Bringing Overwatch back wasn't as easy as just making a couple phone calls. Like it or not, much of the old infrastructure of the legendary organization was in serious disrepair, and while the heroes who came back occasionally went out to fight the bad guys just like in the old days, most of the work that needed to be done was cleaning out the old facilities and bringing them back into fighting shape again. A tough and thankless task, but a necessary one that Mei-Ling Zhou threw herself into.
She had her own issues to deal with of course, but after dropping in to help out during a skirmish in Athens, the climatologist with the famous freeze ray had taken a break from her globetrotting adventure and stuck around to help in the cleanup of the nearby Overwatch base. Ditching her heavy winter coat in favor of her tank top, tights, and boots, she toiled away organizing the old storage room as Lena Oxton, Tracer to most of the world, blinked back and forth, taking the items Mei was sorting to their proper places.
"So, Emily's been begging me to ask...did you meet a yeti in Nepal when you were there a few months ago?" Lena questioned as she paused to take a chug of water, tossing the bottle to Mei.
"She DOES know the yeti is a mythical creature, right?" Mei teased as she took a drink herself and returned the bottle.
"Hey, we're friends with a giant talking gorilla, anything's possible!"
"Could use a giant talking gorilla right about now, actually...tusan också!"
The two girls looked over and saw Brigitte Lindholm struggling with a heavy crowbar, trying to pry open a particularly stubborn crate. They immediately rushed over to help, the swedish engineer moving aside to let all three of them grab onto the crowbar.
"Bet there's something good in here!" Tracer declared. "Now...HEAVE!" All three girls pulled as hard as they could, and with a satisfying snap, the top popped off the crate and fell behind it with a loud bang. While Mei and Lena paused to catch their breath, Brigitte peered into the box then reached inside.
"Thought it'd be hero stuff," she said, taking out something resembling one of Lena's pulse pistols. "Only a couple years out, might be decent surplus material."
"I'll be sure to mark this down," Mei said, reaching in to lift out what looked like a long rifle. She clicked a lever on the side, and grapple hooks sprung out from around the front of the barrel. "Is it all firearms."
"Not quite, check this out!"
Mei saw Tracer nearly fall into the crate as she reached inside before she pulled out some sort of thick belt. Unfolding the leathery straps, she held it out to show the others the front end, some sort of wide, technological buckle with Japanese lettering. It looked frighteningly familiar, Mei thought to herself before the realization struck home like a bolt of lightning.
"That's Yokozuna's belt!"
Lena gave her a perplexed look as Mei nearly snatched the belt from her hands, but Brigitte looked suitably shocked. "I thought it looked familiar," she mused, closely examining the buckle of the magnificent garment. "Must have been one of his spares."
"Hang on love, who's Yokozuna?" Lena asked.
"The Sumo Hero of Japan," Mei said reverently. "One of the old Overwatch members."
"He retired years ago, but he was friends with my dad," Brigitte explained. "He nearly got sat on the first time the two met, but they patched it up eventually. He even helped him make a lot of his advanced wrestling belts like that one."
Mei was already zoned out of this conversation as she admired the old belt, running her hands over the shiny metallic shapes and figures. She knew the design by heart; it was plastered over every inch of her bedroom wall as a child, and in the margins where she idly doodled when writing up climate reports back in college. She'd even seen it up close one day, when she was one of a number of adoring fans pleading for an autograph. Growing up, Mei had inherited a lifelong love of the sport of sumo wrestling from her parents, and she was a massive fan of the champion sumo wrestler Machi Mabuchi even before he left the circuit to become a full time hero under the name Yokozuna. He'd done some amazing things adorned with this belt, Mei thought reverently, and now here it was. Maybe she could ask Winston if she could keep it; Mabuchi was retired nowadays, after all.
Her curiosity getting the better of her, Mei unfolded the leathery belt strap and wrapped it around her waist, clicking the free end into place so she could see how much bigger Yokozuna was then her. Before she could compare though, the belt part suddenly snapped taut, firmly attaching around her waist as the buckle suddenly opened up, revealing a large blue button. Mei seriously started to geek out, even letting out a little squeal of excitement as she admired how it looked on her. So what if it didn't match anything she wore? This was the absolute coolest thing she ever had! "Hakkeyoi!" Mei shouted, adopting her own sumo stance as she recited Yokozuna's famous battle cry.
"...I think some of the later belts he had could let him grow even bigger," Brigitte said to Tracer, unaware of Mei messing around with the belt herself. "Came in real handy against the OR-15's during the Omnic Crisis..."
"Blimey!" Tracer said excitedly. "So you're sayin' he could grow in size if he just hit a button like this one?" She zipped over to Mei and impulsively pressed the big blue button in the center of the buckle before either girl could stop her.
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