No, probably not. But it sure as hell will make me feel better.” She tugged on the length of rope in her hands, pulling the knot tight, before standing up with a look of satisfaction on her face. “There,” she said, dusting off her pants legs, “I think that’ll do the trick.” 

Gianna sighed, walking to the edge of the corral. “I know it’ll make you feel better and all, but don’t you think this is a bit… much?”

“It was either this or keep him locked up inside and never let him out,” Ashe replied, taking a look around the enclosed space. Gianna and Ashe were standing in the Deadlock Gang’s nearby corral, one that they used for horseback riding and other kinds of tomfoolery to pass the time.

It wasn’t the largest space in the world, but it bordered a cliff that gave a grand view of the nearby valley, as well as gave the horses (yes, they still had horses) plenty of room to run about. “Think of this as a way for Marco to still get some fresh air.” They both turned to look at Marco, who lay nearby, still unconscious with a bag over his head. Ashe walked over to him and kicked him in the side. “Wake up, trash!”

Marco jerked awake with a groan, rolling onto his back as he came to his senses. “Wha-wait! Where am I?!” He struggled with his bonds, thrashing from side to side. “What’s with the bag? Come on!”

“Shut up!” Ashe kicked him again. “I don’t want to hear you talking…yet.” She squatted down in front of him, idly pulling at her gloves. “Now, I need you to tell me where they took McCree.”

“Who’s they? The Jehovah’s Witness? The police? The Omnics? You’ll have to be more spec-!” He cut off with a grunt as Ashe slugged him across the face, his head snapping to the side. She grabbed him roughly by the face, the cloth of the bag digging into his skin.

“You know damn well who I’m talking about! Now tell me, where did they take McCree?”

Marco turned his head towards the sound of her voice. “If you think that I’ll talk that easily, then you’re dumber than I thought.”

“Oh, I never thought it’d be easy. So it's a good thing that I prepared all this for you.” Ashe yanked the bag off his head and stepped back. Marco shut his eyes against the flood of light that came crashing into his face, gradually opening them bit by bit to take in his surroundings.

He saw the corral that he was sitting in, with the large rocky outcroppings surrounding it and the cliff that resided across from him. And then he noticed that his hands were tied together, with a length of rope stretching from them to a horse a few yards away.

“Oh no,” Marco gasped, his eyes widening in realization, “You wouldn’t possibly-!”

“I most definitely would,” Ashe said, walking over to the horse. She put her foot in the stirrup and heaved herself into the saddle, before turning to look back at Marco. “Giddyup Marco!” She dug her heels into the sides of the horse, starting off at a trot.

Marco got yanked off the ground, stumbling for a few seconds before managing to regain his balance. “So, thinking twice about keeping your silence?” Ashe asked, smirking at Marco over her shoulder. 

“You kidding?” Marco attempted at a confident smile, though Ashe could see the worry in his eyes. “It’ll take more than this to get anything out of me!”

“Well then, as you wish!” Ashe nudged the horse again and it obligingly sped up, making Marco go from a jog to a run. He tried helplessly to free his hands from the rope, but Ashe’s knot tying skills were superb, and Marco wasn’t exactly the smartest person when it came to ropes either. For a few minutes the only sounds in the corral was the thumping of hooves and the panting form Marco, who was starting to become slick with sweat.

It wouldn’t be long now until Marco cracked. “Give it up Marco, what d’you get from keeping your silence for Talon? More money? You’re just a disposable asset to them!” Ashe took a swig from the canteen hanging from her saddle horn, taking care to let Marco see it in the heat of the sun. She could practically feel the desperation coming off of him.

“It's not what I could gain, but what I could lose by not keeping my mouth shut!” Marco panted, stumbling along behind her. “In this case, that’ll be my life!”

Not that it’s worth much anyway, Ashe thought, kicking her heels again. The horse started galloping now, kicking up a cloud of dust behind it as it did yet another lap around the enclosure. Ashe couldn’t make out Gianna’s face clearly, but she could tell that she wasn’t exactly enjoying the show from her spot outside the fence. Not that anyone else’s opinions mattered though. What mattered was results.

Behind Ashe, Marco was doing a full-on sprint, doing his best to keep pace with the horse. Sweat was pouring off of him, drenching his clothing and making his skin shine. Just a little bit longer. Gianna might think that what Ashe was doing was excessive, but if Ashe really wanted to be cruel, she would have made Marco do all of this barefoot. And put some goat heads or gravel into the corral to boot.

A yelp from behind brought Ashe out of her thoughts and upon turning around she discovered that Marco had tripped and was now being dragged behind the horse. Given how many rocks and twigs littered the corral floor, it was probably not a very comfortable experience.

“Alright!” Marco howled, feeling the rocks and twigs beneath him scratching him through his clothes, which were starting to get torn up as well, “I’ll talk! I’ll talk! Just cut me loose, damn you!” Ashe kept the horse galloping for a few more seconds, before reining it in to a halt.

Marco just lay on the ground in a heap, a mess of sweat and dust. Gianna walked up to Ashe as she dismounted, giving a pointed look at Marco. 

Ashe just smiled back, patting the horse fondly on the neck. “Hey, I couldn’t resist. Besides, Marco here swore he’d talk, just like I wanted. And if he doesn’t, he’s going to come right back out here, but this time, he’ll be buck-naked and barefoot.”

Ashe strode over to Marco, looking down on him with a hard smile on her face. “But he doesn’t want that to happen, right?” She nudged him with her boot, none too gently. She got a muffled “Right.” in response.

“Good.” Ashe nodded to Gianna, who sighed before reaching down, grabbing the back of Marco’s shirt, and started tugging him towards the hangar a ways away. Alex and Zach, the two gang members who practically let The Diamondbacks walk in and steal The Western Sunrise a few weeks ago, rushed forward to help her, and within a few minutes the small group of people were welcomed into the hangar’s gloriously air-conditioned atmosphere.

A few more minutes found Marco tied to a chair in one of the Deadlock Gang’s storage rooms. Ashe looked down at him, her arms folded, with a leashed fury behind her eyes. “So, first things first, how did you make a deal with Talon?”

Marco took a look at Ashe’s face, saw the loathing in it, before sighing. “Talon’s the ones who busted us outta jail. Apparently, they did some digging and found out that you, me, and McCree had some beef in the past, and that we were in jail ‘cause of you.” He paused, looking down at his hands.

“Go on, don’t keep me waitin’.”

“Talon figured that since we had dealin’s with you and McCree back when you guys first started the gang, we’d know more about you than most others would. Then, after bustin’ us out all quiet like, they gave me a deal I couldn’t refuse. If I stole a weapon of mass destruction for them, they’d give me more money than I’d ever seen in my life, on top of revenge on you and McCree.”

“I know you don’t have the brains to plan a trap like the one you did. How’d you set it?”

“Talon suggested the plan to us.” Marco fidgeted with the binders on his wrists. “They knew that if McCree knew they were involved, he wouldn’t be able to resist the opportunity to take down their operation. So, the plan was to let him, and you, think that The Western Sunrise was onboard the train, and then have Talon capture you two. Talon would take McCree, and I would get you, so I could collect on the bounty that’s on your head.”

“So where’d Talon take McCree?”

“I don’t know,” Marco raised his hands defensively as Ashe stalked over to him. “I mean, I don’t know where exactly . All I know is they got some place in Paradise, Nevada, where they run all of their operations out of. Some place that they can move weapons without being detected, and house their large vehicles.”

Ashe stepped closer to Marco, putting a hand on the back of his chair and leaning over him. “And The Western Sunrise ? Where is it? I overheard you and your goons sayin’ that Talon hadn’t paid you yet.” Marco remained silent, turning his head to the side. “Don’t test my patience Marco. Where. Is. It.”

“It’s back at my base,” Marco sighed. “With all of my other scores, in the room that you got the better of us.” Ashe nodded to Gianna, who left the room and started calling out for specific gang members to revist Marco’s hideout and grab the bomb.

As the door closed behind her, Ashe heard chuckling from Marco. She turned back to see him laughing, bound to the chair with his body all scratched up, but laughing nonetheless.

“What’s so funny Marco?”

“You really planning on saving your old flame? After all he did to you?”

Ashe rolled her eyes, squatting down the meet Marco eye to eye, his broken nose brought into sharp relief. “He’s not my old flame. This is about repayin’ a debt. Something I’m sure you have no experience doin’.”

Marco gave another snort of laughter. Laughter of a man who knew he had nothing more to lose. “You honestly think you’re gonna be able to rescue him? I’m locked up here, but I know the worst thing that’ll happen to me is me goin’ back to jail. But for McCree, things’ll be much, much worse.”

He looked her dead in the eye, a vengeful smile on his face. “What do you think they’re going to do to him, as one of Talon’s worst enemies?” Marco gave another scornful laugh, his eyes brimming with malice as he glared into Ashe’s ruby colored eyes. “I may not have gotten my money, but I was still able to get my revenge. Go ahead and try to rescue your boyfriend Ashe, I want to go to jail knowing you’re going to fail. And even if you do succeed, when you find him he’ll be too far gone! Nothing of what you love in him will be left, just a broken shell of a man you once knew, if he’s even still alive. They’ll make him beg, and scream, and-!”

Ashe finally lost it, swinging her right fist hard into Marco’s face and making solid contact with his jaw with a scream of rage. A sharp crack ! echoed in the storage room as Marco’s jaw broke, and he flew out of his chair and slammed to the floor, out cold.

Ashe breathed heavily, stomping over to him and kicking him hard in the gut. He wouldn’t be able to feel it, but that didn’t stop Ashe from releasing her anger. She picked up the chair and threw it across the room, spinning wildly when she felt a touch on her shoulder. Her eyes met those of Gianna, who was looking at her with concern.

“You… alright, boss?”

Ashe took a few more deep breaths, trying to maintain her composure. She wasn’t going to be able to get rid of her anger, she needed it, but she could let it simmer for now. She needed to show a calm and collected front to her gang, because that’s who they knew her as. Ashe, the brilliant and cunning leader of the Deadlock Gang. 

She closed her eyes for a moment, before relaxing her body and meeting Gianna’s gaze. “I’m fine, Gianna. Did you send some boys to go grab the bomb from Marco’s place?”

Gianna nodded. “They left a few minutes ago, boss.”

“Thanks Gianna,” Ashe replied, briefly placing a hand on her shoulder as she walked past her, out towards the hangar. “Where’s everyone at?” 

“The saloon.”

“Alright, thanks.” She stopped in the doorway, looking back at Gianna. “Oh, and one more thing. Clean up that mess.” She cracked her knuckles. “I don’t like trash lyin’ around.”

Chapter Text

As Ashe left the “interrogation room”, B.O.B. walked over to her from where he stood next to her bike, the one that McCree had returned to her. 

“Hey B.O.B.,” Ashe patted his arm as she walked to the exit of the hangar. The large Omnic fell in step behind her, casting a big shadow over her.

They walked in silence for a few moments, but Ashe could feel B.O.B.’s unasked question radiating off of him. “Yes, I got Marco to talk,” she sighed, giving B.O.B. a backward glance. “Like you ever doubted I could.” B.O.B. blinked at her in response, his giant footfalls echoing quietly throughout the massive room.

“And yes, I do know where McCree is, sorta,” Ashe continued, “I just gotta figure out what to do next.”

The smell of cool fresh air flooded her nose as she stepped outside into the slowly dimming canyon. With the sun dipping below the horizon, the sky slowly darkened and thousands of stars gradually made an appearance.

Shadows became longer until they melded into shade cast by the night, broken only by the light that spilled from the windows of the nearby buildings. One such building was The High SideSide , the saloon in Deadlock Gorge that the resident gang often used for social gatherings, relaxing, and of course, drinking.

This building also happened to be Ashe’s destination, since this is where most of the gang would be found. On top of that, Ashe also needed a drink.

Raucous laughter erupted from within the saloon as Ashe drew nearer, B.O.B. still in tow. "Sorry B.O.B.," she said, looking up at him, "We'll make this place big enough for you someday." The large omnic blinked at her benignly and watched her enter the bar.

The High Side was less a saloon and more a dirty room with a few bar taps. It wasn't very large, or very clean, or very comfortable really. Just a few tables and folding chairs scattered around the space, filled with semi-intoxicated patrons.

But as long as there was alcohol flowing, and people around to drink it, this place would always be full. And if they ran out of alcohol, the gang could always steal more.

It was crowded in the saloon, which wasn't the largest meeting place in Deadlock Gorge. Someone had cranked up the music on the jukebox in the corner, which mixed with the general babble that filled the air.

Drunken laughter and boasting surrounded Ashe as she elbowed her way over to the "bar", where a bored, round-faced man named Kyle was serving out drinks.

He straightened up as he saw who was approaching the bar, reaching for a clean glass under the bartop. 

"What'll it be, Ashe? (List some beers and ales here)?"

"Whiskey, (hard whiskey type)," Ashe replied, shoving at a drunken patron as he tried to push past her towards one of the tables. "No need for a glass, I'll just take the bottle." Kyle nodded before crouching down behind the bartop, rummaging through the shelves until he found what she requested.

"Thanks," Ashe nodded to him as he passed the bottle over to her. She flipped a coin at him and started to push her way through the inebriated crowd. Most of the occupants were drunk, or close to being, but they weren't so intoxicated that they didn't recognize their leader as she pushed her way to the back of the room.

Everyone gradually became aware of her presence and a path was made for her to reach her desired spot. Even on a good day, Ashe typically sat apart from the others. Even though each gang member was a part of her family, it didn't necessarily mean that she liked socializing with them on a daily basis.

Sure, she'd drink or play poker with them on occasion or after a successful heist, but Ashe felt most comfortable drinking when she was alone. Ashe arrived at the desired table, which was tucked away in the corner, pulled a stray chair over to her, and sat down facing the room.

Best not to talk with anyone tonight, at least not yet. I need to plan. Ashe stretched her legs out and popped the cap off her bottle of whiskey. The only person she actually spent time with on a daily basis was McCree, back when he was part of the gang.

McCree… Ashe leaned forward and took a swig of her whiskey. E verything that happened in the past few weeks came flooding back to her.

Finding out where McCree was, especially after being, well, humiliated by him in their last counter, felt like a sign from the heavens. Finally, Ashe would be able to settle the score between her and the man she once called her best friend.

But then everything changed when Marco showed up. She was forced to work with McCree, and then everything got complicated. Ashe looked up at the mass of bodies drinking and partying in front of her.

Their lives were simple; wake up, steal stuff, go out drinking at the end of the day. That wasn’t so bad of a life. But for Ashe, nothing was simple. She had to plan out the heists, keep everything running, make sure there was food and booze (I guess), and keep everyone in line, to an extent.

And everything got more complicated when her heist crew fell into Talon’s trap, and McCree got nabbed. "It's been a wild ride, Ashe." McCree's eyes made contact with hers. "Happy Trails." McCree pressed the button on the detonator, and the coupling between the two cars exploded, sending Ashe, Gianna, and Travis flying backward. The last thing Ashe saw was McCree battling half a dozen Talon troopers, before he was lost to the distance.

Ashe shook her head and looked at her bottle. Had she really gone through most of it already? She sighed, contemplating whether she should get up and grab another bottle or not. Drinking helped someone forget, and right now she didn't want to think about everything that happened.

But, she also needed to plan. She needed to plan a way to get McCree back, so she could slap him, or whatever. "Damn it," Ashe huffed before she downed the rest of her bottle. There were plenty of things that tickled at her conscience, most of which involved McCree, things she did not want to think about.

Well, the best way not to think about it is to think about something else. Ashe stood up and surveyed the room. Most of the occupants were deep in their drinks, but they weren't going to get any soberer than they were now. She might not have a plan, but she could at least get everyone on board for whatever she figured out. She hoped.

May as well get to it then. Ashe grabbed her empty bottle and moved towards the front of the bar, pushing and shoving where it was required until she was right next to the bar top. Loosely organized chaos lay in front of her, so she had to find a way to subdue it. 

“Everybody, listen up!” Ashe shouted. The bedlam, rather than quiet down, increased in volume. Ashe sighed before hefting her bottle and throwing it at the most occupied table in the room. The bottle flew between the people sitting around it and smashed against the top of it, sending glass flying everywhere. The room went instantly quiet.

“Yo, what the hell-!” The agitated gang member stood up only to realize who threw the bottle and sheepishly sat down, pulling bits of glass out of his clothing.

“Right! Now that I have all of your attention, I think it’s time we all had a chat!” Ashe yelled, mildly impressed with the change a little shattered glass could bring about. Everyone else in the room instantly took their seats, or where shoved into chairs if they were too intoxicated.

“First off,” Ashe started, “I’d like to congratulate everyone on their part in capturing that scumbag Marco, as well as the remnants of his gang.” There was a smattering of applause and cheering at that. “However, grabbing Marco wasn’t just about getting revenge. It’s also about finding out where Talon’s holding McCree and getting him back.”

The room became quiet again, and as Ashe scanned the crowd’s faces, she only found blank confusion. After a few moments, someone in the back of the crowd decided to speak up.

“What d’you mean? It’s not like McCree is ‘part of the gang or anything. Besides, I thought you hated his guts.”

“I know McCree hasn’t been around for a while, but he was family at some point. Family is still family, even if they do stuff that makes you hate them.” McCree was true family, unlike Ashe’s parents, the ones who kept her shut away for most of her life, only bringing her out to use at parties and social gatherings.

They weren’t her family, not in the same way that her gang was. “Besides, he got into that mess because of us. We got a debt to repay.”

The person in the back spoke again, and Ashe was able to identify them as Lauren.

“Ashe, you know we’d all stand beside you through anythin’, especially after all that you’ve done for us. It’s just…Don’t you feel this might be a little personal?”

Ashe’s eyes narrowed. “What d’you mean, ‘personal’?”

Lauren fidgeted nervously with the hem of her jacket. “It’s just, well, that McCree used to be your best friend, and it was his idea to pull the heist, and none of us know if you two had anything at some point…” She trailed off nervously at the sight of Ashe’s glare. 

“Like I said, this is about payin’ back a debt,” Ashe growled, “Ya’ll know that I don’t like bein’ indebted to others, so when we rescue McCree, we’ll be even. We’ll be able to do that once I get the information out of Marco.” Ashe straightened her hat, taking in the still-uncertain looks on the faces of her gang.

Time to add a little incentive then. “Plus, there’ll be a ton of good stuff to grab from Talon. We’re talking multi-million dollar pieces of tech, weaponry, hardware, you name it.” There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd, the looks of uncertainty being replaced by greed and excitement.

Unruly chatter broke out amongst the bar’s occupants as everyone started speculating on what could be stolen from a powerful terrorist organization like Talon. Ashe folded her arms as she saw another gang member stand up, a latino man by the name of Sebastian.

“Got any other thoughts Sebastian?”

Sebastian rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly before answering. “Ya’ll know I’m not coward when it comes to pullin’ off jobs and all, but we’re talking about rescuin’ McCree from the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization here.”

He stared at the floor, unwilling to make eye contact with his leader. “I’m sorry Ashe, I know you wanna repay a debt, but there’s a lot of risk riding on this job, risk that involves the saftey of your crew.”

Ashe nodded thoughtfully, mulling over what he said. “I see your point Sebastian, but you forget one thing. There’s always a risk with every job that we pull. The only reason that this job is different from the others is that the risk is higher. So long as I plan this out well, and we don’t make any mistakes, we’ll be alright.” Ashe looked around the room at everyone. “Have we ever had a plan of mine go wrong?”

There was a general response of “no” from the gang. Ashe always made sure that she planned out every possible detail of a robbery they pulled, with room for human error.

Thankfully, nobody in the crowd seemed to remember that the train heist Ashe just pulled was a disaster. That, or they were too afraid to make it known.

“Trust me, the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. If we pull this off, we’ll be richer than most mega-corporations on this side of the country!” There was a chorus of cheers at that, with several gang members raising glasses or bottles in a toast.

In the middle of the room, Travis stood up and motioned for quiet so he could make himself heard. “I agree with Ashe. We’ll be a helluva lot richer if we can pull this off. And I think it’s right that we pay back this debt. I know that Gianna, Ashe, and I wouldn’t have made it out alive without McCree bein’ there.” He shared a nod with Ashe before sitting back down, a few gang members thumping his back approvingly.

“Alright gang, since we’re all in agreement, we can get this ball rollin’.” Ashe stared at Lauren, holding her with a steely gaze until the blonde woman cast her eyes downward in submission. “There’s nothin’ for ya’ll to do for now, so just make sure you keep your heads on straight and don’t do anythin’ dumb.”

With that, Ashe moved back to her corner in the the bar and took a seat at her table. She leaned back in her chair and smiled, satisfied.

Everything was working out the way she wanted it to. She had Marco, so she could figure out where McCree was exactly, and she had her gang on board for the entire mission. Now all she had to do was get everything started by accomplishing the second most difficult thing in the mission; making a plan.

The smile slid off Ashe’s face as she faced the magnitude of what she had to do. This was going to be a long night.

Chapter Text

A 5.56 x 45mm NATO round is commonly used in assault weapons. It was introduced in the last 70’s and became one of the most used types of ammunition within weapons around the world.

The bullet itself is about 0.76 inches, and can travel at a speed of 3,260 feet per second while packing 1,7555 Jueles of energy inside it’s small body.

Overall, it was a very useful piece of hardware for militaries around the world, and could be found in Talon’s standard assault rifle.

It also hurt like hell when it entered Cassidy’s body, just between his shoulder and left pectoral muscle.

Now, Cassidy had been shot before, be he usually had someone like Dr. Angel Ziegler to fix him up or while on a Blackwatch mission, Dr. Moira O’Deorain. While strapped into an interrogation chair inside a Talon substation, he had neither of those people, though that was probably a good thing in terms of the latter.

What made the bullet wound hurt worse was the Talon trooper deliberately pressing on it as he leaned down next to Cassidy’s ear.

“You decide when the pain will stop. Just tell me where the remaining Overwatch agents are, and we’ll be done here.”

Cassidy stifled a groan of pain. “Ya’ll are dumber than you look. You honestly think I’m gonna talk?” 

The Talon trooper gave a mechanical chuckle, squeezing Cassidy’s shoulder a little harder before stepping back.

He walked over to a table that lined one of the cell’s walls and after browsing the various suitcases that lay there, pulled out something that looked like a high-tech ratchet.

“Honestly? No, I don’t think you’re going to talk,” the trooper replied as he returned to Cassidy. “But that’s what makes this fun, and who knows?”

He twisted a knob at the base of the ratchet, resulting in a low-pitched humming noise being emitted from the device. “Maybe we will manage to get something out of you.”

He crouched down and came face to face with Cassidy, staring into his eyes. “The real question is,” he whispered, “How long will it take you to break? ”

Cassidy just stared back at him, stone-faced. “Do your worst.”

“Believe me, I intend to.” The trooper moved over to where Cassidy’s left arm was strapped to the chair. He examined it for a few moments before looking back up at his captive.

“This bionic arm must surely have its benefits and drawbacks when it comes to relaying sig nals to your brain, right?” He tapped the arm lightly. “You can’t feel anything here, so it isn’t like having your left arm back, but at the same time you can’t feel any pain from it either. Makes it useful for punching things or handling harmful objects, huh?”

The trooper felt around the arm until he found the connection between flesh and steel. “I think it would be fair if you were able to feel something from your arm again.”

The trooper attached the ratchet-like device onto the base of Cassidy’s robotic arm, fiddling with a few knobs on the shaft of it before giving the device a sharp twist.

The device clicked a few times and locked onto Cassidy’s arm where it sat, whirring and beeping. The trooper looked over his shoulder at the two other troopers that occupied the room.

“Watch and learn boys.” He twisted the knob at the bottom of the tool and stepped back, watching expectantly. 

At first, Cassidy didn’t feel anything. His metal arm felt like, well, a metal arm. The technology was limited to receiving signals from his brain so he could control his arm, and sending basic signals, such as feelings of pressure, back.

Nothing fancy like what Genji had, just enough for him to get by. As time went on though, he started noticing something.

At first, it felt like pins and needles poking at his fingers, the type you felt after a part of your body fell asleep. It couldn’t possibly be what his arm was feeling, only what the device was simulating through the signals it was sending to his brain.

As time went on, the pins and needles gave way to a feeling of heat, the uncomfortable kind you feel when too close to an open oven. A few more seconds, and the oven turned into a furnace.

Cassidy groaned, unused to feeling pain from his left arm. His face beaded with sweat as he tried his best to keep the pain in check, determined not to give his captors any satisfaction.

He started panting as the heat’s intensity increased significantly, slowly reaching unbearable levels. All around him, his interrogators watched watched with looks of amusement as they watched him struggle to break free of his chair, the device slowly taking it’s toll on him.

The pain… it was intense . Cassidy had been shot and beaten, bruised and broken, but none of that compared to what he was feeling right now. It felt like the very sun was underneath his skin (despite him not having any in his left arm), bursting to break out, getting hotter and hotter with each second.

With each passing moment, more sweat poured out of Cassidy, his pain tolerance wore away, and the stark room slowly grew darker and darker. The lead interrogator approached him and leaned down next to his ear once more.

“Like I said, you decide when the pain will stop. It’s only going to get worse from here, so tell me,” he leaned forward so he was practically cheek-to-cheek with Cassidy. “Where are the remaining Overwatch agents?”

Just tell him, and it’ll all go away, whispered a part of Cassidy. Tell him and the pain will stop.

The pain grew.

If I tell him, then all of my friends will be in chairs like this, or worse. I can’t do this to them.

How had he not passed out?

Your friends can take care of themselves.

Who was screaming? Was that…him? Everything was getting darker, thank God. Hopefully he’d go unconscious, and get some escape from the hell he was in.

“Where are your friends?” the trooper asked again.

Just tell him. You aren’t even supposed to be here, it’s all Ashe’s fault.

Cassidy’s head slowly dropped, his chin touching his chest, his voice spent.

That doesn’t matter, I’d do it all again for her. As many times as was needed. Blessedly, the pain in his arm slowly faded away. 

“Dear, oh dear,” the Talon trooper tsked, grabbing Cassidy by his hair and yanking his head back. He looked down into his barely conscious face.

“That wasn’t too much now, was it? We can’t have you taking a nap now, can we?” He let go of Cassidy’s hair, before walking back over to the suitcases along the wall.

Just gotta stay strong, no matter what they throw at me. But damn, that hurt. It would only go downhill from here.

With bleary eyes, he watch his captor return with what looked like a small laptop battery in his hands. It was most likely anything but.

“Here’s a fun little toy, I think you’ll love it, McCree.” The man walked to the back of Cassidy’s chair and started fiddling with it.

“We usually use these beauties to short-circuit enemy hardware. Slap one of these babies on a jet, tank, or vehicle and zap! It pulses electricity through the entire thing and it’s fried.”

The trooper walked back over to the rest of his colleagues. “I’ve always wanted to see what it’ll do to a human if they were touching the metal it was attached to.”

Panic shot through Cassidy as he realized what was about to happen. He struggled to break from his restraints.

If he were fully alert, he would have known that there would be no way to break free,  but his earlier “interrogation” had left him feeling drained, and he wasn’t thinking clearly.

Desperation was coursing through him, shoving any logic he had to the corners of his mind.

“Its showtime boys!” the trooper said gleefully, pressing a button on the remote he held. After a second of delay, Cassidy’s world exploded into nothingness.

Hundreds of watts of electricity arced all over his body, singing his clothes and delving into his flesh. If he thought the pain in his arm was bad, this was a thousand times worse in comparison.

He felt his body shaking uncontrollably as his nervous system was overloaded, every thought in his mind wiped away as pain took over his body.

Burning.

He could feel himself burning.

What was that noise? It took him a few moments to realize that it was him that was making that inhuman screaming noise, ripped from him by the pain brought to him from something only a few inches in size.

Stop!

Are you serious? We were just getting started.

I order you to stop! What you’re doing is inhumane!

We’re doing what we ordered to do, relax.

Well, I’m giving you an order now, stop it!

The electricity ceased, but Cassidy couldn’t stop shaking. Everything was on fire . The electricity was still inside of him, buried deep within.

He let out a moan of pain, his head dropping onto his chest as he smelled the stench of singed clothing.

“You idiots! Have you lost your minds?” The voice should have been loud, he could sense the speaker was close to him, but it sounded as if it was coming through a tunnel.

A hand touched his face, a hand that should have been soft had it not burned him when it touched his skin.

“Relax ma’am, there’s no lasting harm.”

“That you know of! Our goal here is to extract the information we require, not torture him to death!” That voice was familiar. Lydia…right?

With great effort, Cassidy cracked an eye open. Lydia was crouched in front of him, staring into his face with a great deal of concern. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a weak groan.

She whipped around to look at the three troopers in the room, fire in her eyes. “You boys are going to have hell to answer to once I report this!”

The troopers shuffled uncomfortably, faced with the wrath of a very pissed-off Talon official. One of them finally spoke up. “I’m sorry ma’am, but the orders we received came from the top.”

“The top, what do you-” Lydia cut off, her face going from red to white. “You don’t mean…the Council?” 

The talon troopers all nodded vigorously, glad to pass the blame onto someone else. “It came straight from the council ma’am. They said that because we had a prominent member of Overwatch in our hands, we had to get any and all information out of him through any means necessary.”

Lydia hissed through her teeth, returning her gaze to Cassidy, who could barely keep his eyes open.

“Sleep, Cole.” She brushed his face tenderly, before getting to her feet and walking to the cell door. “I’m going to see the council about this. And then I’ll see what I can do about you three,” she snapped, stomping out into the hallway.

The troopers all started muttering amongst themselves nervously before leaving the cell as well.

Sleep. That sounded nice. Maybe it would… help him escape from the burning. At least for now. As Cassidy finally gave in to the embrace of unconsciousness, he had one final thought. 

Nobody out there knows where I am or what happened to me.

I’m stuck here to die.

Chapter Text

“You know, I thought this place would be…”

“Bigger?”

“No, better.”

Ashe looked at Travis, who was laying on his belly next to her on the outcropping.

They were currently overlooking what appeared to be a small warehouse in the middle of nowhere.

As was the norm in Arizona, they were surrounded by endless expanses of desert, unpopulated save for the rare jackrabbit or lizard, with the rare dead shrub thrown into the mix. It was also close to 100°F, which didn’t help at all. 

“You seriously gonna judge a book by its cover? Or a warehouse to be more accurate?” Ashe asked.

“I mean, for a secret weapons manufacturing facility, I thought this place was gonna be more, impressive.”

Ashe shook her head in disbelief before returning to her gaze to the warehouse in the distance.

Travis was telling the truth; there really wasn’t much to see. A single warehouse protected by a low-quality fence, along with minimal security drones, didn’t seem like much to look at.

It could easily pass for a mulch shed or a salt storage facility.

That was the entire idea.

Ashe knew that looks were deceiving, and that was especially the case with her current target. To pull off the rescue mission that Ashe had planned, the Deadlock Gang would require advanced hardware in order to stand a chance against Talon.

That meant that they would need the best of the best, or at least something close to that.

Major weapons manufacturing companies in the mid-west had greatly increased their security measures in response to the Deadlock Gang’s rise to power, making it near impossible to acquire what they needed from them. Anything easier was too far away.

That left Ashe with only one choice.

Arbalest.

“The point of this warehouse is to not attract attention, Travis. What better way to hide valuable goods than in plain sight?” Ashe responded dryly, now surveying the warehouse through her field glasses.

To be honest, Ashe had known about this warehouse for a long time, dating back to before she founded the Deadlock Gang. The difference between then and now was the fact that she and the gang were much more skilled and better equipped.

And the fact she was desperate enough to attempt this heist.

While the warehouse wasn’t much to look at on the outside, Ashe knew that there was a massive facility underneath it, hidden from the world, and only accessible by the highest members of Arbalest.

The facility held billions of dollars worth of weapons, designs, ammunition, hardware, and technology, all in their final prototype stages. All of which weren’t on the market yet and would be worth a pretty penny to the right people if you knew where to go.

The purpose of this heist wasn’t to make a score on the black market though, it was to acquire the necessary tools required to rescue McCree.

After a few more minutes of inspecting the warehouse, and listening to Travis’ complaints about the heat, Ashe finally got up from her prone position and started making her way down the outcropping with her sweaty companion in tow.

Once they reached their bikes, Ashe turned to Travis.

“From what I saw, the drone patrols are timed and surveillance is light, so we just gotta stick to the blind spots and we’ll be inside fast. Just follow me and stick close.” She started her bike and sped off towards the warehouse, leaving a cloud of dust behind.

A fter a few minutes of hot and dusty travel, the pair parked their bikes just outside the fence and waited.

“Well, I do have a question, Ashe,” Travis started.

“Hush, not now!” Ashe tracked a security drone as it slowly flew by. Since the drone was more focused on monitoring the interior of the warehouse’s perimeter, she didn’t have to worry about staying out of sight. But just because the drone didn’t see them didn’t mean it wouldn’t hear them.

“It’s kinda important-”

“I said not now!” Ashe whispered, holding her breath as the drone stopped in place and started slowly surveying the area.

Did it hear them? Were they blown?

After a tense moment, the drone gave a chirp and continued on its patrol path. Ashe gave Travis a dirty look before unslinging a pair of bolt cutters from the back of her bike.

A minute of quick cutting made a hole large enough for Ashe and Travis to crawl through and after another drone had floated past them, the pair of them were inside the warehouse’s perimeter.

Ashe quickly ran to the employee access door and entered the modestly sized building, where she found a small dark room waiting for her.

The room overall was unremarkable save for a terminal implanted in one wall, equipped with what looked like a retinal scanner and keypad.

“So Ashe, I was thinking-”

“Always a dangerous sign.”

“If this place is supposed to be the motherload of Arbalest goods, shouldn’t the security be tighter?” Travis nervously rubbed the back of his neck. “Don’t you find that suspicious? What if it’s a trap?”

“Well, that’s kinda the whole point of this place.”

Travis started. “Wait, what?”

Ashe started fishing around in the satchel she had slung over her shoulder. “This facility is actually extremely secure, but it's designed not to look like it. That way, if anyone decides to rob this place without knowing what it really is, they’ll find nothing of value on the surface.”

She pulled out what looked like a small makeup container, the type you would expect to find powder or blush in. “And if anyone did know the true contents of this place, but didn’t come prepared, they’d find themselves tranq’d before they could leave this room and wake up in a max security prison for a nice long stay.”

“And you came prepared, right? Like, we’re not going to wake up in a max security prison, right?” Travis was starting to sweat even more, and not from the heat.

Ashe gave him a droll look. “Who are you working with? Did you honestly think I’d come into this thing without a plan?” She opened the container, revealing what looked like a contact lens.

The way the security system was set up, only people with the top level of Arbalest clearance would be able to access this facility. That included the CEO, President, and Chairperson of Arbalest, one of which happened to be Ashe’s mother, Catherine.

Ashe wasn’t her mother, or her father, or the President of Arbalest, but after she was arrested and disowned by her family, following a catastrophic party, she managed to sneak back into her house and steal what secrets she could from Arbalest; a last slap in the face to her parents.

Along with disinheriting her, her parents also shut her out of the Arbalest system, revoking all of her access to any inside information and deleting her from the system.

What they didn’t know, was that Ashe managed to steal a few of Arbalest’s most closely held secrets, such as information on this warehouse, as well as the retinal makeup of her mother.

Ashe carefully picked up the contact lens and placed it on her eye. Careful engineering and synthesizing made the existence of this lense possible, and if she did it right, the retinal scanner would think that she was her mother.

If it didn’t, well, she’d be enjoying a few life sentences worth of time in a max security prison.

A few blinks of the eye dispelled any discomfort of the contact lens, and without further ado, Ashe marched over to the retinal scanner and stood at eye level with it.

Here goes nothing .

The machine came to life and a blue light started flashing. “Please move closer to the optical scanner,” a pleasant robotic voice instructed. A ring of blue light appeared around the scanning lens. 

Ashe leaned a little bit closer until the ring turned red, indicating she was close enough.

“Please hold still, and do not blink while scanning is in progress.” Multiple thin blue lasers shot out of the scanning lens, nearly forcing Ashe to blink from their intensity.

The lasers moved across her eye, scanning her pupil and iris individually before melding together and making a sweep of her eye. Ashe’s eye began to water, and just as she was about to blink reflexively, the lasers disappeared and the ring of light flashed green.

“Welcome, Catherine Ashe, Chairwoman. Please enter your personal security code.”

Ashe let out a relieved sigh and turned back toward Travis. “See? Nothin’ to worry about.”

Travis gave her a shaky nod, wiping the sweat off his brow. She returned her focus to the keypad that sat below the scanner and punched in her mother’s code, another thing she managed to steal twenty years ago.

She punched in the final digit of the code, and the room gave a slight tremor. Paneling behind the retinal scanner and keypad slid open and the two security features moved back inside the wall.

The moment they were out of sight, the room gave a slight jolt and Ashe felt herself moving downwards. It looked like this room doubled both as a security checkpoint and elevator to the facility below.

Ashe carefully took the contact lens out of her eye and carefully stored it back in its case. It would most certainly be useful later, should she want to steal from a high-value Arbalest location in the future.

A few minutes later, there was a ding and one wall of the room slid to the side, revealing a spectacular sight.

The facility was huge .

Rows upon rows of storage containers stretched across the expanse, hundreds of catwalks crossed overhead, leading to higher storage areas. There were thousands of shelves everywhere the eye could see. Ashe truly had hit the jackpot.

She and Travis exited the elevator and stepped out onto the landing. She looked over the edge to find they were a few stories above the ground, thousands more containers, and crates taking up the space below her.

Everything in here would be worth millions, maybe billions. And she wasn’t even here for a payout. I’ll be back for this , she thought, It all should have been mine anyway.

This struck her as achingly familiar. This was how it all started, just her and McCree robbing two crates worth of Arbalest rifles from a warehouse similar to this.

Sure, they had aimed to grab a lot more and nearly died in the process, but it was a memorable beginning to their friendship. Ashe smiled reminiscently. Who knew how fast time could fly.

She and McCree were just kids when they started out doing this. Twenty years later, she was still doing it. The only difference was the fact that McCree wasn’t here to have her back. With this heist, I’ll be one step closer to getting him back. She turned to a terminal just outside the elevator, which appeared to serve as a directory and catalog.

“Let’s see here, accessories, ammunition, armaments…blueprints… aha! Gear! Here we go.” She tapped away at the screen and scrolled through the list provided to her. For her plan to work, she’d need a variety of different things, but gear was definitely a start.

After a few more button taps, in which she selected the type of gear she wanted, and she stepped back, looking expectantly over the vast expanse of crates and containers behind her.

In the distance, she saw a cargo-drone fly out from a hub and select a large crate from the labyrinth below. It dipped below their site line and reappeared holding the merchandise, before carrying it to a large platform that resided in the center of the facility.

“How’re we going to get this stuff out of here?” Travis, being the ever practical one, asked. “I don’t see how we can fit that inside the elevator.” He was also a little short-sighted when it came to plans, so to speak.

“You see that platform over there? The one that the container just got placed on?” Travis nodded. “That platform gets raised to the warehouse above, where the merchandise can get picked up and shipped out. That’s why the warehouse upstairs is empty.” She spent the next few minutes “shopping” for more items that she required; weapons, technology, accessories, attachments, on and on and on until she was satisfied that she had what was needed.

Ashe might not be here for a huge payout, but who said she couldn’t sell all this stuff after she rescued McCree? She’d still make some big bucks with this, and this wasn’t even a fraction of what lay before her. She could always come back here and grab some more stuff if it tickled her fancy.

Ashe pressed one final button, and the platform that held her goods slowly began its ascent to the warehouse above, accompanied by a great deal of flashing yellow lights and caution sirens that echoed throughout the facility. She looked back at Travis with a satisfied smile.

“That should be everything we need. Now all we gotta do is get back topside, load the stuff onto the truck, and get the hell out of here.” She walked back over to the elevator door and pressed the up button.

Nothing happened. She pressed it again. Still nothing.

“The hell is wrong with this thing?” Ashe pressed the button again, and again it did nothing. That was when the terminal next to her came to life.

“Elizabeth Caledonia Ashe.”

Ashe froze. She knew that voice. She grew up being “raised” by the person it belonged to. Damnit! She turned back to the terminal and came face to face with the person who used to be her mother, Catherine Ashe.

“Hello, Catherine.”

Chapter Text

Ashe’s former mother hadn’t changed much from when she had last seen her. Her hair was still immaculately styled and blonde, her skin still perfectly cared for and pale.

There were a few more lines on her face, but the no-nonsense expression was exactly how Ashe remembered it. 

Catherine’s blue eyes flashed with anger. “I’m both surprised and disappointed that the authorities still haven’t caught you and locked you up. This country really needs to look into improving its law enforcement.”

“It doesn’t matter how much the bluecoats improve, I’ll always be one step ahead of them,” Ashe smirked, “Comes with being the best there is.”

“Yet despite being the best, you’ve managed to get caught in the middle of a robbery in one of the most secure facilities in the South-West.”

Ashe shook her head, a satirical smile playing around her lips. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been in a tight spot Catherine, and I’m only in trouble after I’m caught for sure.”

She glanced over at Travis, who was perspiring a great deal more now, before returning her gaze to her ex-mother. “I’ve got to wonder though, how did you know I was here?”

Catherine gave her a triumphant smile. “You don’t get to be the chairwoman of one of the United States’ top weapons companies by being dimwitted dear. After I found out that you were stealing Arbalest’s secrets twenty years ago, I realized there was the possibility that you had stolen some of our most guarded secrets. There was a slim chance of that, but you learn as a businesswoman that some risks can’t be taken. So, I decided to prepare accordingly, and did what I could to protect any assets that could be harmed by what you might have been able to get your hands on.” 

Ashe rolled her eyes, feigning boredom or disdain. Her former mother never could turn up an opportunity to show off, and she could talk for hours as a result.

Fortunately, this gave Ashe the ability to start planning her escape route and as her eyes roamed the interior of the warehouse, a plan started to form in her mind.

“I realized that the most valuable thing you could have stolen from your father and I was our personal security clearances and accesses to Arbalest’s data and infrastructure. So, I decided to take the necessary precautions and made it so your father and I were alerted whenever our personal clearances were used to access anything. You wouldn’t believe my surprise when I found out that someone was accessing a top-secret facility using my credentials. And it could have been only one person. You.”

Ashe’s eyes narrowed as she continued examining the endless rows of shelves and storage containers below her, her gaze pinpointing one spot in particular.

Hmm, that could work. Realizing that Catherine was smugly waiting for a response from her, and not wanting her to realize what she was doing, she turned back to the small screen the chairwoman was currently inhabiting.

“Well, congratulations Catherine, you’ve proven yourself more competent than most of the law I’ve run into. What do you want, a medal?”

Catherine threw her head back and laughed, a sound that Ashe really hated.

In Ashe’s childhood, Catherine never laughed because something was genuinely humorous. She only did it as a show, a way to kiss up to the corporate giants or make the investors feel like she genuinely valued a “friendship” they shared.

So, Ashe seriously doubted that Catherine found this situation funny. “Elizabeth, dear, you know I have no use for medals or trophies. Now that you mention it though, I do recall there is a fifty-million dollar bounty on your head. I’m sure that I could put that to good use.” She smiled savagely at Ashe. “Consider it compensation for all the grief you’ve given me both before and after you started your life of crime.”

“Um, Ashe…?” Travis started. She heard a soft whirring sound behind her, accompanied by another, and another, all coming from different directions.

Looking around, she found that at least half a dozen security drones were slowly closing in on her, their weapons ready and trained on her.

Well, she hadn’t had the time to fully come up with a plan, but it’s not like she had a choice in that matter anymore. She nodded to Travis and looked back at Catherine’s stupid smug face.

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but you’re as dumb as every other person who’s ever thought they’ve had me cornered. Despite you “raisin’” me, you never learned this about me; I always find a way out.” With that, she smashed her fist into the display, cutting off the feed, before grabbing Travis by the arm and jumping over the edge of the catwalk.

Ashe and Travis, the latter of which was screaming, landed hard on one of the many shelves below them. The drop wasn’t bone-breaking, but it wasn’t something to scoff at either, and it would definitely leave a mark that they’d see in the morning.

Ashe got up, groaning at the pain she could feel in her side, Travis doing the same next to her.

“Next time, please tell me what we’re doing before we do it,” Travis groaned, rubbing at his ribs.

Ashe peered over the edge of the shelf, gauging the distance between them and the ground. Fifteen feet, doable. “If I did that, then we would lose the element of surprise. But I’ll try to oblige to your request my lord-” She was cut off by a burst of gunfire coming from above. 

The security drones from before were streaking over the catwalk and were bearing down on them, fast. Based on the fact that they were using sleeper rounds, Catherine realized that there was a higher reward for delivering Ashe to the authorities alive.

T hat, or she cares about you still, deep down, whispered a small part of Ashe. She shook her head angrily. No, she just doesn’t want to get her hands dirty, she argued back.

“Well, you wanted me to inform you of my next move Travis, so we’re about to jump off of this shelf, got it?”

“Wait, what?”

“Alright, great!” Ashe grabbed him by the shoulder and hopped off the edge, hitting the ground in a roll and coming back up to her feet.

Travis mirrored her, just much less gracefully. He looked up at her from the ground, a baleful look in his eyes.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” he whined. Ashe rolled her eyes in response, peeking around the corner of the shelf.

The place was now swarming with security drones, most of which were patrolling the air, trying to locate her from among the shelves.

That made things a lot more complicated, but not impossible. She turned back to Travis, who was still rubbing at his side.

“Alright Travis, we’ve got two objectives here, both of which we can accomplish at the same time; gettin’ out of this place and stealin’ what we came here for. Since the only way out of here is on the platform our goods are on, we can complete both objectives simultaneously.”

She peeked around the shelf again, taking in the sight of more security drones arriving. “The problem here is being able to get to the platform and out of the warehouse without being put to sleep.”

Ashe turned back to Travis. “Just stick close behind me and do what I tell you, got it?” As soon as Travis nodded, Ashe tore out of the aisle they were in like a bat out of hell, and sprinted straight down the main aisle of the warehouse.

She could already hear the security drones being alerted to her presence and start pursuing her. The delivery platform was fifty yards away, dead ahead, but she’d never get there without being tranq’d.

Well, maybe she could, but Travis most certainly wouldn’t, and she already had one person to save. As soon as the drones opened fire on her, and the ground around her got pelted by sleeper rounds, she made a hard left into one of the many aisles of shelves, intent on losing the drones and confusing them.

From there, she started weaving in and out of the shelves, taking a left here, a right there, but always moving closer to the platform. After a few minutes of playing real-life Pacman, Ashe and Travis had lost their pursuers, but their aching ribs begged them for a break.

“H-how…much…farther?” Travis gasped, pulling in ragged gasps of air. Ashe wiped the sweat off her forehead and peered around the aisle they were in. What she saw made her heart sink.

The platform was only thirty yards away from them, but it was swarming with security drones. Clearly, Catherine was just as aware as Ashe that the platform was their only way out.

“There’s only thirty or so more yards to go, but that platform is covered in drones,” Ashe replied. “We’re goin’ to have to find a way to get them off of there before they start doin’ a systematic sweep through the entire warehouse.”

The question is, how? Ashe started pacing back and forth in the aisle, making sure to keep well away from the ends lest a drone should spot her.

This warehouse was full of advanced prototype weaponry, but Ashe doubted the two of them could shoot down two dozen drones without alerting the rest of the drones to their presence.

Even if they could find some heavy weaponry, she figured that she wouldn’t know how to operate it.

Arbalest didn’t deal in EMP devices, and anything that would keep the pair of them protected was way too far away to grab.

Besides, there was no way to access anything without having a carrier drone picking it up and unlocking the case. 

Ashe sighed in frustration and cast her gaze up to the ceiling in despair. It didn’t look like there was going to be any way out of this…unless…

Her eyes narrowed. Were those sprinklers? An idea started to form. If she could just get those sprinklers to activate, then…

Yes, that could work.

She quickly reached underneath the back of her coat and pulled out one of her signature explosives.

“Um, Ashe? What are you doing with that?” Travis asked, looking nervous.

“I'm goin’ to get us out of here,” she responded, setting the timer on the explosive with a few button presses.

Travis’ eyes widened. “You’re not going to blow us up, are you?!” Ashe groaned and facepalmed. Sometimes she wondered why she worked with who she worked with.

“Of course not, idiot. I’m going to set off the sprinkler system in here. Even though these security drones are waterproof, this place is packed with sprinkler systems to put out any fire that could damage Arbalest property.”

She gripped the explosive tightly and walked down the side of the aisle that lead her deeper into the warehouse.

“Once I set this thing off, thousands of gallons of water are going to rain from the ceiling and it should mess with the drones’ optics. They won’t be able to see us well, or at least, they won’t be able to aim well.”

“Are you sure you wanna do this Ashe? You could be damaging some really nice stuff, stuff we could swipe.”

Ashe hefted the explosive in her hand and wound her arm back. “The sprinklers will put out the fire before it damages anything severely. But even if it did, I doubt we’ll be comin’ back here.”

She threw the explosive as high and as far as she could. Just like with rifle shooting, Ashe had excellent aim with throwing objects.

The explosive sailed far and away into one of the aisles that Ashe and Travis had previously run through, the one that held heavy munitions and explosives.

A few seconds later, the entire warehouse shook as a massive explosion erupted, knocking over shelves, destroying drones, and sending flames and debris everywhere.

“Warning, fire detected. Initiating fire suppression systems,” a robotic voice echoed throughout the warehouse. Soon after, monsoon season began.

“Now’s our chance, let's move!” Ashe charged out of the aisle, straight for the platform that held all of the gear they acquired, as well as three dozen drones. 

“Did you mean to do that?” Travis asked as he chased after her, his eyes wide.

“Not really, but it got the job done, didn’t it?”

As they drew nearer to the drones, Ashe noticed that the security drones did not react to their approach. Clearly, the thick sheets of water flooding from the ceiling, as well as the sound they produced, were masking their movement to the platform.

It managed to stay true as Ashe and Travis wove their way between the drone and arrived at the platform. Ashe tilted her hat forward to shield her face from the immense downpour and located the control terminal.

She provided it with instructions, and a second later the platform came to life with a jolt, slowly moving upwards to the faux warehouse above.

“Keep low and out of sight until we get topside,” Ashe instructed, crouching behind the crates next to her. The sprinkler systems could shut off at any moment, and she didn’t want the drones to spot them on the platform.

The ceiling split open to make way for the platform, and after a few more stress-filled seconds, Ashe found herself outside the facility in the small warehouse above.

Travis gave a shaky sigh, wiping water off his face before moving to the warehouse doors.

“It looks like there’s no drones up here, they’ve probably all flown down to the facility below,” he said, looking around.

“Good thing too, otherwise we’d have a hard time getting back to the truck,” Ashe added, walking out into the Arizona outdoors, soaked to the bone.

The squishing noises she made every time she took a step were annoying, but she’d dry out soon enough in the Arizona heat. A few minutes later, Ashe and Travis had loaded the final crate, and their bikes, onto the flatbed trailer attached to the truck, and hopped into the vehicle.

“Time to go home boss?” Travis asked, sliding behind the wheel. They were mostly dry by now, so the drive back wouldn’t be as uncomfortable. Ashe gave him a nod, and before long the Arbalest warehouse was out of sight.

The things I go through for McCree, Ashe thought, watching the endless expanses of Arizona nothingness pass by her. I’m gonna give him an earful once I get him back.

Now that they had acquired the weapons and gear they needed for the mission, they just needed to actually complete the mission. Hopefully, it would be easier than what Ashe just had to go through. She seriously doubted it though.

Talon’s a top terrorist organization, and you’re bringin’ the toughest criminal gang in the South West against them . Do they have what it takes to pull this off? Do you? Ashe’s nagging, ever unhelpful conscience asked her.

I know I’ve got what it takes to pull this off. I’m willin’ to do whatever it takes to get McCree back. Ashe set her jaw and looked out at the horizon.

Whatever it takes.

Chapter Text

“McCree.” 

Cassidy felt something nudge his side. He didn’t want to wake up. Waking up would bring back the pain.

It was best to sleep, rest, away from whatever horrors surely awaited him in consciousness.

“McCree, wake up.”

That voice, it was familiar, wasn’t it? Surely, it couldn’t be…? Cassidy opened his eyes, the blurry interrogation room coming into focus.

The other thing that came into focus, standing right in front of him, was a woman with stunningly white hair. Cassidy’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“A-Ashe?”

Ashe crouched down in front of him, her signature smirk on her face.

“You seem a little stuck, farm hand. Do I always have to save your sorry behind?” She reached out and gently touched the side of his face. “You seem like you’ve been having a rough time recently.”

Cassidy gave a dry chuckle, one that turned into a painful cough. “You don’t know the half of it, Ashe. Now, can you get me out of this?” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, giving her a half-smile. “My sorry behind is really sore from being stuck in this chair.”

“Oh, Cassidy. I don’t think that’s going to happen.” Ashe gave him sweet smile and stood up, walking over to one of the tables that lined the room.

“Wait, wh-what do you mean?” Cassidy asked, confusion growing in his mind. “Why else would you be here? You’ve come to rescue me, right?”

Ashe barked out a harsh laugh, her back to him. “What, you seriously thought I was here to save you ? The infamous Jesse McCree, or rather, Cole Cassidy?”

She turned back around, her face shadowed save for a slice of light spilling across it, illuminating one of her red eyes.

“You know, you’ve had quite the bounty on your head for a while now. Fifty-million dollars, about as much as me.”

She chuckled again, slowly walking towards him. “I wasn’t looking to turn myself in to collect on that, and then I found you at the diner, and you were stupid enough to trust that I wouldn’t turn down the amount of money offered for your head.”

Ashe came back into the light, just in front of him, a wicked look on her face. “Turns out, Talon was willing to offer more than the authorities were, especially for someone who’s been a huge thorn in their side for years.”

Cassidy shook his head in disbelief, still unable to comprehend what he was hearing. “You’re telling me that you, you set everything up? All as a way to get a big payout?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, and the amount of money I made out of this was certainly worth it. Besides, getting my revenge on you was almost worth more than the payout.”

Ashe laughed at the look on Cassidy’s face. “What, you seriously thought that I’d forgive you for walking out on me all those years ago? For humiliating me time and time again? Making the other gangs question my authority?”

She bent down and grabbed Cassidy’s face, pulling it towards hers. “You thought that “saving” me from the likes of Marco would mean that all is forgiven? After all you’ve put me through?”

Ashe let go of his face in disgust. “No, what made this entire scheme worth it wasn’t the amount of money I got, nor the fact that I was able to take my revenge on you. It was the knowledge that you were going to suffer incredible pain, day after day until you died here. Trapped and forgotten.”

She leaned forward and gave Cassidy a kiss on the cheek. “Happy trails, pumpkin,” she whispered. She then straightened up, and before Cassidy could react, threw a right hook at his face.

“No, wait-!”

Cassidy woke up with a start, cold sweat beading his forehead. Breathing heavily, he wildly looked around the room for Ashe. There was no sign of her, no sign of anyone. It was just him, alone. Or so he thought.

“Have a nice nap?”

Cassidy looked around the room, trying to find the source of that voice. Surely, he couldn’t be here.

Last Cassidy had heard, he had just attempted to assassinate the CEO of Volskaya Industries, halfway around the world. Yet, the harder he looked, he was able to notice something in the darkest corner of the room, something that looked like a cloud of dark smoke.

The cloud started moving into the light, all the while solidifying into what looked like a man, clad in a black robe with a stark white owl mask for a face. 

To the world, he was known as The Reaper, a shotgun-wielding, psychopathic terrorist who served as a member of Talon’s council. Remorseless, ruthless, and unkillable.

To Cassidy, he would always be known as Gabriel Reyes, the man who offered him the chance at a better life.

Once he was a good mentor, a good man, and a good friend. Now, Cassidy couldn’t believe he had ever known him.

“As a matter of fact Gabe, I did. Slept like a baby.” Best not to show any fear here, especially not to Reyes. That wasn’t who he was.

Reaper chuckled, a deep and evil sound. “It sure didn’t look like that to me, not with all your thrashing about and moaning.” He grabbed a chair from one of the room’s tables and dragged it over in front of Cassidy.

“You wouldn’t believe my surprise when I was told that we managed to pick you up.” He sat down in front of Cassidy, staring eye to eye with him. Or at least, that was how Cassidy perceived it, given the fact that he really couldn’t see Reyes’ eyes.

“You wouldn’t believe my surprise to see you creepily watching me in my sleep. Last I heard, you were trying to murder Volskaya’s CEO. Seems like your time in Blackwatch awakened your likin’ for killins.” Cassidy spat to the side, disconcerted to find that his saliva was red.

“She was an important piece in a greater game, one that needed to be removed. That’s something you don’t understand, but I hope that will change.” Reaper laced his fingers together, contemplating (or at least, that’s what Cassidy guessed he was doing) Cassidy, bound, bruised, and bloody in his chair. “I’m glad you’re here Cole.”

“You’re glad?” Cassidy gave a dry laugh, pain flaring up in his side. “Why, so you can live out your sadistic fantasies on someone who used to be your friend? Sorry to say that I don’t feel the same way.”

Reaper gave another chuckle, a chilling sound. “Believe me, after all the grief you’ve given us over the years, a part of me would love to make you suffer for it. But, that’s not why I’m not paying you this visit.”

He raised his hands up, gently gripping the sides of his mask. “I’m here to reason with someone I once called a friend.” He pulled off his mask, revealing a face virtually unchanged over the years. The face of Gabriel Reyes. “Someone I once counted as a son.”

Cassidy rolled his eyes. “Well, I hate to break it to you, pops, but your fine lady already tried doing that. Why do you think I’m in this chair?” He shuffled in it, trying to ease the soreness out of his muscles. “It ain’t because it’s so comfy.”

“I admire your loyalty to your Overwatch friends Cole, but I believe it’s time that you learned to view the world a bit differently as I have.” Reyes studied him intently. “You and I have known each other for a long time. When we first met, I gave you a choice; join Overwatch, or spend a long time in federal prison. You picked the smart option and joined Overwatch, which lead to you being here right now.”

He leaned forward, eye to eye with Cassidy. “In our time in Blackwatch, we took down syndicates, cartels, terrorist organizations, even Talon, because we both believed what we were doing was right. We believed that removing the small players from the game would fix the problems that the world had. But pawns are meant to be sacrificed, and the opponent can always continue playing even after they lose a knight or a rook.” 

Reyes held Cassidy’s gaze, captivating, unwavering. “You know what I’m talking about, you’ve seen it first-hand in your time as a criminal and outlaw. This world is corrupt, controlled by selfish politicians whose goal is to line their pockets first, and see to the needs of the people last. It doesn’t matter what country they’re from, what political party they belong to, they only look after one thing: themselves.”

Cassidy broke his gaze, looking away. He’d heard this all before from Lydia, but hearing it from someone he knew, or at least thought he knew, cast a different ring to it.

And if he was being honest with himself, he agreed with Gabe. No matter how many people he threw in prison, and how many organizations he toppled, crime in the world never decreased.

All because the root of the problem was never dealt with, whether it was politics, drug dealers, or just plain human greed.

“I know you wonder why I betrayed Overwatch, why I decided to join the very terrorist organization that I fought so hard against. The simplest answer is that my eyes were opened. Opened to how the world truly is, the reality of how everything I did was pointless because we never addressed the real problems that the world experiences. I joined Talon to rid the world of corruption and through this, make humanity stronger.”

Reyes stood up and started pacing around the room. “When the Omnic Crisis occurred, humanity was almost destroyed by the destruction it brought. Humanity was weak , blinded by the lies that their governments whispered in their ears, complacent in growing fat in their excess, so eager to have their lives made easier. It was the world’s great trial, sent to us by God, and we almost failed it. We almost deserved to be washed away, destroyed by the very thing we created to make our lives easier.”

He stopped in front of Cassidy, looking down at him. “Humanity wasn’t strong enough to deal with the Omnics. We had to rely on Overwatch to deal with our problems. Once again, we relied on the government to fix our problems for us. But what if humanity was stronger? What if we didn’t need to be protected by others, what if we could protect ourselves?”

Reyes crouched down in front of Cassidy, holding his gaze. “What if, the next time a massive war moved across the Earth, humanity was able to deal with it by themselves? What if, during our times of peace, there was no corruption in the world to be found? No crime, no turmoil, peace and safety across the planet.”

Cassidy laughed drily. “You’re confusing peace and safety with fear and control. I’ve seen what Talon does across the globe, both during and after Blackwatch. You guys are terrorists and criminals. You justify your actions by stating the means. Can you honestly say what you’re doing is helping us?”

“What we do can be unsavory, but can you argue with the results? We’ve purged failed states of their criminal circles, eliminated corporate giants who lie between their teeth to line their pockets. You and I both know that the only way to get real work done, is to get our hands dirty. Through the dirty work we do, that I do, we’re making this world stronger, better , more capable of weather the storms to come.” Reyes gave him a smile, one that almost seemed real, save for his eyes. Those eyes had an intense rage behind them, burning hot and fueled by whatever injustices that he saw in the world.

“I know you’ve seen what I’m talking about, you and I are similar in many ways. I want you by my side, helping me as Talon works to make this world a better place. Talon merely wants you for your skill. I want you because I know who you are, and I’ve seen your character in every mission we’ve done together.” Reyes reached out and placed a clawed hand on Cassidy’s shoulder. “I’d rather have you with me, than against me.”

It was tempting. More than Cassidy was willing to admit. Gabe made some valid points, very valid points, about how the world worked and the problems experienced. At one point, Cassidy might have accepted his offer easily. But he was older and wiser now, and he knew what would be required of him if he joined Talon. Best to do what would help him sleep at night.

“You know, Gabe, I don’t deny the truth in what you’re saying. Humanity is weak and there is a helluva lot of corruption in the world.”

Cassidy held Reyes’ gaze, staring deep into his eyes. “But what you guys are doing, all this cloak-and-dagger type of stuff, it isn’t the way to go about bringing change. There are better ways to help the world become better. Deep down, I know there’s a part of you that agrees with me.”

Reyes smiled again, but it was forced, a mask, hiding the flames of anger behind it. He gripped Cassidy’s shoulder harder, his claws digging into his flesh. “Well, I’m sorry to hear you feel that way, but I guess I wouldn’t want you to compromise your morals.”

He squeezed harder and Cassidy gasped in pain. “Unfortunately for you, neither am I. I was hoping that there was a part of you that would see sense, but it looks like you’re still the stubborn ingrate that I picked up all those years ago.”

He let go of his captive and replaced the mask on his face. Reaper turned around and stalked back towards the doorway. “Looks like we’ll have to get the locations of the remaining Overwatch agents out of you the hard way. You should expect some more visitors soon, and if you die, then that’ll be another agent off my list.” He stopped in the doorway, fixing Cassidy with a chilly glare. “Goodbye Cole, I hope you enjoy the remainder of your stay.” With that, he left the room, leaving Cassidy alone with this thoughts.

Chapter Text

Everything was almost ready. 

Ashe sat on a crate in the hangar, watching everything going on before her.  Her gang was unloading the crates from her earlier heist, practicing their aim at the shooting range, testing out the gadgets and technology she had acquired, running around to other tasks, and so much more.

It was chaos, but organized chaos, the type where everyone knew what they were doing.

It was good that everything was getting done quickly, because, in about twelve hours, Ashe was going to pull off what would be her biggest and most dangerous heist ever.

A heist that, in all honesty, had a low chance of success.

Ashe stretched out her legs, deep in thought. Can we seriously pull this off? A robbery of the world’s most powerful and dangerous terrorist organization? Is this even worth it?

Ashe stopped in her train of thought. Her inner monologue posed a weighted question. Was this heist really worth all the trouble, all the planning, all the risk?

Was he ?

She needed time to process all of this, to figure out how to best answer that question. She looked over at Gianna, who was busy tapping away at her tablet, probably testing out some of the new items Ashe had stolen.

Gianna was one of the few people who offered her support to Ashe when she proposed the idea of rescuing McCree.

Whether it was because she supported Ashe in almost everything she did or felt indebted to McCree for saving her life, she had voiced her support for his rescue and was probably working the hardest out of the gang to make sure this mission went smoothly.

Was Ashe really willing to risk someone like Gianna on this mission? Was one man really worth risking the lives of many others?

Gianna was doing this out of loyalty, and possibly guilt, but what about the rest of her crew? They were all loyal to a fault, but was it worth dragging them all into this? Would their loyalty and dedication be their downfall?

“Gianna, take over here,” Ashe called to her. Gianna looked up and nodded at her. As Ashe started climbing the stairs to her room, she heard Gianna call out to her. She turned around to find her at the bottom of the stairs.

“I know you’re worried Ashe, but this is going to work out,” Gianna said, her face determined. “We’ll get him back, don’t you worry.”

 Ashe nodded her thanks and continued walking up the steps to her room. An unbidden thought came to her.

Maybe the reason Gianna wants to pull this off is that she has a thing for McCree. Ashe’s eyes narrowed at that, and a rush of something flooded her veins.

It felt like…jealousy? Ashe snorted, punching in the code to her bedroom and stepping inside. Her? Jealous? Yeah, right. Not to put shame on Gianna or anything, but McCree could do so much better.

Ashe walked over to her bed, kicked off her boots, and laid down on it. 

Frankly, McCree could probably get any girl he wanted, with those chocolate brown eyes of his, that lean muscular body, his smooth, deep voice…the way he always had a confident smirk on his face…the way he looked at people, at Ashe, with that quiet intensity behind his eyes…

Ashe quickly derailed that train of thought, angry at her conscious. Quit goin’ places that you’re not supposed to be at!

Besides, they hadn’t seen each other in over a decade, he’d probably found plenty of gals to woo and dote on. There were plenty of women in Overwatch as well, people he probably spent every day with.

Like that blonde doctor, the one with the angel suit.

No, probably not her. Pretty sure she had something goin’ with that robot-ninja guy.

What about that Irish lady, the one that was on his Blackwatch team?

Too tall and creepy.

His captain? The one with the sniper rifle?

Too old, and I’m pretty sure she’s dead.

Well, there were plenty of other women in Overwatch, and outside of it. Anything the two of us had in the past is dead and buried, and he’s probably moved on and found loads of other women already. So there.

That thought didn’t bring Ashe any comfort at all. And she still wasn't jealous. Totally not.

Ashe finally drifted off to sleep, but if she thought that would give her a break from her problems, she was dead wrong.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Ashe, c'mon, we've got to get out of here!"

Ashe opened her eyes. She was back on the train, the crate that was supposed to hold The Western Sunrise laying empty before her. She turned around toward the voice, coming face to face with McCree.

"C'mon, let's go!" McCree grabbed her wrist and started barrelling down the train with her in tow. "We've got to get out of here before Talon shows up!"

She allowed herself to be pulled along, numb. This has got to be a dream. There's no way I'm back here.

The pair of them traveled down the train for a few more moments before McCree pulled up short.

"Why'd we stop?" Ashe asked, confused.

"Quiet!" McCree hissed, looking up at the ceiling. That's when Ashe noticed the creaking noises coming from above.

Before either of them could react, an explosion blew a hole in the roof, knocking them off their feet.

Talon troopers started rappelling from the newly made hole, and before long they had surrounded Ashe and McCree.

"Well, look what we've got here boys. One of our highest priorities on the "find" list. Jesse McCree, or should I call you, Cole Cassidy?"

A Talon enforcer pushed his way through the wall of armored men, coming to a halt just in front of the pair of them. McCree, or Cassidy, drew his revolver as quick as lightning, but the enforcer was expecting it.

There was a flash of red light and McCree screamed out in pain, the right side of his body a mass of black and red burns.

The Talon enforcer chuckled, before turning his gaze to Ashe. "Well, I've got to hand it to you Ashe, you've really done us a favor, bringing McCree here. Well done."

"Wait, what are you talkin' about?" Ashe sputtered.

"We really appreciate you leading McCree right into our hands, just as you and us planned. It all worked out brilliantly, and he never expected a thing." The enforcer turned back to McCree, who was writhing in pain. "Did he?"

McCree looked over at Ashe, his face screwed up in pain. "Wh-what are they talkin' about Ashe?"

The enforcer crouched down in front of McCree. "Oh, you didn't know? Ashe and us had this plan all along to get revenge on you. We both figured working together would be the best option, especially since you seem to quick to trust her."

"Wait, what?! No I didn't!" Ashe frantically turned to McCree, who was looking at her with horrified disbelief. "McCree, I swear, I had no part of this!"

"Still trying to play the part, Ashe? Leave it lie, your job here is done. We'll take him from here." The enforcer nodded to the other troopers, and they roughly hauled McCree to his feet, uncaring of his injuries.

McCree was still staring at her with shock. "You...you set me up? You were workin' for them this entire time?"

Ashe was frozen, unable to comprehend what was happening. This isn't really happening, this is just a dream! Get a hold of yourself and wake up!

The enforcer turned to Ashe as the Talon troopers harnessed McCree to one of their helicopter's rappelling lines. "Don't you worry, this won't be the end of his suffering. Take comfort knowing that we'll make McCree pay for everything he's done to the both of us until he dies. And we won't be giving him that sweet release anytime soon. Hopefully, that'll sate your need for revenge."

He nodded to her and grabbed one of the lines a moment before Talon's forces, with McCree captive, were raised back into their transport.

Ashe saw the look in McCree's eyes right before he disappeared from sight.

Hurt and betrayal. No, no, NO! This isn't really happening, this isn't real! None of this happened, so wake up! Wake up now, dammit! 

The train car started tilting to the right and Ashe lost her balance. She stumbled into the window and was saw that the tracks beneath the train had disappeared. The train was now somehow hundreds of feet in the air, hurtling towards the ground at high speed, the ground coming up on her fast.

Wake the hell up! 

The ground was only a few meters away. 

Wake UP! 

The train car smashed into the ground, and everything went black.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ashe sat up in her bed wide awake, gasping for breath. She frantically looked around the room.

The room. Not the train car. She was in her room, safe. Nothing she dreamt about really happened. Everything was fine.

Ashe took slow, meaningful breaths, wiping the cold sweat off her face. Everything in her dream had felt so real. Why?

Because of the guilt you carry. You blame yourself for what happened to McCree.

Ashe stripped off her coat, tossing it to the floor. The room felt too hot, despite the state-of-the-art A/C unit she had installed recently.

When she finally caught her breath, she slumped back on her bed, shivering despite the heat. Yes, she blamed herself for what happened to McCree.

If he never came along to regain possession of The Western Sunrise, he never would have been on the train. He never would have been captured, and he never would have been tortured like he most likley was.

The damn fool, he just had to go play the hero, sacrificing himself so we could all escape, Ashe thought bitterly. Because of his heroic antics, I can't stop worryin' about him!

You were thinking about him long before he showed up at that diner, and you've been thinking about him long after. And not because of his heroic antics, the small voice in her head chided.

Ashe rolled her eyes at that, covering her face with her hands. Shut up, I don't even know why I'm arguing with you, or myself, or whatever. I'm just tryna sleep.

You know the nightmares will keep coming, and you know that you'll keep thinking about him. It's about time you came to terms with how you feel, with how you view him, the voice responded, insistent.

I don't feel any which way about him. Especially after he left me all those years ago, she shot back, groaning at the fact that this argument wasn't going to end anytime soon.

You do care for him. You need to understand how much you care about him, you need to realize that. Only then can you have a clear mind, and can complete your goal with surety.

Ashe turned onto her side, her gaze on the moon outside her window. An unbidden memory came to the forefront of her mind, of her and McCree sitting under the moon, sharing coffee. She groaned, accepting that the voice in her head was right. She realized she needed to confront whatever was going on inside of her whenever she thought about McCree.

She’d been dancing around this for too long, and she definitely needed a clear head for the upcoming mission.

Who was McCree to her, honestly? It was all so confusing.

She thought she hated him, afterall, he left her and the gang to avoid prison. Despite all they had been through together, all those years of being friends, he took the easy way out and left his life with Deadlock, his life with her, behind.

Yet, these past few months had changed how she felt. Spending time with him, talking with him, reminded her of the good days.

It reminded her of who Jesse McCree was, and who he used to be to her. Surely, at the least, he was her oldest, closest friend. Probably her very first friend, besides B.O.B.

He was there to support her when she first founded the Deadlock Gang, and he was there to support her for every moment afterward.

But honestly, were they still friends? She had never quite forgiven him for joining Overwatch, despite the fact he faced a life-long term in federal prison.

She had tried to kill him on Route 66 in a previous encounter, and then again at the Rusty Railway diner just a month or so before.

Surely, he wouldn’t want to be her friend after all those unsavory encounters?

If he didn’t want to be your friend or have anything to do with you, he wouldn’t have saved you from Marco, or from Talon, that small, sometimes annoying voice in her head told her.

So, even if McCree wanted to be friends again, would he ever want to be something more? Like she did? Ashe laid on her back again, staring up at her ceiling frustratedly. 

There, she admitted it. She liked McCree, actually liked him, with feelings. She always felt warm inside whenever he looked at her, or whenever she thought about him.

But did he like her back?

They had some chemistry back when Deadlock was a new gang, but they never actually dated or anything. It looked like McCree was comfortable with just being friends. Or uncomfortable with being anything more.

Nonsense. If he didn’t like you, he wouldn’t have saved you twice. He wouldn’t have touched your face like he did on the train, willing to change the deal you made with him so he could be around you longer. You’ve seen the way he looks at you, the way he’s trying to make things like they were before.

Ashe hated to admit it, but her conscious was right. When she looked at McCree, she could tell he was happy to see her. She could tell that he enjoyed being around her and that he actually cared for her.

To love someone means that you are willing to sacrifice for them. And that’s what he did for you. Love? What did Ashe know about love? Her parents never loved her, they barely acknowledged she existed. B.O.B. surely loved her, but not in the way that she was thinking. Did McCree actually love her? Did she truly love him?

She sat up and looked over at her desk, where her framed pictures were. Her eyes settled on one in particular, the photo of the original Deadlock Gang, with Ashe, McCree, Julian, and Frankie.

She could honestly say that the early days of Deadlock, the days when she first started making her way in the world by stealing from her parents, were the happiest days of her life.

Those were the days when she discovered what true friendship was, what it was like having friends who had her back.

Those were the days when she learned what it was like to rely on other people, and have people rely on her.

Those were the days when she realized that being around McCree, fixing up her red chopper hoverbike, were the times that made her the happiest.

To spend time listening to his deep laugh, competing with him at the shooting range, spending nights scheming about new heists, and talking about their dreams, was what Ashe enjoyed most during those days.

To grow up with him throughout the years, robbing warehouses, spending nights drinking and gambling, sitting under the moonlight with him after a long day, was what her fondest memories were.

Loving people means you have to open your heart up and let others into it. It means you take the risk of being hurt by other people, but because you know what rewards can come from it, you decide the risk is worth it.

Ashe smiled at that. Love was a risk, but taking risks was something that Ashe did every day, something she reveled in the thrill of. That’s what made everything exciting. That’s what made McCree exciting.

So, to be honest with herself, she loved Jesse McCree, or whatever he called himself these days. She loved his smirk, his face, the fact he could pull off a beard, his sense of humor, his laugh, everything.

The way he always smelled of pine cigar smoke, the way he dressed like a old western cowboy, the way he was able to shoot a playing card at hundred yards. The way he'd always make her laugh, whether it was because he was genuinely funny or trying too hard to get her to compliment him. The list could go on and on, because when you love someone, you noticing everything about them.

She loved McCree for who he was, both back then and now. But she loved him most because he was always there for her, through everything.

Ashe lay back down on her bed with a small smile, the turmoil in her mind finally disappearing. She knew why she needed to get McCree back now, it was always something deeper than paying back a debt.

She needed to confront him about how she felt, and see where they wanted to go from there. She needed to see if he was willing to take the risk as well, and where that trail would lead them.

So yes, to answer her earlier question, McCree was worth all of this and more. To her, he was worth more than all the diamonds and gold in the world, though diamonds and gold were still something she wanted to have.

Ashe sighed in relief, closing her eyes and finally slipping into a restful slumber.

The hard part was over. Now all she had to do was successfully trick the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization, infiltrate one of their most secure facilities in North America, and free McCree from under the eyes of over a hundred heavily armed, extremely dangerous, Talon operatives. 

Piece of cake. 

Chapter Text

“What time were they supposed to show up again?” Lauren asked, nervously fidgeting with her tablet.

She and Ashe were standing in a decidedly remote spot in preparation for the next phase of Ashe’s plan; infiltrating the Talon substation that McCree was being held at.

The plan was simple in nature, but very difficult in execution.

Since Marco and Talon still had a deal when it came to The Western Sunrise , and Talon didn’t know that Marco was currently tied up in Deadlock Gorge, the terrorist organization would be coming to follow through with the deal.

And since Talon liked to stay under the radar of the U.S. Military, as well as any military or world government for that matter, the meeting place was set to be in the middle of nowhere.

The abandoned gas station they were currently standing in didn’t offer many luxuries; the A/C was shot, the electricity was dead, and the station was located in the middle of the Arizona desert, which was burning at 104 degrees and climbing.

Yet, Marco reluctantly told her that this was the place Talon agreed to meet him at and that he really didn’t have a say in the matter. One didn’t argue with Talon, not without being killed.

Once Talon showed up, things would get tricky. Ashe and her crew would have to incapacitate the Talon operatives, take control of the transport, and navigate back to Talon’s base, where they would start the search for McCree.

It wasn’t going to be easy, in fact, it was looking to be more and more impossible. So many things could go wrong with this plan, so many little things that could result in Ashe and her crew being captured, or worse.

They didn’t know how many troopers were showing up, where the Talon base was, or how to fly a transport.

They didn’t know where McCree was, or if he was still at the Talon base. They didn’t know what to expect even if they made it, by some miracle, to the Talon base without being discovered.

All in all, the prospects of them being able to successfully pull this heist off was slowly dwindling to nothing.

Despite that, Ashe was still going to go through with it.

She’d done heists just as dangerous as this one, with just as little information. While those plans didn’t have as many flaws as this one did, they still had a chance to pull it off.

And a chance to get McCree back, no matter how small, was something that Ashe was going to take.

Ashe glanced at Lauren, squinting in the bright sunlight. “Well, according to Marco, Talon’s supposed to be meeting him here sometime between noon and four ‘o clock. They’re keeping it broad so if Marco chickens out and goes to the authorities, they won’t know an exact time to come here.”

Lauren groaned. “So we have to sit in this heat for anywhere between one to four hours?” 

“Pretty much, may as well get comfortable,” Ashe replied, tilting her hat to better protect her face from the sun’s glare.

“How do you know that Marco isn’t lyin’ to us? Or that he’s keepin’ information from us that could make this whole thing a bust?” Lauren asked, wiping sweat from her forehead.

“Marco may be dumb, but he isn’t stupid. He knows what’ll happen to him if this whole thing goes wrong. He’s smart enough to know when I’ve got all the cards, and that the only way he gets out of this alive is by staying on my good side.”

The thought had crossed Ashe’s mind that Marco could be playing them for fools, setting them up for disaster. But, she was confident that her information from him was good.

If Marco was anything like she remembered him to be, he was a coward, which meant he’d do anything he could to stay alive. Even if that meant backstabbing the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization.

“Just make sure you take this time to relax,” Ashe said, giving her a reassuring smile, “No point in worryin’ about somethin’ that hasn’t happened yet.”

Lauren nodded, still looking a little pale. She wasn’t the only nervous one either; the select few Deadlock members that Ashe had chosen for this mission were all anxious as well.

Normally they’d chatter and complain about something or other, but other than the occasional shuffling of feet or nervous cough, they were dead silent. A true testament to how anxious they were feeling.

And to be honest, Ashe was feeling nervous as well. Sure, nerves accompanied every heist, robbery, or hold-up that she’d ever done; it kept the adrenaline pumping and her senses sharp.

And sure, every job she’d ever pulled had real stakes in it, from being imprisoned for life to being shot dead.

Her nervousness on this matter was different though because the stakes weren’t only the lives of her and her crew. It was the life of McCree hanging on the line as well. 

Ashe shook her head, clearing her thoughts. Focus that energy on something useful, not just pointless worryin’ and paranoia. She had to remain sharp for when Talon made their approach. That was when everything was put into motion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two hot and sweaty hours later…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Ashe, heads up.”

Ashe jerked out of her stupor, pushing off the wall she’d been leaning against and standing up straight. She squinted her eyes and searched the horizon for any sign of Talon. 

There .

 Small black speck, way out in the distance, growing larger by the second. It was Talon, it had to be. 

“Alright everybody, listen up!” Ashe shouted. Her crew, which had been lounging in the meager shade of the gas station scrambled to attention.

“Talon’s on approach, so we’re about to get things kicked off. You know what to do, so make sure you do it right! We’ve only got one shot at this!”

Ashe tugged her mask up over her mouth and nose. In order to keep up the guise of being a part of Marco’s crew, she “borrowed” some of his Diamondback masks.

“Just remember to leave the talkin’ to me.” The rest of her group nodded, pulling on their masks as well and getting into their positions.

They only had one shot at this, so they needed to make it count. If they failed here… Well, we aren’t, so no reason to worry about it, Ashe thought, watching the transport as it flew ever closer to the gas station.

It would only be a few minutes now before their mission’s success was decided.

A few minutes later, the Talon transport had arrived at the gas station, slowing to hover above Ashe and her crew.

One of the side doors slid open and cables descended from it, with Talon troopers sliding down them shortly afterward.

A small squad of troopers touched down to earth and started marching over to the gas station, led by a trooper with white armor.

That must be the leader, Ashe thought, narrowing her eyes. He’d be the one that she needed to convince.

Well, here goes nothing, Ashe thought as she approached them. When she was just a few yards away from them, the leader thrust out a hand. “Hold it right there, bandit.”

Turns out, he was actually a she . A bit hard to tell because of the helmet, but the trooper sounded much more feminine than masculine.

Ashe pulled up short, looking eye to eye (it was hard to tell since the helmet obscured that) with the squad leader.

“You here ta collect on our deal?” Ashe asked, sounding bored.

“Where’s Marco?” the squad leader demanded, ignoring her question.

“What, ya didn’t hear? Naw, ‘course ya haven’t,” Ashe laughed, folding her arms. “Marco had a bit of a scrap with McCree and Ashe a couple of days ago at some diner. He’s in no shape to complete the deal. Sent me in his place.”

In order to ensure that Talon didn’t recognize her, assuming they had ever known what she sounded or looked like, Ashe had adopted her red wig from her “Calamity” days, as well as a thick “country girl” accent.

But the disguise was only one part of the lie that she needed to sell; she also needed to convince Talon that they were truly dealing with The Diamondbacks.

“We made this deal with Marco, he should’ve been here regardless of his injuries.” The squad leader sounded suspicious. Time to put on the pressure then.

“Look, just between you an’ me, Marco’s a lazy dumbass. Any injury is an excuse fer him ta not have ta go anywhere.” Ashe winked at the trooper, who stared stonily back at her. “But, if you’d like to wait fer him to feel like comin’ around, we can always schedule another time. Hopefully, ya aren’t on a tight schedule or nothin’.”

The remainder of the Talon squad shuffled anxiously, casting glances at their leader. The squad leader glared at Ashe, and Ashe stared cockily back.

There was a stretch of silence between the two of them as they stared each other down. 

I hope she’ll bite, or we’re all screwed .

After a few more moments, the squad leader snapped her fingers, nearly causing Ashe to flinch and the rest of her squad started moving towards the gas station.

“We’ll go ahead and take the asset now. Where is it?” the trooper asked.

Thank God . Ashe smiled underneath her mask. “It’s right inside ma’am. My boys will be bringin’ it out.” Ashe reached under her mask and let out a shrill whistle.

From behind her, she heard a great deal of puffing and scraping. Six of her crew were pushing a large wooden crate over the Arizona sand to where Ashe and the Talon squad leader stood. Ashe walked over to it and knocked on the lid.

“One highly illegal EMP bomb as requested,” Ashe drawled, giving the Talon troopers a wink. The squad leader nodded to her men, who grabbed the lid of the crate it pulled it off.

Inside the crate was The Western Sunrise , reflecting the bright western sun into everyone’s eyes. The squad leader strolled over to the crate and examined the weapon herself.

After she was satisfied she pressed a finger to her helmet.

“TTP-29, this is TSL-17 with confirmation on the asset. Prepare for retrieval.” The transport overhead slowly lowered itself to hover thirty feet above the ground.

With a loud hiss , the belly of the transport split open, and four strong, heavy-duty cables descended from it’s bowels.

“Alright men, lets get this thing into the bird.” The squad leader slung her weapon onto her back and reached out to grab the crate, her subordinates mirroring her actions.

With a grunt, the Talon troopers grabbed onto the crate and attempted to move it to where the cables hung waiting, but the crate didn’t move.

The Talon troopers tried again, straining their muscles as they tried to get the crate to budge, but to no avail.

Panting, the squad leader glared at Ashe, who was standing by innocently. “What kind of trick are you trying to pull?”

“Trick? No trick, no ma’am. I probably shoulda mentioned, that this big ‘ol bomb thinger here is waaaaaaay to heavy to be cabled up into your transport. Them cables’ll snap faster than my dad gettin’ hungover at a family reunion.” Ashe gave a snorting laugh, all the while hating herself for choosing this persona. Never again . “You’ll have ta land yer bird and load the crate in through a side door or somethin’.”

The talon trooper growled but nonetheless reached up to her helmet again. “Change of plans, you’re going to have to land the bird on the ground, so we can load the crate in through the side.”

There was a moment of silence as the trooper stood there, no doubt listening to some communcation from the pilot.

“The crate’s too heavy for the cables, and we’re close to behind schedule as it is! Get moving!” The transport obligingly started to descend towards the gas station’s cracked and weathered asphalt. Once it had touched down, the Talon troopers redoubled their efforts of moving the crate, only gaining minimal ground.

“Ya know, my boys and I can help you with loadin’ the crate onto yer transport over there, soon as you pay us what we’re due,” Ashe commented, watching the troopers struggle with an amused expression.

The squad leader growled again before stomping over to the transport. She returned with a briefcase and shoved it into Ashe’s chest.

“That’s five million U.S. Dollars in gold right there, as we agreed upon. Now, will you please help out?”

Ashe chuckled before nodding to her men, who took up positions beside the Talon troopers and started pushing.

With a deafening shriek of wood on asphalt, the crate started slowly moving towards the waiting transport. As the group finally came next to the transport, Ashe lifted the suitcase and opened it up.

She frowned, before looking at the squad leader who stood by. The squad leader noticed her gaze. 

“Is there a problem?”

“Yeah, there is. You said that there should be five million bucks in this case, I only see four.”

The talon trooper sighed frustratedly. “Check your eyes, they’re clearly wrong.”

“No, I’m dead right. Here, take a look.” Ashe started approaching the squad leader with the opened suitcase. The moment the squad leader came around to take a look at the contents of the suitcase, Ashe snapped it shut and swung it as hard as she could.

It came crashing down into the squad leader’s helmet, and she hit the ground hard with a grunt.

As the remaining Talon troopers turned around to see what the commotion was, Ashe’s men drew guns from inside their pants or vests and gunned them down in a second. 

“Come, lets go!” Ashe yelled, sprinting for the transport. The pilot had apparently seen what had transpired outside as was attempting to take off, but Ashe and her men hopped into the open side door and stormed into the pilot’s cabin before he could gain enough altitude.

The pilot whipped around as they burst into the cockpit, eyes wide.

Ashe leveled her rifle with the pilot’s head. “Take it nice and easy flyboy, no pressin’ any buttons to warn your pals back at the base, got it?”

The pilot nodded nervously, eyeing the Viper pointed straight at his skull. “Keep an eye on him boys, I’ll be right back,” Ashe instructed to her gang, exiting the cabin and making her way to the open cargo hold.

She found Lauren waiting on the ground below her there.

“We’re movin’ on to the next stage of the plan, so get yourself and the others on board this transport so we can move out! And get someone to take the bomb back to base!” Ashe shouted over the roar of the transport's engines.

Lauren nodded and sprinted back to the gas station, holding onto her hat so it didn’t fly away.

A few minutes later, the rest of her crew was on board the transport and the bomb was on a truck heading back to Deadlock Gorge.

“Ok pilot, take us back to your base,” Ashe instructed, tugging off her red wig. When the pilot didn’t move, she nudged him with the barrel of her gun.

“Now, come on!” The pilot snapped into action, flipping switches overhead and tugging lightly on the yoke, turning the ship around. A few moments later, the ship was speeding north, where the city of Paradise lay. Ashe sidled up next to the pilot’s chair.

“Alright, pal, what should we be expectin’ when we get into Talon’s airspace?”

The pilot glanced back at her apprehensively. “Who, me?”

Ashe rolled her eyes. “No, I was talkin’ to your co-pilot.” The pilot looked over at the co-pilot seat, which was empty.

Ashe facepalmed. “Clearly they don’t hire you folk for your brains. Yes, I was talking to you, the only member of Talon on this damn ship!”

“Oh,” the pilot cleared his throat nervously, “I’ve got to ask for permission to land, and then they’ll send an inspection and retrieval crew to the transport at the landing pad.”

“And they’re expectin’ to find The Western Sunrise on board, right?”

The pilot nodded.

“How far out are we?”

“We’re thirty minutes away from entering Talon’s airspace,” the pilot responded, wiping nervous sweat from his forehead. “Look, I don’t know why you guys are doing this, or what you guys have planned, but this is suicide . You’re going to get yourselves, and myself, killed!”

“Oh relax,” Ashe laughed, “We’ll only get killed if everythin’ goes wrong. But, if you’d liked to die sooner , I’m sure that can be arranged.” The pilot vigorously shook his head, staring straight out the windshield.

Ashe smirked. “Good, that’s what I thought.” She left the pilot with Alex and returned to the transport’s cargo hold, where the rest of her crew was waiting.

“Well, we’re going to have Talon askin’ us a bunch of questions in about thirty minutes, so we’ve got to figure out a good excuse to keep them from comin’ on board. Any ideas?”

Her crew sat in thoughtful silence for a few minutes, casting out ideas now and then.

“Maybe we could say that the ship experienced some damage?”

“Perhaps the transport is malfunctioning?”

“Locust swarm?”

“Scorpions?”

“Rattlesnake infestation?”

Their thirty minutes slowly counted down, until they were five minutes away from Talon airspace. And that’s when the idea came to Ashe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Control, this is TTP-29 requesting clearance to land, over.  

The air control officer looked up from the monitor he was studying and checked the radar screen to his right.

Sure enough, this was a small dot on his radar, which was the Talon Transport 29.

He pressed a button on his communications panel, which allowed him to speak on the open channel.

“TTP-29, this is Control, requesting your clearance and mission codes, over.

Copy Control, code L15-2589. Returning from retrieval mission, mission code EX-670.

The control officer looked inquiringly at the air traffic controller sitting nearby. “The codes check out. That’s the transport sent out to retrieve the new weapon,” the controller said.

“The one where we made a deal with those scumbag bandits?”

“Correct sir,” the controller turned back to his screen, typing away at his keyboard. “For the record, I don’t like having dealing with trash like them. They’re always trying to cut a deal, or find some way to steal our stuff.”

“Your opinion on the matter is above your station, but I do happen to agree with it. You don’t have to worry Corporal, we have orders to wipe them out after we secure the weapon. All in the name of keeping our involvement with them confidential.”

The control officer turned back to the large window in front of him, where he could see the transport on approach.

“TTP-29, you are cleared to land on pad 7. Prepare for unloading procedures upon touchdown.”

Negative Control. This weapon is highly unstable, having been damaged when it was stolen from The Deadlock Gang. The flight over has disrupted the package and made it volatile. Requesting to keep the package onboard for retrieval by R&D, as well as having the landing zone cleared of all personnel for their safety, over.

The control officer sighed, rubbing his forehead. There was always something to make his day more difficult, and somehow, he knew he’d get the blame for the weapon being delivered behind schedule.

He reached over to the communications panel and connected with Research and Development.

“R&D, this is Air Traffic Control with an update on mission code EX-670. We’ve been informed that the weapon is volatile due to external damage and needs to be retrieved with special care from the transport. When can you make it up here to carry that out?”

The comm crackled for a few seconds before a response was made. It’s going to be a while, control. If a weapon of that magnitude is unstable, we’ll need special equipment to stabilize it for transport. ETA 40 minutes.

“Forty-minutes? Are you aware how eagerly the Board has been awaiting the arrival of this weapon? How valuable this is to them? Surely there’s a way to get this moved faster?”

Negative Control. Unless you want this weapon to detonate and wipe out this substation’s power, as well as the city’s, we would need to handle this matter delicately. The Board will understand, our prescence remaining unknown is paramount. Over and out.

The control officer gave an aggravated sigh. This day just kept getting worse and worse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“We should have heard back from them by now, shouldn’t we?” Lauren asked nervously.

Ashe checked the sights of her weapon, making sure, for the 10th time, that they were clean and leveled. “Relax Lauren, we just asked the something different from normal procedure. They just gotta talk it out.”

She nudged the pilot’s head with the butt of her rifle. “Isn’t that right, flyboy?”

The pilot nervously cleared his throat. “Yes, that’s correct. With something this important onboard, they won’t risk doing anything too quickly. They should be responding to us any moment.”

Like clockwork, the comm crackled to life again. Control to TTP-29. Your request has been granted. Proceed to Hangar 1, pad 4. A retrieval group will be arriving there in forty minutes. Over.

Ashe gave Lauren as “See? I told you.” look, as the pilot made his response. “Copy Control, proceeding to Hangar 1, pad 4. Over and out.”

The transport started moving forward at a faster speed, the Talon warehouse growing closer by the second.

“Why’re they sendin’ us to a different landin’ spot than previous?”

The pilot flipped a few switches overhead, causing the transport to start descending. “This hangar is for priority landings, tight with security. They don’t want this weapon getting into anyone else’s hands, and they don’t want it going supernova and destroying anything vital.”

“And you’re sure that they’ll do as they say, and send a group to come grab The Western Sunrise ?” Ashe asked, looking at the pilot with suspicion. She wouldn’t put it past him to secretly send Talon a distress code or some hidden message.

“They’ll want to make sure this weapon is stable before presenting it to Talon’s leadership. Knowing R&D, it’ll take them longer than they quoted to arrive here.”

Ashe narrowed her eyes at him. He could be telling the truth, or he could be lying really well. It depends on how much he valued his life over his loyalty to Talon.

Yet, if he did send Talon some secret message, they were toast anyways. Best to proceed like everything was going according to plan. She walked out of the cabin into the cargo hold, where the rest of her crew was waiting.

“Alright gang, listen up. We’ll be landing any second now, so we’ve got to move fast. Nobody’s goin’ to be comin for “ The Western Sunrise ” for another forty minutes, so we should be in the clear for a while. Once we touch down, spread out and start sweepin’ the base for the detention cells.”

“Juan,” she pointed at a crop-haired, beefy Latino man standing by the transport’s ramp, “you’re goin’ to stay here with our pilot buddy and make sure he doesn’t do anything fishy. If he so much as sneezes, knock him out.” Juan gave a big smile, popping his knuckles. 

“Lauren, Travis, search the higher levels. Alex, Gianna, search the level we’ll be on.” Ashe pumped the lever of her rifle, hearing the satisfying clicking noise of a bullet sliding into the chamber. “I’ll search the lower levels. No radios because they can monitor it. Meet back here in thirty-five minutes, got it?” The crew nodded their agreement, their faces a mixture of determination, adrenaline junkie, and anxiety. 

“Alright, let’s get ready to raise some hell.”

Chapter Text

As the transport approached the warehouse, the ground split beneath them, slowly opening up to reveal a hidden hangar.

The aircraft slowly descended into the secret landing zone, traveling a good hundred feet before landing on a pad marked with a large number 4, with a solid thump .

Ashe peeked out through the transport's windshield and surveyed the area, scanning for any signs of a Talon presence in their immediate surroundings.

Besides a small number of landing pads, a few supply crates, and a small control tower set into the hangar wall, it didn't seem anyone was around. Or at least, anyone that Ashe could see. 

She turned back to the pilot, who was busy shutting the transport down.

"You're sure that there's nobody here, right? You better not lie to me," she said menacingly.

"I'm positive nobody's here. This hangar is almost never used since this substation isn't exactly the center of Talon activity." The pilot flipped a few more switches and the cargo ramp hissed open. "As long as you move fast, nobody will see you, I swear!"

Ashe gave him a suspicious glare, but eventually decided he was telling the truth. "Just keep this engine warm and act all natural-like. If any of your buddies start askin' questions, make up something good, alright? Juan'll stay here to keep an eye on you."

Without waiting for a response, Ashe spun on her heel and marched out of the cockpit into the cargo hold.

She didn't have to worry about the pilot; Juan would keep him in line, and Juan had a few more brain cells than most of her crew. He'd know if something was up.

A few moments later Ashe peeked her head around the side of the transport, her eyes darting from one thing to the next.

No sign of Talon, so far so good.

She turned back to her crew, who were standing behind her on the transport's ramp.

"Come on," she whispered, creeping out into the hangar proper. "And make sure you stay quiet!"

The rest of her gang slowly crept out behind on, throwing furtive glances at their surroundings as they quietly made their way to the hangar's exit.

A few minutes of subpar stealth passed without incident, until about thirty feet from the hangar's exit, a massive rumbling noise filled the air around Ashe.

Panic flooded her as the sound invaded her ears, blocking out any other thought in her mind. She started looking around the space frantically for the source of the noise.

Was it an alarm? Had Talon found them out? Was another aircraft coming in to land? Ashe looked up and found the answer to her question.

The overhead hangar doors were slowly closing, making a horrible cacophony of metal in metal. She watched the doors close, her heart rate slowing as sweet relief took hold of her, until the doors shut with a loud clang, plunging the hangar into a thick darkness.

A few moments later, the lights flickered on, illuminating the entire space with a harsh white light. Ashe let out a sigh of relief, hearing the others behind her do the same.

"Hoo boy," Travis said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "That scared the sh-"

"Shh!" Ashe hissed, shooting him a glare. Travis immediately cut off, looking properly chagrined. They were so close to the hangar's exit now, the last thing they needed was to have their presence made known by a pair of loose lips.

The tension slowly grew, almost reaching a breaking point, as Ashe and her crew traversed the final dozen feet towards the hangar's exit.

Ashe carefully pressed the door's access panel, praying that it wouldn't be linked with an alarm of some sort. The door slid to the side, causing Ashe to jump a little.

I'm jumpier than a hare high on moonlight , she thought as she stepped through the doorway. She was greeted with a long, empty hallway that seemed to stretch for miles.

Still no sign of Talon, and from the looks of it, no signs of surveillance either. Security seemed to be pretty lax, but then again, nobody would be stupid enough to break into a Talon base, especially since Overwatch was disbanded.

"Alright, the coast looks clear for now," Ashe looked at the gang members behind her. "Remember, search the floors I told you to and meet back here in about minutes now. Find McCree, and get him back to the transport ASAP. Once that's done, we can grab whatever loot we can, and then get the hell out of here, understood?"

She fixed each and everyone with a hard stare, waiting for them to nod their agreement. There was conviction in their eyes, more than Ashe usually saw when they were pulling a job.

Then again, that could be due to the fact that this job would be involving a lot of high-tech advanced weapons and gadgetry.

But Ashe knew that the determination in Travis and Gianna's eyes was sincere; they genuinely wanted to save McCree. And so did she. If this entire op failed, then…Best not to think like that.

F ocus on one step at a time. And if something goes wrong, there's always room to improvise.

Ashe gave her gang a nod, satisfied with what she saw. "Alright, get goin'. And remember, keep quiet and do your best not to let Talon know we're here."

One by one, her crew split off from one another, some going to where the higher floors were, and the others traveling further down the hallway to begin their search of the current level, leaving Ashe to find the lower floors by herself.

The hallway wasn't exactly marked with signs giving directions, but after a few minutes of scouting, Ashe was able to find stairs that led to the lower levels.

After a few flights of stairs, Ashe quietly pushed open the door that led out onto the lower level. The number of stairs wasn't exactly small, but taking an elevator would be too risky, given that she should run into Talon personnel in an elevator car at any time.

Praying that her crew had enough sense not to use the elevators, Ashe slowly crept out onto the landing, all her senses on alert.

The level she had arrived on appeared to be exactly what she was looking for; a long corridor lined with what appeared to be heavy-duty cell doors.

Spurred on by the fact that she was looking in the right place, Ashe snuck over to the nearest cell and opened it.

The heavy metal door slid open, revealing a dimly lit room lined with two sleeping benches, a sink, and a toilet.

Not the worst cell she'd seen, certainly better than the cell she met McCree in back in Bellerae, but unlike that cell, this one didn't have McCree in it.

Ashe stepped back and tried the cell across from it, jabbing the button on the door's access panel. Empty again.

"Damnit, where are you, McCree?" Ashe muttered under her breath, moving to the next cell. And the next cell. And the next cell.

Empty.

Empty.

Empty!

Ashe closed the current cell's door, anger boiling up inside of her. Where was he?! She didn't have the time to look through every single cell on this floor, not with the clock running down.

Ashe moved onto the next cell, seeing the same sight she'd previously seen so many times. Panic started rising in her.

Her prospects of finding McCree were growing smaller with each cell she checked, and she doubted that the rest of her crew had managed to find him either.

A horrible thought suddenly struck her. Maybe they moved McCree to a different location. Maybe he's already gone, and this is all for nothing! Ashe's insides gave a painful twist at that. If that happened, I'll never see him again. Ever.

Ashe suddenly stopped in her tracks, her heart pounding. She cocked her head to the side, listening with bated breath.

Was that…voices? Not daring to hope, for fear of the crushing disappointment, Ashe quickly crept towards the end of the hallway and slowly peeked around the corner.

Two soldiers, clad in red Talon armor, were standing in front of a cell, chatting amongst themselves. Wait, no. Not standing in front of a cell. Guarding a cell.

Ashe's heart leapt with excitement. It was McCree, it had to be. Ashe leaned back into her hallway and unslung the Viper rifle from her back.

After checking to make sure there was a bullet in the chamber, Ashe leaned back around the corner to get an angle on the guards.

Her rifle wasn't silenced; Ashe liked letting people know she was shooting at them. But, she figured that this far down in Talon's base, with nobody around as far as she knew, she wouldn't be raising any alarms with her shooting.

As quietly and slowly as she could, Ashe raised the rifle to eye level and took careful aim.

"... I'm still not used to the TSWs, the fire rate is too high despite the caliber."

"You've just got to get used to it. Try going to the practice range more oft-"

Bang!

The nearest guard dropped like a rock, a smoking hole in the side of his gleaming red helmet. The remaining guard instinctively raised his weapon, looking around in alarm.

"What the fu-!?"

Bang!

A second shot split the air and the remaining guard joined his comrade on the floor, dead.

Ashe gave a satisfied smile, resting her rifle on her shoulder. They barely knew what hit them, and from the sound of it, no alarm had been raised.

She made her way to where the bodies were, her heart thumping loudly in her chest. She was just seconds away from the moment she'd been planning for weeks.

All that hard work, all those sleepless nights, all that stress and anguish, were about to be worth it. Ashe's hand trembled as she reached out to the cell door's access panel.

After a brief moment of hesitation, filled with a million worried and fears, she pressed the button to open the door.

The cell door quietly hissed open, revealing a dimly lit room quite different from the others she had seen.

Tables filled with torture instruments lined one wall, a mirror occupied another, and in the middle of the room, strapped to a chair was…

"McCree," Ashe breathed.

Chapter Text

Ashe flew down the steps into McCree’s cell, throwing all caution and inhibitions to the wind.

From the looks of it, McCree was unconscious. She crouched down in front of him, peering up into his face. McCree looked like he’d been through hell.

One of his eyes was swollen shut and his face was a mass of blue and purple bruises. There was dried blood from a split lip, what appeared to be a bullet wound in his shoulder, and through the rips and tears in his shirt, Ashe was able to see what appeared to be burns and lacerations all over his chest.

“What have they done to you…” Ashe whispered, horrified by Talon’s brutality. She’d seen, and partook in, her fair share of interrogations of rival gang members, but their methods of extracting information had never been at this level.

Then again, the common criminal cracked at the mere threat of being dealt pain. McCree didn't. 

As carefully as she could, Ashe inspected the rest of McCree’s body for any further damage. From what she could see, nothing was broken, and the majority of his injuries appeared to be bruises or burns.

Then again, there was plenty of McCree that Ashe didn’t see, but she planned on keeping it that way, at least for now.

She’d get a better assessment of what Talon did to McCree once they were far away from this hellhole, safe in the bowels of Deadlock Gorge. 

Ashe gently cupped McCree’s face, her heart breaking as she looked at it. 

“McCree,” she said softly. McCree gave no response other than a slight twitch. 

“McCree, wake up.” The cowboy’s face tensed up, and his eyes slowly opened, bleary and unfocused. 

“A-ashe? Is that you?” McCree slurred.

“Yes Jesse, it’s me. I’m here,” Ashe replied, relief flooding through her.

McCree let out a quiet groan, his gaze becoming more alert as he tried to focus on her.

“You...you’re real?”

Ashe gave him a watery smile, stroking his face delicately. “Of course I’m real, I told you I don’t like parting with what belongs to me.”

“How did you…?”

Ashe gave a dry chuckle. “It’s a long story, one I intend to tell you all about on the way home.” She grabbed his hand, the non-metal one, and looked at him in concern. “Jesse, what’d they do to you? You’re covered in bruises and who knows what else!”

“They didn’t give me anythin’ I couldn’t handle,” McCree gave a painful cough. “How’s my face?”

“Your face?”

“Yeah, my face. Anythin’ broken?”

Ashe gently grabbed his face, turning it from side to side. “Everythin’ looks to be ok, minus the bruises.”

“Good,” McCree attempted at a smile, which ended up looking more like a grimace. “So long as they didn’t do lastin’ damage to the face I know you enjoy lookin’ at so much.”

Ashe rolled her eyes but felt a smile creeping onto her face nonetheless. It appeared that McCree’s snark could survive an intensive torture session or five. “Jesse… are you sure you’re alright?”

McCree responded by giving her hand a small squeeze. “I’ll live Ashe, don’t you worry ‘bout me.”

Don’t worry about him? That was the only thing I’ve been doing for the last few weeks! And look at him! Covered in all manner of cuts and bruises!

Ashe’s face darkened as she yet again took in all of McCree’s injuries. Talon’ll pay for this, if it's the last thing I do.

“Alright farm hand, let’s get you out of that chair. Unless you’re quite comfortable remainin’ seated.”

McCree gave a painful laugh. “I think I’ve been sittin’ here long enough.”

Ashe reached into her coat pocket and pulled out what looked like a cigarette lighter.

McCree eyed it dubiously. “You plannin’ on givin’ me a light? I don’t have any cigars on me.”

“Oh hush,” Ashe replied, rolling her eyes yet again. She pressed a button on the side of the device, causing a thin beam of energy to emit from one side of it. “This is a top-of-the-line restraint cutter, courtesy of Arbalest. You’re welcome.”

She brought restraint cutter next to the bindings on McCree’s bionic arm and pressed the energy beam to the cool metal.

A quiet rushing noise filled the air and then the restraint suddenly broke into pieces, littering the floor beneath them.

“That’s a pretty neat toy you’ve got there,” McCree remarked as he gingerly flexed his arm.

“Yeah, you’re lucky I managed to pick it up,” Ashe replied, moving on to the next restraint. Within a minute, all of McCree's restraints had been removed, their carcasses strewn across the cell floor.

“Right, let me grab my stuff, and we can get outta here,” McCree said, as he rose from his chair. He seemed pretty unsteady on his feet and as he took his first few steps he stumbled.

He would have fallen face-first onto the floor if Ashe didn’t manage to get under his arm in the nick of time.

“Whoa there Jesse, take it nice and easy.”

McCree gave her a half-smile, his swollen eye giving him the appearance of being in a permanent wink. “Guess I’m in worse shape than I thought after all.” He winced as they started shuffling towards the cell door. “I think they mighta busted a couple of my ribs.”

“Aren’t you always braggin’ about how you’ve had it worse?” Ashe asked, snagging McCree’s Peacemaker revolver and ammo belt as they mounted the cell’s steps to the corridor.

“Sure I am, and it’s true,” McCree replied, “But that doesn’t mean it still hurts like hell.”

The pair of them moved at a painfully slow pace, laboriously taking step after step down the detention block’s corridor towards the stairwell.

Ashe wiped a trickle of sweat from her forehead as she and McCree slowly neared the door to the stairwell. McCree wasn’t fat, not in the slightest. Everything about his was lean, hard muscle.

Unfortunately, all that muscle made him heavy, and while Ashe was a pretty strong woman, she didn’t habitually carry around what was essentially 200 pounds everywhere she went.

A quick glance at McCree told her that they’d need to take a break soon. What little of his face that wasn’t covered in bruises was a pale white, and his breathing became more painful and labored with each step.

“Almost there Jesse,” Ashe said encouragingly, “Just a few more feet now.” The pair of them, looking like they were competing in a bizarre three-legged race, finally arrived at the elevators and stairwell.

McCree failed to stifle a painful groan as he clutched his rib cage. Ashe looked at him in worry.

“Alright Jesse, let’s take a quick break.”

Ashe gently helped McCree sit down on the cold, steel floor and leaned him back against the wall. His breathing gradually became more steady, and the color slowly returned to his face.

He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Ashe took the opportunity to catch her breath as well, but she knew they couldn’t rest for long.

How many minutes had passed since Ashe and her gang had arrived at the base? Twenty? Thirty? They were running short on time, Ashe knew that much, and it would take forever to get McCree up the stairs.

Besides, from the looks of it, he was in no shape to be climbing them anyhow. Ashe bit her lip, eyeing the elevator. It was risky, taking the elevator without knowing who or what would be on it, but it looked like they didn’t have a choice.

She walked over to where McCree was recuperating and crouched down next to him. “Jesse, I’m sorry to do this, but we gotta keep movin’. We only have a few minutes left in our window, and we gotta get movin’ right now.”

McCree’s brown eyes (or eye, in this case) slowly opened, full of pain. Wrapping one arm around his ribs, he slowly rose to his feet, leaning heavily against the wall. Ashe felt her heart break.

The strong, brave man that she’d spent so many years beside had been reduced to this by Talon. Never before had Ashe seen McCree look so helpless and weak.

Anger surged through her veins, hot and volatile. How dare Talon do this to him! She had half a mind to storm throughout the base, killing every Talon agent that she could find. 

No, no. That can come later. Right now, we need to get McCree back home safely, the reasonable part of Ashe chided, bringing her back to her senses.

“Come on, we’re almost there.” Ashe got under McCree’s arm again, taking some of his weight as she supported him.

They slowly made their way to the elevators, and after a brief moment of hesitation, Ashe pressed the summoning button for the elevator’s car.

“You know, Ashe, while I was Talon’s ‘guest’, things were tough, I’ll admit it,” McCree wheezed out, staring at the elevator’s floor indicator. “The only thing that kept me goin’, kept me strong…was you.” Ashe looked at him in surprise. “The thought of keepin’ you safe, the knowledge that you were in a place that Talon couldn’t touch you, is what kept me strong.”

Ashe shook her head. “Come on McCree, you’re punch-drunk, or pumped full of something that makes you loopy.”

McCree turned his head to look at her full on. “Ashe, I’m serious.” Was his face getting red? Surely it was injury-related, or some weird bruise, right? “I-I don’t think I could’ve survived if it weren’t for you Ashe. I mean it.”

Ashe gazed up into his face, and McCree looked back at her with a certain warmth in his eyes. Before Ashe could respond though, they were interrupted by the elevator arriving on the landing, announcing its presence with a quiet ding.

Ashe gave an awkward, if not disappointed chuckle. “We’d, um, better keep moving, we’re almost home-free.”

Ashe started guiding McCree onto the elevator as the doors opened, only to be stopped by the sight of someone being on the elevator. Someone with fair skin, dark red hair, and wearing a high-ranking Talon official uniform. And though Ashe didn’t know who she was, McCree did.

She was Lydia Davids, McCree’s captor.

Chapter Text

Lydia's green eyes met Ashe's red ones, and for a moment they stared at each other, frozen in surprise.

After a brief delay, both women reached for their weapons, Lydia going for the pistol at her belt while Ashe worked to unsling her rifle from her shoulder.

Simultaneously, they raised and pointed their weapons at each other, a deadly gleaming barrel pointing in either direction. They stared at each other a moment longer, calculating how fast they could pull the trigger and send death speeding towards their opponent before their enemy could react.

Ashe saw the subtle shift in Lydia’s stance, a telltale sign that she was about to fire. But before Ashe could respond by pulling the trigger to her rifle…

“Stop!”

McCree’s shout rang out with all the strength he could muster, giving both Lydia and Ashe a pause. All eyes turned to McCree, who was looking paler and more haggard than ever.

“Both of you, calm down! There’s no need to…need to…” he sagged against Ashe, letting out a small cry of pain as he clutched at his midsection.

“McCree!” Ashe gasped, dropping her rifle as she struggled to keep him from falling. From the corner of her eye, she saw movement from Lydia.

Fearing that she was about to shoot the pair of them, she whipped her head in the Talon operative’s direction. To her surprise, she saw Lydia reaching out toward McCree, her face full of concern.

Lydia stopped once she saw Ashe watching her, placing her outstretched hand at her side instead.

“I’m fine,” McCree coughed, trying to straighten up. “Just a ‘lil out of breath is all.” “A ‘lil out of breath” was a complete understatement. McCree was positively gasping for breath, drawing in painful, ragged gulps of breath, all the while leaning heavily on Ashe’s shoulder.

Ashe glared at the red-haired woman in front of her.

“This is all your fault!” she spat out, her eyes alight with fury. “Look at the state of him! How could you do this to another human bein’?”

“My fault?” Lydia shot back, indignant. “ I tried to stop this all from happening! I did my best to prevent what happened to Cole, but the Council overruled me!”

Cole? Ashe frowned at that. “Who the hell is Cole?”

“Him,” Lydia pointed at McCree. “He’s Cole.”

Ashe rolled her eyes. “C’mon, is this some kinda Talon manipulation tactic? He isn’t Cole, he’s Jesse.” Ashe eyed her Viper rifle which lay nearby. “Quit spoutin’ nonsense before I put a bullet in you. That’ll shut you up.”

“Ashe, don’t,” McCree wheezed. “She’s tellin’ the truth. I meant to tell you sooner, but with how fast things happened, I didn’t get the chance.”

“Aw c’mon. Your name’s Jesse. Jesse McCree. Always has been. It most certainly isn’t Cole.” Ashe looked at McCree, searching his face for any sign that Lydia was lying. “...right?”

McCree let out a small sigh, or was it a wheeze? It was hard to tell with his deteriorating condition. “Ashe… my real name is Cole Cassidy. I changed it to Jesse McCree after the Omnic Uprisin’ all those years ago, tryna put my past behind me and start a new life.”

Ashe looked at him confusedly. “So…wait. But why would you change your name? Why would you lie to me about who you were?”

McCree or Cassidy, whatever he was calling himself, gave a small chuckle. “People change their names all the time. I just did mine earlier than most. Besides, I’m still the same person. Always have been. You’ve just known me by a different name this entire time.”

Ashe stood there, processing everything. She had already known that Jesse, Cole, whatever, had gone through some dark times during the Crisis, something she was fortunate to have avoided.

The one thing she didn’t know was what he went through during the Crisis.

Ashe set her face determinedly, dispelling her thoughts. “Well, it doesn’t matter what you call yourself or what your name was or is, the fact is, we’ve gotta get outta here, and this gal is standin’ in our way.” She gave Lydia a fierce glare. “And the way I see it, the only way to go about this is to go through you.” 

"Ashe, wait," McCree/Cassidy implored, his eyes now on Lydia. "

"I don't care if she tried to prevent what happened to you, she still played a part in all this!" Ashe responded angrily.

"Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. The fact is, we don't have to end this in violence." McCree/Cassidy turned to Lydia. "I know you believe that what you're fightin' for is right and that the result of your actions is worth any cost.

"What you aim to do is admirable, and your goals are admirable, but focusing too much on the future means you're lettin' what's happening' here and now go to waste."

McCree was seized by a painful coughing fit, giving pause to his solicit to Lydia. It subsided after a few moments and after he caught his breath he continued.

"You're willin' to gamble to lives and welfare of millions of people 'round the world on the hopes that it'll make them stronger in the future. That things will be better for 'em in the long run." The cowboy gazed at the Talon operative, his eyes pleading. "You and I have the same goals; we want to make this world a better place. But what you're doin', what you've done, is not the right way to go about it."

He took a step towards Lydia, his unoccupied hang moving beseechingly. "We fight for the same reasons, … I can't do that while bein' your prisoner. And you know Talon will kill me the moment they fully understand I won't crack."

He stopped right in front of her, brown eyes meeting green as he made his final plea.

"Please, let us pass."

Lydia stared at him, her brow furrowed as she pondered over the things McCree/Cassidy said. The pair of them waited with bated breath as they saw the internal conflict on her face.

After another precious minute of their time has slipped past, Lydia let out a small sigh. "I'm sorry, I can't let you two escape. It would be going against my duty to Talon." 

McCree/Cassidy let out a disappointed sigh, sagging heavily against Ashe, who eyed her rifle where it lay nearby.

It's too far away, I'd never get it in time. Unless… A thought suddenly struck her. Even though her rifle was on the ground next to her, impossible to reach without dropping McCree, there was another weapon she could grab.

Jesse's revolver! If I can just reach around his waist in time…

Lydia cleared her throat. "I can't let you guys escape, but I would hardly be able to prevent that if I were unconscious, would I?" She looked meaningfully at Ashe, who smiled grimly as comprehension dawned on her.

"Thank you Lydia," McCree/Cassidy wheezed, mustering the strength to give her a painful smile, which Lydia returned.

"Just make it look good, it wouldn't do to have Talon think I let you escape," she told Ashe.

"Oh don't worry," Ashe replied, moving closer to her. "I'll make it look real convincin'."

She saw a brief flash of panic cross Lydia's face as she said that, but before Lydia could have second thoughts, Ashe swung her left arm in a vicious left hook to Lydia's head.

With a dull thump, her fist made solid contact with Lydia's temple and she dropped like a rock, unconscious.

McCree/Cassidy gave her a droll look. "Did you have to punch her that hard?"

Ashe shrugged in response. "She said to make it look good. And I consider it a small percentage of compensation for what happened to you, wouldn't you agree?"

McCree/Cassidy's eyes lingered on Lydia's unconscious form. "I don't know. She's a good person at heart. And she did try to help me." He shifted next to her. "She would have made a great Overwatch agent if she were given the chance."

Ashe felt a twinge of jealousy at that. Not that McCree would have feelings for his captor, heavens no, but there was no denying that the Talon agent was stunningly beautiful.

McCree's comment gave rise to the very ugly possibility of what could have happened if Lydia was an Overwatch agent instead of working for Talon.

What if McCree had met Lydia under different circumstances? Working together, side by side, perhaps getting coffee sometimes and possibly spending the night together-

Stop it! Ashe mentally shouted. Focus on the task at hand. She looked back at McCree and rolled her eyes. "Ok, whatever. Let's keep movin'. It's a straight shot from the elevator to the hangar once we arrive at the right floor."

The pair of them eased their way into the empty elevator car, taking care to tread around Lydia’s unconscious form. Once they were inside, Ashe reached over and pressed the button for the appropriate floor. …

With a ding! the elevator came to a smooth halt, and the doors slowly opened to reveal the empty hallway to the hangar.

Ashe peeked around the newly opened doorway. There was nobody to be seen, not even her own crew. All clear . She turned back to McCree.

“It looks like it’s clear, let's keep movin’. We’re almost outta here.”

The two of them continued their laborious trek down the hallway, which seemed ten times longer than it was before. It was eerily quiet in the hallway, uninterrupted save for the occasional cough from McCree or grunt of effort from Ashe.

After a few more moments, the silence was broken by McCree.

“Ashe?”

Ashe looked up at him. “Yeah?”

“Thanks…y’know, for comin’ for me.”

Ashe gave him a small smile. “Don’t mention it, ‘cause I’ll be bringin’ it up plently later on.”

McCree chuckled at that, before his face became solemn again.“You…you didn’t have to, y’know. I’m not part of the gang no more.”

Ashe kept her eyes straight ahead. “It didn’t matter to me. You got into this mess ‘cause of me, so it was only fair for me to get you out of it.”

“Oh.”

Ashe looked at him again. Was it just her, or did he look…disappointed? Maybe it was just what she wanted to see, but she was curious now.

“What, it somethin’ botherin’ you?”

McCree chuckled quietly. “Besides the fact that I’m all banged up and can barely stand?”

Ashe rolled her eyes, gently nudging him in the ribs. “You know what I mean.”

McCree gave a quiet sigh, mulling over what he wanted to say. After a few moments, he spoke what was on his mind.

“Is that…the only reason that you came to rescue me?” He coughed awkwardly. “I mean, it makes sense. You were never one to be indebted to someone else.”

It was Ashe’s turn to be silent as a million thoughts flooded through her mind. How do I tell him? It was hardly the time or the place to confess feelings, and she still wasn’t sure that he would reciprocate them.

After all, she had said some very nasty things to him in the past, and had caused him a lot of grief. That, and the fact they had spent years apart.

But, Ashe couldn’t let McCree believe that the only reason she came for him was to make them even. There was no way in hell that was true.

“Well no, it’s not that. I mean that’s true, but that isn’t the… I mean…” Ashe stammered, her thoughts jumbling over one another in an attempt to escape through her mouth. Get a hold of yourself! She took a deep breath.

“I…”

Ding!

Ashe and McCree froze in their path when they heard it. That sound could only mean one thing…

They turned back around and looked down the hallway, where the elevator doors were slowly opening.

A small group of Talon scientists and soldiers exited the car, quitely chatting amongst themselves, unaware of Ashe and McCree’s presence.

Their obliviousness ended all too soon.

One of the technicians looked up from his tablet and, with a shout of surprise, spotted the pair of them down the hallway.

The rest of the party stood in momentary disbelief, not comprehending what they were seeing. After all, what were the odds of seeing two cowboys in a secure, secret Talon base?

Then in an instant, the soldiers in the group raised their rifles and opened fire on Ashe and McCree.

“Damn it!” Ashe cursed as she pulled McCree to the side. A streak of bullets whizzed past them, burying themselves further down the hall. “This is just typical of our luck.”

“Huh, your bad luck must be rubbin’ off on me,” McCree quipped, pulling his Peacemaker out of its holster and shooting back at the troopers.

“Now’s not the time for makin’ jokes McCree!” Ashe snapped, ducking as a bullet whizzed over her head. “We’ve got a serious problem here!”

McCree fired off another shot, giving a small grunt of satisfaction as his bullet found its mark. He turned back to Ashe, a smirk playing around his mouth. 

“Good thing I’ve got a solution.” He pulled one of his flashbangs off his belt and winked at Ashe.

“Cover your ears.” He flicked the pin out of the grenade using his thumb and chucked it down the hallway.

They heard shouts of “Look out!” or “Take cover!” right before a blinding flash of light and deafening bang filled the hallway.

Seeing their opportunity, Ashe quickly secured McCree’s arm around her shoulder again and they began making their way down the hallway as fast as possible.

Even mostly incapacitated, the troopers were still a hazard; more than one bullet passed dangerously close to Ashe and McCree as they hobbled away from the scene.

“Maybe I oughta get somethin’ more deadly than flashbangs,” McCree grumbled as they continued speed limping towards the end of the corridor.

“I agree, maybe you should switch to real grenades,” Ashe replied, flinching as a blindly shot bullet whizzed just past her ear. The troopers were still in chaos, blindly firing in their general direction, but the effects of the flashbang wouldn’t last long.

The two of them burst out of the hallway, a spray of gunfire following them into the hangar. The rest of Ashe’s gang were there, loading crates and other types of loot into the transport. The nearest of them, Travis, looked up as Ashe and McCree ran out of the hallway.

“Ashe! You found him! What’re you-?”

“No time!” Ashe yelled, “We’ve got a lotta heat behind us!”

Travis’ eyes widened as Talon’s retrieval team rushed out behind them, still shaking off the effects of McCree’s stun grenade. He spun back to where the rest of the crew was still loading stolen goods onto the transport.

“We’ve got company!” he bellowed, raising his rifle and sending a hail of bullets toward Talon’s forces.

The rest of Ashe’s gang dropped their crates and rushed over to support Travis, hastily snatching their weapons and ducking behind any cover they could find.

The hallway door opened again and dispelled another half-dozen Talon troopers. The Deadlock gang was outnumbered now, but only just. The longer they stayed, the more likely that was going to change.

More bullets whizzed past Ashe as they continued towards the transport. Clearly, Talon no longer cared about questioning McCree.

“Give us some cover!” Ashe yelled as she and McCree ran past the gang. The gang members closest to her rose from their hiding places and started shooting at the Talon squadron.

Soon, the air was full of the cacophony of battle and the smell of gunpowder filled the air. Flashes of light flickered all over the dim hangar as each side did its very best to kill each other.

“C’mon McCree! We’re almost there!” Ashe continued to shepherd him towards the waiting transport.

“Ashe, I can fight! Ya’ll are gonna need my help!” McCree protested, making halfhearted attempts to pull away from her support.

“You can fight?” Ashe scoffed, raising an eyebrow at him. “You can barely stand! Just shut up and keep runnin’!” They were almost at the transport, the sounds of gunfighting growing quieter behind them. Ashe looked at McCree’s haggard face, which was almost deathly pale.

“Almost there Jesse, just a few more steps.” They rounded to the back side of the transport where they were presented with a view of a nearly full cargo bay, filled with the spoils of their “expedition”.

Realizing that he was in the final stretch, McCee mustered what strength he had left and staggered up the ramp into the cool interior of the transport.

Ashe gently guided him over to one of the benches that lined the transport’s walls and eased him down onto it.

“Stay there mister, that’s an order,” Ashe commanded.

McCree gave her a small smile. “Yes ma’am,” he winked, gingerly laying down on the padded seats with a soft groan. Satisfied that McCree was out of harm's way for the time being, Ashe sprinted out of the transport and back onto the battlefield.

Everything was in chaos, with both sides shooting as quickly as they could in a savage attempt to kill each other as quickly as possible.

Bullets ricocheted off the walls, empty magazines littered the clearing, bullet casings rained onto the floor in a cascade of metallic symphony.

Neither Talon or the Deadlock Gang had made any significant changes in each other’s forces, but there was no telling how long that was going to last.

Ashe unslung her rifle and bolted to where her gang was taking cover, sliding down next to Gianna.

“What’re we lookin’ at?” Ashe shouted over the gunfire.

“Things aren’t looking too great boss, we’re outnumbered as it is, but it won’t be long before Talon sends reinforcements!” Gianna replied, peeking over the crate she was behind.

She looked back at Ashe, her face tainted with worry. “I’d give us about five minutes before things get real hairy.”

Ashe peeked over the crate as well. The sight she saw was a grim one; there were at least a dozen troopers positioned around the door out of the hangar, each armed with a standard assault rifle and body armor.

From the looks of it, each had enough ammunition to sustain a prolonged skirmish while Ashe’s gang was running dangerously low.

The weapons and ammo they had stolen from Talon were either too sophisticated for the gang to use or weren’t compatible with the armaments that they were currently using.

They couldn’t stay here, not that Ashe had any intentions of doing so, but they also needed a safe way to get onto the transport.

Ashe peeked around the crate again and raised her rifle. She squeezed the trigger, and across the clearing, a Talon trooper fell to the ground hard. Within a few seconds, more Talon troopers joined him.

Seeing their comrades get shot, the remaining troopers hunkered down behind cover.

Ashe turned to the rest of her crew, who were still firing in Talon’s general direction. “Quite firin’, you’re only wastin’ ammo!” At this rate, her crew would run out of ammo a lot sooner than she’d hoped.

Her gang reluctantly stopped shooting and sat down behind their crates or boxes. Both sides were at an impasse now, with neither side willing to expose themselves to one another.

The problem was, Talon didn’t need to keep shooting at Ashe’s gang. All they had to do was wait for reinforcements to arrive, at which point they could overwhelm Ashe by sheer force of numbers. 

“Got any ideas?” Gianna asked, eyeing where Talon was hiding out. Ashe looked at her, her brow furrowed.

“I’ve got plenty of ideas, I’m just not sure any of ‘em are actually gonna work.” She sat there, her mind racing over dozens of ideas, hundreds of different outcomes.

An idea popped into her head, one with more potential than the others. It wasn’t a great idea, and there was plenty of room for failure, but it was the best she had.

She turned back to Gianna, motioning for her to come closer.

“I’ve got an idea, but if it’s going to work, we gotta leave right now. Let everybody know.” Gianna nodded and carefully moved to where the rest of the gang was taking cover.

With a quiet hiss the door opened again and another dozen Talon troopers stormed into the hangar, accompanied by an enforcer.

Now was definitely a good time to leave. Ashe unhooked her last explosive from her belt and set the timer on it. Her idea was a risky one, but with the arrival of more Talon forces, it was now or never.

“Everyone get ready to move!” she shouted before taking careful aim and throwing the bundle of dynamite as hard as she could.

The little red bundle sailed through the air with a certain grace before landing with a thud in front of the group of troopers.

With cries of surprise, the Talon operatives all scrambled away from the explosive, doing their best to put as much distance or mass between them and what would be a fiery explosion.

Yet after the seconds passed, no explosion came.

Talon’s forces tentatively peeked around their cover and looked at the explosive, which sat benignly on the hard concrete in front of them.

Then they looked back over to where their adversaries were positioned, only to see their fleeing figures nearing the transport. The enforcer was the first to put two and two together.

“It was a distraction you idiots, get after them!” he yelled, shoving those troopers nearest to him towards the direction of the transport. The remaining troopers moved out from behind their cover and began sprinting towards Ashe and her gang, stepping over the bundle of dynamite without a second thought.

That was when the explosive set off, expelling a vast amount of fire and explosive force and immediately consuming everyone near it.

Ashe heard the explosion and looked back, a satisfied smile on her face. Works every time , she thought as she climbed up the ramp of the transport and ran up to the cockpit.

The pilot was watching the aftermath of the explosion with wide eyes, an equally awed Juan standing next to him.

“Get this bird in the air!” Ashe shouted at the pilot. “Now!”

The pilot jumped in surprise before immediately getting to work, his body instinctively reacting to an order and working to fulfill it.

T he transport slowly rose into the air and exited the hangar, entering the hot Arizona climate. The setting sun’s dying light immediately shone into the cockpit, basking everything in a golden glow.

“Take us to Deadlock Gorge,” Ashe commanded the pilot, squinting her eyes in the bright light. Juan looked at her in surprise.

“You want him to take us back to base?” he asked incredulously. “He’ll tell them exactly where we are, or Talon’ll track us there!”

“The thought crossed my mind too Juan, but I’d be surprised if there was anyone this side of the Rockies that didn’t know where Deadlock Gorge was,” Ashe replied. “All we can hope for is that Talon’ll want to avoid the Air Force patrols between here and back home. That’s somethin’ we can avoid.” 

Juan nodded in agreement, content with Ashe’s reasoning. Ashe relaxed slightly, the adrenaline from the earlier fighting slowly dissipating from her veins. With any luck, she and her crew would have a straight shot home, without any more hiccups.

Of course, whenever anyone thinks that, the universe likes to tell them otherwise.

"Ashe we've got a tail, two of them!" Ashe whipped around and stared out one of the transport's windows.

Sure enough, two sleek transports were slowly rising out of one of the base's secret hangars, and Ashe's sharp eyes, used to spotting small targets hundreds of feet away, were able to make out the squads of troopers occupying them.

She turned back to the pilot. "Do those transports have any sort of weapon on them?"

"Weapons? No, they don't. They don't need weapons though, those are TA model transports which means they're quicker and faster than what we're flying right now." The pilot started flipping switches feverishly, causing the transport to speed up a little. "They'll be pulling up beside us in only a few minutes."

Ashe ran out of the cabin and back into the cargo hold, where the gang's spoils lay heaped in piles; heavy-duty crates, small boxes, guns of every kind, sophisticated-looking technology and gadgetry…

She started sifting through the piles, searching for the one thing she had in mind. Travis loved explosives in any shape or form, so it was more than likely he picked up quite a few while he was looting. Which hopefully meant he managed to snag what Ashe was looking for.

So far she hadn't seen anything that would prove to be useful. Grenades were pointless this high-up, shaped charges without a detonator were useless, the high-caliber rifles wouldn't even dent the tranports' armor…

"Damn it!"

Ashe cast her eyes about, frantically looking for what she had in mind. All she saw were more crates, some rifles…

There !

Ashe ran over to a long sleek suitcase precariously perched on top of a large wooden crate. Crossing her fingers and uttering a silent prayer, she undid the clasps holding the suitcase shut and lifted the lid.

Ashe looked inside and breathed a sigh of relief, a bright smile lighting up her features. She reached inside the suitcase and carefully pulled out what she hoped Travis stole: a CRX-13 Wasp Rocket Launcher.

CRX model rocket launchers were highly coveted by militaries around the world. Extremely powerful and extremely expensive, this type of weapon was only sold in small supply to a select few countries. To have stolen a Wasp model of the CRX launcher was, to put it simply, an act of providence.

While standard CRX launchers were in limited supply, the Wasp model was even more scarce. Very few of them were ever made, and for good reason. As the former heiress of a major arms dealer company, Ashe was one of the few people who knew why. She hefted the launcher onto her shoulder and turned back to her gang, grinning.

"I'd say we just leveled the playin' field." She walked over to the side of the transport and peered out the window again. The pursuing transport's were much closer than before, and gaining fast. Time to do something about them.

"Gianna!"

The shorter woman rushed over to Ashe, various stolen bits of technology peeking out of her pockets.

"Yes boss?"

"Run up to the pilot and tell him to open the back cargo ramp."

"The back ramp? Why?"

Ashe rolled her eyes for the umpteenth time that day. "Do I always have to explain why? Just go do it!"

Gianna flushed slightly and ran up to the cockpit. After a few seconds, Ashe heard a shrill buzzing sound and the cargo ramp of the transport suddenly began to lower, letting a flood of wind into the cargo hold.

Ashe carefully made her way down to the back of the transport, where she was presented with a clear view of her pursuers.

So far, they had no idea what she was about to do. And by the time they did, Ashe thought grimly, they'd be hurtling down to earth as a blazing inferno.

Spreading her stance and bracing herself for the kickback, Ashe leveled the weapon on her shoulder with the distant transports.

Immediately a holo display projected from the launcher right in front of her eye, giving details of windspeed, distance, and time to the target in her sights.

Satisfied that the shot would be perfect, Ashe gripped the weapon tightly, steadied it on her shoulder, and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Nothing happened.

What the hell? Ashe pulled the trigger on the weapon again, bracing herself for the second time.

Click .

Again, nothing happened. The transports were only a couple hundred yards behind them now, rapidly closing the difference.

Ashe slid the rocket launcher off her shoulder and examined it. Was there some sort of safety on it, or some kind of security measure preventing it from firing? A blinking blue light on the weapon's sleek white surface caught her eye.

She examined it and found the answer to her question: right next to the blue light was a small message, a message that read, "Chamber Empty".

Ashe swore loudly and ran back into the cargo hold. How could she be so stupid? She dashed over to the suitcase where she found the launcher and opened it again.

Nestled in their own little spaces were three Wasp missiles, each worth more than a private jet. Ashe quickly snatched one and slide it into an opening on the side of the CRX launcher.

Nothing like blowing up $25 million dollars to save your life , she thought, snapping the launcher closed and rapidly pressing some buttons below the holo display.

Immediately the blue light stopped flashing and the weapon came to life with a quiet buzzing noise. It was armed and ready for use.

Ashe looked out the back of the transport and to her alarm, saw that the tranports were only a hundred yards away now. She hurried back to the cargo ramp and readied herself again for the shot. She lined up her sights on the nearest transport, the second one following close behind it.

Ashe only had one shot at this. If she missed, she wouldn't have a chance at getting off another shot successfully. Talon would swarm their transport and take them all captive, upon which they'd be brought back to their base to be questioned, tortured, and killed. 

Don't think about that, just be in the here and now.

Ashe drew in a deep breath and held it, counting down from five.

At three seconds left the holo display lit up green, indicating she had a clear shot.

At one second left she slowly let out her breath and squeezed the trigger.

Chapter Text

The Wasp rocket shot out of the CRX launcher like, well, a rocket, zooming towards the nearest Talon transport with a loud hiss .

The targetted transport didn’t have time to react before the missile slammed itself into it’s bulky hull and buried itself there.

A few seconds passed and nothing happened, to the confusion of everyone onboard both transports.

“Um…Ashe?” Gianna asked, staring out at the transport behind them with confusion. “What just happened?”

“Just wait for it,” Ashe replied, watching the transport with eagerness. A moment later, the entire transport erupted in a massive explosion, spraying flaming bits of shrapnel and debris everywhere.

The reason why the Wasp rocket had its name was that like a Wasp or any insect of that family, the missile would fly straight toward its designated target and “sting” it. Whenever a Wasp stung something, it would pump its venom into their flesh. So, acting similar to what it was named for, the Wasp missile would bury itself into the target and pump dozens of molten hot micro explosives into it. The “venom” would then spread throughout the target and after a brief delay, detonate, completely obliterating the target.

With a loud groaning noise, the nearest transport slowly lost speed and collapsed in on itself. It continued traveling forward for a few more moments before it eventually stopped and started falling backward.

Whether it was sheer luck or by Ashe’s design, the flaming remains of the transport smashed into the transport behind it.

The surviving transport’s attempts to evade the wreckage were futile, as it was following so close behind it, and soon the number of flaming falling Talon transports went from one to two, leaving Ashe and her crew with no surviving pursuers.

Ashe watched with satisfaction as the large mass of twisted blazing metal fell to the Arizona desert below and crash into it with a large plume of smoke.

Her crew cheered wildly as they watched their pursuers’ demise. With a satisfied nod, Ashe set down her CRX launcher and strode up to the cockpit. The pilot looked up at her as she approached.

“What happened? I heard an explosion.”

“I’ve dealt with our tails, so we’re gonna be home free,” Ashe replied. “Take us all the way to Deadlock Gorge. Once we’ve offloaded everythin’, you’re free to go.”

“Go?” the pilot asked, confused.

Ashe nodded. “It’s not like Talon doesn’t know where I live, so settin’ you loose does nothin’ to hurt me.”

“Oh, right,” the pilot agreed, bobbing his head a couple of times. A few moments passed before he spoke up again.

“Could I…I mean, because they’re nothing else I…you know there’s…of course, it would be…”

Ashe rolled her eyes at the word vomit spewing from the pilot’s mouth. “Y’know, it would be really annoyin’ if I couldn’t understand a word you were sayin’.”

The pilot’s cheeks flushed as he collected his thoughts and put them into coherent speech. “If I go back to Talon, they’re sure to kill me for being a part of this, willing or not. So, I was wondering if I could join your crew?”

Ashe looked at him in surprise. This was the last thing she expected to hear from him, and it would require some careful consideration. After thinking about it for a minute, she gave her answer to the pilot.

“I can see where you’re comin’ from, but honestly, I just don’t think you’ll be a good fit for my crew.”

The pilot showed disappointment at that. “I have skills that can be useful! I’m a good pilot, so I can fly-”

“Exactly,” Ashe said gently, “My crew doesn’t fly. There’s a reason for that. And besides, you aren’t joinin’ my crew out of any sense of loyalty, but more out of fear of what Talon’ll do you to if you returned to them. And loyalty is everythin’ to me.”

She watched as the pilot’s face crumpled in disappointment but she wasn’t done speaking yet.

“You might not be a good fit for my crew, but the least I can do for you is help you stay hidden from Talon. Willin’ or not, you were helpful in accomplishing our goal today. I know some people that can hide your identity and get you started on a new life.”

The pilot's face lit up at that, and he looked at her with hopeful eyes.

“Really? You’d do that for me?”

Ashe gave a small laugh. “‘Course I would. I always pay back my debts. Once we land, I’ll get everything sorted out.” The pilot gave her a wide smile and increased the transport’s speed. Satisfied that something, for once, had finally gone right, Ashe returned to the cargo hold and took a seat next to where Cassidy was laying down. Letting out a sigh of relief, she leaned back and closed her eyes. It was finally over.

                                                                                                              (~.~)

It is often said that there are two seasons in Arizona; hot and hell. With a climate that can go to temperatures well over 110 degrees Fahrenheit, “hell” was an accurate description of Arizona on its hottest days.

Even in the closing hours of the day, the climate in Arizona was still blazing hot, with a temperature of 112 degrees Fahrenheit, putting that day in the “hell” category. And like hell, today Arizona had a devil. Reaper.

The Overwatch agent turned terrorist stood a few yards away from the wreckage of two Talon transports that were sent in pursuit of an escaped prisoner earlier that afternoon, impassively surveying the salvage attempts made by a swarm of Talon members who had arrived at the scene an hour earlier.

So far, there was nothing that could be recovered; the wreckage before him was nothing more than a smoking ash pile.

Despite having been working on the scene for an hour, nobody approached the Reaper with a damage assessment or a progress report.

The newer Talon members who had the notion to do so were quickly dissuaded by their seniors. Everyone knew from past experience not to bother the Reaper after a situation like this occurred.

He might look calm outwardly, but inside, inside he was seething . 

Someone walked up next to him, examining the still-smoldering wreckage. Reaper snarled softly. His subordinates knew better than to bother him when something like this happened. What idiot would dare…?

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a glint of light reflecting off of polished metal. He let out an aggravated sigh and folded his arms. His companion could only be one person. 

“It looks like that boy of yours has made quite the mess here,” Maximillien commented as he pulled up next to Reaper, idly picking a crumb of ash off of his impeccable suit and flicking it aside.

“It was the girl that caused this,” Reaper growled.

“Oh, she may have been the one to infiltrate our base and orchestrate his rescue, but the fact remains that McCree, or more rather, Cassidy, was the reason that she came here and made this mess,” the omnic replied.

He turned to the black-robed terrorist, the dying Arizona sun glinting off of his face. 

“I often wonder if you regret recruiting and training the boy the way you did, all those years ago,” Maximillien said. “He has indeed caused a great many problems for our organization.”

He continued to look at him, almost expectant. Reaper growled again, but for the most part, kept his emotions in check. He knew that Maximillien was saying these things to get under his skin, to probe at him and prompt a response.

The things he said were true, of course, but it always seemed to him that the omnic liked to see what buttons he could subtly press.

Reaper was grateful that the mask hid his face, and by extension, his emotions. It wouldn’t do to show the fellow council member how much everything that transpired infuriated him.

Maximillien would find a way to use that sometime in the future. He always did.

They stood in silence, watching the salvage team’s pointless attempts of searching the wreckage. After a few minutes, the omnic cleared his throat and tugged at the cuffs of his silken dress shirt, more out of habit than to actually fix his appearance.

“I’ve spoken with the council and we’ve come to an agreement about this situation. Along with acquiring the weapon that those thugs are currently in possession of, Cole Cassidy needs to be taken care of. Permanently.”

Reaper snorted at that. “Great, we’ll just keep doing what we’ve been trying to do for the last ten years.”

Maximillien shook his head slowly. “No, I don’t believe we’ve ever put any real effort in locating and eliminating him. A few trained operatives? A squadron or two? I would hardly call that an effort.”

He turned to face Reaper full on, pulling his attention away from the smoldering wreckage. “We need a more… effective solution to this quandary.”

“What, you want me to hunt him down?” Reaper asked. While he didn’t fully feel comfortable eliminating one of his former closest friends, his time in Talon had hardened his heart to the point that he didn’t really care anymore.

If needed, he would hunt down Cassidy and eliminate him. That didn’t mean he would enjoy it though, not like with other Overwatch agents.

“No, the council didn’t feel that you were the best one suited for this situation,” Maximillien replied. Seeing Reaper’s posture change from aggravated to hostile, he hurriedly pressed on.

“It’s not that your skills are held in doubt, quite the contrary. The council has other plans for you.”

Reaper grunted at that, letting himself relax. “If the council doesn’t want to send me, then who did they choose?”

“The council and I felt that we needed someone with more…vision. Someone competent who can make a spectacle of things, and clearly deliver a message to a world about what happens to those who stand in our way.”

The omnic’s red eyes met Reaper’s indiscernible ones. “And while he isn’t a member of our organization, I believe we’ll give him an offer he’d be a fool to turn down.”

Realization struck Reaper as he realized who Maximillien was talking about. 

“You don't mean…him?”

Maximillien nodded. “I do. The council felt it best to acquire the talents of The Artist .

                                                                                                                       (~.~)

It was dark in Ashe’s room, the sun having gone down less than an hour ago. 

Cassidy lay on Ashe’s large king-sized bed, sleeping silently, with Ashe watching over him at his bedside.

He was sleeping peacefully, dead to the world save for the slow rise and fall in his chest, resting in a sea of silken sheets and pillow-top mattresses. 

The moment they landed in Deadlock Gorge, Ashe had ordered Travis and Juan to take Cassidy straight to her room.

They did so with no questions asked, although a few confused glances were exchanged between the two of them.

Ashe could care less, so long as Cassidy had the best bed to recover in; in her room where she could keep an eye on him and make sure he was alright.

Despite having been through a long and physically draining day, Ashe sat alert at his side, monitoring him at every moment.

She wanted to make sure nothing happened to him, unlikely as that may be. He’d been through enough as it is. And a small part of her, well, a large part of her just wanted to be with him at every moment possible.

She hadn’t had him for about ten years, so she wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to be with him at every possible moment.

Still, it broke her heart seeing him lay so defeated in her bed.

Over all those years they’d known each other, all that time they’d spent together, he had always had a quick smirk and a confident attitude. Now he lay before her covered in all manner of injuries.

There was no confident smirk on his face, no aura of lively energy in him. All there was now was a tired and battered soul.

Ashe wasn’t going to let anyone ever do this to him again. Anyone . She’d already lost him twice, and she would not lose him again. No sir, not ever. Not while she had any say about it. She carefully reached out her hand towards his face, taking care not to wake him.

“I’m glad you’re home,” she whispered, gently stroking his brown hair. She sat there, brushing his hair with her soft fingers until he stirred slightly.

Ashe froze as Cassidy let out a soft groan and groggily opened his eyes, and quickly pulled her fingers away from his head.

“Ashe?” he slurred out, still feeling the effects of sleep.

“Hey, Jes- I mean, Cole,” Ashe corrected herself, scooting her chair closer to the bed. “How’re you feelin’?”

“Other than some broken ribs and a whole slew of other injuries? I’m feelin’ just fine,” Cassidy joked, giving her a wink. Or was it a blink? His black eye made it hard to tell.

The cowboy looked around the room, trying to gain his bearings. “Where are we?” he asked, making an attempt to sit up. Ashe immediately reached out and gently, but firmly, pushed him back down onto the bed.

“Relax, we’re safe in Deadlock Gorge.” Cassidy looked up at her perplexed.

“Oh, and um, where exactly in the Gorge are we?” His question caught her off guard, and she struggled for a moment on how best to answer.

“Oh…um, we’re in my bedroom.”

“Your bedroom?” Cassidy asked confusedly. “Why’re we here?”

“Well, you needed the best bed to recover in and some privacy, and I felt that my bedroom was the best offer,” Ashe replied, defensive. Thank goodness it was dark in the room, otherwise Cassidy would see the color rising in her cheeks.

“Well, I ain’t complainin’” Cassidy said, shifting slightly on his back. “This is one comfortable bed.”

“Glad you think so,” Ashe smiled. They looked at each other for a few seconds before Cassidy’s face grew serious.

“Ashe, I just wanted to say thank you again. Really. You didn’t have to come for me.”

Ashe waved a dismissive hand at that. “Of course I would’ve. You’re part of the crew, even if it was temporary. I could hardly leave you with Talon after you saved all our lives.”

Cassidy gave a small, sad sigh at that. “Y’know, lookin’ back on everythin’ that happened, I realized you risked a lot to come and save me. Talon’s no countryside bank or rival gang hideout.” He averted his eyes, looking down at his hands. “It makes me realize that if I never joined Overwatch, if I went to prison instead, you would have broken me out. I know you would have.”

Ashe gently took his hand in hers. “Jesse, look at me.” McCree’s brown eyes met hers. “I know that I was angry that you turned your back on the gang. To me, it was like how my parents turned their back on me.

“But, I’m past what I felt back then. I was hurt, but what you’ve done for me, what you sacrificed for me, has more than made up for it. Besides, family is family, even if they are a bit stupid sometimes.”

McCree smiled at that, squeezing her hand back. He seemed to be on the verge of saying something, but Ashe knew better than to pry. If he had something to say, he’d do it in his own time. Finally, after a few more moments of silence, McCree finally spoke what was on his mind.

“Ashe… I mean’t what I said earlier, back at Talon’s base. What kept me goin’, what kept me strong while I was goin’ through hell, was you.” Ashe’s heart fluttered at that, but McCree wasn’t done yet.

“I guess my time in that cell gave me plenty to think about, and I realized there’s a lot of things I’ve never told you, a lot of things that I’ve left unresolved. So I’m just gonna say it now, regardless of what you think.”

“I…I love you Ashe.” Ashe’s heart stopped in her chest at those four words. He…loved her? Truly? She didn’t just hear what she wanted to hear?

Cassidy’s face turned a slight shade of red, but he pushed forward before he could lose his nerve.”

“I love how you don’t let no one tell you what to do. How you always have a plan for whatever you do. I love how you’re confident in yourself, but how you trust other people too, the people that you care about. I love how you’ve always cared for B.O.B. and never treated him like your property, and how you always let your gang know that you value them. I love how you stick up for yourself and how you don’t let anyone push you ‘round. Like I’ve always said, you have an awful lot of grit for a rich girl.

“I love the way your hair glows in the moonlight, and how your eyes light up when ideas come to that brilliant mind of yours. I love how you’re poised and refined, but you’re still willin’ to get down in the dirt if that’s what it takes to get what you want.”

Cassidy’s eyes sought hers and held them there, penetrating her soul. “I could go on and on about the things that I love about you, and they’d never end. But what I’m tryin’ to say here, pure and simple, is that I love you.” He let is gaze drop to his hands again, and he fidgeted with the bedsheets.

“And I know it’s stupid of me to think that you might feel the same way about me, given all that’s happened in the past, but I felt that I oughta speak my mind and-”

Ashe bent over and gently grabbed Cassidy’s face, looking deep into his eyes. 

“You really must have straw in that head of yours.” She leaned closer and captured his lips in hers. After a moment’s hesitation, Cassidy kissed her back, soft and gentle as he tugged her into bed beside him.

Ashe felt a warm glow inside her, like the last rays of a beautiful sunset warming her skin after a perfect day. Years of longing, frustration, and regret all melted away the moment his lips touched hers, and she didn’t want it to end.

She slipped her hands around his neck and pulled him deeper into the kiss. She wanted more, she needed more, and Ashe was not a woman to deny. The two of them lay there, drinking each other in, soaking in each other’s presence, holding each other as if they’d never let go.

It could have been mere minutes, or what felt like years before they broke the kiss. Cassidy gave AShe a goofy grin as they looked into each other’s eyes, their noses nearly touching.

“How long’ve you been waitin’ for that?”

Ashe gave a soft laugh. “Honestly? Since I met you in that cell all those years ago. Still,” she smirked, “I would have preferred our first kiss to have been in better circumstances. You aren’t lookin’ exactly poster-worthy right now.”

Cassidy’s eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. “What, you hadn’t heard? ‘Rugged and rough-around-the-edges' is the new look these days.”

Ashe rolled her eyes at that but couldn’t help letting a small creep onto her face. “More like ‘bruised and battered.’” They both shared a laugh at that.

Ashe wriggled closer to him, pressing herself against his warm body and wrapping her arms around him. She signed contentedly as she felt his arms enfold around her and hug her tightly.

They held each other close for a few moments until Ashe heard Cassidy clear his throat.

“You know Ashe, not to ruin the moment, but Talon won't just let you have The Western Sunrise . They’ll come for it, and they’ll come in force.”

Ashe pulled her head back and met his gaze, which was tinged with worry. She offered him her winning confidence-filled smirk.

“Well, I’ll tell you what, Cole Cassidy. Let Talon come. Let them throw whatever they have at us,” she said softly. “‘Cause I know that no matter what, so long as we’re together, we can face anythin’, no matter the odds.”

Cassidy returned her smirk easily. “Just you and me, huh?”

“Just you and me,” Ashe replied, inching her face closer to his so their noses were barely touching. “So long as you remember who’s in charge,” she said, a mischievous glint in her eye.

“Always,” Cassidy breathed, before he closed the gap between their lips again, initiating the kiss this time.

They kissed hungrily, making up for years of heartache and lost time, basking in each other’s warmth. Ashe wanted more, more of Cassidy, more time, more everything. She’d needed Cassidy for a long time, and all that desire welled up inside her, threatening to spill out. Alas, all good things must end, and they broke off the kiss, breathing heavily as they gazed at each other.

“I love you, Ashe, always have,” Cassidy whispered.

Ashe smiled back at him adoringly. “I love you too, farm hand.”

He pulled her close once more, and she happily snuggled into him. She stayed there, content until she heard Cassidy’s breathing slow down into the rhythm of sleep. Ashe smiled and buried her face into his shoulder, breathing in his scent and ready to surrender to the tendrils of slumber as well. As she felt herself drifting off, Ashe finally let go of the burden she’d been carrying for the last ten years.

Right here, right now, there was no other place she’d rather be. For once in her life, she felt that she had both everything she wanted and needed. Everything was perfect, and she was going to keep it that way. 

No matter what it took.