My name is Ciri and this is my story.

You might be wondering why I have no surname, this story will explain that.

I grew up in Stuttgart, Germany to a wealthy father who hated me because I looked like my mother and a stepmother who hated me because I was the heir to my father's wealth. But besides being neglected and being treated like air, I think I had an alright childhood.

A big turning point in my life came when I met Uncle Reinhardt when I was 10. He was a soldier at the time that was stationed in the nearby castle of Eichenwalde and he would patrol the city whenever he had time. During that time he somehow became acquainted with my father who asked him to teach his sons, my younger step-siblings, a thing or two, which he was happy to oblige.

When he would come to the manor, my stepmother would force me to stay in my room, and all I could do was read books because they didn't let me have a television. But one of those days, I decided to sneak out into the woods behind our manor and just waste time there.

I went pretty deep into the woods before I came across a clearing with a small pond with a fallen trunk where I decided to sit and read my book. Unfortunately, my family had forgotten to tell me that there was recently a sighting of wolves in the area or they had chosen not to in hopes it would be my demise. And it almost was.

As I was reading my book, out of nowhere, it felt like multiple pairs of eyes were on me. I looked around and saw nothing, so I thought I was imagining it. But a few moments later I felt a feeling I had never felt before. Like my entire body knew it was in danger and it just moved automatically, dodging the wolf's lunge by a hair's breadth.

That's when I saw that there were multiple wolves surrounding me, and I felt fear like never before, but I also felt peace. Fear at the possibility of me dying, and peace knowing I would never have to go back to that horrible family again. Fortunately, I wasn't fated to die that day.

As the wolves lunged at me from all different directions, I felt something well up from within me before exploding outward. The only thing I remember seeing before blacking out was a wave of green spreading out with me as the epicenter before everything around me disintegrated into dust.

When I awoke, I was back in my room with Uncle Reinhardt standing over me while I could hear my father and stepmother arguing about something. That's when Uncle Reinhardt told me that he found me in a crater before bringing me back. He also told me that my stepmother wanted to get rid of me after finding out I'm some sort of freak, but my father wanted to turn me over to the military so he could get some connections.

Hearing that was the final nail in the coffin for me and that's when I decided that I would never use my surname for as long as I lived. Then Uncle Reinhardt told me I should run away before my father decided anything, so I packed up some things in a backpack while Uncle Reinhardt distracted them before I went out my window and into the forest.

Later in the day, Uncle Reinhardt found me in the forest and took me with him to an apartment he rented where I stayed with him for a few days while he figured something out. That's when I told him that I wanted to learn how to fight and survive from him so I wouldn't have to rely on anyone. At first, he wasn't convinced, but I managed to convince him by telling him that I couldn't rely on him forever.

After that, Uncle Reinhardt took a week off so he could build a hut in the forest where I would live and he would train me when he would visit. It was small but cozy, and warmer than the manor I had lived in before.

And that wave of green that I saw before I passed out, I dreamt about it until one day I was able to use it a little bit. Somehow, I was able to teleport and blink short distances, almost like magic. When I told Uncle Reinhardt, he very seriously told me to never show any other person for fear I would be experimented on.

Over the next five years that Uncle Reinhardt was stationed near Stuttgart, he trained me like a warrior. Survival lessons, CQC, firearms, weapon handling, and more. During those weapon handling classes is also when we figured out I had a real talent for the sword, and I started exclusively training in that.

During those 5 years, he did become my family. Unfortunately, like with all things, it had to come to an end.

I remember the day he told me he was going no longer to be able to train me because he was joining the Crusaders, a paramilitary organization that was stationed at Castle Eichenwalde. But even though he was still at Eichenwalde, he could no longer leave and would be away on missions most of the time.

I was very sad at the news, but I was older then so I understood, and I told him good luck. That's when he gave me a pendant that he had made with the symbol of the Crusaders so I would always remember him. That's when I broke down.

When I awoke the next day, he was gone but he had left me a note that said he was proud of me, to keep on living, and that he would see me later.

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So, that's what I did. I continued to live and train in the hopes that one day I would see him again and if not I would join the military to find him.

One year later, I was in the woods swinging my sword around like always when I heard the sound of explosions coming from the city. Blinking to the top of a tree so I could see better, in the distance I could see that parts of Stuttgart were on fire. And as much as I had bad memories of the city, Uncle Reinhardt had instilled in me that helping people out in their time of need is the right thing to do.

So, I grabbed my sword, which Uncle Reinhardt said was made from a very good material, and started running to the city. I didn't teleport right into the city because I didn't want to blink right into a battlefield, but I did blink forward to cut my time in half before running the rest of the way.

As I got closer to the city, the sound of gunfire and explosions got louder before I finally saw what was happening. Robots were marching on the city, killing people, and trying to take over while soldiers tried to keep them back. I looked around and saw no Crusaders, and thought that they were away on a mission and that's why the robots attacked.

Even though I wanted to help, I didn't want to be hunted for my powers so I ran into an abandoned store and put on a fasching mask to cover up before going out to help. Right as I exited the store, I saw a robot about to gun down a family so I blinked to it and cut it in half. Apparently, the sword was made of very good material for it to cut through a robot.

After that, I began to run around the city helping wherever I could and cutting down any robot I came across. Fortunately, the assault on the city didn't seem like a full-on assault but only a small contingency of robots meant to test the defenses.

Standing in the middle of robot parts, panting from near exhaustion, I was suddenly surrounded by soldiers pointing their weapons at me, asking me to surrender. Clearly, they were interested in my powers, but I wasn't going to be captured, so I teleported back to my hut.

Unfortunately, I didn't know that my father saw me fighting and made the connection it was me, so the next day I awoke to my hut being surrounded by soldiers. Luckily, Uncle Reinhardt had told me to always be prepared for the worst, so I got my go-bag and teleported out of there and deeper into the Black Forest before running away.

Over the next two years, I would spend my time going to different battlefields all throughout Europe and helping where I could. Eventually, I got the name Spectre because of how I appeared and reappeared all over the battlefield. I even heard one story about how people thought I was a spirit of vengeance come to life to hunt down omnics.

Then the war came to an end, and I finally felt like I could breathe so I went to the nearest city to rest and that's when I saw Uncle Reinhardt on TV with Overwatch. How had I not known he was in Overwatch for the past two years or so you ask? Well, I was always on the move and spending most of my time outside the city, and the omnics pretty much crippled the infrastructure of Europe.

Anyway, seeing Uncle Reinhardt on TV brought a smile to my face because I knew where he was but the next second I saw something on the TV that made my smile drop. It was a picture of me saying that I was wanted alive and that I was armed and dangerous. That's when the person next to me recognized me but before he could say anything I blinked out of there and ran.

I spent the next three years running as a fugitive of the law until one day I decided enough was enough. I decided to settle down somewhere, live in the shadows, and do something about the corruption that led to my being wanted. Over the next five years, I went from running from the law to being the leader of a vigilante group that operated all around Germany.

It began with me settling down in a city and helping take care of the war orphans by teaching them to survive and scavenge. I taught them how to fight for themselves while also instilling in them the values that Uncle Reinhardt instilled into me while adding my own opinions of them. As much as I appreciated everything that Uncle Reinhardt had done for me, the years I spent fighting and running away taught me that not everything is black and white, but grey.

Anyway, helping the orphans led to word of me helping people out spread throughout the homeless and downtrodden of the city. More people came, and I helped them and all I asked in return was for one favor that I would cash in sometime in the future. That's how I created a web of information that gave me the info I needed to strike down who and what I had to.

Then throughout the five years, there were people who wanted to help even more, so I taught them even more and made them part of my vigilante group. After I decided they were ready, I would give them missions to undertake, and that's how we eventually came to clash with a terrorist group known as Talon. I got some faulty information from one of my contacts that led to a group of my vigilantes dying, and in my anger, I tracked a group of Talon operatives down and wiped them out.

And that's when another turning point in my life occurred. When I met him.

Apparently, I wasn't the only one tracking Talon because right after I finished torturing one of the operatives for information, someone walked into me standing in a room full of bodies. Thinking they were Talon, I blinked toward them and started attacking them but they were able to keep up with me until they hit me and I hit the ground. Looking up to see their face, I laid my eyes upon a very handsome man who made my heart skip a beat, and, as I later found out, apparently I had done the same to him.

Then he recognized my pendant, we got to talking, and that's when I found out he was sort of part of Overwatch. Then he asked me if I wanted to see Reinhardt, which I did, and we went to see him.

After a tearful reunion where I told Reinhardt everything that happened to me over the past few years, I decided to join Blackwatch because I wouldn't have to deal with the red tape that Overwatch does. Reinhardt was a little disappointed with me for joining Blackwatch but he came around to it, and only asked me to be careful.

Then I went back to Germany, faked my death, and disbanded my vigilante group before joining Blackwatch where a few months later, I started dating Matt. We kept it a secret for as long as possible, but we also weren't being too careful.

Over the next few years, we did many missions both against Talon and other groups that Overwatch couldn't deal with because of red tape. Until Moira joined Blackwatch and when she found out about my abilities she wanted to study me but I refused. She was disappointed for a while but eventually moved on once she found something else to research until she experimented on Matt, much to my displeasure, and he became able to control nanites.

And that's my story so far.

~

"That was weird." said Ciri as she held her head.