Chronal Disassociation Ch. 72 (Patreon)

A week after their meeting with Captain Myung, Lena finally watched MEKA Squad lose a fight properly.

It was considerably more encouraging than it sounded. On the simulator’s main display, Yuna’s mech backed through a gap between two ruined buildings, keeping its shield angled towards the intersection while the others withdrew. Hana had stopped arguing about the enemy’s remaining armour three minutes ago, which Lena considered a personal victory. They were still taking too long, and Kyung-soo had nearly reversed into Seung-hwa twice, but nobody had broken formation to chase a kill.

A large hand settled across the street behind them, its fingers carefully avoiding the ruined buildings even though there was nobody inside them to complain. Kingprotea leaned into view above the rooftops, peering after the retreating machines with an expression that made the whole exercise look rather less like urban combat and rather more like someone searching beneath the furniture for a lost toy.

She had ‘woken up’ about three days ago, although Lena still wasn’t entirely certain that was the right way to describe it, and had very politely asked whether she could play with her new friends. There had been something difficult to refuse about the request, particularly when the alternative was explaining that everyone else was busy practising how to shoot things. Though, judging by how Archer had shrugged, maybe they didn’t have to worry about that.

It had only taken a few minutes (and for Kingprotea to look like she was about to cry) for the Overwatch team to agree. Captain Myung looked like she had eaten a lemon when they informed her, but agreed to it regardless.

“Remember, you’re trying to stop them reaching the exit.” Lena reminded her.

“I remember.” Kingprotea replied earnestly, moving her hand towards the next intersection.

Another thing that had changed was that her voice was apparently a lot less scary when she was speaking without the helmet she wore. According to her, the helmet included a voice changer that Kingprotea was supposed to use whenever she wore it. Right now though, while the giant girl was without it, showcasing her very expressive features.

Hana and the others had been streaming the entire exercise, their cockpit feeds arranged beside the spectator view on a separate monitor. Judging by the speed at which the chat was moving, allowing Kingprotea to join had been a popular decision.

“There.” Lena pointed at the smaller feed, where Jae-eun’s warning lights had begun flashing, “He’s losing power.”

“I can see that.” Archer replied. He stood beside the console with his arms folded, watching the squad’s communications rather than the larger battle display. The past week had given Lena plenty of opportunities to see him occupied, mostly with training schedules and arguments over what constituted an acceptable meal. She still hadn’t decided whether that was helping him, but at least the pilots were eating before he started making their lives difficult.

That Archer had taken to cooking the meals definitely didn’t mean anything.

On the screen, Jae-eun’s mech stumbled. Yuna immediately called a halt, then ordered Hana back to cover him while Seung-hwa moved alongside. Lena leaned forward, waiting for the inevitable request to restart - they’d become quite fond of asking for those whenever a technical failure interfered with whatever clever plan they had worked out.

“Leave it.” Yuna’s voice came through the speakers, strained but clear, “Casino, eject. Overlord, do your thing.”

Archer’s hand paused above the controls.

Lena looked at him, then back at the display. The abandoned mech represented most of their remaining firepower, and the extraction point was still two streets away. Her eyebrows raised as Jae-eun followed the order without question. Normally, there would be some friction when you were told to leave the safety of a mech at a moment’s notice.

Unless they knew what they were doing.

“Got it!” Seung-hwa’s comms display showed that he was grinning widely, as Jae-eun’s mech initiated its self-destruct sequence. Which, when Lena thought about it, was absolutely insane. Who had the bright idea of putting a self-destruct sequence inside a mech that was being piloted by actual teenagers?

As the mech started to break down, it suddenly didn’t. Instead, it froze in the middle of the air, surrounded by an aura of blue light.

Three of Seung-hwa’s drones settled around the wreckage, drawing the scattered pieces back into a shape Lena recognised. Armour closed over the exposed frame, a replacement leg took form beneath it, and the warning lights on Jae-eun’s display disappeared one after another. By the time he doubled back towards the opening cockpit, she had turned to Winston, who was adjusting his glasses with rather more care than necessary, while a subtle aura of satisfaction exuded out from him.

“Woooow!”

Kingprotea’s hand stopped just short of the repaired mech, and her face lowered into Jae-eun’s feed until there was very little room left for anything else. Lena watched the girl turn her head, inspecting the newly restored leg with an interest that had apparently displaced the entire purpose of the exercise.

“It looks just like an action figure.” Kingprotea said, delighted, “You can put it back together!”

“Preferably while I’m not being shot at.” Jae-eun replied, steering around one enormous finger.

On the streaming monitor, the messages were arriving too quickly for Lena to follow more than a handful.

[PewPew_Norepeat]: hold on go back. there was NOTHING where that leg is now[JunkBall]: @PewPew_Norepeat i thought the camera switched to a different mech[Salt_Free_Gaming]: Same one. Casino's still outside it[Gwishin_Slayer]: oh thank fuck i thought he was gonna have to run the whole way[ceroCooldowns]: how long have they been able to do this and why am i finding out over instant noodles[BobaKnight]: She's so happy about the little robot :D[remsleep12]: @BobaKnight little robot has a military procurement budget[BobaKnight]: let her have this[Bookwyrm]: Nobody on the team sounds surprised. Did they set this up?[lagswithc]: tracer looking at winston LMAO

Lena glanced away from the monitor. Apparently, the spectator camera had caught that too.

“Something you’d like to tell us?”

“I helped with the power distribution.” He replied, watching Jae-eun scramble inside, “The reconstruction process was Seung-hwa’s work.”

Archer looked between him and the screen, his hand finally moving away from the controls, “I take it this is something you’ve actually tested.”

“On an unmanned chassis this morning. The simulation is using the recorded results.”

“Protea.” Archer said, bringing the girl’s attention back to the withdrawing squad, “They’re getting away.”

“Oh! Sorry.”

Her hand swept towards the intersection, and Hana’s delighted laugh abruptly became a shouted warning as Yuna ordered everyone left. Kingprotea had remembered the objective just in time to block their shortest route, forcing the five machines into a narrow passage beside the buildings. Lena sat forward again as Seung-hwa squeezed through last, his drones scattering above him while an enormous fingertip followed him almost to the corner.

The chat seemed particularly pleased with that.

[Tokki_Simp_No1]: wait overlord is still back there[Gwishin_Slayer]: hes through hes through[Salt_Free_Gaming]: That turn was actually clean. Thought they'd jam the whole alley[InCoGtAb]: i pulled my feet up on my chair when her hand came down ngl[Tofu_Titan]: @InCoGtAb same. apparently watching on a phone does not help[matrixwasbad]: she sounds so NICE while doing it too that's the problem[PewPew_Norepeat]: clipping this for everyone who voted training streams were boring[DoManOr]: @PewPew_Norepeat too late [Clip][JunkBall]: i was one of those people. fair[PewPew_Norepeat]: @DoManOr how?????

Hana glanced towards her own camera just long enough to grin, “You guys wanted a boss fight, didn’t you?”

Lena waited until the last of the squad crossed the extraction boundary before ending the exercise. She had several questions, but the most pressing one was how Winston had managed to spend a week helping a teenager rebuild exploded military hardware without thinking that warranted a mention over breakfast.

…

“I got the idea from your swords.”

Seung-hwa held Winston’s tablet between himself and Archer, apparently oblivious to the way his teammates had gathered behind him to watch their instructor’s reaction. Lena leaned closer, examining a recording of three drones working over something she would have confidently described as scrap.

“You always know what you’re making before you start.” He continued, “My drones were checking every damaged component individually, so I thought, why not give them the whole mech? Then they only need to compare what’s there against what should be there.”

“And reconstruct the difference.” Archer said, studying the recording with considerably more interest than Lena had expected, “Including components that are no longer present.”

Seung-hwa nodded, “They recycle what they can and use stored material for the rest. Winston helped me stop the power draw from shutting everything down halfway through.”

“The assembly order also needed some attention.” Winston added, “But the underlying method is his.”

Lena watched a cockpit emerge from the blue light, then glanced towards Jae-eun. His willingness to abandon the mech made considerably more sense now, although she suspected that would take rather longer for her to get used to.

“What if the whole thing’s destroyed?” She asked.

“Then I just need enough material for a whole mech.” Seung-hwa brought up another diagram, his grin widening, “The template itself stays with my drones. There doesn’t have to be anything left.”

For a moment, nobody spoke. Lena looked at the boy, then at Winston, who seemed entirely too pleased with himself. A week, and they had apparently decided that losing a machine should only be a temporary inconvenience.

Lena might have remained impressed for rather longer if Hana hadn’t nudged Yuna with her elbow, looking between their instructors with the sort of satisfaction usually reserved for a particularly unpleasant trick in the simulator. Yuna managed to keep her expression mostly straight, but Jae-eun had turned away, and Kyung-soo wasn’t making any attempt to hide his grin.

“You lot knew.” Lena said, looking from one face to the next, “All of you.”

“We were there for the test this morning.” Yuna admitted, finally allowing herself a small smile, “Seung-hwa wanted to show you once we could actually use it.”

“Hana wanted to show you three days ago.” Jae-eun added.

“It worked three days ago.”

“The cockpit wouldn’t open.”

“Which is why we waited.” Yuna interrupted, before Lena could ask whether anyone had been inside it at the time. Seung-hwa was still holding the tablet towards Archer, although his attention had shifted to his teammates with a distinctly betrayed expression. Apparently, faulty cockpit doors hadn’t been part of the presentation they had agreed upon.

Lena folded her arms and turned towards Winston, who was beginning to look as though he regretted standing within reach.

“And you helped them keep it quiet.”

“They asked.” He replied, then glanced at the pilots, “I thought they should have the opportunity to present their own work.”

That was sufficiently reasonable that she had to settle for giving him a look. She could hardly complain about them wanting to surprise their instructors when she had spent the better part of the week encouraging them to think for themselves, although she would have appreciated knowing before Jae-eun apparently decided to blow himself up.

Archer handed the tablet back to Seung-hwa, his gaze lingering on the last frame of the recording.

“You’ve done well.”

The boy stopped smiling quite so broadly, which was an odd reaction until Lena noticed the way he glanced towards Yuna, apparently checking that she had heard it too. Hana opened her mouth, but Yuna caught her sleeve before she could spoil the moment.

“Thank you.” Seung-hwa replied, holding the tablet a little closer to his chest.

The chat had noticed that too, although Lena wasn’t entirely certain Seung-hwa would appreciate how many people had apparently decided to save his reaction.

[DoManOr]: saved the reaction [Clip] leaving the awkward pause in because it's important[Overclock99]: overlord trying so hard to answer normally :crying:[Pixel_Paladin]: I'd be unbearable after that. Bring it up at every briefing[seraff]: my brother sent me that training clip with "is this your mech show" and now he's watching too[remsleep12]: @seraff mine still thinks the swords were edited in[InCoGtAb]: is archer doing another round today? missed the first one live[Tofu_Titan]: Watch the full recording if you can. The cuts skip all the setup[matrixwasbad]: honestly watching him explain why something didn't work was the best part[Giwshin_Slayer]: someone tell overlord to put the diagram on screen i cant read it from here[Gwishin_Slayer]: @Giwshin_Slayer STOP MAKING ME LOOK LIKE I WANT TO LEAK MILITARY SECRETS!!!!!!!

Lena glanced towards Archer, who was asking Winston something about the test chassis and appeared entirely unaware that a considerable portion of the audience had turned up specifically to watch him. His performance in their first training session had attracted rather more attention than any of them had expected, herself included. She had known people would be interested, obviously. Watching someone produce swords from apparently nowhere tended to have that effect. She hadn’t anticipated how quickly the footage would escape the people who knew they were watching a training exercise.

There were slowed recordings, enlarged recordings, and recordings with big red arrows helpfully pointing towards things that were already perfectly bloody visible. One particularly determined commentator had spent several minutes explaining a movement Lena had watched Archer make in less than a second, then reached a conclusion she was fairly certain would offend him. Someone else had put music over the whole thing. Those ones were filled with comments from all over, though she had to ask; what the bloody hell was ‘gar’?

Don’t get her wrong, she wasn’t at all jealous of him. She could do very much without any attention at all. The amount of comments just from people ogling her were both flattering and creepy in equal measure. Winston was in the same boat as her. Reinhardt practically thrived in the attention, Genji was indifferent, and Sombra was…not in the base.

Apparently there was some kpop group that she was more or less obsessed with that was doing a meet and greet at the nearest mall. Technically, she shouldn’t be out there, but who was really able to stop an invisible woman from leaving? Other than Archer, that is.

At any rate, what surprised her more were the viewers who stayed when he wasn’t doing anything especially spectacular. They asked when he would be back, argued over things he’d said, and now seemed pleased because he’d complimented Seung-hwa. Lena understood that part rather better. Getting an unqualified word of approval out of him did feel like an achievement.

“Something amusing?”

Archer was looking at her now. Lena tilted the monitor towards him, keeping a finger beside the question about whether he would be fighting again.

“You’ve got quite the audience, you know?”

“So I gather.” He read a few lines, his expression becoming increasingly unimpressed, before looking towards Hana, “Can you change what they’re seeing?”

“Depends what you want them to see.”

“Anything but me.” Archer snorted, “Point it at paint drying for all I care.”

The chat erupted into a series of no’s almost instantly.

Hana’s mouth twitched, but she adjusted the feed. A moment later, the reconstruction recording filled the monitor, and Seung-hwa found himself explaining it again, this time to considerably more people than he had prepared for.

Lena settled back beside Winston. Archer had probably intended that to discourage the attention, but judging by the messages beginning to appear beneath the demonstration, it hadn’t worked.

She’d have to remember to ask if Emily had seen all of the memes on their next call.

Still, she couldn’t help but feel like she was forgetting something, something that should have been important.

…Where was Kiara?

…

A/N: So, I started my job yesterday. So far, the worst part (expectedly) is the commute. The people there seem mostly chill, but time will tell. With any luck, once my probationary period is over, I will be able to mostly work from home. With even more luck, it’ll only last a month before I get regularized.

As for the chapters, I will try to continue them, though like I said, the publish time will be slightly pushed back.