Chapter Text
Your name is WIDOWMAKER and, theoretically, your chosen occupation is not feudalistic.
Yes there are captains, each vessel in the fleet a nation and all that, but loyalty to the Successor is absolute. Ships fly and attacks are made at a captain’s discretion, but there are few gamblignant left in the galaxy that have not flocked to Doomfist’s banner, where the safety of the herd is well-worth the small tithe they pay. There are those close to him, but this collection demands no lip service, holds no title of ensign, lieutenant, or commander. Factions do not spring up where his attention falters. Why would they? There are no ranks to climb: if they want to claim Talon for themselves, they will have to stand up and fight him for it in open battle, to which he will accept any and all challenges with a soft smirk. The Admiralty is up for anyone who is strong enough to claim it. A wilting meritocracy, where status is determined by how many caegars you can grab in a given run.
So then, where does this assembly leave you?
Whatever the unspoken galitime law of piracy supposedly is, allegiances have formed, and they appear to have done so with his blessing. For instance, he could have easily drawn Sombra back to his side once she’d gotten what she’d wanted out of her own schemes—her skills are not so common that she is a dispensable ally. But, he let her go without a fuss, merely that knowing smile of his as she drifted back into her friendship with the Aspirant. When he calls his inner circle, as he has now, the lines in the sand become clear: Sombra lounges near Zarya and Lynx, pretending like she isn’t. (As you catch sight of Lynx, your eyes narrow. You still have business with them, but that will have to wait until later.) You and Reaper, of course, ruin her air of nonchalance further by crowding her space.
On the opposite side, though not far enough away to clearly divide between audience and exhibition, Doomfist sits on his throne, a handful of trolls milling at the foot of the stairs. New recruits, as you’ll learn, but there is no need to inaugurate every wayward soul that ends up as a mercenary. He is plotting something.
Reaper hasn’t taken his eyes off the cerulean. You have known him to stare sometimes, a form of intimidation, but now he isn’t even shooting passing glares at the other two, his sole attention focused on the armored one.
“What is it?” you ask, low enough that Sombra will not hear.
He doesn’t seem to either. The room is barbed with something, so potent that even Zarya in all her density can sense it, though she doesn’t notice the way Doomfist is studying her like a curious lab specimen. He is clearly reveling in the room’s frustration, amused by our desire to begin whatever fool meeting this is meant to be.
So he starts. He introduces each troll one by one, and you watch Reaper watch. It is all inscrutable until-
“And this,” he says, and gestures to the shadow emerging from behind the throne, one that must have been there all along but somehow still escaped your sniper’s eye, “is Docterror Moira O’Deorain, one of my oldest and most loyal friends. She has done us a great service, securing more…volunteers…that are willing to aid us in our goal.”
Then everything—Reaper, Zarya, even the speech—leaves your thinkpan because the figure that steps down from the plinth is, unmistakably, a violet.
You have not seen a seadweller since you were a child. There is a strum of vengeance in you, the immediate flicker of territorial defensiveness because this creature is not only of your ilk, but she is old. Piracy is a young trolls game, more so because it draws in fast and kills early, but no troll this can become ancient without clinging to the empire with tooth and nail, clawing her way to the top and disposing of anyone who gets in her way. This is a woman not to be trusted. Her imminent betrayal is written in the thickened crown of her gills, her unscarred flesh, the ancient growth of her spiraling horns: here is a troll who has lived thousands, maybe tens of thousands of years, and has always struck first.
But she must also be powerful. Duplicity is a trick that runs out fast, and can only be one that tips the scales in your favor, rather than providing actual scales in your defense. Something about her makes your teeth gnash, her pure aura exuding aplomb in spares. That inexorable ooze of arrogance drives you crazy, because you know it is deserved.
You’re lunging at her before you have conscious thought.
If were asked, and you will be, you would say it was defensive. The only people who matter to you in the entire galaxy are in this room right now, feet away from what you have come to be absolutely certain is a threat. You’ve killed for less. But those days are long behind you and the last time this impulse struck so strong you slaughtered all of Sombra’s coadjutors in less than twelve minutes. Now you are fangs bared, claws aimed for a quick blow, giving her no chance to anticipate the attack. There is pain in against your sternum.
You are on the ground.
Her boot is on your throat and you scrabble, panic and bloodlust both flaring as you air leaves your body. She reacted before you even got to her, before you could even think-
She is smiling down at you. The pounding in your ears has deafened you to the commotion, but now only the eerie silence lets you know that shouting rang through the chamber not a moment before. Straining to gain control of your panic before it overwhelms you, you blink the lilac from your vision and see what has unfolded.
Reaper has his shotgun pressed to the Docterror’s temple. She is unfazed, and part of you realizes that she could knock if from his hand before his finger could even caress the trigger. Not only that, but the goldblood has her pistol raised, pointed at Reaper’s back, a look of fury on her face that seems impossible with lissomeness she had exhibited just a moment ago.
Beyond them, only barely within your line of sight on the cold and rusted ground, Sombra has gun pointed at the floor, barely suggesting its previous intention. The olive’s blade is at her throat.
Silence rings in the room, oppressive, the tableau unmoving. No one dares. Zarya and Lynx are there, as helpless, as useless as the rest of you, just standing while a dribble of purple slides down Sombra’s neck. Zarya’s eyes keep bouncing in-between. If you turn just right, you can see where Reaper has his second gun trained on the goldblood, and her cerulean friend is hefting a rocket launcher at him.
A rocket launcher, of all things. It’s almost funny. You don’t have enough oxygen to laugh.
Instead, the moment goes on, until finally, finally, Doomfist says, “well I think that is enough of that. Moira, would you let her up?”
She smiles, keeping her triangle teeth hidden neatly behind her lips. “Of course.” She steps off your neck.
You get to your feet, slowly. The other trolls do not relax: only their arms lower, or their swords withdraw. There is mistrusting looks in the corner of everyone’s glance nuggets, and as you slither from Moira, never taking your eyes off her, the volatility of a fully charged FTL core remains.
“Excuse my Aspirant’s friend,” Doomfist placates, voice warm and tinged with good humor that you do not feel in appropriate. “You know seadwellers, they tend to run a bit…hot blooded.”
“Of course,” Moira agrees. “Or natural propensity for violence is what has brought us to the top of the spectrum in the first place.”
He laughs. No one else seems to find it funny. “If there were any proof of that, it would be you, Docterror.” He claps his hands together, flesh ringing against bronze. “Well, that was quite the series of introductions. You are all dismissed.”
We look to one another. He stares, but does not repeat himself.
I slip away, first to escape out the door, but still slow enough to hear him say, “except for you, Aspirant. I would like to speak with you.”
Your name is ZARYA and you know exactly this feeling as Doomfist summons you back into the throne room. Long ago, what feels like a lifetime, your lusus burbled reverberations through your hive until you sheepishly slinked into the rumpusblock. She pointed one webbed claw at a shattered vase, decorum that had survived three hundred years of Heiress assassinations, yet for some reason low lay broken before you. You said you didn’t know what happened. She pointed her claw harder.
That shame is grating on you now, and it takes all your accumulated pride to lift your head and lock ganderbulbs with the Successor.
“I must say,” he says, an even voice, one he reserves for private conversations, “I’m a bit disappointed with that display.”
“Widow is-” Erratic, fiercely loyal. A dozen descriptors, but all of them sound like excuses.
“I was not talking about her actions,” he drawls. “Violets need one another to work off their aggressions, and Widow has been among her lesser for far too long. This was expected.”
You brain flicks to the way his eyes followed you not ten minutes before. “You. Planned this?”
At once you berate yourself. Of course he planned this, you should have presented it as a statement, not a question. This is why you have Lynx coach you on such things, you are no good at these games of power.
“Yes,” he affirms what you both already know. “I arranged it as a test. I wanted to see what you would do when negotiations fell apart, how you would handle infighting amongst your crew. You fell short of my expectations.”
“And what gives you the right to test me, Successor?” It takes no effort to summon up the required offense in your voice. In fact, it is almost more difficult to keep the rest of it down.
He stares at you, down the zigzag incline between you. “You thought you came to me as an equal, but you were sorely mistaken.” He holds up a spiked hand before you can retort. “That is not your fault. Alternia is meant to cull the weak, letting only the strong arise and join their brethren amongst the stars. You spent your youth wrapped in theory, hiding from your sister, too reliant on your Strategos and other friends. If you cannot control your people, you will never be my equal, let alone the Empress’s.”
That shame comes back, and you can’t help but glance away. He says things you know, that you aren’t a good leader, that you’ve arrived here on the skills of others and sheer dumb luck.
“But-” he says, and you’re able to look up again. “That can change. There is still potential in you Zarya, that you do not deny your failings has cemented my decision.”
“What decision?” Control yourself, no suspicion in your voice, completely neutral.
He knits his fingers together. “Tomorrow night, your training will begin. I will grind you down to your barest essentials, your mind, your body, your essence, and build you again. In time, if you commit, you will shed your old weaknesses behind.”
You can imagine it, what training the Successor will entail. Your bloodpusher beats a little faster. “And what do you gain from this no-longer alliance of equals?”
His fangs glint, as long as any purpleblood’s. “You will be the sword that pierces the Condescension’s heart, and I will be its smith.” The voice that comes from him seems to ring of a thousand dead, and a thousand more to come. He sits back. “But that will be all, Zarya. Return here tomorrow, nine sharp. We have much to do.”
So you are dismissed. You flee from the room, knowing whatever game has just been played, your loss is coming faster than you think.