Overwatch:

Blackwatch Chronicles:

Overture

Summary: In his previous life Nashville Duggan was a stock car driver turned Blackwatch Agent with an addiction problem. Now under the alias Nitro, he's a freelance smuggler addicted to the thrill of the chase and has been recruited by Reaper to work alongside his former Blackwatch comrades in Talon. With the world teetering on the razor's edge: whose side will the remnants of Blackwatch side with? Will they bring ruin or salvation?

SOOOOO I fully blame OW's rich characters and world for knocking me off the fanficiton addiction wagon after 5 years of sobriety. Anywho the point of this Overture was too polish off 5 years of rust and I wanted it to be short and sweet. Also if the summary has you worried about this being mostly about OCs, don't be. The few in here are just supporting to the heroes we know and come to love over the last year or so. Also if you have any questions regarding characters or plot just send me a mesage over on my Tumblr: So without further adoo and fanfare let it begin!

It was a snowy winter's late afternoon in King's Row but while the weather outside was only slightly frightful in the flat of one Emily Duggan it was actually rather delightful. While snow fell outside and covered the streets of London, inside the rapid pitter patter of fingers hitting keys filled the flat. Emily sat in front of her computer with a frown and read over the paragraph she had just written. With a sigh she deleted the previous paragraph and then stood up from her chair and walked over to the kitchenette to make a new cup of coffee.

Emily was a freelance writer who dabbled in just about a little of everything. In early twenties she published a couple of young adult novels and web comics, in her mid twenties she worked as a script doctor for movies, and now in her late twenties she was more into non fiction editorials. Her current piece was an editorial on the state of omnic human relations. For the most part she tried to stay from political pieces. She was more into human interest pieces as opposed to more drab and morse that was the relation between humans and Omnics. She liked showing the good in the world not the bad. But her editor with The Global Examiner "persuaded" her into this, saying this would bring her back to the main stage again. A few years ago she had written an article for the New York Times on the Omnic War generation. She had hated writing the piece but she ended up winning a pulitzer for it.

As she poured herself a new cup of coffee, she began to think it was time end her time with the GE. Her current piece was just the latest in a series of global political editorials that she had written, and she was getting tired of writing the same thing over and over again. Atlas News had been offering her extremely lucrative offers to work in their London office as a correspondent. As she added a lit bit of whiskey to the coffee, she knew the real reason Atlas was offering her job: her connection to Overwatch.

While Emily herself had not been a member of the now defunct global peace keeping organization, she did have two close personal ties to the organization that would clearly count as a bias. First was her deceased cousin Nashville "Nash" Duggan. Nash had been a member of the infamous covert subdivision of Overwatch known as "Blackwatch". Emily never knew exactly how connected Nash was to the infighting that caused the explosion of OW's Swiss HQ, but she did know that he was KIA/MIA after the events that caused the collapse of OW. Her second connection was her girlfriend Lena Oxton, though better known to the world by her call sign "Tracer". While it wasn't exactly public knowledge that the two were in a relationship, if one was interested it would not take too much research to find out. And it was her relationship with Tracer that Emily knew Atlas wanted access too.

Several weeks ago Tracer and former Overwatch Agent/Scientist Winston, a super intelligent genetically modified gorilla, had foiled the theft of the DOOMFIST gauntlet by two mercenaries that went by the aliases of Reaper and Widowmaker. Since the melee for the gauntlet was recorded by security tapes and released to the public, the idea of OW returning was news across the globe. Opinions varied from person to person on whether former OW agents actively working together was a good thing or not. It seemed for once the world agreed to take a "wait and see" stance on this. So far she hadn't been contacted by any government agents about her girlfriends role in thwarting the heist, and for that Emily was thankful. Her various editors across the various publications that she had down work for in the past, now that was another story.

Heading back to her computer with coffee in hand, she sat back down in the chair and flexed her fingers.

"Time to get back to work," she said with a smile.

The pitter patter of keys once again began to fill the apartment. The pitter patter seemed to go on forever until the door to the flat opened up and a cheerful voiced beamed, "Cheer's luv the groceries are here!"

Emily smiled and chuckled at her girlfriend's variant of her famous catch phrase. She glanced over her shoulder as she saw Lena place two bags of groceries on the counter and began unpacking them.

"I still think you should have trademarked that saying years ago, if you did we would have enough for a villa on the Riviera," Emily said.

Lena smiled and replied, "I know Emms, but I couldn't do it in good conscious! I'm a hero not a stickler. Anywho I brought Fish n Chips for dinner." Lena pulled two take out boxes off Fish n Chips from one of the bags. And then turned to the fridge and pulled out some malt vinegar, tartar sauce and ketchup.

Emily rolled over from her chair to the counter and opened up the box and took in the wonderful smell of fried fish and potatoes. Grabbing the bottle of ketchup, she squirted some over her fries. She then grabbed a piece of fish and took a bite. He eyes lit up and said, "This is Halibut!"

"Murphy's got a fresh batch in from Alaska, was a tad bit more than the usual cod, but I figured it was fine to upgrade to the good stuff," Lena said as she made herself a cup of tea.

Emily finished chewing some fries and said, "Good idea, this article has been kicking my arse all day and I need some comfort food."

Lena pulled up a chair and said, "Me too Emms. Winston's been having me look into some recent weapons smuggling down at the docks. Apparently there's this new hot shot smuggler popping up here and there trading in weapons and drugs."

"Just guns and drugs?" Emily asked.

"We haven't seen any evidence of human or omnic trafficking, but the Big Guy's keeping his eyes open. Apparently he's got word that this smuggler possibly has ties to Talon," Lena added as she took a sip of her tea.

Seeing an opening Emily pulled a scrunchie out of her pocket and put her hair back in a ponytail and said with a wink, "Oh Cherie we meet again, have you come to bring me in?"

Lena's cheeks flushed bright pink and started choking on her tea as Emily started to laugh in a very bad french accent. Lena gasped for air and said, "Not funny Emms!"

Emily smiled and took off the scrunchie leaned in and kissed Lena on the lips. After a few seconds she said, "Sorry love, but your soo cute when you get flustered like that." She took a bite of some of her fries and added, "That being said having seen what she's running around in these days, I can't say I blame you. Sometimes I think Talon would make more money in cosmetics and plastic surgery than being a global terrorist organization. I mean Amelie was a knock out back in the day, but now...wow." After she spoke Emily mentally kicked herself and apologized. "I'm sorry I said that Lena, Amelie was a friend. I shouldn't make light about Talon turned her into."

Several years ago, back when she barely knew Lena, Emily was the plus one to her cousin Nash at an Overwatch family holiday party. There she had met Amelie and Amelie's then husband Gerrard. While not becoming super close to the LaCroix's, they did exchange a few season greetings holiday cards and she had accompanied Nash to Gerrard's funeral.

Lena smiled somewhat sadly and said, "Its ok. My hope is one day we can capture and undo what they did too her and take Talon down for good."

"I hope soo too," Emily said as she hugged Lena. The two resumed eating dinner in a quasi awkward silence until suddenly Emily's phone buzzed. Emily walked over to her work desk and picked up the phone and saw that she had received a text message from an unknown number.

The message read: You really oughta watch the news more.

Emily's raised her eyebrow at the text, but as soon as she deleted the message the TV sprung on. She spun around and her jaw dropped a bit. On the screen was the aerial footage of the Hong Kong shipping docks and how it had become something akin to a warzone. The docks were on fire and paramedics were dealing with multiple wounded individuals and firefighters were trying their best to put out the flames.

"This is Atlas News correspondent Jason Yi, reporting live from Hong Kong. As you can see from this aerial footage; we're here at the Port of Hong Kong mere minutes from what can only be describe as warzone. The Hong Kong Police were conducting a sting operation against the Triads who were receiving a new shipment of weapons. But during the operation and unknown third force interrupted the exchange between the Triads and their mystery arms dealers. While we do not have any proof as the identity of the third party, but from what some preliminary information we have gathered they seemed to belong to the terrorist organization known as Talon. We have footage from the firefight, please be warned the following footage might be unsettling to some."

The screen switched to what seemed to be a recording of a four way clash between the Hong Kong Police, the Triads, "Talon" and the smugglers. Lena blinked over to where Emily was standing and watch the TV trying to see if she could identify if it was Talon or not. She watched as what appeared to black cloud of smoke appear and reappear shooting at everything. She also noticed several of the police snipers being picked off from a distance.

"Looks like Reaper and Widowmaker to me," Lena said as she blinked back over to the table to grab her communicator to contact Winston. But Emily ignored her. Her eyes were focused on the screen on what appeared to be the smugglers. There were two of them. One female one male. The woman looked to be around 6'2 with dark hair and a solid build and seemed to armed with a pair of wrist gauntlets. She alternated between blocking shots with a circular energy shield projected from the right gauntlet and returning fire from her left gauntlet. Her companion was several inches shorter with swept back sandy blonde hair, a slim but firm build. He was returning fire from a pair of pistols. But it was the way he held them that jumped out to Emily. Suddenly she was filled with a bizarre feeling, some odd mix of anger,sadness, and relief. The video of fight ended and cut back to Jason Li in his new helicopter.

" Intense footage to be sure. At this time we are unable to ID ether the smugglers or the supposed Talon Agents. Stay turned to Atlas News for further details as this story develops."

Emily turned off the TV, but as soon as she did her computer gave off a beep, indicating she had received an urgent email. Lena noticed this too, and finished up her call with Winston and followed Emily to her computer. Emily opened the email and both were taken back by the purple on black email that said the following:

I hope you enjoyed the news report. But for a more tantalizing scoop listen to this.

Boop.

There was an audio file in the email that began playing:

"You arrived earlier than expected Mr. Nitro," said a female voice with a slight chinese accent.

"In my business Ms. Lin if you're not first you're last, and being last doesn't make you any money", was the reply from a rather upbeat and pleasant male voice with a slight southern drawl.

"Indeed. Though sometimes taking the time to do the job well is better than doing the job fast and haphazardly," replied the voice of "Ms. Lin".

"That's what I keep telling him; but you know Americans," said a strong female voice with a slight Greek accent.

"Now that was just uncalled for darlin'," said the American followed by an audible SMACK.

"What did I say about calling me "Darlin'"," said the second woman.

"Only in the bedroom," was the quick and snarky reply then their was a much louder THUNK followed by a rather audible but slightly overdramatic cry of pain. That was the end of the audio clip, and the message deleted itself after the audio finished playing.

Lena looked to Emily, who had walked away from her computer and slumped down on the couch. She followed and sat next to Emily and said, "Emms...I…" was all she could get out.

Emily sighed and said as she looked at Lena, "Ya know I always figured this might happen, no one ever found their bodies in the wreckage in Switzerland. I always thought that with as many chemicals and other enhancements they pumped into him I figured that his body would have at least survived the explosion." She paused for a moment then added, "Though I'm surprised that's been keeping such a low profile for such a long time. Cassandra must have actually smacked some sense into him...though judging from that audio he's still the big dumb idiot he's always been."

"Emily there could be another explanation," Lena said as Emily rested her head on Lena's shoulder.

"There is no other explanation Lena. My idiot cousin Nash is alive," Emily said. She then looked at Lena and added, "You're the only one fast enough to bring him in Lena, don't go easy on him though. Rough him up a bit for me will you."

Lena smiled softly and said, "Ok but only because you said I could."

Emily gave Lena a quick kiss and then stood up and said as she headed to their bedroom, "I'm going to go draw up a nice warm bath. You call Winston and tell him you'll meet up with him tomorrow because you have to comfort your emotionally drained and stressed girlfriend tonight. Don't make me wait too long."

Lena saluted and said, "Yes Ma'am."

She then got up to call Winston when she heard an additional, "Bring the bottle of Jameson and tell Winston he needs to redo our firewall. I don't want anymore mysterious emails about my idiot cousin's shenanigans or people hacking our TV!"

Lena chuckled and called Winston.

"Any new information Lena," the image of Winston asked.

"Unfortunately I do Winston. Emily and I received an email message with an audio recording of the Smugglers….and well….," Lena then exhaled and said, "the smugglers supplying the Triads were Nitro and Titan."

"But Nashville and Cassandra passed away in the explosion," Winston stated.

"Apparently not Big Guy. I'll catch up with you tomorrow and then we'll head out to Hong Kong. Emily needs me tonight," Lena added.

"Understood. I'll pick you up tomorrow morning, in the old riverfront shuttle bay. Tell Emily that Athena and I are sorry this happened," the image of Winston added before cutting out.

"WHERE'S MY WHISKEY AND MY LENA!" she heard cry out from the bathroom.

Lena shook her head and grabbed the bottle of whiskey and said, "The cavalry is on its way luv!" She then headed off to join Emily in the bath.

Fin