#(yeah Aras betrayal really fucked him up)

[ssreeder]

happy april friend!! hope you're well. not gonna lie i live for the drama so this chapter was sooo great ah! as soon as general how showed up..... i knew shit was gonna go down. so good, man

'for the very first time in their life, she was afraid of him' holy MOLY my jaw was dropped for like 90% of that final interaction between sokka and katara. generally speaking, if one's reaction to being caught in a lie is to double down on their stance of not lying....not great. not a good look sokka. im glad katara got out of there to clear her head and go back to aang, but now i'm worried sokka's going to lose his mind and temper even more (is it possible?!?) once left and the realization of how he's treating everyone comes crashing down on him. because he doesn't want his sister or anyone to hate him or especially be scared of him. this one may hurt :(

and zuko being so certain that iroh wasn't real was so heartbreaking....i feel like being in and out of consciousness doesn't help wounds of the mental/emotional variety because memories are all weird so it's hard to make progress. hopefully katara works her healing magic so zuko can have actual conversations for a meaningful amount of time.

very excited for the next one obviously, but this was some good food!!!!! hope your upcoming week is swell. take care of yourself!!😠do a facemask or something. buy a tasty treat. you deserve it <3

General How: first decent military figure in LIAB.

*every time he shows up chaos ensues*

Sokka is such a mess right now its like pulling pet hair off a black shirt without a magic-fix-all lint roller. So he will probably do what he always does and blame himself and sink a little lower into his depression unfortunately. He did realize his mistake the moment the word left his lips but it was too late, the damage had been done.

Katara instigated the fight, but we are talking 14 & 16 year old trauma filled siblings who are used to bickering and probably didn’t expect it to escalade to this…. Sokka wasn’t going to budge the way he would normally when katara got upset and after she pushed a little too hard he snapped.

UGH Zuko haha…. Poor guy. Don’t worry Katara is going to do her best next chapter to help him & fingers crossed!

Thanks for the ask anon you’re amazing!

#ughhh sokkas situation is so difficult #because out of katara and Sokka he was the more passive one #katara is emotionally explosive and lashes out and Sokka always kind of took it #like in canon when she told him he didn’t love their mom the way she did #and he didn’t say anything #she never even apologized (I’m sure she did but she didn’t on screen) #& now katara is even MORE emotional but we have SOKKA who is…. also emotionally explosive #mixed with aggressive and trauma with women #(yeah Aras betrayal really fucked him up) #he is going to have to unlearn those habits #which will be hard #because Hakoda was JUST STARTING to try and help Sokka control his words and outbursts #then Zuko was taken and Sokka reallt spiraled after that lol #I think once Zuko is back with Sokka he can relax a bit? #it might calm him down so he can start being more open to healing #rather than worrying and missing Zuko constantly #their codependency is STRONG #it’s unhealthy but it’s also the only reason they survived #I know Zuko is probably fighting to stay alive so he can get back to Sokka #ok wow I rambled #sorry #thanks anon!! #liab #itf #ask

[solarbird]

"A motion blip," Sombra said. "Got him. North. Just over 400 metres, moving erratically, but mostly away - further north."

Amélie nodded, and checked with everyone on her team. "All secure?" She asked, verifying, breathing a sigh of relief as she received a chorus of affirmatives. "Gabriel?"

"All good here," he said, as Laticia nodded. "North?"

"Yes. He must've been making his way out from us the whole time."

"Abandoning his friends, again," Lacitia growled. "Running, again."

Venom heard the growl, and knew that anger, and sympathised. "Yeah. Sorry, luv. I guess you've learned for real, now. It's what he's always done, once they're not useful anymore."

"Bastard."

"Got that right."

"Pursue?"

On the far side of the link, Lena sucked in her breath, as Amélie looked at her, expectantly.

She's ... she hasn't really had a shot, has she? Fuck, I want to be the one t'do him, I owe him, but... She shuddered, a little. ...so does she.

"Track and pursue. We'll take care of Ana. Don't approach, but... if you get a good shot... take it."

Angela glanced over at Lena, surprised again, and managed a little bit of a smile, and a little hint of not even so much as a laugh, but a pleased huff, and made sure Lena saw it, and Lena did, and her grimace softened, just a bit.

"Yeah," the assassin mouthed. "I know."

"I will call in a retrieval ship," Amélie said, quietly. "We can hold Ana in Algeria. When we do finally let her go, she'll find it easy enough to get home."

"Thank you," Angela said, reaching out to Amélie, and Amélie smiled, taking her hand, and squeezing it.

"It is nothing. She is no longer important, in our way - only in yours."

"In Fareeha's, eventually. I think."

"That is everything I meant."

The Widowmaker looked out, through the windows. "There is a useful clearing half a kilometre away, to the west, where I can trigger the beacon. He's still moving north?"

Sombra nodded. "I'm about to lose his signal, but yeah."

"It will do," Amélie replied. "Let's get moving."

"Yeh," Venom said. "This has gone on way too long. Let's just get this done."

-----

Jack felt the damper field take hold, again, and tried to shift to ghost, again, before it could, not getting there, not in time, not quite in time, and felt sicker for it. He hadn't been entirely able to keep himself together, ghosting in and out, since he'd recovered from the last time.

About half a kilometer, he thought. Got to find, got to find, got to find a way out. Got to find a place, a place, to rest. Hide out. Until.

He'd seen the ship coming down, fast, and did not hear it land, but saw it again as it climbed away. He'd assumed either reinforcements or evacuation, and now he knew which.

He heard a rustle, to his left, and spun, almost firing, before seeing Laticia Delgado step out of the foliage, and he paused.

"...Laticia?" he asked, his voice thick. "How'd you..." Then he saw the look on her face. The anger. The betrayal. "You didn't, did you. You're one of them now."

"They're about 200 metres away, Jack. I got here first, but they're faster than me."

"I know. I can feel the, the, I can feel it. But you're warning, warning, me. Why?"

"Because that's what I want to know. Why?"

Jack shook his head, trying to shake the buzzing out of it, the confusion. Spain. Switzerland. Wreckage. What. Why. "Why... why what?"

"Why'd you run out? Venom says it's what you always do. You run. You ran in Geneva, you ran in Mozambique, you ran when I got captured in Guatemala, and you ran here. Every time anything gets too close, you just abandon everyone else, and run. Why?!"

"I didn't want to lose you, Laticia," he managed, finding some focus. "You were good, before they got their hands on you. They..."

"They didn't do anything, gringo!" she shrieked. "You did. You ran. And you killed Ara! She was my last family and you didn't even have the guts to tell me. You pretended you didn't even know what happened to her, and it was all. Just. You." Her hands shook, her rage overflowing into them. "Why?!"

"Okay. That's fair. Not killing Araceli," he corrected, quickly adjusting his response. "That wasn't my fault, I, I, didn't even know it'd happened. Not for a long time. But..."

"But why?!"

"I have to stay alive. I have to."

"What makes you better than everybody you've left behind?"

"Because I'm the one who counts! I'm the one who knows, and I'm the only one who can ever prove it!"

"You son of a bitch. You weren't worth her." Lacitia raised her machine pistol, finger on the trigger. "You aren't even worth..."

"I am. And that's all that matters." Jack raised his rifle, so quickly, so impossibly fast, and fired, just as a crack resounded through the air, sounding not like a gunshot, but like thunder. The helix rocket he'd triggered exploded as it left his rifle, and he and Laticia both fell back, buffeted by the concussion.

"I think not," the Widowmaker said, coldly, from a branch high in one of the taller trees, as Angela flew in beside her, Venom appearing below and nearby. Gabriel, running hard, bolted over to Delgado, to check her for injuries, and pull her out of the line of fire. "It is over."

"You," he snarled, at the Devil herself. "It's always been you," Jack spun to face the medic and the sniper. "Hasn't it? From the very beginning. I finally got it figured out. You." Certainly and sarcasm mixed in his voice. "The angelic Angela Ziegler. The first and deepest Talon mole."

Angela, in her scarlet and yellow, frowned, sad, not even caring he'd blown the pretense of her cover. The dampener field, and all the shifting, it had been wearing at him, more than just at the edges, she could tell, and she shook her head at the soldier. "No, Jack. It was Amélie and Gérard. I had no idea, and neither did anyone else."

"Gérard? You expect me to believe that a fine man like Gérard would do... would cause... any of this?"

"You... we... knew nothing about him."

Morrison roared, and fired again, this time at Angela, the shot intercepted, again, by Amélie, who fired a third time, knocking the rifle from his hands, and as Morrison attempted to bring up his tactical visor, he shifted, somehow, and Angela gasped as he slumped, momentarily losing his form - whether despite the dampening field, or because of it, she didn't know.

"This... really is what you are now, isn't it, Jack?"

"I'm the one who matters!"

"Yeah," snarled Venom, done with waiting, done with it all. "Y'are. T'me." She laughed. "I've been waitin' for this for a long time, you motherfucker. Come at me!"

Morrison rallied himself and charged Venom, the closest on the ground, who grinned wildly, and didn't even pull her pistols, but swung, instead, throwing a teleportation-aided roundhouse right at his skull, a single punch full of so much rage and anger and sadness and regret that it staggered even her...

...even as it passed through his head, hitting nothing solid, his body slumping, not ghosting, but dissolving into a raging, semi-formed man-like mass, occasionally reaching out, striking nothing, holding onto nothing at all.

Lena shrieked and teleported back, terrified she'd be absorbed, but found herself alive, and almost as importantly, fully intact.

"You were right," Angela whispered to Amélie. "It is over."

The Devil flew down, looking at the shifting mass that Jack Morrison had become. He screamed, an incoherent noise of frustration and blind rage, formless, and void.

"What th' hell..." marvelled Venom, shaken, and more than a little repulsed.

"Oh man," Gabriel said, quietly. "That is not right." And Laticia, for her part, looked, and after a moment, said, "...no. That's exactly right." She tossed her pistol aside, and did not bother fighting back tears. "That's... all he ever was. A big, shifting... nothing."

"NO!" shrieked Venom, running back forward again, punching and kicking at the wraith, at what had been the last of Jack Morrison, all to no real effect. "I was supposed to... he was mine! I was gonna get... t'get... to... for me. For everybody back at Overwatch. For everybody he..."

Lena Oxton punched at the fallen, writhing form, twice, three times, hitting nothing but the ground, nothing but dirt, and rock.

"...I was... he was mine," she said, sobbing, as Amélie lowered herself to the earth and walked over, pulled her away, and held her tight. "He was mine."

"Not anymore," the senior assassin whispered. "Not anymore. Let him go. Please. For me."

Angela looked at the controls of the device in her hand. This... wasn't supposed to kill you, Jack. It really wasn't. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen.

She studied the readings, carefully, and nodded. Stability failure. System integrity failure. A runaway cycle of quick decay and repair, endlessly repeating. The worst-case scenario she'd worked out, years ago, and repaired, in later versions, in herself.

She could, just maybe, fix it in him, still. If she shut down the field, his form would stabilise. If they called in an emergency retrieval and got him to the right medical facility, it was just possible, if they moved quickly, he could be saved.

But then her mind's eye flashed, unbidden, to the sight of Lena Oxton, on the ground, struggling not to bleed out through the helix-rocket-sized hole in her chest.

The doctor focused down the field to just to the mass, maximising its strength, and keyed in the emergency nanite shutdown commands.

"I'm sorry, Jack," she said, almost meaning it. "But this is how it has to be."

She triggered the kill switch, and the last remnants of Jack Morrison scattered into dust.

#widowtracer #talon!tracer #pharmercy #phamercy #talon!mercy #old soldiers #lena venom oxton #amélie lacroix #widowmaker #sombra #laticia delgado (oc) #gabriel reyes #gabe is not reaper #angela teufel ziegler #angela ziegler #ana amari