Chapter 34

 Vera lifted the rubble off her and Dawn. She helped the young girl to her feet and caught her as she stumbled.

Dawn nodded and smiled, then went to go pick up her rifle. It was pretty damaged, she seemed disappointed. At least, that was what the rain cloud above her head seemed to indicate.

Vera stepped forward. “Sound off, who’s not dead?”

Evan pushed a table off himself. “I’m fine. What?” He looked off to one side. “Evelynne wanted you to know she’s fine too. Where’s Overwatch?”

He crawled out from under a fallen door. “I’m fine… but… my equipment’s fried.” His wrist sparked and caught fire, so he quickly threw it off! “Great, I had five more payments on that.”

“....” Ghost didn’t respond, but he was currently impaled on a rebar pipe.

An image of a vomiting character projected next to Dawn. Evan and Overwatch noticeably cringed.

“That looks like it hurt.” Evan said.

Overwatch and Dawn held out their hands to help him up.

He stared at them both, considered it for a moment, and then decided to let them help him up. He stumbled as they helped him to his feet. The hole where he’d been stabbed caught fire just like before, and soon it was as if he hadn’t been injured at all. It even fixed his clothes.

“So… how long have you been able to do that?”

Ghost resumed his stoic silence, he looked in the direction of where Apex once stood and began walking there. The rest of the crew followed.

They inspected the site, and there wasn’t a trace of him left.

“So is he dead?” Asked Evan. “Did we just do the impossible?”

“Well, he’s either dead or trapped forever so… win-win either way.” Overwatch said. “Sooo, what now? I honestly didn’t think we’d get this far.”

Dawn shrugged.

“The Soluna Consortium will never stop hunting us.” Vera said while picking the knife up from the ground. “In addition, once the other factions learn of Apex’s death, they might start another incursion. The Consortium will likely need to be quick in finding his replacement or put more resources into the Gatekeeper program.”

“Especially since one of them is what killed him.”

“That’ll be classified, most likely. However, what the Consortium does isn’t our problem. And now we get our reward.” She handed the knife to Ghost.

“Yeah, you never really told us what that is, just that it was something priceless.”

“Well, it’s not really money or equipment or power or things like that. No, what it is freedom.” She stepped back as Ghost raised the knife.

Ghost stabbed the knife into the air, it disappearing as if swallowed by the nothingness itself. Then it cut open a tear, and the same energy started flowing out.

“Woah woah woah,” Evan began, “are you telling us we’re going to the same place that we sent Apex to? Cause, if so, I’d rather take my chances with the military.”

“No, nothing like that.” Vera reached into her pocket to withdraw a small object. “Do you remember how the mist-makers powers worked? She took an area, divided it into smaller sections, and rearranged them. You tried to go east and somehow wound up in the south. And so forth. This works on a similar principle.” She handed the object to ghost, who went about fiddling with it as the breach twisted and warped.

“If you go in blind, you can wind up where Apex went. But, once you decipher the method, figure out how the space is divided and how it’s rearranged then…” The tear’s image changed, instead of the chaotic energy of the interior of the anomalyous warp, it was a field of green and a sky of blue. “you can go wherever you want.”

The group stared in awe at what they were looking at. “What is this place?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been there. Supposedly it’s beyond the dome. At least, according to Ghost.”

“And how would he know that?”

Ghost turned to them.

“Wait… don’t tell me… you’ve been beyond the Dome?”

Ghost didn’t answer, as usual. He just looked at the figure of Hanabi, resting against the rubble there. He made his way towards her and kneeled down, without a moment of hesitation, he hoisted her up and carried her as best he could back to the group.

The others looked confused by this, but the gesture was pretty obvious. Ghost wanted to take her with them.

“I’m not sure about this,” Evan said, he then looked to the ghostly figure beside him. “Also, Evelynn brings up a good point; she was trying to kill us like… two hours ago.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Overwatched responded, “but she did technically kill Apex, so I think she’s in the same boat as us. We leave her here and they’ll probably do worse than kill her.”

Dawn immediately rushed to Ghost’s side and helped support Hanabi’s weight.

Vera stared down Ghost. “...”

“...”

“......”

“Fine.” Vera shrugged. “Whether she likes it or not, she’s one of us until she decided to go out on her own.”

With that being said, all of them stepped into the breach, leaving behind the region within the dome in all its chaos, strife, and decadence, for the foreseeable future.