Chapter Text
The fact that the ban was lifted should have been exciting. It had been, for the first few days. D.Va had driven over and picked Lucio up from work in order to tell him the good news. They’d hugged, shouted, pumped their fists into the sky and started making plans for the next season over a bowl of popcorn. It was going to be dope, Lucio declared. It had to be, in order to make up for the nonsense that last season had put them through.
And then the rest of the news started pouring in. G4mesAlert reported the lift first, later that day. Or, rather, what they reported was that only three out of the six members of Team E-L33t had their bans reversed in the cheating scandal. Lucio should have figured when he didn’t get any messages from his old teammates, when Jamison hadn’t picked up the phone for him, and when D.Va mentioned that she still couldn’t message Hanzo on the main Omnic Battles forums. Lucio and D.Va being able to play competitively was a footnote, literally one sentence tacked on at the end of the article, which retold the story of the past few months with an almost smirking relish- it played at being relieved that the OB community had ‘self-corrected,’ that the players had done due diligence and it made a difference, but Lucio knew that it was just as important that the article embarrassed the people that it was writing about.
They had the illustrious title of being only the second Full Team Ban in all Omnics Battle history. The previous one, Team Gibraltar, had been banned for a physical fight at a tournament. The whole team- Soldier76, Reaper, Reinhardt, Wadjet, TinyTuffTurret, and Pharah- banned for two full seasons. Even after that, though, the mortification of the ban had prevented the team from ever coming back together. But that was fighting not cheating. This was different. Way worse.
Lucio only had to wonder how ex-teammate Sombra felt about the situation for about twenty minutes, before her twitter account blew up with about a dozen posts about how it wasn’t Cheating, that gaming the system and manipulating the game was what gamers did, and the fact that she was able to exploit weaknesses was something that she should be applauded for. Lucio didn’t bother looking at the video she posted; he just muted her wherever she was throwing up her opinion.
In spite of her pardon, Satya was ‘done’ with Omnic Battles; she had composed what Lucio thought was an incredibly classy vlog during the investigation, about how she awaited her vindication, but she had to spend her time wrapping up graduate work instead of playing video games. He didn’t expect her to even bother making a statement this time around.
The comments on the article, as well as on Reddit, grew exponentially, almost mortifyingly. There were plenty of congratulations for Lucio and D.Va; the couple had spent a lot of time taking up people’s challenges online and IRL in order to prove that they weren’t, in fact, using aimbots and other modifications. If anything, when Sombra’s mods were in play, Lucio and D.Va- as well as Satya- had seen a frustrating stat drop, since the other half of their team had been using modified accounts. So people were happy to see that one of the communities most popular couples weren’t, in fact, screwing over the rest of them.
But that didn’t mean that everyone believed that they were innocent of hacking, of course. The anti-E-L33ters were vicious, making sure to pop up everywhere they could, suggesting bans anyway. There was no way, they claimed, that one half of the team couldn’t know what the other half was doing- just because they didn’t use hacks didn’t mean they hadn’t benefited. Lucio understood that perspective, said as much when he replied to them- stupid, D.Va pointed out, to feed the trolls, no matter how nice Lucio was being while doing so-, but no one was trying to hear that crap.
Lucio didn’t even want to think about their noticeably long queue times when they started up OB on their rigs for the first time in months. How many people had them banned, he wondered, and how many people were doing so now, just in case?
“Yo, how’s that nerf treating you, D?” Lucio moved his headset back off one ear, although he didn’t dare let his eyes off his screen. They were fiddling in custom with a map they’d never actually gotten to explore before.
“All it means is its easier to bait people,” D.Va replied with a snicker. “It’s just an armor nerf, the gun’s still fine.” She still trailed off at the end, distracted by the map obstacles in front of her. “We’re streaming tonight, right?”
“No doubt.” There were already people asking about it on his feed, and he’d given a window of time later tonight. They’d gotten a lot of hits on their Triumphant Return video, and even more on their Thoughts About Recent Updates. At least, he thought, they still had an Omnics Battle audience.
“We should only post the link on obdeluxe,” D.Va commented. She didn’t need to explain why; during this entire fiasco, the mods of obdeluxe had been amazingly kind. While not flat out forbidding discussion of the cheating scandal (they couldn’t, not considering it involved a team of two, nearly three time champions), they were quick to snatch up anybody who had harassed them, locking personal attack threads down with the quickness. Lucio had even sent a few PMs back and forth with one moderator in particular, Shrike, about how to handle the negativity of the situation.
When the timer on their custom game ended, Lucio backed out in order to check obdeluxe. Another moderator, Tank420, posted a congratulatory thread for the exonerated players, which Lucio liked to look at every so often. It was a far, far longer thread than the one that Lucio had posted, seeking out players who wanted to group up. Apparently, everyone was really excited to see them in play, but no one wanted to attach their cart, so to speak. People had even politely stated as much: there would be too much uncomfortable scrutiny on their teammates, and that was simply too much pressure, even for a professional player.
Lucio understood. He kept D.Va from giving them a piece of her mind a couple of times.
As soon as he opened OBD, there was a private message waiting for him. He expected it to be either congratulations or another troll message. He was surprised to see that it was a message from Shrike. She wasn’t prone to sending PMs on her own- she’d extend an offer to message her in a thread, but it was on you to approach her, make it clear you wanted to talk. Lucio blinked, read her message, and then smiled broadly. He sent an affirmative reply before even letting D.Va know the deal- she’d be up for it.
“Hey, D, get this- Shrike just said she wants in on our stream tonight.”
D.Va’s mouse stopped clicking. “Shrike? Really?”
Lucio actually turned around in his chair to face D.Va, who was reluctantly tearing herself from her game. “Yeah, she says she’ll even be on mic and everything- only thing is to link her game account with her mod account. You know, so she doesn’t get a bunch of dumb team requests.”
D.Va nodded, and she was practically bouncing in her seat- but not half as much as Lucio was. “Long as she doesn’t slow me down!” She was only partially joking, and Lucio laughed.
He spun back to his desk where there was already a response- he hadn’t even noticed Shrike was online. Maybe she was on invisible. She tended to do that a lot. He opened the message. “Holy shit, D, come look at this. Am I bugging or does this say what I think it says?” D.Va groaned at the fact that she was required to get up from her desk, but she did so anyway, coming up behind Lucio and putting a hand on his shoulder. He automatically brought a hand up to hold hers, pointing at the screen with his other hand.
Shrike’s message was short, and to the point:
Add me, then. Username: Wadjet. I’ll be on at 9.