D.VaCrossover origin story

Act I — A very polished trap

The opening round looked harmless: navigate the arena, identify targets and reach the central platform. D.Va studied the layout, marked the likely ambush points and completed the route with time to spare. The crowd cheered. The scoreboard deducted points for excessive efficiency.

The announcer explained that the exhibition rewarded entertainment as well as performance. D.Va requested the scoring criteria. The promoter promised to send them after the broadcast, when the rules would be easier to summarize.

Round two introduced moving obstacles. Round three introduced obstacles that had not been mentioned in the briefing. One door refused to open until a sponsor message finished playing. Another opened onto a gift shop. D.Va emerged carrying a small commemorative mug and an increasingly concentrated expression of contempt.

She still finished ahead of the opposition. The scoreboard called this a draw.

Backstage, the mechanic showed her the control board. Half the arena’s systems were connected to a little console marked AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT. The promoter could adjust doors, targets and penalties while the match was running. He had not designed a competition. He had designed a machine that could keep a popular contestant performing for as long as the snack stalls remained profitable.

D.Va asked who had built the console. The mechanic raised one tired hand. She asked whether he had been paid. He lowered it.

Act II — The rules develop a problem

There were several satisfying ways to wreck the control board. D.Va considered them all. Unfortunately, breaking the equipment would let the promoter blame her for the event’s collapse, and he already had a refund policy prepared for that exact occasion.

Instead, she asked the mechanic to explain the connections. The engagement console controlled the score display, the arena doors and the giant screens above the audience. It also held the event’s accounts. This was convenient for the promoter, who liked to check concession income while inventing penalties.

D.Va proposed an additional round. The promoter brightened. She called it the Transparency Challenge. He brightened further, having mistaken a dangerous noun for a fashionable one.

The round began with both contestants’ performance data on the screens. Then the penalty adjustments appeared. Then the backstage commands. Finally, the accounts opened beside the prize figure, showing exactly how many times the same money had been promised to different people.

The audience stopped cheering on command. The mechanic watched his unpaid invoices become the most popular attraction in the building. A food vendor began asking questions into a microphone that nobody remembered giving her.

For the first time that evening, the promoter could not solve his problem by adding another obstacle. The obstacle had learned to read the scoreboard.

Act III — The victory nobody sponsored

D.Va finished the final course with the controls visible and the rules fixed in advance. It was a clean run. It was also entertaining, a discovery that seemed to distress the promoter more than any accusation of dishonesty.

The prize money was divided between the promised award and the workers whose wages had been quietly reclassified as future expenses. D.Va insisted that the mechanic’s name appear on the closing screen. He tried to look modest and failed with obvious pleasure.

The promoter asked for a celebratory photograph. She agreed, provided he held the settlement receipt where the camera could see it.

By the time she left, the crowd had found a new chant. It was not her name. It was PAY YOUR STAFF. She considered this an acceptable contribution to competitive culture.

The commemorative mug went into her equipment bag. On one side, it read CHAMPION. On the other, someone had printed TERMS APPLY. D.Va decided to keep it as a reminder that the most embarrassing defeats did not always happen inside a match. Sometimes they happened to a man in a disconnected headset who thought the pilot would be easier to control than the machinery.