Showdown! The Best of the Best

Chapter Seven

Genji Shimada had not had many friends in his life. Had he been surrounded by people in the past, eager to be in his company? Certainly. That had never been called into question. But friends? People who were there for him, who cared for him, who would follow him and listen to his torments, forever bound to him through a true bond?

Those were few and far between.

And now, as he wandered through the rolling fields surrounding him, Genji felt as alone as he ever had.

Genji knew loneliness well, it was almost like an old friend of his. Something he was experienced with. In his youth, he'd been close with his brother, Hanzo, but that had changed after Hanzo had nearly killed him, at the orders of his clan's elders. Genji had then been outfitted with advanced cybernetics which were required to keep him alive. His life had never quite been the same after that.

The emptiness of this world was comparable to the gnawing isolation he'd felt in his own heart, at times. As a ninja, he was trained to sense and ingest the environment around him, to analyze and detect life. But Genji had found nothing but knee-high grass and cascading hills since he'd awoken in this place. Was he back in Japan? North America? China?

His Overwatch communicator was as useless as a paperweight, he'd found. He had tried to reach every member of the global peacekeeping organization, but had failed at every attempt. His only comfort now was the weight of his katana and the twin wakizashi about his waist. These were things he knew well, no matter what environment he was in. The weapons he had been trained to use since he was a small boy.

He wondered how he would look if anyone else in this strange land saw him. Genji knew he was an alarming sight for strangers:  a metal man with green eyes and a samurai sword walking towards them. But Genji wasn't there to hurt anybody, and he hoped he didn't have to. His only goal, his only focus at this moment was to get back home.

As he felt the ground shake beneath him, and froze, he wondered if he'd hoped for too much.

Turning slowly, Genji felt his mostly artificial heart skip a beat. In his time as a member of Overwatch, he had seen many things. But the mechanical, artificial monstrosity lumbering towards him, which rocked the earth in its wake, was unlike anything he had ever witnessed. Even the Omnics that plagued his world were incomparable to this stomping steel thing.

It almost looked like something out of a child's toybox:  an odd, disproportionate metal man with stubby legs and gangly arms that ended in pincers. Despite its odd construction, it moved with a shocking amount of grace. It marched slowly forward on two legs, almost the same way a man would. Three vertical eye-slits ran down its cap shaped head, and Genji wondered if the thing had seen him yet.

He got his answer when the cap-head swiveled toward him and began to glow red. It didn't take a genius to surmise the meaning of that movement. Genji alighted through the air as a shockwave of burning energy sliced through the air, igniting the grass where he'd been standing moments earlier. He landed in a crouch, drawing his katana. Whatever this thing was, it wanted to kill him. And now he was going to have to disable it before it could.

If it even could be disabled.

As the robot advanced and its eyes glowed again, Genji remained poised, awaiting an opening. Sure enough, he ducked to the side as the creature's eyes glowed a furious red once again. The blast scorched the air once more, but Genji flanked the robot, raking his katana along its side as he ducked away from the laser. The creature's head swiveled toward him in a three hundred and sixty degree arc, following him as he sliced away. 

He came away from the attack, winded and panting, but focused. Genji felt his heart sink into his stomach as he saw that the katana had not, as he'd hoped, cut the metal man in two. Rather, it had only left a trench several inches deep, which wrapped around its metal hull like a belt. What Genji failed to realize, in his dismay, was that he had left his guard down for just long enough. 

Genji felt the wind leave him as the creature swung with one of its awkward metal claws. It beaned him right in the diaphragm, sending him hurtling ungracefully. His katana flew wildly, twirling through the air and landing several meters away. Genji, too, was launched, and somersaulted for a few seconds before he made a dizzying, sickening impact with the ground.

The robot did not care that Genji was aching and felt like he might come apart at his limbs like some kind of pose-able action figure. It advanced immediately with the intent to kill. Genji got to his feet, if grudgingly, drawing his wakizashi. There was no way he could get to his trusty katana with the monster between him and it. Though the wakizashi were meant more as secondary weapons, he would need to make do for the moment. 

The mechanical monstrosity came forward, swiping once again at the darting silver man. Genji rolled sideways, feeling the ache of his sickening landing. Slicing outwards in a "V," he deepened the trench around the robot's torso. He felt some satisfaction as sparks flew, and the metal hull groaned ever so slightly. Genji noticed the robot's eyes begin to glow red yet again, and backpedaled.

Even as the air singed with the phenomenal bolt of energy released by the robot, Genji had a thought. He ran away from his foe, his speed too much for the bot to keep up with. The beam chased him, eating up the grass between Genji and the metal menace, but to no avail. Reaching his katana, Genji pulled it from the dirt where it had stuck. As the robot prepared to fire another beam, he leaped into the air, hurling three shuriken toward the robot's eye-slits with expert precision.

As he'd hoped, the shuriken lodged in the narrow eye-slits, causing the robot to stumble in some cheap imitation of confusion. The creature had no directive for this sort of thing, and began to swipe blindly at the air, rendered almost feeble without its method of sight. Advancing at a blistering pace, the ninja gave two concise, but deep, slashes at the gash in the thing's hull. Then, finally, roaring, Genji yelled out the command that many foes of Overwatch had come to fear:

"Ryujin no ken wo kurae!" 

The air seemed to be galvanized, hissing with green electricity. From Genji's blade, a giant, two-headed, emerald dragon materialized. It seemed to be comprised entirely of raw, otherworldly energy. Directed by Genji's blade, it was piloted toward the great metal beast. As the creature's rusty hull was enveloped by shining, green light, it collapsed to the earth with a titanic thunderclap. Its job done, the great green dragon dissipated. 

Genji panted deeply, sheathing his katana and the wakizashi. He waited several seconds before he was comfortable deciding that the metal monstrosity was vanquished. Walking a few dozen paces forward, he found the thing right where the ancestral dragon had toppled it. It was singed and dented from where the dragon had knocked it down. Genji gave a grunt as he pulled the shuriken from the eye slits. He cursed softly to himself as he saw that they were far too bent and frayed to be used properly anymore. That left only three that he now carried on his person.

Genji's brow furrowed. It was only now that he noticed a particular oddity about this robot, despite the fact that he had just done mortal battle with it. A crude shape, the letter "K," was roughly bolted into the monster's metal chassis. "K"? What did it mean? He wasn't sure.

But he knew he needed to find out. 

As he'd been doing before he had begun fighting the monster, Genji continued to advance toward the treeline. The woods that stood before him were massive, stretching out as far ahead as he could see, the darkness of the trees impenetrable. He figured the only way to go now was forward.

If there were answers as to where he'd ended up, and how, he had a feeling he would find them there.