ONE MAN APOCALYPSE.

     And with that, like a taught wire, Rain snaps. She rises from her chair with enough force to send it falling backwards, palms slamming against the surface of the table before she stands at her full height and whips around to face Mako properly.

     “Between the years of 1990 and 2016 alone, humans removed more than 1.3 million square kilometers of forests and jungles, cutting down vast swaths of them faster than they could grow. During this time, a 2016 report released by the Food and Agricultural Organization stated that seven million hectares of forest were lost annually. In 2019, global scientists declared a twelve-year limit on Earth’s remaining resources, saying you were rapidly running out of time to undo the effects of deforestation and global warming.”

     She takes a single step, voice cold as ice and tone just as sharp. “From the start of human history to the beginning of the Omnic Crisis, an estimated 1.5 billion humans killed each other in wars alone. In the twentieth century, that death toll surpassed 108 million people in itself, and the number continues to grow. The omnic population following the Crisis has been more than halved, and now, even in places where we are meant to be safe, omnics who have never raised a hand to anything more harmful than a fly live in constant fear of assault, abuse, and murder.”

     By now, she’s almost up in Roadhog’s face, fear abandoned for rage long suppressed. “Ever since its foundation, the United States of America has been carried upon the backs of slaves and the corpses of Native Americans who were lied to, assaulted, and murdered in the name of a new nation. Starting in 2016, President Donald Trump started a campaign that demoralized and ultimately killed hundreds of nonwhite citizens, while others were kept in cages packed too tightly for them to so much as sit down.”

     Rain lifts her chin, fingers trembling not with panic, but with sheer, unadulterated anger. “In 2051, the Australian Liberation Front blew up the Australian Omnium, because they would rather condemn their friends, families, and innocent, uninvolved civilian strangers to a life of sickness and misery rather than share an otherwise barely-inhabitable land with omnics as part of a deal made with the Australian government.”

     The omnic raises a single graceful hand, reaching out to grab the curve of Roadhog’s hook. “And you, Roadhog, carry weapons as big as yourself, and stomp around acting like you’re the biggest bad in town, picking fights with bloody babysitters because you have no idea how to interact with anyone in any semblance of a friendly manner!” She shoves the weapon away in disgust.

     “Oh, and for the record,” Rain says, stepping back and taking a calming breath as she folds her hands behind her back, “The R-40 line, my brothers and sisters, are and always have been caretakers. None of us were reported to have deviated and killed anyone during the omnic crisis, so no, my brothers and sisters don’t destroy, unlike a certain someone. Knowing this, do you still want to talk to me about being different?”

         a grunt— rain is beginning to violate his personal space. she’s striking a little too close to home, personal flaws &. past transgressions; he doesn’t move a muscle, even as she’s guiding his hook around, playing with the sharp metal as though she thought he wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

         the heads of the nails on the hook pressing against her abdomen, he hopes, is evidence to the contrary. his eyes remain locked on her, never straying, never retreating— the leather of his gas-mask hiding the snarling lips just underneath the surface, barely rejecting the idea of hurting her. if he’s going to hurt her, he thinks, he wants it to be her fault.

         “you don’t know shit about the force.” his voice is more strained this time, not quite a shout, but certainly not a grumble. she’s got a way of spinning events to her benefit, he defends— the liberation force was not sacrificing the citizens of australia, he thinks.

         certainly, it was too late to make that call.

     Of all the things Rain is willing to deal with, this is at the bottom of the list, if not off it entirely. She has frankly had enough of no-good racist men trying to intimidate her, thinking themselves better — she angles her head towards the human, hands settling upon her lap rather than against his face, where she desires to slap the pride out of him — but that won’t solve anything.

     “Is there something I can help you with?” She repeats, slower this time, tone implying she’s speaking to someone slow in the head — and as far as she cares for Roadhog, she may as well be. Her fingers curl into the fabric of her skirt, a subtle, easy-to-miss action that nevertheless betrays her once more.

     “I don’t have the energy nor the time to sit here and, what? Debate my right to exist? You seem the type to care,” she observes mildly, voice gradually chilling, “So if you’re looking for a fight, I implore you, look elsewhere.”

          lax muscles tense, broad shoulders straightening. there’s still a part of him that fears the omnics as much as he despises them— the liberation force wasn’t constructed to shut down a potential threat, but instead something they didn’t understand— &. that made them frightening. too many unknowns, too many possibilities of a written moral code being overridden.

          sentience.

          “—shut up.”

          his voice breaks the rising silence— in his experience, robots didn’t often have this reaction. too many rely on the walls of nonchalance, believing that it would take them out of humanity’s crosshairs.

     This is fine. This is fine! He’s just trying to scare her, he’s just — Rain sets down her cup a little too forcefully to hide the tremor in her fingers. She doesn’t need to drink, nor is she able to, but she’s already having a frankly rotten day, and she just wanted a small comfort from home, not… This.

     “Good thing I don’t have either of those, then,” she quips, forehead array flickering. Her voice, so far, is steady, at least. She regards the human ( the man ) closely, trying her best not to seem too sharp — “Can I help you with something? Or are you just here to antagonize me?”

        — how cute. she’s almost threatening.

        he briefly contemplates how easy it would be to follow through on his word. a delicate little thing, omnics were — their crumbling metal bodies as fragile as their devotion to their ‘reality’, if it could be called that.

        the roadhog laughs. her barbed demeanor’s only skin deep, he can tell that much. it’s in the way she slams her cup down, infecting the small action with morsels of intent.

     You’ll be sorry.

     Rain goes still, pausing in the middle of the room. She had noticed the man, of course, on her way through the door, and she had also noticed the lack of anyone else; it seemed intentional, as though he wanted to be left alone, so she had ducked in with an apology blooming behind the hinge of her jaw, hoping to simply skirt around the edge and leave through the door on the other side of the room —

     — But no amount of time can break some habits, and Rain instinctively halts in her tracks as she’s addressed, no small amount of hesitant confusion in her frame as she turns to look back at the stranger. “I’m sorry?”

     If she had lips, she would certainly be frowning as she turns to face him properly, and there’s a strange kind of awful feeling settling in her gut and the tips of her fingers as she attempts to clear the air. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, I just… Need to get through… I’m Rain, it’s nice to meet you!”

        a prestigious place of beauty, high above the clouds &. petty criticism from the folks down below. snow-covered horizons &. cold metal bots, caricatures of past ‘heroes’, responsible for world unity, instead just memories of the crises long since past. the place was beautiful enough that it’d be a shame to desecrate it.

        a place that stood as a reminder that humanity were as divided by these bots as they were repurposed by them.

        her eyes are met with his own mirrored lenses, scanning her from head to foot; every shining piece of metal, every piston &. hinge — every hateful inch.

“I’m so hurt. And here I thought I was making a friend.”  He feigned a hurt expression as best as he could with the emotionless look the metal visor gave his face, hand reaching for his chest with a forced gasp. The larger junker was still a mystery to him, one he wouldn’t mind attempting to crack. The brute was like a brick wall however, and Genji was amazed he was still here.  “I pray for my fallen victims, but I do not take back what has been done.” 

           there’s an apathy that haunts the others’ body language, adhering itself to mako’s mind, demanding attention as it hovers behind his thoughts, a bitter reminder accentuated only by the cyborg’s nonchalance. the people felled by his blade were not people, it seemed— not people with families, lives. children.

    “When I was there everything looked different.”    Overhead the moon hangs surrounded by a freckling of bright stars. After years it never failed to capture his attention. Pale and lovely, ever changing, it is a reflection of every mistake. On Horizon looking down at the vastness of it all he wondered how anyone could possibly get used to the view. Not the stars, no, those distant time travelers his friend had said were alive and listening, but that blue planet. Earth. “Everything was put into perspective. In the cosmos that extends indefinitely for forever there’s only one Earth. It was all so distant that you could hardly see the damage.” 

    Hardly, but that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. Harold pauses, hands folding to lay in his lap.     “When you look at Australia what do you see?” 

          the philosophy rattles on like poetry, overstaying its welcome in the roadhog’s mind. you could hardly see the damage. the words draw a scoff from the larger man; it was an optimistic white lie. mako’s certain he’d have made the same argument all those years prior.

          his question earns a grumble, almost a snarl. he knows what he’ll see in australia; it’s almost a curiosity from the scientist that he hardly wants to consider. but, he relents.

gears moved upon his torso granting the frame a gentle shrug of the shoulders - a quiet acceptance that it was likely how most people saw it.

「 ༀ - perhaps; yet you can only have so much influence on others; and others have so much influence on you.

so although i do have some responsibilities it is mainly for myself

- so blaming myself for things outside of my control or influence is simply unnecessary grief.  」

         mako scoffs inside his mask, a raspy laugh following the vocalization. he thought it was pretentious that the machine thought he had influence— that he thought he could feel grief. he contemplates for a time whether that was even slightly true, if at all— the roadhog doubts he could recognize his own compassion, were he to feel it.

“Tch. Y’know, once upon a time I had meself a full head o’ hair. I think it was like me mum’s…?” Hm… “What was your hair like when you were a spry young bloke, eh? Was it luxurious? I bet it was.” 

He starts to picture it, but for some reason, his brain won’t make it a natural hair color. “I bet it’d look good pink. It suits ya.” Rat scratches at his own jaw a bit, head cocking to one side as his other hand drums the metallic fingers against the joint covers of his peg. “We should swipe ya some dye!”

         her facial features still haunt mako’s mind. one of his own soldiers creating the maniac before him.. it seemed ironic. the architects of their own distorted lives, &. one jamison fawkes is the physical representation of everything unjust about australia. he wonders briefly how the wopwops are doing this time of year..

          “overlong,” roadhog grumbles — but at least he answers the question. his lenses still haven’t fallen on the rat before him, staring fixedly at the pot of coffee settled before them.

              lenses stare fixedly towards the rat, never straying from his shape. the larger man is silent for a long time, watching the ember trickle further &. further down the lock of hair inconveniently locked into an upright position.

              mako reaches out, &. with two fingers, extinguishes the ember.

              “bald wouldn’t suit you.”