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aelincreativ · 6 days ago

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Show Time - D.Va

They were kind enough to show up the day after her birthday.

She'd known they were coming. Having seen the articles and posts written about the others who had been drafted and disappeared from the internet for months before showing up mid battle.

So she didn't fight it. Instead greeting the officers in uniform at her door with perfect manners and hospitality. Showing them to the table where she had the tea set prepared and waiting.

They wasted no time. Telling her that she had been drafted and would submit to her training squadron in three days time. They relayed the consequences for if she failed to comply. Then the consequences for if she tried to run. Then the consequences for if she attempted to publicly resist.

She had already researched those thoroughly.

When she didn't fight them or try to argue they seemed caught off guard. Like they didn't know what to do when they didn't have to use force to get what they wanted.

And maybe that was her first mistake. Not putting up more of a fight upfront.

She didn't fight it. Half because she knew they wouldn't let her. Half because she had believed at the time that she might actually be able to do something good.

Her mother didn't cry when she showed up an hour later. She'd asked her not to when she told her mom what would happen all those months ago when the first drafts were called. Her mother stayed strong while she was there. Taking the box of important documents and keepsakes from her hands.

She knew that after she left, her mom would put on her shoes and go walk the same path they'd taken together many times before. The walk, just fifteen minutes, would end the same place it always did. At her father's gravestone.

She'd already made her visit the night before. Promising him that she would make him proud and make sure no one ever suffered like he did again.

She would report to her training squadron early and in-process and begin her assessments. She would pass the tests with flying colors. Setting herself up as a fast track star. Set to complete her training in a record time.

It was less than a month before she made her first live flight test with a training mech. As compared to the three months most other drafted pilots took. She passed the training modules faster than anyone before her in half the time and earned the praise of all her instructors for her dedication and drive.

It seemed fitting that with her expedited training, that her live fire career would start with a bang. Her graduation ceremony from the program was a small but grand affair. With her being congratulated by the chain of MEKA command and welcomed by her new unit.

It was only fitting that as soon as her hand was clasped in the Colonel's that the alarms would ring and she'd be pulled with the rest of the unit to do what they had trained for.

Her success in her first battle was her second mistake.

Returning victorious with two Gwishin defeated and only superficial damage to her mech, she instantly cemented herself as the heavy hitter star of the unit. She let that victory settle in her spine and make her strive to be the best.

Training and learning all she could in the windows of down time between Gwishin attacks.

She worked hard to earn the respect and trust of her teammates and do her duty to her country and people with pride.

Then they approached her, and she made her third mistake.

They offered her a position back in the public eye. To become the face of MEKA by having access to her streaming platform restored. They told her that the budget was limited and low. With costs of constant repairs and upgrades, they needed public support funding.

She'd accepted without hesitation. And maybe she should have. Because once again they were stunned to not face opposition. Her first stream back was a carefully scripted fanfare of a staged tour of the MEKA facility. The one after that a test flight after an upgrade. Then a training skirmish. Then a scripted QnA with the pilots.

Then came the second test flight.

But the carefully scripted routine of maneuvers to show off the unstoppable power of MEKA was interrupted by the warning sirens. She snapped to attention immediately, switching her coms to connect to her unit and took command to organize an offensive.

She got lost in the fight, forgetting the camera feed attached to her mech. She forgot to be the person they wanted her to be and instead let herself slip. Letting lose just enough to make risky but calculated calls that ended in a sweeping victory with only one mech on the team too damaged to make it back under its own power.

It was only after the victory had been celebrated among teammates that her com was overridden and switched back to the channel she had been on. The channel that had her handler on it to feed her lines and remind her of the prompts for the scripted stream.

She was summoned back to base and given a choice. Though calling it a choice was generous, it was an ultimatum. The live battle had been received very well at first. Donations poured in like a flood as they watched the reality unfold before them. But the shift in her personality during combat had garnered negative attention.

The people didn't like seeing their bubbly streamer turn so serious and harsh as she barked out battle commands to her team. The handler had cut the stream once realizing the growing negative opinion, feigning that the camera broadcast equipment attached to the outside of the mech had taken a hit.

The ultimatum was this, stay strict to the script and maintain the personality at all times even under fire, or stop flight broadcasts and instead supplement the lost revenue with alternate means.

She'd promised to stick to the script and was given one more chance. She was permitted to do casual video game streams again but closely monitored and on a delay incase of need to censor her if the persona slipped.

She'd held out for two months until one of her team went down. Seeing her friend and ally potentially die made it impossible to keep the facade and persona.

Her return to base was met with the stern faces of her handler and an officer. They debriefed her and then laid out that since she couldn't be trusted with live fire situations on stream, they would be moving towards a new revenue system.

Sponsorships.

Something seemingly innocent at first. When it was just companies that wanted their logos plastered all over her mech. But then the logos on her started.

At first they stayed professional. On her arms and back. But as more “sponsors” became personal “investors” there was a need for more space for more logos and names.

The sides of her thighs were next and that didn't bother her too much. But those were soon filled. There wasn't any more room. She looked ridiculous at that point. And they realized it was starting to negatively affect her image.

So instead they switched the system. Reducing the number of logos and areas they were displayed to just her top sponsors. Instead they started to offer meet and greet events. Where sponsors would buy in at different levels for different amounts of her time and attention.It worked for a month. But then the novelty of it wore off. The masses were no longer satisfied with the casual group interactions. They wanted, no demanded, more.

Her handlers were at a loss for a while on what to do, and as the numbers coming in steady started to decrease, they panicked. Trying to throw her at anything to see what would stick.

Talk show interviews were one of the first they tried. It got a few whispers but not enough for them. Sending her to a celebrity hotshot party got murmurs. Doing television ads for her sponsors. Playing a game show contestant. Being a patient in a medical show. A few episodes of a reality show as a minor character. Then as the female lead in a B-grade movie.

Those worked for a while. She managed to fit it all in between her other duties. Nevermind that Dae-hyun kept looking at her with concern and making comments about pushing herself too much.

Everyone else thought she chose to do all those things. None of them knew how much of their funding relied on her. No one but her and her handler team knew that she had no choice in what she did.

She hadn't had control of anything but her own thoughts in almost a year at that point.And then the money clips tightened again.

And her handler came with a new “request”.

And this time she tried to fight it.

But you can't fight back when you're already in chains.

So began the meetings with sponsors one on one. Getting rented out like a lady of the night for hours at a time. To the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per hour.

At first they were respectful. Basking in the novel concept of having her undivided attention. But it only took a few meetings for them to grow more bold. To encroach on her personal space. To push and break her boundaries and the terms established for these meetings.

They had deluded themselves that she cared about them. Felt something for them besides their checkbook. That she thought they were special.

The first one who tried to put his hands on her suffered for it. She broke the offending hand and kneed him in the balls to make her escape.

She was sanctioned for “use of excessive force against a civilian”.

The second only had a finger broken.

She was sanctioned again, taking a pay cut and put on suspended privilege status.

The third was slapped.

She was dragged into her handlers office where she was scolded like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

She was then told, plain and simple, that the money they'd lost from those three “sponsors” would be near impossible to replace. That she was to blame now for the lack of parts and supplies in the coming months.

Told that if she lost any more sponsors, they'd have to cut her off and find a replacement for her. And then, once she was out of MEKA and their protection, the three men she'd “attacked” would go after her legally and summarily destroy her reputation and any hope of a career she could have outside of MEKA.

“Am I understood?” Her handler sneered. The look on his face was one she had seen many times before whenever she dared to go against his commands by even a single step.

“Yes, sir.” She spoke. Clearly and without a mumble as she had been scolded for before.

The man looked smug at her compliance. Like he always did.

“Then you are dismissed. Return to your quarters and prepare for the 1800 stream of game three on the roster.”

She nodded and left the office swiftly, but not too quickly as to seem she was running away.

She was not allowed to run away.

She made it to her room and knew she had an hour to get ready. But instead of moving to her makeup table, to change the look placed on her for her earlier meeting with the sponsor, she sat on her bed.

She looked at the spread of things she had once enjoyed. Soft blankets and pillows, stuffed animals of game characters and creatures, posters for shows and movies.

All things that were similar to what she once plastered her childhood bedroom in.

But nothing here had been chosen by her. It was all a carefully staged backdrop. A set that she had to make up with precision every morning. There was a reason she often slept in her workshop.

Despite what Dae-hyun and the others thought, she did not just randomly fall asleep while working too late. She chose the discomfort and lingering aches of sleeping in a chair at a desk or in a pile on the floor.

It was more comfortable to her than to try and relax inside the stage she was forced to puppet around in.

She set the pillow she had grabbed down, exactly in its designated position, and stood up. Smoothing the sheets she had wrinkled before walking to the vanity that held the hundreds of products she was to make use of.

She opened the pack of makeup wipes, a sponsored brand that she didn't like, and slowly and carefully removed the makeup from her face. Taking her time to not rub excessively and cause any redness or irritation. She wiped away the layers painted onto her. The ones that had been specifically catered to enhance the features the sponsor had preferred.

She made her way to her bathroom and wet a cloth and added a pump of a sponsored face wash she had filmed a commercial for the day before. This one at least actually worked for her skin, even if it didn't actually do all it promised to do. Not that it mattered, she had five other products that filled in the gaps.

She rinsed off the foam and braced her hands on the sink before looking up.

She stared at the girl in the mirror. Soft brown eyes that looked so tired without the layers of concealer and color corrector applied. No specifically picked and color matched eyeshadow either to give the allusion of a brighter attitude either.

She stared at the scar on the tip of her nose from her first crash landing where one of the display screens inside Tokki shattered and a piece of the glass sliced into her.

She visually traced the hairline jagged crack across her forehead from when she was ejected and slammed into King as a last resort as Tokki was shredded in the grasp of three Gwishin.

She licked the scar on her lip from the street fight she got into a few months ago that had earned her a sanction and two months of restricted and monitored communications.

Worth it though. The omnic she'd saved had escaped and she'd made it out with only bruises besides her lip. She'd snuck out of the base to try and visit her mom and instead found an omnic being beaten in the street.

She looked at the girl in the mirror.

This was her. Not the makeup and cameras and scripts.

This.

With her scars and dark circles and eyes that looked so tired.

She wondered where it all went wrong. How she had lost track of herself. How she had allowed herself to be so thoroughly beaten down until she didn't even know who she was anymore.

Was she even herself anymore? Or had all of her parts been stripped away and replaced until all that remained was the depressed spark in the back of her mind that could barely raise its head anymore to tap on the cell walls she'd been chained in.

Was she Hana? Or was she D.Va?

Hana looked back at her in the mirror. But that was the only place Hana was allowed to exist. As soon as she walked out of this bathroom she'd be forced to put on the mask of D.Va once more.

To parade around like the well trained dog she was. Following every command of her master with not so much as a single thought in her head that was not put there for her.

And what did she have to complain about when she lived a life of luxury. Surrounded by high value items and things. Having all the love and adoration from the public she could want. The people sang her praises and cheered her name. They trusted her to protect them and she honored that trust.

Casualties to Gwishin attacks had been cut to a quarter of what they were before she was drafted and joined the battlefield. Half those remaining casualties happened on the rare times she was off duty and not in the fight. She had done it. Had made the difference she had so desperately wanted to make when she first decided not to fight the orders to serve.

What was a complete lack of autonomy over her body and soul for that?How could she protest the sacrifice of herself to save everyone else?

She couldn't. At least not outloud.

So instead, she waved Hana goodbye in the bathroom mirror, and went to go greet D.Va in the vanity mirror.

Carefully applying the layers of her war paint.

Dark circles vanishing beneath a bottle that cost more than a house. Bright colors teased on her eyelids to make a sparkle appear where there had been none before.

Red blush dusted on the tip of her nose and then stamped over with a custom white bunny.

Hair curled and pinned to further shadow the filler on her forehead.

Lips carefully traced and colored to erase any sign of vagrant behavior in the defense of those who her handler would have her spit on.

She contorted her face and D.Va smiled back at her. She waved. A cute coquette thing that was just a flutter of her fingers.

She looked at the clock. Ten minutes to go.

Show time.

To her knowledge, no one saw her leave Hana Song behind in that bathroom. No saw the final shudder that shot through her frame as the spark in the back of her mind was gagged and bound into submission as lights flickered on. No one saw as the spark in her eye became artificial and painful as her cheeks stretched into a bright smile as she shouted out a greeting even though there was no one in the room with her.

No one should have seen. But someone did.

The only other being in the world who knew exactly how that scar on her lip was created.

Someone who couldn't get the figure of a tiny human rushing to his defense out of his mind. Not until he had identified her and tried to figure out why?

And now he had more questions than before.

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