Wesley turned off his communicator, satisfied that his man on the ground had things under control. Tomorrow was the princess's graduation, and they day they had chosen to put their plan into action. It was three days before that oaf from Arendelle had decided to bring her over anyway. He smiled maliciously. One might even say he was doing them a favour, bringing her here early. He was almost certain they wouldn't see it that way, but such is life.
The plane taxi'd down the runway, landing with but a few bounces. He disembarked and quickly made his way to the hotel.
"I can't believe its today!" Honey gushed to Gogo in the dressing room as they donned their graduation gowns.
Gogo glanced over at Honey and let out a rare smile. The girls came together in a tight embrace.
"I'm so proud of you Honey!" Gogo whispered.
"I'm so proud of YOU!" Honey repeated the sentiment. "I couldn't have done this without you."
"Oh sure you could have. Now," Gogo, shrugging off the mushy moment, was back to business, "let's go get graduated!"
Honey smiled and they linked arms, making their way to the rest of their graduating class. Sven, who had been waiting just outside the dressing room, followed them, shadowing Honey but giving her enough distance to embrace and talk with her friends. Hansal was waiting at the other end of the stage for after she had accepted her diploma. The team figured she should be able to cross a stage without mishap – especially considering they were the only ones who knew she was actually a princess.
It was amazing actually, how used to their presence Honey had become. She hardly noticed them hanging around anymore. Their presence was reassuring, but they were careful not to be intrusive. She really appreciated their professionalism.
Before long she was lining up for her turn to walk the stage and accept her diploma. She glanced out to the audience and saw Hiro, Wasabi, Fred, and Kristopher cheering her on. Kristopher was grinning wider than any of them and her heart gave a small skip. She gave them a small wave as she skipped across the stage and accepted her diploma. She descended the stairs on the other side to a waiting Hansal, who appeared edgier than normal.
"Is everything ok Hansal?" She asked, looking up at her normally stoic guard.
"I'm sorry princess, I've just received a report there is someone in the country who would do you harm. A potential kidnapping, or worse. You need to come with me right now."
Fear bubbled up in her stomach. Potential to be kidnapped? Why today of all days? The only day when her chemical purse wasn't in easy reach. She made a mental note to just bring it with her all the time in future.
He took her under one arm and propelled her out of the crowded auditorium.
"Wait," Honey said, "what about Kristopher?"
"All due respect, your majesty, you are my priority. Stuart and Steve are very experienced and will be able to protect him."
She nodded with understanding as he ushered her into a waiting car, sliding into the front seat.
The divider was up between the front seat and the back, and the windows were tinted. Honey sighed in disappointment when she realized she wouldn't be able to see Gogo get her diploma. She watched the passing city go by and hoped her friend would understand. She watched a few more streets and realised they weren't heading back to her apartment. She tried to lower the divider, but it wouldn't budge. Strange. She knocked tentatively
"Hansal? Sven?"
The divider lowered, and Hansal poked his head through.
"Is everything ok your majesty?"
"Uh, yeah, I just noticed we aren't going home?"
"We are taking you to a safe house. If Karls guy knows you are here, it's likely he also knows your address. Don't worry Princess, you are safe with us."
"Oh, ok."
Hansal passed her a bottle of water.
"It's going to be quite a long trip to the safe house. Here's some water, I'm sorry we don't have any food with us, but there will be some when we get there."
Despite his reassurances, Honey felt less safe than she had felt in a long time. She sipped on the water absently. How come she had never heard of this safe house before? The divider returned to its closed position, and Honey could only hope Kristopher would be there to explain everything when she got there.
"Have you seen Honey?" Kristopher asked Gogo a little later.
Gogo looked up at him, "No, not since we lined up, but I'm sure she's around here somewhere."
The crowd of graduates and celebrating parents, siblings, and friends was thick and not easy to get through. Kristopher had a bad feeling in his gut that he couldn't shake. He couldn't find Honey, and Hansal and Sven were nowhere to be found either. He went to the side of the stage where he had last seen her, but found no clues there. He came back around the front, and ran into Sven, who had been moving very fast.
"Sven! Oh thank God! Where is Honey?" he asked, relieved to have found one of her guards.
Sven gave him a wild, slightly panicked look.
"Sven?" dread settled in Kristopher's gut as he took in his friends face. "No." he whispered, turning to frantically search the room as he tried to figure out how much time had passed since he had seen Honey and where she could possibly be now. He sent Stuart with Sven, keeping Steve with him as they searched the quickly emptying auditorium for clues to her whereabouts.
Hiro came back into the auditorium.
"Hey guys, what's up? How cool is it that Honey and Gogo have both graduated!"
"Hiro," Kristopher said, trying to keep the panic from his voice, "we think something's happened to Honey, do you know anything that could help us find her?"
Hiro quickly sobered, standing up straight and regarding Kristopher seriously.
"I've got just the thing," he advised.
He tapped a few times on his watch and gestured Kristopher and the guards to follow him. Kristopher was hesitant to leave the place where he had seen her last, but a final glance around still revealed no clue as to her whereabouts, he gave up and followed Hiro.
Back in Hiro's garage, the whole team huddled around the screen as Hiro was explaining something he had modified in the watches he gave them all as Christmas presents.
"I figured sooner or later one of us was bound to get into some serious trouble, and it would be great to have some way of finding us if that happened, and so, I present to you:" with a flick of his wrist, Hiro enlarged the screen and a large holographic map filled the garage. Wasabi patted Hiro on the back.
"This is great Hiro!"
They studied the holograph. Five beacons lit the area that Kristopher quickly surmised was the place they were standing right now. He desperately searched for the sixth beacon, finding the flashing pink light in the holograph just as Gogo pointed it out.
"Here she is,"
"That's the airport," Fred said, frowning.
Kristopher paled and looked at the three guards. Without another word they exited the building and jumped in the car. Hiro passed him a flat electronic thing as he made his way outside. Kristopher grabbed it without looking at it twice.
While on the way to the airport, Kristopher made a few phone calls.
"Dad, something's happened. Call me when you get this," he hung up and called his fathers chief advisor, but had to leave another message. He called his brother last of all, but didn't even bother to leave a message as they had arrived at the airport. They jumped out, Sven and Steve ran up to speak with someone in the control tower, Kristopher checked the item Hiro had passed him and found that he held a small port screen that held a 2d version of the holograph displaying Honey's beacon. He breathed a thank you to the boy genius and considered hiring him for his security team before the flashing pink beacon on the map reminded him why he was here. He and Stuart followed the map out onto the tarmac reserved for private jets and royal planes. He looked up but no planes were in motion, in fact, the yard was very quiet. Stuart called out and Kristopher rushed over to him.
Stuart held out a watch and Kristopher's heart sank. They were too late. He looked up at the sky before whipping out his phone.
"Steve, call the pilot and have him ready to leave immediately." Hanging up he was immediately dialing.
"Gogo, we found her watch, can you ask Hiro if he has anything else? Any other tracking or CCTV or anything that can help us find out where she's going?"
He heard Gogo's muffled voice as she repeated the information to Hiro.
"He's hacking into the security footage now. Hang on," he waited patiently as they checked the security footage, showing her getting on a small private jet. Hiro then checked the dialogue between the Jet and the tower to find out where they had stated that they were going.
"They're taking her to Corona," Gogo eventually said.
Kristopher cursed. Karl was going to kill her. He was going to take the Coronians hope and kill her in front of everyone. He hung up without signing off and called Stuart back.
"Status on the pilot?" he almost barked.
"En route sir, ETA 15 minutes."
Kristopher breathed in, trying to calm himself, but feeling nothing but panic at the thought of Honey in Karl's possession. He closed his eyes and told himself to focus. Just focus on getting her back.
"Ok, get yourself and Sven down here, we are leaving as soon as we can."
"Yes sir."
KC
