The Hunter | Overwatch

Chapter 46: Chains of Ideology

The Next Day, 11:02 P.M.

The VTOL cut through the cold night sky, its engines humming against the howling winds. Inside, the cabin was silent except for the occasional crackle of the comms and the steady rhythm of the engines. Shaun sat strapped into his seat, his gaze fixed on a flickering screen in front of him. It displayed a fragmented signal from Ecopoint: Antarctica—a stark reminder of Overwatch’s past failures.

The grainy footage struggled to stay coherent, static overtaking the images of panicked scientists rushing to secure their base against the onslaught of a relentless blizzard. Their faces were pale but determined, voices faint and broken as they shouted over the roar of the storm. Amid the chaos, one figure caught Shaun’s attention—a young woman with glasses and a warm smile, her voice faintly audible despite the static: Mei-Ling Zhou.

She stood in the foreground of the footage, speaking quickly to her colleagues as they rushed to initiate the cryo-freeze protocols. “We’ll be okay,” her voice crackled through. “This is what we prepared for.” Shaun could see the fear behind her smile, the way her eyes darted toward the storm that battered the facility’s reinforced walls.

"Shaun," Sojourn’s sharp voice broke through his thoughts, dragging him back to the present.

He blinked, tearing his gaze away from the screen to meet her eyes. Sojourn’s face was illuminated by the dim red lighting of the VTOL cabin, her expression unreadable but her tone firm.

“Focus,” she said simply.

Shaun exhaled slowly, his hands curling into fists on his lap. “They’re alive, Chase,” he muttered, his voice tight with frustration. “They’re trapped in cryo-freeze because we weren’t fast enough to respond. If we had acted sooner—”

“We didn’t know,” Sojourn interrupted, her voice steady but tinged with a hint of frustration. “And we still don’t know enough now. Morrison’s already allocated a team to investigate Antarctica. Right now, our mission is here.”

Shaun clenched his jaw, his gaze flicking back to the frozen image of Mei’s face on the monitor. The thought of her—optimistic, brilliant Mei—trapped in the freezing darkness, abandoned, gnawed at him. He could almost hear her voice, see the hope in her expression as she reassured her team. The blizzard had raged far longer than anyone anticipated, trapping the scientists in cryo-freeze well beyond the survivable margin. Overwatch had failed them.

“Attempts to retrieve them failed because of the storm, right?” Shaun asked suddenly, his voice breaking the tense silence.

Sojourn frowned but nodded. “The supercell created weather anomalies so severe that no team could get close. It’s not just ice and wind; there’s something unnatural about it. Communications failed after a few months, and the team was presumed dead.”

Shaun looked down at the monitor, at the small overlay of mission notes detailing the situation. “But Mei… she’s still out there.”

“We’ll deal with it when the time comes,” Sojourn said firmly. “You can’t let this distract you.”

Shaun wanted to argue but bit back the words. His focus had to stay on the current mission, even if every fiber of his being wanted to turn the VTOL toward Antarctica and find Mei himself. He nodded reluctantly, forcing himself to push the thoughts aside as the VTOL descended toward the dense jungle below.

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A Few Weeks Ago, Ecopoint: Antarctica

The sharp, biting wind of Antarctica stung Shaun's face the moment he stepped out of the VTOL. He pulled his scarf tighter, his boots crunching against the packed snow beneath him. The expanse of white stretched endlessly in every direction, broken only by the dark silhouette of Ecopoint: Antarctica in the distance.