Dust devils twisted in the distance as the Overwatch dropcraft landed in the red sand valley. The heat shimmered above the rocks, but something colder settled over the Forward Outpost Ember.
Commander Farid stood at the holotable, jaw clenched. "We lost contact with Echo Team just before dawn. No distress signal. No bodies. Just... silence."
The map projected above the table showed a narrow canyon cutting through the desert, Wadi al-Hasa. The team had been scouting strange energy pulses in the area, suspected to be remnants of omnic installations, but nothing out of the ordinary had been expected.
"Echo Team was experienced," Farid said. "They weren't green."
Jack Morrison nodded grimly. "This wasn't just a malfunction or a bad call. Something took them. Rose, I want your team to go in. Recon, recover, and report. Don't engage unless absolutely necessary."
Ana, leaning against the wall, added, "Stay sharp. Wadi al-Hasa's always been quiet. Too quiet. If something's waking up out there... we need to know."
Shawn studied the canyon data. "Terrain's rough. Easy for ambushes. Limited drone access. We'll go in quiet."
Jack handed him a signal booster. "Echo's beacons were jammed. Use this to relay directly to us if you get interference. Don't go dark."
S3bastian, checking his arm-mounted sensors, chimed in, "Wonderful. A silent canyon, missing troops, and no backup. I'm already not haunted by this."
Shawn smirked faintly. "Gear up. We move in twenty."
Wadi Al-Hasa, 1000 Hours
The sun hung high and merciless as Shawn and his team crept through the rocky crevices of the canyon. His team consisted of a majority of soldiers, trained in recon and stealth, with some medics. Due to the unknown status of the Echo team, he was advised to bring some medics in case they were in a dire situation. So, he decided to leave the new rookies home and his awakened members weren't needed here, so he left them home. He brought Spencer along, as he was the sneakiest out of all the medics.
The wind carried sand through narrow corridors, making it hard to hear, hard to breathe. Shawn took a moment to sense any electricity in the area in case they were walking into a trap but couldn't sense anything. He couldn't shake off this bad feeling, his senses forewarning him of something. He crouched, finding a scorched mark on a boulder.
"Electromagnetic burn," he muttered. "High-intensity. Could've fried their comms."
Another soldier found part of a helmet. The visor had been cut clean, no explosion, no blood.
S3bastian's voice came through their comms: "Found their drone. It's intact... but shut down, power core's been drained."
"Still no signals?" Shawn asked.
"No," came the soldier's reply. "Everything's dead. Like they never turned on."
Shawn stood. "Stay alert. This doesn't feel right."
Then came the sound. A faint hiss. A shimmer of movement, like heat distortion, but wrong. Gone as quickly as it appeared. Purposeful. Intentional.
Shawn turned. "Did you see that?"
No one answered, but everyone felt the uneasiness.
Then the first scream cut the silence. A soldier went down, dragged into the shadows between two boulders. Another raised his weapon, too late. A blur of metal sliced his shoulder, sending him crashing back.
"CONTACT!" Shawn roared. "Defensive pattern, now!"
S3bastian unleashed gunfire in all directions, the flash briefly illuminating the canyon.
For a split second, they saw it.
A thing, humanoid but sleek, built for silence, not war. Midnight-black armor hugged a lithe omnic frame. A mask without a face. Its limbs moved with impossible precision, and its blade crackled with white noise instead of steel.
It vanished again.
"What—what was that?" one of the medics whispered.
"I don't know," Shawn said, narrowing his eyes. "But it's hunting."
Another medic fell, tackled from above. This time, Shawn reacted, drawing his katana and meeting the attacker mid-strike. Sparks flew as their blades clashed. The omnic shimmered, momentarily visible, then flickered out of sight again.
Spencer on instinct moved to help the wounded medic, but froze. A shimmer behind him. The omnic reappeared, blade raised.
"SPENCER!" Shawn cried.
Too late.
The blade plunged into Spencer's chest, straight through his armor. The young medic gasped, wide-eyed, blood bubbling from his lips. He crumpled as the omnic vanished once more.
"NO!" Shawn dove for him, pulling him behind cover. He slapped a trauma patch onto Spencer's chest. The omnic was good, making sure to go for the heart in the brief opportunity it had. Unfortunately, it did not miss. His vitals were dropping fast. Through experience, Shawn knew that using Vital Synch here would endanger himself as well as Spencer. He needed to heal the damage done and fast.
"No, no, no—stay with me." Shawn's hands sparked uncontrollably. Electricity danced across his fingers. There was only one way that Spencer was going to survive. The energy that crackled in Shawn's hands surged into Spencer's chest, flooding his nervous system in a blinding flash of light.
Everyone turned as a wave of static exploded outward. Then Spencer's body jolted upright.
Eyes glowing faintly blue, his hands trembling, crackling with the same bioelectricity that coursed through Shawn.
"…what… the hell?" Spencer muttered.
"I can't track it!" S3bastian shouted. "It's disrupting our sensors, using optical cloaking, maybe, or something worse."
Shawn had a brief moment of panic as well as he realized that he too could not sense the enemy. But he didn't lose control as this was now a battle between assassins. Just like Mamoru taught him, when you couldn't find your opponent, you find a way to find them.
"Then we flush it out."
Shawn surged his bioelectric energy, sending a current through the ground and rocks. For an instant, the static revealed the omnic again, climbing a ridge.
Spencer's voice crackled in on comms. "I see it. Ridge, two o'clock."
Gunfire rang out, hitting the rocks around the enemy. Bullets struck the omnic's shoulder, staggering it. It didn't cry out but instead launched itself backward into the canyon shadows.
Shawn didn't wait. He chased it, sliding down into a ravine and hurling a charged bolt toward the glimmering distortion. The electric blast surged through its frame, disrupting the cloak.
The omnic fell.
Breathing hard, Shawn knelt over the downed figure. Its mask twitched. Then, it uttered a single phrase in a hollow, synthetic tone:
"…Shadow Protocol…" Then its systems went cold.
Later- Command Base
The captured omnic lay locked within a reinforced stasis chamber. Scientists whispered behind the glass, poking and probing the unfamiliar make. It bore no known manufacturer tags. No known ID. Nothing on record.
Commander Farid stared. "This isn't a battlefield drone. This is a precision strike unit."
Jack folded his arms. "This doesn't match any records of anything anyone has ever encountered. Well, it they had they didn't live to report it."
"First the Ravager, now this, ghost. These anomalies showing up now of all times isn't a good sign." Ana said.
"I shudder to think of what this thing is capable of on a battlefield." Reinhardt says deep in thought.
S3bastian, arms crossed, muttered, "I'd like to file a complaint with whoever made this nightmare."
Shawn stared at the unmoving omnic, for some reason, he felt like he recognized the design of this omnic. Then it dawned on him.
"Ah I see. This was my doing."
The room filled with silence as S3bastian leans closer to the containment cell. "Now that you mention it, I'll be damned. That is that thing."
"What are you guys talking about?" Jack asked, the seriousness heavy in his voice.
"A while back, I was trained by the Shimada. In a deal with them, I designed some omnics for them. Ones capable of avoiding detection and using the most optical camouflage to go invisible. After their creation, all design plans and evidence of them was wiped out. I named them, Shadows."
Farid looked grim. "This is dangerous information that you've allowed into enemies hands. Any blood they shed is on you, Rose."
As much as Shawn had liked to protest against that, the truth was undeniable. The moment that he saw Anubis in Japan he should have realized that it would have access to his creations. But it shouldn't have an understanding of its technology even if Anubis possessed one of the Shadows' the knowledge to recreate the technology it uses wouldn't be known on the omnic itself no matter how long he would study it. No, he needed the information from the blueprints or someone who helped create it.
Thinking this, he thought about something that he refused to believe in. "Don't worry. I'll fix my mess."
Shawn walks off, S3bastian in tow. No one tried to stop him or ask his plans. They heard that whatever he was planning, he wasn't asking for their permission. Not that they could stop him even if they wanted to.