Hello all readers! I hope you enjoy this little prelude for an upcoming story line I have had since I first played the game. If this is liked enough I fully intend to complete it, actually I may just write it anyway. Please give me feedback and ideas: what characters would you like to see? A little note: Isaac McNeal is an Original Character I created in the universe of Overwatch. I hope you all enjoy reading his story as much as I love creating him :D. Please enjoy!*

[The Prelude to Overwatch: Operation Phantom]

"Mr. McNeal? Are you still with us?"

Isaac McNeal opened his eyes. Everything was a blur at first, but that slowly regained focus. He saw a lamp hanging overhead in a room of smooth café colored walls. He tried to move his head but something cold and metallic was bound around his forehead to whatever he was laying on. He rolled his eyes to the right, eyeing a man in a six thousand dollar suit sitting in a chair. The symbol of a talon was embroidered on his right breast on his dark grey jacket. To the man's left stood a woman, blue skin with a look that was colder than stone. She wore a skintight violet outfit, and it would have been quite sexy if she were not giving him the "I can murder you in ten thousand different ways in one minute" look.

"Mr. McNeal we really ought to be going over the accident, don't you think? It will be the benefit for all of us."

"The… the accident?" McNeal's head was fuzzy; everything felt numb to him. He couldn't feel his fingers or his legs.

"Yes, the Slipstream Incident. You were the Co-Pilot for the Slipstream project for a one Lena Oxton, were you not?"

Isaac gulped a dry ball of nothing down his throat. He cut his gaze away from the blue skinned woman and back to the rich person, obviously the man in charge by the looks of it.

"I was," he replied.

"And you were also the one who helped create the slipstream device, yes? You were on the lead team that created it, the ability to traverse through time?"

"I was."

"Good. Very good. Now can you tell me what happened on the day of the test flight? Records show Lena was the only one on board, they made no record of you to the public, and we can't hack into their personal files quite yet.

"I… I was in the Slipstream. Then…"

There was a flash of white light. Isaac heard Lena yell something, but no words or noise became audible to him. He looked at her frantically trying to regain control of whatever was happening. Isaac glanced out the window and saw the airbase below them. Lena turned back, yelling at something to him again with actual concern in her eyes. Isaac didn't say anything; he just turned and caught her gaze just before he saw her vaporize into nothingness. Suddenly he saw a bolt of white light shoot from the slipstream device straight through his upper chest; an explosion of agony overcame him. His throat was on fire, his hands were freezing, his legs were being stabbed, and his lungs exploded. Then everything went white, and the slipstream jet disappeared to all who witnessed the accident.

Years passed and they found Lena again. Winston and the Overwatch team helped her recover her physical form. Winston created the Time Chromium Accelerator so she could control her own time instead of it controlling her. Overwatch had been recalled, thanks to Winston and a small team of heroes who managed to put the satellite into place. Now Overwatch was in constant war with the terrorist group known as Talon. A few months ago, the Slipstream jet had reemerged from whatever time it was lost. A team of Talon agents lead by Widowmaker arrived on the scene long before Overwatch had managed to salvage it. They grabbed the shattered slipstream device and pulled out a body that was with the wreckage. The doctors within Talon's system felt it futile to try and revive the broken corpse. That was until life was mysteriously shot back into the body. This was all told to Isaac by the unnamed Talon leader to bring up the account of the years he had missed. Isaac just stared at him.

"They… didn't look for me?"

"Not even a funeral, Isaac. You see, once Lena returned, she was hailed as the true hero. You were simply forgotten. Hope was lost for you, for finding you. They had their "champion" back safe and sound," The Talon Leader expressed with a cold smirk on his lips.

"But /we/ brought you back. You can thank Widowmaker here for finding you. Her eyesight is quite masterful on hidden things, being buried under so much debris and all."

"I'm alive."

"Are you?"

Isaac's face crunched up in question. The rich suited man reached over and unclasped the metal holding his forehead down. There was another click and he felt his arms and legs become free from some unseen shackle. He lifted his weight up and looked down at his body. Veins of glowing blue mapped his legs, arms, and torso; parts of his fingers were missing, as well as half of his right wrist and left forearm. Both his legs were gone, but the shape was still there in some hardened faint blue light. In the center of his chest was a pulsating blue Rorschach shape, sending a pulse of brighter light through the blue glowing veins that mapped his destroyed body like a heart beat.

Isaac jumped off the table; Widowmaker didn't attempt to stop him. He found a mirror on the far wall and, to his own horror, looked at his reflection. The whole side of his right face was gone. All that remained was an outline of the head in that same faint light. It melted harshly to the left side of his face. Yet he could still see from both eyes, feel the right side of his mouth, felt like he had his whole body there, even though it didn't look it.

"Are you alive, Mr. McNeal?"

Isaac turned to him. His hands clenched together, and he spoke with horrific need.

"What the hell happened to me! What is this? What am I?"

The suited man looked at him with another smile. He stood from the chair and walked over to where Isaac was standing. He put both his hands on his "shoulders" like a father comforting a son. Widowmaker simply watched from the shadows, her fingers ready on her rifle should things not go as planned.

"You died, Mr. McNeal. You died years ago. You were dead when you were brought here."

"Then how am I /here/?"

"That question baffles even me, and I am the only one in this facility that has more intellect than anyone here combined. My hypothesis is simply thus. You are a phantom, Mr. McNeal. And I want to help you get your life back."

"How?" Isaac asked, still shaking from the frightening realization of everything he has seen of himself.

"How isn't important, yet. There is a little job I need you to do for me first, and I don't think you will refuse it."

"You want me to steal something for you? Build something? Am I even able to touch anything physical without going right through it?"

"Nonsense, Mr McNeal. No stealing or building. What I want is far more in line with both our agendas. You want your life back, to be normal again, and I think I can help you. But in order for me to help you, I need you to take care of a little mosquito that has been biting my skin for far too long. It has been getting quite annoying."

The suited man let go of Isaac and walked over to Widowmaker. Widowmaker kept her eyes on Isaac. He made a pause as he put his hands on his expensive belt beneath the suit jacket. He looked up like he was having trouble to phrase his request. After half a minute he turned back to Isaac; his grin was gone and a look of a man with nothing to lose was in his place.

"I want you to kill Overwatch. And I know someone who is likely to help you."