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𝙻𝙾𝙲𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽: 𝙲𝚊𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝙲𝚒𝚝𝚢
𝙸𝙽𝚃𝙴𝚁𝙰𝙲𝚃𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝚆𝙸𝚃𝙷: 𝚂𝚑𝚛𝚒𝚔𝚎 (𝙰𝚗𝚊 𝙰𝚖𝚊𝚛𝚒) @Jacobite, 𝚂𝚘𝚕𝚍𝚒𝚎𝚛:𝟽𝟼 (𝙹𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝙼𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚒𝚜𝚘𝚗), 𝙹𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚎 𝙼𝚌𝙲𝚛𝚎𝚎
[@Jacobite + @Solo Collab]
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Two bursts. All it took to turn everything off, even for just a second. The thug dropped, McCree’s head whipping back with his jaw practically unhinged. It was a mistake, training the rifle on the cowboy. Jesse dove into the alley, snatching Peacekeeper and whipping back to snap off a few shots. Jack hissed, a bullet singeing the shoulder of his jacket. The revolver was stilled focused on him, even as he threw his rifle and brought a hand to press onto the freshly bleeding wound.
“Jesse!” Jack cursed, biting off the order that nearly slipped his tongue. He gritted his teeth, watching Jesse’s ferocity drain from his features until paleness finally overtook him. “Shit.” Jack bounded into a sprint, watching as the cowboy lost a war with his own mind and collapsed onto the grimy, soot blacked alley.
Pressing a hand to his communicator, Jack barked up to Ana, “Need assistance! He’s down. Still breathing, but it’s shallow and irregular.”
“Understood,” Ana said in a grim voice, good eye peering down the scope to see the scruffy edges of the gunslinger around the corner of the alley. She hopped down onto a fire-escape Something tight gripped her heart with suffocating force. She assumed it was guilt. “Sending him a pick-me-up. We need him awake and moving.” It went directly against the action plan for the operation Jack had insisted upon, but she wore the trousers now.
Deftly lining up her shot and pulling the trigger, a dart shot out and directly hit its target: McCree’s chest, just to the side of where she knew his mechanical limb would be. A second dart escaped her gun, eagle eyes having spotted the wound on Soldier:76.
A black vehicle sped around the corner with a low hum. In response, she called out, “Reinforcements incoming, your left. We need to either get out or fortify what we’ve got.” Ana was the eyes in the sky––the last one to leave, the one to secure escape routes from above.
With a terse growl, Jack scanned the surrounding environment with his visor in an attempt to locate either an escape route or a way to fortify their position. Noting only the dumpster, Jack growled and dashed behind it to force it into place. With their newfound, makeshift cover Jack could now freely assault whoever piled into the small chokehold they had set up.
A number of armor clad figures swooped from the car in a hail of bullets that pelleted the front of the dumpster. Jack could hear the metal tear and melt away, sizzling and burning from the heated shots of bright blue. He returned as much fire as he could, taking out a man peeking from the back of the car’s hood and nailing another’s leg from the large space beneath the hovering vehicle.
“A-Ana,” Jesse croaked, dazed and delusional, but no longer unconscious, “Ya lookin’ gorgeous as ever. What’n angel - shit, heaven is real. Wh-where’s Gabe?”
A wistful smile twisted on Ana’s face as the voice came through the crackle in her earpiece, hidden by her mask. The cowboy always did know how best to be a charmer, and how best to find the best angle to twist the knife for Jack. Ana took flight and hauled herself up and over the ledge to the roof of the building adjacent to her temporary sniper’s nest. “There’s an old Blackwatch safe-house down by the railway line, 76. If you can get him lucid, Jesse can show you the way.” Ana informed him, voice straining as she put her aging, tired muscles to good use. “We’re going to need to take these mooks out first to get there.”
Her hand dropped down to her belt as she removed one of the small capsules there––an explosive canister of pure biotic material. The rifle slumped down to her hip. The darts themselves left traces of the direction they were fired from, royal purple in colour, that would give away her location behind the enemies. “On three, I’m going to scatter them. Thin the herd, and head east. I’ll catch up.”
”Three.”
”Two.”
”One.”
Ana launched the grenade into the centre where the hunters were grouping up around the entrance to the choke-point, and when it cracked open as it was intended to, the contents dissipated into the air causing cries of pain and panic.
I’d rather be an Alchemist than a Queen, Ana had said to Reinhardt once upon a time. The technology that she used seemed even to her like magic. Although an argument could be made for both.
Down. One.
Down. Two.
Headshot - Three and Four.
Jack’s boot smacked against the center of the heavy, metal dumpster. It slid screeched, toppling over as it caught on the pavement and pinned the last bounty hunter beneath it. The last thing he saw was the red, blue, and black of a soldier’s tactical visor before the spray of bullets ended him.
With the last of the hunters down, and no immediate threats to preoccupy him, Jack swiveled his body toward the slumped over cowboy. He found a small nest in the corner where his fingers dug the dirt and grime from his eyes. It brought memories flooding back, ones Jack didn’t have a right to remember.
Gabe. Commander. Please, it hurts-
Jack squeezed his eyes shut, the screams in his ears dying down to a high-pitched whine until they finally hushed under the racket of Jesse’s current groans. A few strides and he was hauling Jesse up from under his shoulder, his rifle hanging loosely from his hands, safety already on. No mistakes. He didn’t bother exchanging a word, just a few grunts as he lifted Jesse over the dumpster and bodies and into the car still hovering at a halt diagonal to the alleyway.
A few cruisers, along with a number of sirens, sounded off in the distance. The hunters would get to them first before the police had a chance to arrest anyone. Jack shoved Jesse into the cramped back seats, ignoring the protests from the cowboy as he slid into the driver’s seat. East, she said. Slamming his foot against the gas, Jack whipped the vehicle around and made off in a cloud of dust.
It took longer than necessary to wake Jesse up without any physical contact. Jack settled with throwing one of his biotic stations behind him, satisfied with the ’konk’ of metal hitting thick skull bone.
“Whussa’?” Jesse groaned.
“Up and attem, soldier,” Jack growled out, knowing full well Jesse wouldn’t be able to parse together his voice behind a concussion, “There’s a Blackwatch base not far from here; I need to know where it is.”
“What? Blackwatch. Ain’t no… no Overwatch, no more.”
“McCree,” Jack barked, flicking a pointed look at the rearview mirror, “Sit up, cowboy. Listen.”
As if long dormant instincts finally kicked in, Jesse snapped to attention - though immediately regretted the decision due to the fuzziness turning into dizziness turning into nausea. Jack gave him a moment. “Blackwatch safe house. Carson City. Now.”
“Southeast, sir. Follow the tram tracks down to the outskirts; there’s a warehouse far on the edge; it’s under that. Passcode should still be the same: Morrison Eats Dicks, sir!” Jesse rattled off the information, though he nearly passed out from lack of oxygen quickly afterwards. Jack grit his teeth, choosing the best option and not further crippling one of Blackwatch’s best agents. After all, Ana would have his hide if he let her precious baby get even more injured than he already was.
They pulled up to the area not long after, Jack hiding the car behind a number of metallic crates near the entrance. He hauled a barely conscious McCree through dust ridden floors until the cowboy pointed out an inconspicuous looking pile of containers. Once they’d found the secret entrance, they sat at the hidden doorway for what seemed like an hour.
Jack finally conceded, rolling his eyes behind the visor. “Morrison Sucks Dick,” the yellow light turned an angry red, “I said the thing!”
“No, sir, it’s: Eats Dicks.”
“Dammit, Morrisoneatsdicks.” Jack growled. The ding that followed sounded far too smug to his aged ears.
Slowly trudging down the corridor, Jack found himself at a small, compact bunker equipped with provisions that could last them a few weeks, if they were careful. He looked around, spotting a doorway that likely led to a closed off bathroom. Or perhaps a small bedroom for whoever found themselves stuck here. He gave a small shout, letting McCree slip down to the floor where he made himself home with his hat over his eyes.
“Ana?”
“Shrike,” the woman in question corrected through their comm-link. Though her end had been silent for the past few minutes, it was clear that she had been keeping tabs on their conversation through Jack’s end of things. What she was doing out there, however, was her own secret to keep. It must have involved some exertion, because she was out-of-breath when she had to cobble a sentence together. “I’ll be there shortly, Commander. I’m just tying up a few loose ends.”
The link cut out briefly to the sound of a passing car. “Also, don’t take the password too personally. I made a similar one in the Costa Rica safehouse for Gabriel when I was angry at him.”
