Solar Storm (Overwatch Illari x Male reader)

Chapter One: The Wanderer

The lights in an old subway tunnel flickered, the low hanging device buzzing loudly. A bloodied and bruised man laid against a wall, a metal fist colliding with his chest that knocked the air from his lungs. He slumped over further, wheezing as he desperately clung to the point of impact. Four omnics stood above him, a null sector insignia on the centre of their chests. One bent down, its metallic hand grasping his throat as it picked him up off of the ground.

"I will ask for a final time before terminating your existence," it spoke in a monotone voice, its purple visor illuminating his busted up face. "Where is the wanderer? Why has he sent you?"

The man struggled to breathe, let alone respond to the question. Wheezing heavily, blood slowly trickled down from his head as he raised his hands and tried to pry away the hand of the omnic. He was scared, petrified even. He was never supposed to be here, he was never supposed to see the things he saw.

He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"I... don't know... what... you're talking... about..." his legs hopelessly kicked out underneath him, the pressure on his windpipe and the general lack of oxygen caused his face to swell up. "P-Pl...Please."

But his aggressor did not falter, keeping a firm grip on his throat before slamming him into the wall. Its visor began to glow brighter, the gun that took the place of its right arm clicked and hummed. Panic arose in his chest, his desperation to intake a proper breath of oxygen becoming increasingly evident as his eyes slowly turned more red.

The hanging lamp above them flickered on and off repeatedly, the purple hue from their visors providing the only source of light for a few moments.

"Then there is no acceptable reason for you to coexist with us any longer." Its visor flared up, changing from a dark purple to a rageful red. It raised the weapon to the man's chest, an orange glow illuminating the tunnel as a loud whirring followed after it. His eyes widened with tears forming at their sides, uncontrollably shaking with the dawning realisation that this was it.

"N-No... p-pl-"

His pleas were silence as the shot tore through his torso. The omnic's grip loosened as the corpse fell to the floor, a pool of blood forming underneath the man.

Silently, the null sector guards stared down at the body. Not out of pity, nor out of remorse or regret.

But out of slight fascination.

Humans were so fragile compared to them. The slightest fall, a hit a little too hard, an object flying a bit too quick. Illness, mistakes, conflict, the inability to move out the way fast enough.

Death followed.

They couldn't fix themselves the same way they could. They couldn't survive things that they could. They were flawed by nature, inefficient, slow, weak, fragile.

Inferior.

Inferior to all omnics.

The light above flickered again, the bulb glowing brighter as it buzzed at different pitches. The crashing of metal flooded the emptiness that hung in the air, all four guards spinning around on the spot with their weapons raised, red visors scanning over the darkness that now laid before the group. An object rolled out of the pitch black hall, rattling loudly as the four red gazed shone upon it. Their weapons crackled, resting on the precipice of firing as they tracked the approaching item flawlessly, wanting to see what it was before acting.

Reaching the light, the object slowly came to a halt. The clear insignia of null sector present on it before it rolled once more, a drained cyclops like eye staring at the group, the glass covering the visual scanner cracked and broken. The decapitated head of a fellow soldier laid before them, the lamp above them flickering on and off rapidly as blue sparks shot off into the air, loud screeches of electricity flowing from the source of light before it exploded. Glass shattered against the floor, the light dying out and secluding the abandoned tunnel to eternal darkness.