Chapter Text
Because he’s a being made of shadow, only loosely held together in a solid humanoid form by radianite and pure determination, revived from the corpse of a man that’d been ripped to shreds by pure radianite energy, it’s no surprise that Omen is unable to speak. He can hear and comprehend just fine, he simply lacks the vocal chords of a human. It certainly complicated things, however, at the start.
It was Brimstone that suggested sign language after Omen’s frustrated scrawling in the notebook he was given. Unfortunately, Brimstone and Viper had only just scraped together the bare-minimum resources they needed for the Valorant Protocol, and with their plans finally in motion after retrieving their third member, neither Brimstone nor Viper had the time to sit down and learn sign language, which led to only one avenue for Omen to communicate with, and writing could only convey so much in a conversation.
When they tried to speak to him, it usually ended with Omen flicking an irritated dismissal and teleporting away in a wisp of shadow. At the time, he barely had a lid on his emotions and was constantly in pain, completely lost in a world that couldn’t understand him and neither could he understand it. It likely didn’t help his interactions with the other two agents.
Missions were impossible to coordinate when Omen had no way of conveying information to the others, due to him carrying a gun and being completely mute, so after a few attempts, they made the decision to send him on solo runs, which yielded greater results than anticipated.
A year has passed since their first encounter, and he can’t help but feel isolated from the others, as neither Brimstone nor Viper can follow his words, even when he slows his pace. He either has to fingerspell, which only permits him to convey basic ideas, or he has to write it down, which feels maddeningly impersonal. He wonders if they’d put in more effort to learn sign if he were human and they understood that he could feel just as much as they do, on the days the compound is empty and he has nothing to do but think.
Omen’s first friend comes in the form of a young woman in a bright yellow jacket with excitement flowing through her veins. There’s quite literally an air around her that exudes ecstasy, though he’s discovered from his limited communication with Brimstone that Omen is unfortunately the only one who can sense it.
When he first introduces himself to her in the common room where Brimstone is giving her a tour, she signs right back, albeit somewhat slow and clumsy, “Nice to meet you, Omen! My name’s Killjoy.”
His hands drop, utterly floored by what is objectively a small gesture for a full second before he manages to reply, “Likewise.”
“You know sign language?” Brimstone asks from where he’s standing next to Omen. “That wasn’t on your file.”
“Actually, I started learning as soon as you showed me Omen’s file yesterday.” Killjoy replies aloud. She turns back to Omen and signs, “I… B-U-I-L-T part of a sign-interpreting… M-A-C-H-I-N-E a few years ago. I want to complete it for you.”
She has to pause and fingerspell “built” and “machine”, and the grammar is slightly off, but the effort she put in is so much more than Viper or Brimstone have ever put in. Not that he blames them for allegedly not having the time to do so, but… still.
Over the next few weeks, when Omen isn’t on a mission, Killjoy is somehow always there to talk to him, and she learns fast. While it always takes her a moment to recall a word, she never forgets one or mixes them up. When she asks about signing something accurately, he informs her he’s only learned ASL for a year and redirects her to much more informative online sources. She picks up his body language within a few days and points out the fact she’s noticed he pulls his head a fraction lower when asking for a full answer and tilts his head to the side when asking for a yes or no, as he has no eyebrows to indicate what type of question he’s asking.
When she disappears into her lab for three days, not once emerging, Omen fights the urge to seek her out. She’s the only person he’s ever had a proper conversation with, and the isolation is creeping back in. Brimstone and Viper have been out on a mission for a week, though Omen has no interest in conversing with them, and Viper certainly has no interest in speaking to him either, though he has yet to find out why she has so much animosity towards him.
He’s reading a book in the common room when Killjoy bursts in through the door, causing him to startle and slam his book shut. Killjoy’s beanie is nowhere to be seen and her jacket’s unzipped, and she’s holding up a pair of gloves.
When she spots him, she tucks the gloves under her arm and tells him, “I finished the interpreter! Try these on.” She walks over to him and hands the gloves over.
The black fabric is stiff and the occasional small bump can be felt along its surface, but they fit his hands well.
When he asks, “What are these for?” he nearly jumps as a mechanical voice comes from Killjoy’s pocket, repeating his words aloud, almost word-for-word:
“This for what?” is what it says.
Killjoy pulls a phone-shaped device from her pocket and puts it on the coffee table in front of the chair Omen’s sitting in as she takes a seat across from him.
“This,” she points at the device to indicate, “stores a program that I trained off of all of the ASL resources I could find. I told you before that I’ve worked on this a bit years ago, so I completed this for you after Brimstone’s assignments.” She points a finger at him, then puts a hand over her chest and pulls it forward, pinching with her middle finger and raising her eyebrows to sign, “You like?”
“The voice doesn’t sound like me. Is it possible to change it?”
The device rattles off a more literal translation of his words in its toneless mechanical voice and Omen fights the urge to slam a fist over it.
Killjoy flashes a quick “yes” and dives for the interpreter, tapping at the screen before turning it to show Omen a list of names. He doesn’t recognize them, so she drops the device back on the table and explains, “I put together a voice bank from a bunch of online sources. Do you want to test them out?”
The two run through a handful of voices until Omen finally confirms, “I like this one.”
Killjoy reads the name and laughs. “Jason Marnocha?” she spells out.
“Yes. Who is he?”
“He’s a voice actor. The translator makes his voice sound more deep than it usually is. I think it’s also a little distorted.”
“It’s great,” Omen tells her, emphasizing “great” by signing the full movement. “Thank you for doing this for me.”