Scene 1 – The Seal Burns
The first thing Gerard felt was heat.
A sudden, biting pulse bloomed from his chest, searing him awake like a brand pressed against flesh. He sat up with a gasp, drenched in sweat, eyes wide in the dark. His hand went instinctively to his bare torso.
The seal.
It glowed beneath his skin—a spiraling brand of arcane fire, etched there long ago by hands he no longer remembered, save for how they trembled. In the quiet of the room, it pulsed like a second heartbeat. Cool blue in the center… but red now, at the edges. Cracking.
He's stirring, Gerard thought, breath caught.
Jay's waking up.
Another wave of pain throbbed through his core. It wasn't just heat—it was presence. Something massive shifting in the dark, deep inside.
He closed his eyes—and for just a moment, he saw it again.
The void.
A bottomless abyss inside himself, vast and burning. Floating in that hell was a figure—skeletal, hooded, a demon wreathed in blue fire like a living pyre. Jay.
He wasn't speaking. Just watching.
Waiting.
A fist slammed against the door.
"Commander Gérard! Sir!—there's been an explosion! Med-wing! You need to come now!"
Gerard's heart dropped into his stomach.
Angela.
He was on his feet in an instant, pulling on pants, boots, jacket—anything. The seal flared with each movement, heat building in his ribs like coals choking on air. He didn't wait for the officer to say more. He threw open the door and ran.
The world was on fire.
Gerard sprinted down the corridor, lungs burning, the seal across his chest flaring with every step. Flames licked up the walls around him. Metal groaned and cracked overhead. The air was thick with smoke and something worse—blood.
He barely registered the shouting as he pushed past the flood of Overwatch personnel.
"We lost half the east wing—"
"Med-bay's gone, I can't find her!"
"It was him—it was Reaper!"
Gerard didn't stop.
The hallway twisted, one side buckled inward by some kind of blast. Wires sparked overhead. He ducked under a sagging beam and forced his way through the rubble, ignoring the bite of broken glass under his boots.
Angela.
That's all his mind could hold.
His name meant nothing now. His orders meant nothing. The seal at the center of his chest—Angela's seal—was glowing bright and hot, like it was trying to hold something back. Like it was breaking.
He could feel Jay stirring beneath it. Restless. Hungry.
But not yet. Not now.
Stay with me, Gerard whispered internally.
Don't do this. Not yet.
He rounded the final corner—
—and saw what was left of the med-wing.
The far wall had collapsed. The windows were shattered, the roof scorched and crumpled. The doorframe was twisted, hanging by one hinge.
And the smell—
Steel. Blood. Burned flesh.
He stumbled, catching himself on the edge of the blown-out entrance.
The seal throbbed violently.
Then the memory came, unbidden.
FLASHBACK – First ContactThe lights in the lab were dim, the glass containment tube humming quietly behind them. The late-night silence had become familiar—comforting.
Angela stood close, staring at his bare chest. The seal glowed faintly in the blue wash of the monitor light, spiraling outward like a galaxy etched into skin.
"Still stable," she said. "That's good."
Gerard gave a weak laugh. "You say that like he's a patient."
Angela looked up, meeting his tired eyes. "Isn't he?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he exhaled and slowly sat down on the exam table. The air felt heavier than usual. The seal pulsed again—slower this time, more controlled. But present. Always present.
"Do you ever… talk to him?" she asked carefully.
"Not really," Gerard said, shaking his head. "He doesn't talk. He waits. Watches. I can feel it—like standing too close to a storm."
She stepped closer.
"May I try?"
Gerard hesitated. "You want to touch it?"
"I want to see him."
For a second, the old instinct surged—No, don't let her in. It's dangerous. But he nodded.
Angela reached forward and pressed her palm gently against the seal.
Everything went still.
Then—heat.
The air shimmered. Gerard inhaled sharply as his body seized. His eyes rolled back—then burned open again, lit with unnatural blue fire.
The seal flared. The light deepened.
His voice came out twinned—his own and something else layered beneath it, low and ancient.
"You're not afraid."
Angela's eyes widened—but she didn't move.
"Should I be?" she asked, barely above a whisper.
Flame rippled up Gerard's arm—not orange, not red, but a cool, pulsing blue. His fingers shifted—longer, skeletal beneath the skin. Something else was rising to the surface.
A hand lifted.
And reached for hers.
Angela didn't flinch. She met the touch halfway.
The flame brushed her fingertips.
It should have burned. But it didn't.
Her breath caught, and she laughed—a soft, genuine thing.
"You're warm."
The voice inside him—Jay—rumbled again, almost to himself.
"You don't recoil."
"No," Angela said, stepping even closer. "Because I don't see a monster."
Something inside Gerard stirred. Not fire. Not pain.
Something like…
Relief.
Present.
The flames had turned the med-bay into a grave.
Bodies were scattered. Some burned to ash. Others shredded—small, round holes punched through their torsos. Reaper's signature.
Gerard stepped forward, the world tilting beneath his feet.
He saw something white under a collapsed slab of ceiling—half-covered in soot.
A lab coat.
"No…"
Gerard dropped to his knees.
The white lab coat was scorched, half-buried beneath cracked concrete and twisted rebar. The embroidered patch on the collar was burned away, but he didn't need it.
He knew.
"Angela…"
His hands moved before he could think—scraping, pulling, bleeding as he dug through the rubble. Every piece of debris he lifted made his chest burn hotter, the seal screaming against his ribs.
He uncovered her legs first—pale and still. Her boots caked in soot. Then the curve of her hip. Then her torso.
Her uniform was soaked through with blood. Dark red. Too much.
Then he saw her face.
And something inside him broke.
"No…"
Her eyes were open.
Hollow. Unfocused.
There were holes punched through her—neat, round, and cruelly precise. BB-sized wounds, just like the ones that tore through the others. One in her abdomen. One through her shoulder. Another just above her heart.
Her mouth was parted slightly. As if she'd tried to speak before she—
Gerard couldn't breathe.
"No, no, no—please, please—"
He pulled her into his arms, holding her tight against his chest. Her head rolled limply into the crook of his neck.
The seal on his chest throbbed harder. Like it was warning him. Or maybe mourning with him.
His vision blurred. His hands shook.
He buried his face into her hair—gold stained red.
"I should've been here," he choked. "I should've stopped him—"
No answer. Just fire. And the stench of death.
His tears soaked her cheek.
"Come back to me…"
And then—
Flashback – Her Fire, His Calm(Inside the memory)
She was sitting beside him in the lab, humming quietly as she typed her notes. The containment field behind them pulsed with slow, steady flame.
Gerard was watching it—the way Jay's fire swirled inside the barrier like it was listening.
Angela noticed.
"He's been quiet today."
"He likes your voice," Gerard replied.
She smiled. "He has taste."
The flames inside the chamber flickered once, then coiled toward her—like smoke drawn by wind. A single strand reached through the reinforced opening, curling around her wrist.
Gerard jumped—ready to intervene.
But she didn't move.
Didn't flinch.
Just watched it dance.
"It's… not hot," she whispered.
He blinked. "What?"
"It's warm. Gentle."
Gerard stared.
Angela turned toward him with a soft, bright grin.
"Even devils can be soothed, it seems."
Back in the present.
Gerard's arms tightened around her body.
The seal cracked.
A sound—like a whip of flame and a thunderclap—ripped through his chest.
Blue light exploded outward.
And deep inside, something ancient and furious let out a howl that didn't touch the air.
It just tore into his soul.
Jay was no longer stirring.
He was rising.
The air shifted.
Gerard didn't feel the heat anymore. Not the smoke. Not the blood on his hands. Just stillness. Like the world was holding its breath.
He was cradling her, unmoving. His tears had stopped. His voice had died in his throat.
The seal on his chest wasn't glowing now.
It was cracking.
Lines of light spiderwebbed across his ribs, spreading like lightning beneath his skin. With each flicker, blue fire leaked from the fractures—then red. Then white.
Jay… don't…
Too late.
The sound came like thunder tearing through bone—a deep, echoing snap that shook the earth.
Then came the scream.
Not Gerard's.
Jay's.
A soul-deep roar that didn't echo—it just was. It came from everywhere at once. From the walls, the rubble, the sky. It rattled glass that had already shattered. It made the flames freeze mid-flicker.
Angela's body slid from his arms.
And Gerard stood.
But it wasn't him anymore.
The transformation was not clean.
His skin peeled away in strips, burning like parchment in a storm. His flesh blackened, bubbled, and turned to cinders. His bones snapped and reformed, longer, sharper, more ancient than human.
A cloak of blue flame erupted across his shoulders, spiraling like smoke forged in another world. His jaw unhinged as his scream deepened into a laugh—low, cruel, and hungry.
The seal exploded off his chest, leaving behind a burning sigil, floating in the air behind him like a halo forged in vengeance.
His face—if it could be called that now—was a skull of living fire.
Eyes twin suns.
Mouth curled in a smile made of death.
The med-wing collapsed around him—steel beams liquefying from the heat.
His steps left behind footprints of scorched earth. His presence melted the floor. The fire didn't spread anymore—it followed orders.
He turned slowly, looking to the ruined sky above.
And he laughed.
Not a laugh of joy. Not madness.
Judgment.
Widowmaker's ViewChapter One Finale – The Ashes of Mercy
From her perch on a ruined comms tower, Widowmaker adjusted her scope.
The fire had drawn half the city awake. Overwatch HQ was burning—bright blue against the black sky, flickering like a beacon from Hell.
"Reaper said he was going in quiet," she muttered. "He lied."
Her finger tapped the rifle's trigger guard. Cold. Focused. She zoomed in.
The entire medical wing was gone. Nothing but molten steel and shadows dancing in the heat.
And then—
She saw him.
Or rather—it.
A figure stood in the crater, tall and still. Cloaked in blue fire that moved like breath. Bones—visible. A skull grinning through a hood of living smoke.
No heat signature.
No heartbeat.
No humanity.
"What the hell…" she whispered, adjusting her lens again.
The thing turned.
Its gaze snapped to her scope. Direct. Deliberate.
A finger lifted.
And it laughed.
It wasn't sound—it was vibration. The laugh hummed through her skull, bypassing her ears. Widowmaker gasped, recoiling, grabbing at her head.
"What—is that?"
Her eye twitched. Her skin prickled like it was on fire. She bit her lip to stay focused and squeezed the trigger.
CRACK!
The bullet struck clean.
The figure evaporated into smoke.
She let out a slow breath. Relief creeping in.
Until—
The fire behind her flickered.
Widowmaker turned.
And froze.
It was right behind her.
Towering. Looming. Its face a skull of blue-white fire. Its cloak spread around her like wings made of hell.
The heat washed over her—not searing. Not destructive.
Intentional.
It wanted her to feel it.
"No…" she breathed.
The demon leaned in. Close enough to see the flames dance behind its eye sockets. Its skeletal hand reached out—one burning finger tracing a line down her cheek.
Her skin sizzled. She didn't move.
Was it mercy?
Or mockery?
Then—it vanished.
Gone in a blink.
She collapsed to her knees, gasping. Skin blistered. Vision spinning.
And far below, in the heart of the flames, something moved toward the city.
Not walking.
Hunting.
Jay walked through the ruins, flames curling from his shoulders like a cloak stitched from vengeance. The blue fire crackled softly around him—not wild, not out of control.
Not yet.
But it grew.
With every step, the memories burned hotter.
Angela laughing beside him, scribbling notes on her datapad.
Angela humming softly in the med-bay while she monitored his seal.
Angela's fingers brushing the edge of his flame—not flinching.
Gone now.
Stolen.
By a coward who vanished into smoke and shadows.
Jay didn't run.
He didn't need to.
His fire stretched ahead of him—tendrils of blue drifting into alleys, sewers, high-rises, searching. And there it was… that scent. That flicker of a shadow trying to escape the sun.
Reaper.
Jay's hand clenched. Fire licked between his knuckles like veins of lightning.
"You remember how she looked, don't you?"
"The way her eyes went still."
"The blood on your hands."
He didn't say the words.
He was the words.
The street cracked beneath him. Lampposts bent away from his path. The air shimmered with pressure—not heat, not magic—just rage made real.
A flicker—up ahead.
That flick of dark teleportation.
Smoke trying to run.
Jay's head tilted.
No smile. No sound.
He stepped forward—and disappeared.
The HuntHe didn't teleport.
He didn't phase.
He simply moved.
Through the wall.
Through the street.
Through fire and memory.
Angela's voice echoed in his mind, sweet and distant:
"You're not just fire, Jay. You're choice."
And I choose this.
Up ahead, through crumbling streets, he saw the trail.
Black mist.
Blood.
Fear.
He's close.
Jay stopped.
Closed his eyes.
And let himself remember.
Flash Memory – The First Time He Heard Her LaughIn the lab. Late.
Gerard asleep in a chair. Angela still working.
Jay stirred in the seal, listening. Watching. Feeling.
She laughed at something Gerard mumbled in his sleep.
It wasn't big. Just soft.
But it was real.
And Jay… liked it.
Back in the present—his body flared white-hot.
The street he stood on melted beneath his feet. A car nearby ignited without contact.
His fire spiked outward in a massive ripple, like a sonar pulse made of soul-burning heat.
And in that pulse—
He found him.