The Finale
A thick, heavy silence reigns in Overwatch. Ever since Jack was promoted over Gabriel for the position of Strike Commander, things have changed. Jack was a soldier through and through, so when a higher-up told him, “Take command of Overwatch,” he said yes by reflex only not considering anyone else. Gabriel took over the newly created Blackwatch without protest, bringing Jesse McCree with him. Still, the look of pain and betrayal on his face was clear to read for everyone.
Genji left Overwatch, unable to bear the tension. It hurt Tracer when he left. She knew how much his second family meant to him, after the disaster with his birth family. As his fingers lingered on her shoulder, the two of them waiting for his transport, she almost told him. Before she could bring herself to voice the words, the transport landed. Genji left without looking back. A sob escaped her at the defeated slump of his shoulders. This is my fault! I’m sorry Genji, please forgive me. Long after the dust settled from the transport blasting off, Tracer stood stock still. Silent sobs shook her entire body.
This was only the first goodbye, one of many. Overwatch wasn’t needed, it was just a farce. None of them knew that, however. Everyone still gave their all because what other purpose did they have? All the while, Tracer watches in case the future changes for the worse. Dismay fills her every single time she goes forward in the timeline by fifty years. Even though she had Jack promoted over Gabriel, the future doesn’t change. Why? Why aren’t things getting better?! Future Tracer is also there, scouting for the proper way to save the world. Usually they just salute each other, rarely more than a couple words exchanged between them. Her future self always looks tired. Sometimes Tracer sees her past self, searching for the correct way to save them all. Each time her body looks exhausted. Traveling to the distant future like this is hard work, and drains a lot of energy. As she jumps through the timeline, looking for what goes wrong, despair fills her. Overwatch and Blackwatch are just pawns, used like puppets.
Someone in the UN told Talon about Jack’s mission in the first timeline. He was killed just to push Gabriel over the edge. With Jack in charge instead, they achieve the same result by causing conflict between Jack and Gabriel. They make Blackwatch go bad instead, forcing a good man to do the worst missions imaginable while Jack gets all the glory. Things still go wrong in that timeline dispate Tracers best efforts, and when the public tries to go for Jack’s head, he somehow manages to keep things together, making the people in the UN furious.
Tracer watches this from the shadows, anger growing in her heart. We saved the world! Defeated the God Programs with our sweat and blood! And this is ‘ow they repay us? It’s not fair! We deserve an ‘appy ending! Determined to make things right at any cost, she goes through the timeline over and over. It hurts watching her friends suffer and die because of petty politics. By the end, they all die. Jesse gets a bullet in the back. Genji is killed by omnics. Reinhardt and Ana die trying to redeem Amelie. Angela, known as Mercy dies to a bomb blast, attempting to save a town from disease. Jack dies trying to rescue children in a small town in Mexico, saving no one. She didn’t think Jack would rush in like that, not after being so badly wounded. Even though Gabriel was furious about Jack taking his promotion, he still loses his shit when Jack dies. After Jack dies in Mexico, Gabriel unleashes a biological weapon that incinerates every living object. Jack means the world to Gabriel, and Gabriel destroys it in revenge. Tracer changes the past again, and Jack still dies… this time to a rogue missile launched by an omnic. In that timeline, Gabriel goes the nuclear war route, resulting in the same ending as the first timeline.
Her brown eyes, long unable to shed tears, look for the path that will save them all, her brothers and sisters, her adopted dads Gabriel and Jack, everyone on the planet. No matter how many changes she makes, those two fuck it up when they fight, fall out of sorts, then one of them dies. Eventually Tracer got to see what happens if Gabriel Reyes died due to an oversight on her part instead of Jack Morrison. Perhaps she could get a better result if he died instead of Jack? She always thought Jack to the more reasonable of the two, kind and caring. Not after she got to see the fallout from that ending. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jack causes so much death and destruction that the water ran red with blood. Blood and ash rain equally from the skies. In his despair, Jack lost all reason. Somehow he found a backup of a God Program, rewrote some of its code, and turned that horror loose. That ending isn’t going to happen, so Tracer went back to the beginning, trying to keep both of them alive. Jack and Gabe were like fathers to her, she owes them both so much.
Watching them self destruct over and over, often because of her actions, feels like nails being driven into her flesh with every angry word they yell at each other. Tracer tried to fix the timeline nearly a hundred times. She can only got back as far as when she gets anchored by the chronal accelerator. It’s impossible for her to go back any further. After every trip to the future she has to rest for weeks, unable to move. It takes a lot of effort to travel through the timeline. Each time she sees Future, or Past Tracer, they all have the same haunted look in their eyes. How many times do they have to ruin the lives of their adopted dads to save the world? In several timelines she tried to hunt down the Puppet Master. To her horror, there isn’t a single person doing this. The corruption is rife; thousands of world leaders have their fingers in the criminal underworld. They all benefit from war, so peacetime is not profitable for them. If she killed every single person who pulled the strings attached to her adopted family, it would destabilize too many governments.
When she finally tried to fix everything that way, it lead to another nuclear winter. What she takes from it all, finally stopping after 101th attempt is that the end of the world pivots on Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes. No matter what she does to change the result; it always comes down to a big fight between Jack and Gabriel. In every single timeline the two of them are manipulated into an explosive fight. I think I’ll do things differently this time. The basic timeline needed to save the world involves Jack getting promoted over Gabriel. So she takes that path.
Tracer talks Wilson Zimmers into promoting Jack over Gabriel, like she did the first time. As she watches the bickering break out between them, she sends them both memos, supposedly from each other. They need to talk, the note says, asking to meet at the Headquarters in Switzerland. Then she plants several of her pulse bombs, surrounding the chamber her dads are fighting in. I’m sorry Jack. I’m sorry Gabriel. But you both need to die, or else everyone will die. The world will end, and you’re not worth the weight of everyone else. Tracer waits in the shadows, ears straining for the sound of familiar voices. No one else is nearby, today is a holiday. All of the cleaning staff is away with their families. The casualties should be just Jack and Gabriel. Guilt weighs her down, heavy as a stone around her neck. Her fingers feel like lead, heavy over the pulse bomb beneath them as she sets them down in the right places. Loud angry voices echo through the empty hallways. Jack and Gabriel are yelling at each other, accusations flying wildly. Tears flow down her cheeks at their hate filled tone. In a different time, in a different world that also ends, they ended up together happily-ever-after. If only she could have them be happy and save the world. “If only” doesn’t happen as their voices escalate in volume, followed by the sounds of fists against flesh. Once she is certain they are well within the blast zone, unable to reach safety, she denotes the bombs.