"What was silent in the father speaks in the son, and often I found in the son the unveiled secret of the father."

Friedrich Nietzsche

~Elsa~

It was dark when Elsa got back home and she did her best to sneak over the fence undetected. The tricky part was getting back inside the house. Anna hadn't left the window open due to the winter chill and she had dissipated her bridge of ice when she left so she couldn't easily get up there.

So her only real way in was to sneak through the and hope to God Kai didn't notice her.

Elsa crept to the back of the mansion that led to the conservatory, her feet crunching on the snow beneath her. In the winter, the sun room would be shut up and abandoned, but it was still the easiest way for her to get inside without getting caught. She had melted her ice bridge on the way out, so she was reduced to sneaking through the back like a teen that had snuck out to a party. It must be nice to be one of the kids that sneaks out to parties instead of the one that sneaks out in a skin tight outfit to bust criminals.

Thankfully the conservatory had a coded lock, like many of the outer doors of the mansion, so the staff that worked at the Arendelle estate could get in and out of the house easily. There weren't as many people working there anymore after the death of Elsa's mother and father, but everyone still found a coded lock much easier than giving out keys. Everyone besides Kai had gone home for the holidays and wouldn't be back until after Boxing Day, so she was pretty sure she wouldn't get caught sneaking in.

She opened the door as quietly as she could, hearing the hinges creek as she budged through. She closed the door and locked it behind her. The conservatory was dark and empty, the windows covered with a thick tarp so the winter cold couldn't seep through the glass. Elsa didn't dare turn on a light and accidentally alert Kai that she had left.

She quietly made her way through the closed off sun room and into the great room. It was dark in there too, which was lucky, or at least she thought it was. As soon as she started backing her way to the rear foyer so she could make it back to her room, there was a soft click that made her freeze in place. The table lamp to the side of the couch flashed with light and illuminated the entire room.

Elsa saw Kai sitting on the couch, his form stiff and his eyes narrowed. It was at that moment that Elsa realized she was still in her Snow Queen uniform. She had to wonder if he had just been waiting there with the knowledge that she would sneak back in through the conservatory.

"What part of 'you're grounded' did you not understand?" he said, his voice sharp with disappointment.

"How long have you been sitting there?" Elsa asked, tilting her head to the side.

"I went to your room right after Megamind's challenge was broadcasted," Kai stated coldly. "But you were already gone."

He paused and looked at her expectantly. Elsa wasn't sure what he wanted her to say exactly, though it was probably an apology or an explanation. The silence that passed between them was unbearable, but she kept it, because she couldn't think of anything she could say that wouldn't end in a fight.

"This has to stop Elsa," he said with an even and stern tone. "I don't know how you can keep being so careless after everything I've said."

Elsa bristled at the comment. "You think I'm doing this for fun," she defended herself, her temper making a rare appearance. "All I'm trying to do is make a difference and help people. Why can't you just support me?"

"Don't turn me into the villain," he warned her. "You know exactly what you're doing wrong. I'm not sure how I can get you to see straight, but until you see to reason you are going to be reprimanded for your actions."

Elsa crossed her arms and pursed her lips in annoyance. She didn't bother snapping a retort and making her situation any worse than it already was. Staying silent didn't really help with her predicament though.

"You're going to be cleaning the manor from top to bottom tomorrow with your sister as your punishment."

Elsa's jaw dropped at that. He couldn't have been serious. She practically shouted when she tried to fight back against his order. "Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! You're going to make me clean a mansion on Christmas Eve because I was out saving lives?" She paused to remember that he had mentioned Anna as well. "And what did Anna do anyway?"

"She tried to hide the fact that you were gone from me," he replied. "You're both in big trouble."

Elsa wanted to argue. She wanted to scream her protest until he finally saw things the way she did. She was finding a good outlet to channel her powers towards, making it a lot easier for her to contain them in public. She was helping people. Saving lives.

Honestly, what else was she supposed to do? She couldn't just let him kill innocent people in search of her. Whether Kai liked it or not, the city needed her, indefinitely now.

But she didn't voice any of this, no matter how her rage burned or how the ice prickled at her palms. Kai was upset with what she had done and she couldn't keep making him more and more angry.

So, instead of yelling at him, she nodded her head quietly and slunk off to her room. Kai didn't say anything as she walked past him, but she could hear him sigh heavily when she was skulking towards the steps.

After a long an strenuous day of fretting and fighting, her body was not taking the toll well. Her limbs ached with exhaustion and she could barely climb up the staircase to her room. When she finally made it to her room, she crashed onto her heavenly bed, not even bothering to change out of her costume. It was a good thing too, she might as well get a good night sleep before working her butt off the next day.

~Anna~

"I should probably give you this now," Anna said when she and Elsa made it to the basement to begin their cleaning. She held out the small velvet blue box in her hand and grinned. "Merry Christmas!"

Elsa looked down at the box and gingerly took it from her sister. She smiled softly ashram her hands over the outside of the box. Anna gave her a reassuring smile and nod to indicate that she could open it. The hinges creaked as the lid was lifted. Inside revealed a crystal snowflake clasped onto a pale blue ribbon. It was a choker necklace that Anna had seen in the window of a discount jewellery store a few days ago. It wasn't especially fancy, but it was Elsa's style and it pretty enough that Anna couldn't tear her eyes away.

"I was hopping you could wear it with your costume," Anna said with an anxious grin. She observed her sister's reaction on baited breath, seeing that she was still staring down at the necklace. "Do you like it?"

"I love it," Elsa whispered, looking back up at anna with a sparkling smile. Elsa walked forward to wrap her arms around Anna in a tight embrace. "I hope I get the chance t wear it as the Snow Queen."

Anna grinned and held her sister tighter. They separated after the long hug and looked around the basement they were meant to clean from top to bottom.

"I guess we should start with the storage room," Elsa said with a sigh. She placed the box down on the nearby counter of the wet bar and then started to get to work.

A cloud of dust swirled into her nose as she continued to sweep the floor of the basement storage room. Anna's loud sneeze almost knocked her off her feet, luckily she had been able to catch her balance.

"This could be worse," Anna commented as Elsa struggled to move the boxes of old China plates, decorations and furniture parts about the room. The mildew on the bottom of the boxes suggested that this room hadn't been cleaned in many years. "We could be doing this on Christmas Day."

Elsa hefted more boxes out of the way so Anna could get to the back corner of the storage room. She had tried organizing them into suitable stacks, but there were so many that no matter how they arranged they still got in the way. This was only the fourth room of the house that they had cleaned this morning and, Anna could tell that her sister was already tired and frustrated. Too frustrated to notice the dark metal sheen that was revealed when she moved yet another pile of boxes. Anna, however did notice.

After dropping her broom and shoving the boxes aside, Anna didn't waste anytime in showing what was hidden in the back corner of the storage room. A fireplace, built into the back of the wall, with odd swirls and designs engraved into the outside of the steel mantel. It was under four feet tall and a little over three feet wide. The fireplace itself was blocked off by a pair of steel metal doors, with no openings or ventilation.

Anna didn't even think they had a chimney for this fireplace. What was it doing down in the basement? Anna ran her fingers along the crack between the metal doors. She jammed her tiny fingers within the opening until she had just enough grip to pry it open. Her fingernails ached as she pulled with all her strength, but the door finally budged with a loud groan, a sound that made it seem like these doors hadn't been opened in many years.

As Anna shoved both the doors open, Elsa came up behind her to see what she was doing. When she saw the old fireplace, that she had no idea was even there, she was stunned into silence.

The inside of the fireplace was pitch black. Even the dim light of the storage room didn't reach it. Anna leaned in to the fireplace, squinting to see if there was anything inside. As she tilted further and further forward, her hand slid along the floor, until she reached an abrupt edge.

"Anna!" Elsa screamed as Anna suddenly fell forward into the wide open ash pit.

Anna would have tumbled head first into the hole of inky blackness, had her sister not grabbed the back of her shirt. Wide and frightened turquoise eyes stared down at the hole, that took up the entire fireplace. Elsa pulled her back to the safety of the edge, and together they stared into the darkened pit.

Elsa dug out her cellphone from her pocket and shined the bright light of the screen into the hole. She was careful not to lean too far forward when she was looking inside. Anna was starting to think this wasn't even a fireplace. She could see the row rails on the wall bellow her. The rails led from the edge of the pit down to the bottom.

"It's a ladder," Elsa stated.

Neither of them moved for a moment, far too stunned by the hidden passage in their basement storage room. Something thrummed in Anna's chest when she looked down into the pit, something that caused a smile to twitch at her lips. The childish fantasies of wishing to find a secret passageway in the mansion were coming to the surface and making her look down at the foreboding pit with childlike glee.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Anna whispered to her sister, staring down at the bottom of the pit. It was difficult to see with only the light of the phone, but she could just make out the bottom.

"Yeah, probably," she replied.

Without anymore discussion, the two sisters scrambled down the ladder, curiosity and excitement fuelling their every movement.

The ladder led to a cold concrete cellar. Elsa turned her phone back on and lit up the area. The room was small and empty, barely fitting the two girls within it. The glow of the cell phone didn't do much to light up the dark room, but Anna was still able to make out a door opposite to the ladder. In the centre of the door, there was an old metal doorknob shaped like a skeleton face. It's mouth was gaping open and filled with long sharp teeth. Anna couldn't understand why, but it looked like it was laughing. She delicately wrapped her fingers around the freaky looking knob and turned. The door pushed open with an eerie creak, unveiling a long flight of stairs. Even with the light shining down the stairwell, neither of the girls could see past a few steps in the all consuming darkness.

Anna stared back at her sister before taking a careful step forward through the door. Her hand felt along the wall until she felt a bump on the cement surface. The familiar texture and shape of a light switch caused her to sigh in relief. When the switch was flicked upwards, their eyes were flooded with light.

"Wow," the two said in unison.

They were greeted with the sight of a wide open room, with a high concrete ceiling and carpet lined floors. The two girls slowly walked down the steps, beholden the secret room in silent awe. Beside the staircase a large bookcase stood, lined end to end with books that Anna didn't recognize. On the wall to the right of the book case, a large bulletin board was hanging up, with pictures and newspaper clippings pinned up. Below the board was a desk littered with disorganized papers, wide open books and empty coffee cups. On the side of the room opposite to the bulletin board and at the end of the staircase was another desk, though this desk was much larger and made from thick cherry oak. The old blocky computer monitors and printing machine that lined the enormous desk didn't look like they were from a year later that 2000. On the fourth side of the room there was only an old leather couch and a metal door.

"What is this place?" Elsa wondered aloud as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

She and Anna wandered around the strange hideout. Elsa examined the computer monitors, testing to see if they worked. Meanwhile Anna looked over the board and the cluttered desk. The board was covered with newspaper clippings, photos, drawings, and pages that looked like they had been torn out of books. There were multicoloured strings being pinned to each part of the board, creating lines that connected from one paper to another and intertwined with each other. In the centre of the board was a lone piece of paper, connected to several newspaper clippings and ripped pages. On the paper, a name was written.

"Kozmotis Pitchiner," Anna whispered. The name was old, at least Anna thought it was. It wasn't like any name she had ever heard before. And it felt heavy on her tongue, like there was some otherworldly weight to it. Even the air around her seemed to cool when she said it out loud.

"Who?" Elsa asked as she walked up behind her. Anna jumped slightly at her sister's voice, before motioning to the paper.

"I'm not sure who it is," Anna stated as she looked over the newspaper clippings connected to the name. None of them mentioned a Pitchiner. "The name was just up on the board."

Elsa absentmindedly looked over the papers and books on the desk, but she froze when she caught sight of the empty coffee cup. The coffee had long since dried up and the inside was covered in cobwebs. But it was the outside that caught Elsa's attention. It was painted with images of flowers and snowflakes.

"This was dad's cup," she said. "This is dad's desk. This is his secret hideout, thing."

"Wait, what?" Anna gawked in shock, confusion clouding her mind. "Why would dad have a secret lair under the basement?"

"I don't know," Elsa replied. "But we gave him this cup for Father's Day, back when you were three." Anna could vaguely remember painting the flowers on the cup and then watching Elsa expertly paint snowflakes in between her flowers. Elsa brushed her fingers along the paper that was pinned to the board. "And this was his hand writing."

Anna looked over the writing on the piece of paper, along with most of the notebooks on the desk and realized that her sister was right. This was her father's office. But it had nothing to do with his company or the mechanics that he used to work on. This stuff was something else entirely.

"What is this, Elsa?" Anna asked, though she didn't think her sister had the answer.

"No idea," Elsa answered honestly. "But we're going to find out."

Anna carefully ran her fingers along the crisp pages of the notebooks and letting the words soak into her mind without actually reading what they said. She could almost feel her father's fingerprints in the texture of the paper. She clenched her hand into a fist and brought it up to her heart.

"We shouldn't tell Kai about this," Anna said. "Not until we figure out the truth."

Elsa nodded her head slowly. They both loved their guardian deeply, but their was no doubt he would stop them from looking more into this place and what their father was doing down here. "We should probably go back upstairs and keep cleaning," Elsa suggested. "Before he suspects anything. But after Christmas, we are going to do some major sleuthing."

"Sweet," Anna whispered, a tiny smile twitching at her lips.

~Hiccup~

"It's not a big deal Mer," Hiccup sighed, desperately trying to calm down his angry friend. "I've just been feeling a little out of it."

He hadn't expected Merida to pick up on his conflicted emotions and withholding of information so fast. But she always did strive to be unexpected. She had stormed over to his house in a fury on the day after Christmas and then demanded to know what he was hiding from her. Now she was currently interrogating him.

She snorted a loud and sarcastic laugh. "Yeah, no kidding!" she practically yelled. "I don't hear from you or Elsa for days after that stupid party, and then I find out from my dad that you were held at gunpoint twice only to be rescued by the Snow Queen. And you didn't bother to tell me any of this because why?"

"I just didn't want you to worry," he tried to reassure her. "You have a tendency to overreact over little things."

"This isn't a little thing, Hiccup," Merida scowled. "You were almost killed and didn't bother to tell me. Not only that, but I haven't heard any word from Elsa since the banquet."

"She's grounded," Hiccup stated, his voice cracking because of his nerves. He was terrified that he was giving Elsa away. "She's not aloud to contact anyone."

Merida didn't answer him for a moment. Her eyes narrowed on him with a heavy scowl. It was like those bright blue eyes were ripping through him. She could see he was keeping secrets from her. She always had a knack for that. Or maybe he was just that obvious.

"You've been acting all twitchy ever since I got here," Merida said. Hiccup was surprised how calm her voice sounded and how quietly she spoke. "What are you hiding?"

Hiccup knew he couldn't answer, not honestly. Elsa's secrets were hers to share, and he knew he had no right to tell anyone else the truth. So he kept silent, even as Merida stepped towards him. She looked like she was going to grab him and shake him until he confessed. But before she could take another step, the ring of his cellphone blared.

They stared at each other for a moment, the tension breaking with each ring. Hiccup reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his smart phone, receiving a suspicious glare from the redhead that stood across from him when he answered it.

"Hello?"

"Hiccup," Elsa's voice addressed, sounding relieved. "I need your help."

"Uhhh," he started, his eyes staying on Merida. She she was staring him down still. He wasn't sure how long he could go on lying to her without breaking. With this in mind, he didn't bother wondering why Elsa would possibly want his help. He needed to get this off his chest, one way or another. "Sure thing, Els. I'll be right there."

At the mention of Elsa's name, Merida's eyebrows shot up and her frown deepened. She could definitely tell something was going on.

"Awesome," Elsa replied. "I'll explain everything when you get here."

"Yep, you're gonna have to do that," Hiccup said quickly, he rushed out a goodbye before Elsa could say anything else. "I'm on my way."

He hung up the phone and put it in his pocket, silently preparing for the onslaught of questions Merida was bound to ask.

"What the hell is going on with you two?" Merida shouted. "Are you two secretly going out or something? Is that what this is?"

Hiccup was almost sure that she would ask something like that, but he still ended up choking on his own spit. Even the thought of the question was still enough to shock him.

"It's not like that Mer," Hiccup sputtered, though Merida looked less than convinced. There wasn't any way for her to guess the truth on her own. "It's just...you need to come and see for yourself."

"See what?" Merida fumed, her lips snapping on her last word.

"Just come with me," Hiccup said, not giving any other indication of the truth. Elsa was going to have to explain that herself. He could hear Merida groan in frustration as he walked towards the exit. He could only hope at the end of the day, he didn't have two of his friends pissed off at him.

~Elsa~

"Any luck?" Anna asked anxiously from her father's desk.

"Not yet," Elsa answered, trying another password, and again hearing that nauseating beep that indicated she had guessed wrong. "Damn it. Dad only ever had like three passwords. Why the hell can't I guess this one?"

"Maybe Dad used all his good password energy on this password," Anna suggested. "So that's why all his other passwords sucked."

"Yeah, that's probably it," Elsa agreed sarcastically with a roll of her eyes.

Anna was pouring herself over the books that had been left scattered across the desk. Meanwhile, Elsa was trying to unlock the password on her father's computer. No matter what she did, she couldn't get in. She had guessed password after password until her fingers were sore. Which was exactly the reason she had called Hiccup in the first place. He was usually great at things like this. It was good he was coming over now because she probably wouldn't be able to handle any more frustration.

Her phone buzzed with a text from Hiccup, indicating he was at her back door.

"Finally."

Elsa let out a sigh of relief and quickly climbed the steps up to the chute that led up to the basement floor. Luckily Kai had been to angry with the both of them to check up on them frequently. They left both the fireplace doors and the door to the lair open so the would be able to hear him on the rare occasions that he would come down. Elsa was afraid she would be under constant supervision and unable to investigate her father's secret hideout. But she was lucky that he didn't suspect her of doing anything while she was trapped in the house.

Since she was grounded, Kai probably wouldn't let her have friends over, so she decided to let Hiccup in through the side terrace doors that lead directly to the basement. Elsa walked across the basement to the exercise room that lead outside and was more than a little surprised to find that Hiccup wasn't alone.

"Merida?" Elsa asked when she opened the door. The redhead in question was seething and staring her down with scrutiny. "What are you doing here?"

She shot a questioning look at Hiccup, who shrugged with a somewhat guilty expression. "Sorry," he admitted. "She wouldn't get off my back."

"Damn straight," Merida practically yelled. Elsa tried to motion he to lower her voice, so Kai wouldn't know they were here. Merida was having none of that however. "You guys have been all allusive and secretive since the Christmas party. And you better explain yourselves right now or you can go find a new best friend."

Elsa rolled her eyes, her own built up frustration and annoyance getting the better of her. She didn't even think of Merida's flaming temper when she bit out her next words. "You've been saying that since the ninth grade Mer. The threat is starting to lose its punch."

Merida's eyes narrowed in to slits of glowing sapphire. "Fine," she hissed. Without so much as another word she turned on her heal and started stomping off. Her hands were clenched into fists, and her whole body was practically shaking with rage. Knowing that she was going to break something on her way out, and that Merida would never forgive her if she didn't tell her the truth now.

"Mer, wait!" Elsa called out, running to catch up with her. Merida turned back to her with her arms crossed and her features fixed in a snap scowl. Elsa sighed as she tried to explain herself. "I'm sorry. It's just..."

She trailed off, not sure how to explain this. She didn't really need to explain anything to Hiccup. He just figured it out on his own and them immediately adjusted to it. With Merida she would actually have to confess. And that was proving to be obscenely difficult, she could barely form the words in her mind, let alone her mouth. She looked back at Hiccup for some kind of support, but he could only offer her a shrug.

Merida stared her down expectantly, and Elsa knew that if she didn't say anything soon, Merida was going to get fed up with the silence and just leave. Eventually she decided to give up with explaining. The words would never form in her mouth no matter how hard she tried. Elsa held out her hand and flexed her fingers. Merida's face shifted from anger to shock as she watched a flurry of snowflakes spiral upwards from Elsa's outstretched palm.

"I'm the Snow Queen," she stated simply, her expression composed and passive.

Merida's jaw would have dropped to the floor if it wasn't attached to her face. Her round eyes managed to get bigger and rounder as she gaped at Elsa in astonishment.

"Holy shit!" she practically screamed.

Elsa jumped at the pitch and loudness of her voice and immediately ran forward to shush her. She slapped her hand over Merida's mouth to stop her from screaming anything else. "Not so loud. Kai can't know that your hear or he'll kill me."

Merida quickly nodded and muffled out an agreement that couldn't actually be heard through Elsa's fingers.

"Let's go back inside," Elsa suggested.

When the three of them were in the basement and the doors to the terrace were shut behind them, Merida's excitement was set loose in a jumble of incomprehensible words.

"Ohmygosh! Ican'tbeliveyou'rethesnowqueen! Thisissocool! Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!"

"Calm down Mer," Elsa said, putting her hands up to ease Merida into a state of rest. "It's not a big deal."

"Not a big deal?" Merida repeated in disbelief. "Are you kidding me? This is huge! You're a superhero!"

Elsa allowed herself a small satisfied smile. She hadn't really gushed over her new situation before then, but she did have to admit that it was pretty cool. "I'm glad you understand."

"How long have you had these powers?" Merida muttered as she paced the room. "How the heck have I not noticed you were an unnatural before?"

"I've had them for as long as I can remember," Elsa answered with an uneasy shrug. "I've gotten pretty good at hiding them over the years. I only started using them when I went out as the Snow Queen."

"So at the Christmas party, when you ran off..." Merida started to ask.

"Yep," Elsa answered her unfinished question.

"And then you rescued Hiccup from those thugs?"

"Yep."

"And that's when he recognized you."

"Yep."

"So this is what you guys were hiding?"

"Right again," Hiccup chimed in.

Merida sighed to herself. "That's a relief. I thought you two were dating or something."

"What?" Elsa gaped in surprise.

"Anyway," Merida continued as if she hadn't heard her. "Now that we all know your secret, we can help you out with this whole superhero thing." She let out a gasp of excitement as her thoughts whiled by a mile a minute. "We could form a team!"

"Whoa, hold on-" Elsa tried to protest, but she was promptly cut off.

"Hiccup's super smart, so he can come up with battle strategies. And I'm great at fighting in general."

"No, Merida you're not getting involved in this. Neither of you are. It's way too dangerous," Elsa argued vehemently.

Merida scoffed. "Like I can't handle a little danger," she snorted. "My dad's been training me in self defence and fighting techniques since I was a kid. Plus I'm a wiz with a bow and arrow. I could be Robin Hood. Hell, I'm probably better equipped for this hero thing than you are."

"You don't understand," Elsa groaned in frustration. She knew it would be a mistake to tell Merida. She would always insist on throwing herself into adrenaline filled and potentially dangerous situations. It was never enough to watch the fight from the sidelines, she always had to get in on the action. Now that she knew the truth about the Snow Queen, there was nothing stopping her from jumping into this fight. "I don't want you to risk your life. I can't see you get hurt because of me."

"And I can't see you get hurt because I didn't help you," Merida insisted. Elsa frowned at her friend. Now she was just being unfair. "All I want to do is protect you, while you go around protecting everyone else."

Elsa crossed her eyes as she tried to come up with a proper retort. There was no way Merida was going to change her mind about this subject. She would jump off a bridge before she would go back on her word.

Before Elsa could come up with anything to say, there was a clambering of footsteps and a flustered looking Anna barrelled into the exercise room. Her eyes wide like saucers and her breathing coming out in sharp pants.

"I heard shouting, what's going on?" she asked in concern. When she caught sight of Merida, she stood up straight, startled by her presence. "Merida? What are-"

"She knows," Elsa interrupted.

"Oh," Anna said quietly in realization. Her eyes shifted around the room, from Elsa to Hiccup to Merida. "This whole secret identity thing is getting pretty hard to maintain."

Elsa had to laugh at that. She had only been in the hero business for about two weeks and already five people knew her secret identity. She was going to have to be more careful. Hiccup nor Merida would tell anyone else about her powers, she had no doubt of that. But who knows who else might recognize her when she goes out as the Snow Queen. Sure, not many people were as observant or knew her as well as Hiccup, but that didn't mean she shouldn't take extra precautions. She'd have to work on her mask design and on disguising her voice later. Right now she needed to get back to the reason why she asked Hiccup to come over in the first place.

"That doesn't matter right now," Elsa said in response to her sister before turning her attention back to her friends. "I need to show you guys something."

"What's up?" Hiccup asked in slight concern when he noticed Elsa's serious tone.

"You guys won't believe it until you see it," Elsa assured them before leading to the other end of the basement and into the back storage room. The cellar doors were still wide open and luckily the light from the hideout made it easier to see.

Hiccup and Merida remained in stunned silence as Elsa lead them down the ladder and into the underground lair. Anna had smirked to herself at their speechlessness when she followed down the ladder. They're eyes widened so much that Elsa was afraid they might pop out of their sockets. They took in the surroundings in a state of awe, even though they were only standing in a simple cement bunker. The fact that it was hidden under the house they had been to so many times before made it the most shocking room in the world.

Hiccup was the first to speak. "What is this place?"

"No idea," Elsa said as she descended down the staircase, her friends and sister trailing behind her. "But our father used to use it. We just don't know why or what for."

"I didn't take your dad as the skeleton in the closet type," Merida mumbled as she ran her hand over the railing.

"Neither did I," Elsa replied softly.

Hiccup and Merida explored the space in curiosity, looking over the computers, the bookcase, the cluttered desk of notes, and the board.

"Why was your father researching Scottish and Nordic history?" Hiccup asked in confusion. "Didn't he work in computer design? Why would he look into all of this?"

"We're not sure," Elsa said with a shrug. "It has something to do with that guy."

She motioned to the paper pinned up on the centre of the board. Merida reached up to grazed the name with her fingers. "Kozmotis Pitchiner?" she read aloud in confusion. "Who's that?"

Anna answered, shaking her head. "Absolutely no idea."

~Jack~

He had been careful. He only ever broke into low key stores and and banks. The ones with low security systems and cameras that were easy to spot and easy to frost with ice. And with the possibility of the Snow Queen lurking around any corner, he made sure to check his surroundings and keep his break ins as brief as possible.

But that didn't stop the world from screwing Jack over as he broke into a discount pawn shop. How was he supposed to know the owner was asleep on his desk in the basement of the shop? How was he to know the place even had a basement? When the old man heard the breaking of the glass window upstairs, he had been startled awake. The pawn broker didn't go up to confront the burglar on his own and give him the warning to high tail it out of there. He called the cops, quietly and calmly, as Jack Frost went through the jewelry behind the glass case at the front of the shop and money within the old fashioned cash register.

Jack only knew he was in trouble when the sound of police sirens blared from outside. He cursed himself for his carelessness under his breath. Stuffing the money and jewelry he had collected into his pocket, he made his way slowly and quietly to the back door. Life took another shot at him, and it turned out that a small group of officers were surrounding the back door as well. When Jack got outside, he was greeted by firearms being aimed at his face. He thanked God that his hood was up, shadowing his face and his cloak hid the rest of his body.

"Put your hands in the air and get down on the ground!"

The order made Jack's face twitch in frustration. He hated getting ordered around, and he hated getting caught even more. This was going to complicate matters. He had to get out of there without getting shot. And that was going to be impossible with out resorting to using his frost. Well it seemed like that couldn't be helped anyway.

Jack lifted up his staff in a movement that was quicker than lightning. A flash of frost ignited from the curved end of his staff and blasted the policemen off of their feet. He gripped his staff as tight as he could and felt the rush of wind flare under him and lift him off the ground. He flew out of there as fast as he could before the police could regain their footing. Shots were fired off at him, but he was far out of range. Jack breathed a sigh of relief. The wind whistled in his ears as he flew further and faster. His frustration bubbled up within him as he thought about almost getting caught. He had been careless and he was now paying the price. It made him want to slap himself for his own stupidity. He had gotten away, but he had been seen where he had never been seen before. The police now knew that Jack Frost existed and they knew that he had powers. It was only a matter of time before Elsa figured out that he existed and then came after him, because she was a hero and heroes chased after thieves. That thought alone was enough to make him snarl.