Page 71 of Wrong Squad, Right Mess

The power consumed me, thick and choking and smoldering, burning me from the inside out. I wondered, if I parted my lips, would smoke billow out?

I couldn’t force my body to obey anymore, and now probably wasn’t the time to try party tricks.

Finally, the pain stopped, seeming to short out, and I closed my hand.

The heart disintegrated in my hand, losing cohesion, turning to ash and floating away. It was almost beautiful, in a twisted way.

The portal shorted out and darkness consumed the dungeon, the howl of creatures deafening with their frantic cries.

White sparked around us, so bright that I got a glimpse of the men one last time, just as we closed the small distance now that we could touch.

If I had to go, this was a pretty damn good end.

Epilogue

Kaidan

Having a million cameras in my face was hardly new, but I usually remained in the background. I wasn’t Jin, I wasn’t Mercy. I wasn’t the one who was played before the media to win approval.

Yet they’d asked me to do this particular press conference, and I hadn’t been able to refuse. It was the last thing I wanted to do, to drag this up, to speak on it, to bare all those still-bleeding wounds, but I had to.

“What were the casualties?” shouted one of the reporters.

“One hundred fifty-six is the number of confirmed dead or missing that we currently have. Given previous such incidences of stable dungeons, we should expect that number to change in the coming weeks and months. You can visit the official website for the most up to date numbers.”

“How are the cleanup and rescue efforts going?” another reporter asked.

“They will continue for months. The area is listed as an evacuated zone for the foreseeable future. Given the less populated location that it opened in this time, there was significantly less damage, but it will still take a long time before the area is safe enough for people to live there again.”

“How was the dungeon closed?”

Ah, that question. It astounded me that it had taken them that long to ask, given it was the most important part of this entire conference. It was the miracle beyond miracles, like a blessing none of us knew possible.

Stable dungeons had been a simple fact of life, a nightmare that plagued us but we couldn’t beat, only survive. Now someone had taken one down. It felt like the first time a person had brought down a lion, as though we’d discovered we could fight back and win.

“We do not have full knowledge of that,” I said, careful with my words, my throat tight. The Guild had given me talking points, but I didn’t need them. “What we do know is that squad S412, along with their guide, were near the dungeon heart. Beyond that is conjecture. A large wave of energy struck the portal, and we were able to identify the telltale marks of the dungeon collapsing prior to the portal closing ahead of schedule.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that while we won’t be able to confirm this for ten years, when The Pitt is supposed to open again, all current results and experts have come to the same conclusion—that The Pitt was successfully closed and destroyed.”

The frantic noise that sprang up from the crowd caused the headache that I’d finally managed to decrease to grow again. Then again, this was the first time that any official statement had come out.

In the week since The Pitt had closed, plenty of rumors had flown around—that the dungeon was closed, that there was a massive explosion inside, that the dungeon had never opened and instead it was some government attack that had leveled the desert community.

This was the first time they’d gotten any actual answers, where the truth had come out.

The truth being that the dungeon was gone, that it had been closed, for the first time ever.

“How is that possible?” someone shouted above the roar of the audience.

“We are unsure of that as well. As we had no one else near the heart at the time, we don’t have all the answers. This event will give the Guild many things to research, to learn how to replicate this to hopefully save many lives in the future.”

“What happened to the squad?” another reporter asked.

My throat closed, too tight to force words out. I thought about Yun, that rare smile she gave even during the years when she had little to smile about. I remembered how tough she’d been, how she’d kept going when I had seen how broken her insides were. It was like she’d known she had a reason to keep moving.

Jin stepped onto stage beside me, taking over. “Unfortunately, squad S412 did not escape the collapse of The Pitt. We believe they were able to destroy the heart, though we are unsure how. We suspect their guide, Yun Moore, played a part in removing power from the heart, enabling the squad to destroy it.”