Chapter 1

I stood outside of the closed door with my heart knocking against my chest and my right hand aching from pulling my footlocker down the hall. I hadn't knocked yet. I didn't know why I was so nervous. I was usually great with people. I was great with my fans, at least. But I hadn't met anyone like these people before. I sucked in my breath and knocked on the door.

It opened a few seconds later and a very large hand stuck out. I jumped back in initial shock at the size of the omnic in front of me.

"First day jitters?" it asked in a feminine voice, "Don't worry about it. Everyone gets jittery sometimes."

The omnic threw her head back in a gust of laughter.

"My name is Orisa," she said.

"Hana," I stated, "Hana Song."

"Come in, Hana. I'll bring your suitcase."

"That's alright. It's really..."

Orisa lifted up my footlocker like it was a feather and walked inside. I trailed behind, still feeling nervous.

"I'll take your things to the dorm room. All the other girls are there. We were actually just about to introduce ourselves."

"I'm just in time," I said.

Orisa led me through a large door and into what must have been the dorm room. Lined up against the walls were metal cots all separated by thin dividers. Different suitcases and footlockers sat at the ends of the beds. There was an open space in the middle of the square room with a big circle rug. Chatting around the rug were the eight women with whom I would share this dorm for the next two years.

What immediately caught my eye was how different they all were from one another. There was a bored-looking Latina in a dark purple skirt with half of her hair shaved off. Adjacent to her was a large pink-haired woman in a track suit which clearly outlined her muscly arms and legs And then there was a tall lady with shocking blue skin and a long ponytail. I sat in the open space between the Latina and a girl in a baggy, blue sweatshirt. She gave me a wide grin while the Latina ignored me.

When Orisa stepped into the middle of the circle, all chit-chat died down. It was clear who the leader was in this group. We all stared at her, waiting for a cue. Orisa held her hands out to her sides and smiled a robot smile.

"Welcome to the Overwatch Women's Division!"

The entire room then erupted into whoops and cheers. The muscular woman put two fingers to her mouth and whistled loudly enough to wake the dead. Even the bored girl next to me started clapping. I clapped and grinned until the circle was quiet again. Orisa sat down next to the muscular woman and addressed the room again.

"So," she began, "Obviously, we all have special skills. Gifts that we were either born into or developed over time. We will, of course, use those skills to our advantage in combat during training and in battle. Today, however, is about something else. If we want to fight together, we need to know each other so that we can do something called communication. We're going to go around in a circle and introduce ourselves. I want to hear your name, codename, where you're from, and your skill."

"Oops," interrupts the blue-skinned lady, "I seem to have the wrong room. I'm supposed to be in a military training program. Not a kindergarten classroom."

"Lighten up," said Orisa, "I'll start us off. My name is Orisa, but you probably all know that already. I go by Orisa as a codename as well. I was assembled by Efi Oladele in Numbani, Africa, the City of Harmony."

At this, the muscular woman scowled, but Orisa ignored it.

"I am the skilled guardian robot of Numbani. My duty is to protect all who reside on Earth, human or omnic."

Orisa gestured to the girl in the blue sweatshirt.

"My name is Mei-Ling Zhou but you can just call me Mei on the battlefield. Xi'an, China is my birthplace, but I've lived in Antarctica working as a climatologist for years. My skill is environmental science. I fight with ice."

I decided to ask no more about this odd comment.

"My name is Fareeha Amari," said the black-haired girl next to Mei, "You may call me Pharah while on the battlefield. I was born and raised in Egypt where I worked for Helix Security International as a Security Chief. I prefer long range combat with my rocket launcher."

The muscular woman was next to introduce herself.

"Hello," she said in an extremely thick accent, "My name is Aleksandra Zaryanova, but I prefer Zarya both on the battlefield and off. I am from Russia, where I worked as a professional weight-lifting champion."

"I knew I recognized you from somewhere!" said a young woman in a British accent.

"I am well known in Europe for being an athlete," said Zarya, "I use strength as my skill. As well as a very large and powerful gun, of course."

We all laughed at this, although Zarya seemed completely serious.

"Your turn," said Zarya to the blue-skinned woman.

She sighed in return.

"If I must," she said, rolling her eyes, "My name is Amélie Lacroix, codename Widowmaker. I am from France, as is obvious from my accent. I am a professional sniper. That is all. Next?"

"I'm Lena Oxton," said the peppy Brit, "I was born in London, England, as is obvious from my accent," she mocked.

I made the mistake of giggling at this, prompting a warm smile from Lena but a cold stare from Amélie.

"I actually worked as a test pilot for Overwatch during its earliest years. I left but came back for the recall. My special skill is this baby."

Lena tapped a glowing blue circle device strapped to her chest.

"It lets me 'blink' forward in time and sometimes backwards. It's called a chronal accelerator."

All of these women had such interesting skills. Some even worked for Overwatch already. How was I supposed to compare to this.

"Your turn, love," finished Lena, addressing the next woman in the circle.

"My name is Satya Vaswani, but my codename is Symmetra," she began,"I am from Utopaea, India, also the proud home of the Vishkar Corporation. Vishkar came up with revolutionary hard-light technology. Its purpose is to turn light into being. Hard-light is my weapon of choice."

The Latina girl was next.

"If I must introduce myself, my name is Sombra. The rest is confidential."

"At least tell us where you're from," said Mei.

"Fine," scowled Sombra, "I was born and raised in Dorado, Mexico. My weapon is my brain and my skill is hacking. Can I be done?"

"Nice to meet you, Sombra," said Mei, obviously not meaning it.

It was my turn, and I found that I wasn't quite as nervous as I was when I first walked into the room. All of the women turned to look at me.

"I'm Hana Song, but my codename is . I was born in South Korea and I'm a professional gamer. I'm actually the number one Starcraft player in the world."

I found it unbelievable how stupid I sounded. In the room with me sat a weight-lifting champion, the guardian to a city, a Security Chief and more; here I was, bragging about video games.

"I fight with a MEKA given to me by the South Korean military."

"Well," said Orisa," Now that we've all introduced ourselves, let's get settled. Choose your beds."

"I call the one nearest the door!" said Lena.

She scrambled up and hopped onto the bed with all the agility of a cheetah leaping at its prey.

"In that case, I suppose I should take the one farthest from it," Amélie grumbled.

"Fine by me," Lena responded, fluffing her pillow and lying back to smile at the ceiling.

Amélie retreated to her new cave in the back corner of the room. The rest of the girls quickly chose their beds while steering clear of Amélie. I was unfortunately the last pick, so I was stuck sleeping in the corner across from where she dwelled. The other girls were going about their business making their beds and decorating the barriers between the beds with posters and family photographs and other stuff like that.

I got my footlocker from outside of the room and opened it at the foot of my bed. I made my bed with a couple of sheets and a big pink and green striped comforter. I opened the pocket that contained my photos and posters and spread them out on my bed. Out of these things, there were only a few that were really important to me. The pictures of my family, specifically my younger brother, Chen. Chen was killed in the military when the omnics began to attack our home. He was only seventeen years old but he was so brave. I missed him every day. I hung up the pictures of Chen last. The rest of the things in that pocket were Starcraft posters and letters from my fans. Although I loved my fans, they would never mean as much to me as Chen did.

Once I was done decorating, I realized that I needed to unpack my clothes. I looked around the room for a dresser or even lockers but I couldn't find anything to store clothes in. Instead of wandering around aimlessly, I decided to ask someone. Sombra was the first person I saw.

"Excuse me," I prodded, "You're Sombra, right?"

She looked up from her phone, obviously annoyed with my presence.

"Don't wear it out," she answered.

"I was just wondering where to put my clothes. I didn't see a dresser or anything."

"Ah," she said, "Hasta el culo."

"Ignore her," called Amélie from the corner.

"You understand me?" asked Sombra in surprise.

"I can speak Spanish, English, and French."

She addressed me.

"There's a storage space under every bed for your clothes."

"Thank you."

"Mm-hmm."

I finished unpacking all of my stuff, ending off with a tiny lamp and hologram plant on my footlocker.

After I finished taking a shower, I came back to the dorm to take a nap before dinner. When I was on my way to the back of the room to my bed, I noticed Mei sitting on her bed and looking through a book of pictures. They all featured her and the same group of people with mountains, jungles, volcanoes, and more as the background for each photo. She saw me peeking and smiled at me.

"Want to see?" she asked.

She scooted over on the end of the bed and patted the empty spot. I sat down next to her and observed the pages.

"Wow. You really travel a lot, don't you?"

"Yes," she beamed, "I study environmental patterns all over the world. This is my research team."

She pointed out the group of people with her in every picture.

"I wish I got to travel as much as you," I said, "It just looks so amazing to get to see so many places."

"It is," she said, "You don't get to travel?"

"No," I began, "Well, I guess I get to travel sometimes for meet and greets. But never outside of Asia."

"Meet and greets?" she asks, "What are those?"

"It's basically when I go to convention halls and meet fans. I give them autographs and stuff like that."

"They adore you, don't they?"

Just then, the loudspeaker on the ceiling crackled and a man's voice came through.

"Soldiers," it echoed, "Please make your way to the dining hall for a welcome dinner. You have seven minutes."

"Get up, everyone," said Orisa.

Mei and I stood up, everyone else following soon after. Lena moaned but obeyed Orisa's order anyway.

There were five buildings on the Overwatch Training Campus. The one in which we were currently in was the women's dorm. Next to that was the reciprocal; the men's dorm. Facing the dorms was the main building which held the dining hall, the public restrooms, a lounge with a fireplace, and more. Finally, the two buildings behind the main building were the buildings used for training. One of those buildings was the gym, which we would use to learn new fighting techniques and use them against the training dummies. The fifth and final building was the class building. This was the place where we would take classes on omnic history, weaponry, weapon design, and other things like that.

The main building was the one to which we were going now, me walking alongside Mei and Fareeha on my other side. As we walked through the grass, I felt a light breeze cross our path, prompting me to pull my sweatshirt across my chest. Although Mei was only wearing a t-shirt and shorts, she looked completely unaffected by the cold. I assumed she was used to it after living in Antarctica for so long. I was relieved by the warmth when we walked into the dining hall.

The room was buzzing with conversation and laughter. About half of the tables were full with the men's sector. In the back of the room, there was a table at which the instructors sat, the original members of Overwatch who would train us into the team.

Mei, Fareeha and I took our place at an empty table near the men's sector, closing the barrier between the two groups.

I took off my sweatshirt and placed it on my chair to save the seat. I then got up and went to the food counter with Fareeha and Mei. I got a plate of steaming spaghetti with sauce and meatballs. As I walked back to the table, I had the displeasure of finding someone else sitting at the seat next to my sweatshirt. When I got closer, I noticed with surprise and concern that his hair was smoking. Not in the way that it looked good. The man's disheveled spikes of hair were literally smoking. I tentatively approached him.

"Excuse me," I muttered.

He didn't hear me so I said it again, louder this time.

"Excuse me."

"Uh-huh," he said in an Australian accent, "Excuse you."

He turned around and I saw his face. It was streaked with dirt and grime. His nose was as sharp as a knife nd his eyes were red and gooey. He looked like a dog with rabies.

"I was sitting there."

"And now I'm sitting here. Your point?"

"Will you please let me sit?" I pleaded, "I was just getting food. I was about to come back."

"Early bird gets the worm."

"But-"

"Leave her alone, Junkrat," said another voice from behind us.

I spun around and saw the source if it. An attractive man about my age with cocoa colored skin and a long dread lock ponytail. I thought I recognized him from somewhere but I couldn't figure it out.

"Sorry about him," the man said to me, "He's just trying to piss you off."

"Stay out of it, Skrillex," said the man named Junkrat.

At that moment, I realized who this guy was.

"Just leave. It'll be easier than sitting here arguing for an hour."

"Fine," dragged out Junkrat.

He sulked away, but not after exaggeratedly rolling his eyes.

"Thank you so much," I said to the man.

"Any time. I hate that guy anyway. By the way, I'm Lúcio."

"Hana."

"Pleasure to meet you, Hana," said Lúcio, taking my hand to shake it.

Just then, Mei and Fareeha came back to the table with their plates of food.

"Did something happen?" asked Mei, observing Junkrat's dirty handprint on the table.

"It's all taken care of," I said.

I looked back at my new friend Lúcio, who gave me a wink and a smile.