"Sanctuary"

Anna had enough.

She snuck into Kozmotis Pitchiner's class ten minutes before it was due to end, anxious to find the person who everyone said would be the best equipped to enlighten her. Only, he spent those ten minutes explaining to his class of eight to fourteen year olds, including one thin boy with messy black hair, that she was the daughter of the very people responsible for the abnormality-suppression vaccine. The murmurs and suspicious glances that followed, as well as Kozmotis' smug smirk, gave her the intensely acute feeling that she wasn't welcome, and his borderline bullying continued well after he dismissed the class. As far as she was concerned, she just wanted some candles for the darkness of confusion in her mind, and she didn't need the offensive snark. Anna Snowfield takes shit from no-one.

Which is why, a few seconds after the last child had left the briefing-slash-class room, she marched straight down the steps that separated the blocks of chairs, and punched him in his nose.

"Fuck you. Yes, I have their surname, but you know what? I am not them. I'm a scared woman that's lost at sea – literally – who in one night became someone who could pull flames out of thin air, who lost her parents and probably won't ever see her sister again, who was hunted down by a government that I thought cared about me and rescued by a bunch of so-called bloodthirsty, murdering anarchists…who are actually really nice guys. I can't ever go back to my old life, and I am trying so hard to understand why, okay? So please, shove your prejudicial crap where the sun doesn't shine and give me some answers, because of all people you should know the value of not being a judgemental ass."

It was then, as she finished her tirade that she remembered something that sent a wet trickle of worry down her spine – she just socked one of the most violent and dangerous Ghosts in the face, who amassed quite the body count even before becoming a member of their group…according to Jack at least. Fortunately for her, the impromptu display of fisticuffs along with the harsh yet emotional tirade seemed to garner something she did not expect from him as he leaned back on the Uni-Com interface and gingerly touched his nose – a little bit of respect.

"You've got fire, Snowfield. People rarely talk to me like that. I may not trust you, but I think I can learn to dislike you a little less. What did you want to know?" he spoke with amusement, pushing himself off the Uni-Com interface with his gold eyes fixed unwaveringly upon her sapphire orbs.

"Where did you…we come from?" she asked, firing off her first question of the session. Kozmotis raised a single eyebrow and nodded in acknowledgement, and with a mutter of the words 'abnormal history' to the interface, the air around them was filled with holographic images that floated in a clockwise circle around them, like a three-sixty degree lesson.

"To answer that," he explained, waving one hand left to right to speed up the clockwise revolutions and find a specific image, "we have to go back to the Third World War."

Anna folded her arms and watched as he muttered 'no, no, that's not it…ah, here we are' and tapped an image of a facility situated in a hilly field, with the label GREENLAND in the bottom left.

"This is where it all started. This building is still shrouded in mystery, and try as I might I cannot find its true purpose, but about three years into the war it was deemed a high-value target by the Russians, and summarily obliterated by a cruise missile. There were no counter-attacks in revenge, nor did any country admit ownership of that particular facility…so naturally, it was swiftly forgotten."

"Okay, so building goes boom. What happened next?"

"What happened next was a sequence of events that changed the world. Whatever was being conducted in that facility spread around the globe using the prevailing winds, and in the weeks that followed people began to notice…changes. Some could lift cars. Others, like you, could harness fire. The odd thing was those that weren't changed outright found that it happened to the next generation, or the generation after that – which is why we are still seeing Bloom Events decades after the war's end."

"So let me get this straight," Anna frowned, staring at the facility as it was engulfed in a titanic inferno, "Scary building goes boom. A few weeks later, some people become abnormals and those that don't, their kids do. Almost as if they're carriers…which means…"

"You're more intelligent than I thought. We believe that whatever was released from the explosion was biological in nature, therefore we call it the Toxin." Kozmotis announced almost proudly.

"Huh," Anna hummed, letting it all sink in, "okay. So what happened after the Toxin changed people?"

"Well, that's when our history really begins." Kozmotis smirked, and Anna couldn't tell whether she liked the ominous expression or not.

Location: Guardian Star, 400 miles south of Greenland
Date: September 2nd, 2073
Time: 07:30

He was the best at this sort of thing.

Even at the tender age of fourteen, having undergone his Bloom Event at ten years old, his ability to see into, decipher and manipulate the limitless lines of code that made up the contemporary software utilised by Unity and the vintage – 'hideously archaic', he once called it – computer systems used by his fellow abnormals meant that though he was still young, he was an important part of the day-to-day running of the Guardian Star…or at least, he liked to think so – and never missed a chance to remind his peers of this fact. Especially Hiccup.

So, the idea that the artificial intelligence he designed for the prototype medical robot "Baymax" was being decidedly uncooperative was inconceivable to Hiro Hamada. Hell, you could even call it heresy, if you were into that sort of thing.

It was technically the brainchild of his older brother Tadashi, whom he had left behind when he was rescued by Kozmotis Pitchiner in a stroke of luck that would rival most winning lottery tickets. Unfortunately, the elder Hamada brother was limited by the technology he had access to – which was very little as they lived in one of the ramshackle settlements a few miles south of New Corona, so Hiro felt it was his duty to carry on his brother's work to create a robot that could diagnose and treat any illness or injury, internal or otherwise.

If only he could solve a coding quirk that was causing Baymax to have an uncontrollable thirst for the destruction of mankind.

"Come on…you gotta work with me here, Baymax!" Hiro muttered to himself as he wandered through the bowels of the ship towards her galley, his head bowed down and eyes firmly locked on his personal glass tablet, the legions of white letters and numbers constituting Baymax's currently flawed A.I. He did this so often that his feet instinctively knew where the lower portions of the watertight door frames were located – affectionately known as knee-knockers by both the previous U.S. Navy sailors that lived on the ship, along with its current occupants. Initially, Hiro questioned why they were named as such when he first came on board, but was made acutely and painfully aware of the reasoning several collisions between his shins and the knee-knockers later.

Needless to say, he quickly learned to lift his legs.

Flicking his fingers across the screen, his eyes scanned and took apart the lines of code to find what might be causing the both the error and murderous robotic rage. With a quiet and tiny gasp, he frowned when he saw the numbers 2 and 3 were misplaced with each other on the five hundred and seventy two thousandth, six hundred and forty-forth line of code.

"Dude, c'mon. Misplacing two numbers? That's something Hiccup would do, not you." he chided himself as he placed his left index and middle finger over the numbers and twisted his hand so they took each other's place.

"Okay…" he sighed, halting his journey for what would hopefully be a momentous event as he pressed the ACTIVATE icon on the bottom left of the tablet, "let's see if this works."

I AM BAYMAX, DESTROYER OF MANKIND. I CANNOT BE STOPPED. THERE ARE NO STRINGS…

"Nope!" Hiro yelped quickly, and with equal haste he jabbed the DEACTIVATE icon to hopefully delay the Robot Apocalypse for a little longer. With a load groan, his arms exasperatedly flopped down to his sides, and he bumped his head a little too roughly against the metal bulkhead in frustration.

"Ow…" he whimpered as he gently massaged the red mark that appeared on his forehead, cursing Baymax's disobedience and the inherent toughness of metal walls. Sighing, he slipped the glass tablet back into the pocket of his purple hooded sweater, turned around and flopped backwards against the bulkhead, closing his eyes in introspective thought.

He missed his family; there was no doubt about it. Tadashi always warned him about his arrogance – despite having an affinity for technology, Hiro had a small knack for rubbing it in people's faces. So when his Event occurred and he began to see the world in code and software algorithms, one of the first things he did was use the family's Uni-Com to hack into the Unity Media Stream and screw up the propaganda for the day, replacing it with images of cuddly creatures and colourful, animated robots.

Naturally it attracted the attention of Unity's Abnormal Arrest Squad – the precursor to the Valkyries – and within three hours, six armed men burst through the door, knocked his aunt Cass and Tadashi to the floor and literally dragged the then ten year old out of the house, his young screams mingling with those of his family. He had never been so terrified in his life before that moment.

Luckily for him, and to the squad's misfortune, a man was passing through the settlement on his way to one located a few miles east. Hiro didn't even see the man attack before the battle was over, the inky darkness that covered the settlement coupled with the almost inhuman speed and ferocity of the intervention meant that before he knew it, five of the men were dead at Hiro's trembling feet with the sixth dangling a foot from the floor, a shadowy tentacle wrapped around his neck that was attached to a tall and slender man silhouetted by the headlights of the squad's hover jeep.

He remembered the man's first words to him as he glared contemptuously at the last soldier:

"Close your eyes. This is something no child should see."

Squeezing his eyes shut and covering his ears for good measure, Hiro crouched to the ground and gladly obliged.

The next thing he remembered was the feeling of Aunt Cass's chest against his head and her arms wrapped protectively and comfortingly around his body, and the gentle rocking back and forth as the shock finally wore off, letting the tears fall from his young eyes, the sudden terror of the event finally catching up with him.

After that, it was relatively calm. He chanced the removal of his hands from his ears, and could make out a conversation between his family and his rescuer, who introduced himself by his call sign: Pitch Black. With Hiro's mind still racing nineteen-to-the-dozen, he could only make out snatches of the conversation, but the general outlook was grim: as long as Hiro remained with his family, they would find no respite as Unity would keep coming for him.

However, Pitch Black had a solution: he could take Hiro to where he would be protected and his gifts would be encouraged, and when the world was safe enough he would be able to see his family again. Faced with the prospect of a return visit by the AAS, Tadashi and his aunt Cass agreed that leaving would be the best thing for the young boy…even if it was like losing a part of their hearts in the process. So, with many tears shed and an emotional plea from his aunt to Pitch Black that was too low a whisper for Hiro to hear, he set off on his journey to make sure that both he and his family would be safe.

Tadashi was sneaky, however; he made his younger brother take the blueprints and algorithm ideas for Baymax with him. The elder Hamada always wanted to help people, so it was an unspoken promise that one day, young Hiro would return.

Four years later, and the abnormals were no closer to freedom than they were back then…in fact, it felt like a net was closing in around them every day.

Yet, Hiro stubbornly held onto hope, which his rescuer-turned-scary-uncle didn't seem to possess.

Sighing glumly, he pushed himself off the wall and slipped his fingers inside the pocket of his sweater with the intent of trying again to curb Baymax's homicidal tendencies, but voices from the corridor ahead gave him pause – Kozmotis was walking towards him followed closely by Hiccup, and both faces were of uncertainty and in his scary-uncle's case…a dash of grumpiness. Hiro chuckled internally when he noticed that, as always, Kozmotis wore his Ghost uniform instead of civilian off-duty clothes like Hiccup, who wore faded brown pants and a rich red t-shirt. The shorter engineer was the first to notice him standing there, and offered a cheerful wave.

"Hey buddy, you're up early!" Hiccup greeted him warmly. Hiro shrugged and offered an awkward smile as they stopped beside him.

"Yeah, I woke up early to tweak Baymax a little more, so I thought I'd get some food while I worked."

"Oh? How's that working out?" Hiccup asked with curiosity.

"Some of the codes and algorithms aren't playing properly. I'll get it done eventually, though!" Hiro answered with an air of nonchalance, casting a glance at Kozmotis whose expression was swiftly becoming one of impatience.

"That's cool, need any help with it?"

"Nah," Hiro waved a dismissive hand, "you can't read and understand this sort of thing, only I can. Thanks, though."

"Okay, let me know how it goes. See you around, buddy!" the engineer jovially said, smiling as he turned to leave.

"Oh, I'll remind you, don't worry about that. Hey, where are you guys going?" Hiro asked curiously, his gaze now resting upon Kozmotis, whose eyes quickly shifted over to his.

"Ghost meeting." was the decidedly terse answer.

"Cool! Can I come? I mean, I should be there too, right? I am the one that makes sure all the computer systems are still working, you know. I'm pretty much as close as it comes to being a Ghost."

Kozmotis quirked a single eyebrow at his student's mild conceit, and the impatience seemed to fall away from his expression. He slowly folded his arms and fixed Hiro with a stern glare that made the fourteen year old tense a little in discomfort.

"Have you ever shot someone?" was the first question, asked in a calm and smooth tone.

"Uh…no?"

"Have you ever fired a weapon?"

"That would be a no, too."

"Have you even held a weapon?"

"…not yet, but I'm trying to convince Anna to let me take part in firearms training!" Hiro brightly offered his last card in an attempt to change the tall man's mind.

Kozmotis unfolded his arms but kept the strict expression as he brusquely turned and continued on his way.

"Then you are definitely not a Ghost, and therefore cannot be present at the meeting. Don't be late for this afternoon's class."

Hiro's eyes remained on Kozmotis' back as he nursed the disappointment and the simmering petulance inside – he felt he was intelligent and driven enough to be one of the team, and that his age was only a number. Whether Kozmotis was being overprotective or simply grouchy, he didn't know, but the cold manner in which his desire was shut down stung both his pride and his heart.

"Sorry buddy…" Hiccup offered apologetically, spreading his hands and grimacing in sympathy before hurrying off to join his comrade who, by then, was a fair distance away.

His head slumping in defeat, Hiro turned and resigned himself to a session of sulking and coding in the ship's galley, before a strike of indignant petulance shot through his chest. Sure, he was young, but considering he was responsible for the upkeep of the ship's computer systems along with fine-tuning the targeting software of the Phalanx turrets on the flight deck, in his mind he had every right to be at that meeting – especially as it wasn't a scheduled one. Something was amiss, and he was determined to find out what.

Revolving on the balls of his feet, he quickly scampered away from the galley, ignoring the growling of his stomach and quietly chased after the two Ghosts, intent on following them to the meeting and hopefully catching a glimpse of what was so important…but once he closed to within hearing range, he slowed his pace to eavesdrop on the start of an awkwardly personal conversation.

"So, why were you so grumpy to Hiro just then? Did you take your angry pills or fall off the wrong side of the bed this morning?"

From his vantage point a dozen steps behind them and the occasional dart behind the protruding wall of each watertight doorway, Hiro managed to catch Kozmotis shoot a sidelong death glare as they walked.

"None of your damn business, Haddock." the black-haired man growled.

"Ooooh, someone's definitely in a mood this morning."

"I am not."

"Sure, and I'm the chieftain of a Viking tribe. What's really going on, Koz? Why are you so intent on keeping Hiro out?" Hiccup persisted. Hiro slowed his pace in preparation; badgering the Ghost-slash-teacher was usually a bad idea, something that the young boy regularly entertained for his personal amusement.

"I'm not keeping him out. The boy is too young, that is all there is to it."

"Yeah, okay. I'm sure that's the real reason. I think you're just being-"

That was the point that Kozmotis had enough. Hiro darted behind one of the vertical protrusions, and as he peered out he saw a grey skinned hand roughly grab Hiccup's t-shirt and forcefully push him into a nearby room, the similarly coloured face contorted with deep irritation. Once they passed out of sight, Hiro carefully stepped over the knee-knocker and crept towards the open doorway, like the ill-fated cat killed by curiosity and revived by satisfaction. There was nothing but silence for a time, except for the indignant hmphs of Hiccup and the deep, calming breaths of his 'uncle'. From his spot for perfect eavesdropping, Hiro heard something he would later hold on to for a long, long time…and helped him to understand the tall man just that little bit more.

"If even a word of what I am about to say leaves this room, Haddock, I'll make sure both your legs are false, do you understand?"

Hiro heard a chortle from Hiccup that matched his own suppressed sniggers, in a weird version of ventriloquism. Kozmotis could make threats all he wanted, but Hiro knew he would never hurt his kind unless they were a direct threat.

"Neve has been asking questions of us that have been, for lack of a better term, pointed; whether you can get the ship moving after two years of being static; if I knew for sure there was a bunker hidden under the Toxin facility in Greenland. You're an intelligent man, so I know you're thinking the same thing."

"All the more reason for Glitch to be there," Hiccup persisted, unwilling to drop the point, "his skills will be important."

"He's not ready for this." Kozmotis flatly denied.

"How do you know? None of us were ready. Dude, Hiro is my buddy so I hate the idea as much as you do, but if we want the war to end we'll all have to grow up eventually. You and I did."

Hiro heard Kozmotis utter a loud and long exhalation, as though what was coming next was about physically hurt him to the core, and he was psyching himself up for it. He was a very personal man, everyone knew it – even Jack, who was the closest thing to a friend that Hiro knew Kozmotis had.

"I am a monster, Hiccup. I have killed, brutally and without mercy. I have no illusions about it, and I am comfortable with what I am."

"Yeah I know," the chocolate haired man piped up, "you had a pretty high body count even before becoming a Ghost."

"Exactly. It was for that reason I was the one to train Anna in combat – even after all she went through, she still had that childish innocence and wonder, the love in her heart. My role was to train her to push it aside and bring out the warrior within. Hiccup, I had to put a gun in a little girl's hand."

"Koz, she was eighteen back then, that was three years ago. She wanted to be a Ghost, so it's not the best comparison. Anyway, she seems pretty well-adjusted, don't you think? She loves Kristoff, jokes around with Jack…"

"And how many horrible things has she seen since becoming a Ghost, Hiccup? The Reaper attacks on settlement twelve, the rage and the hate in every Unity soldier's eye? Hiro is only fourteen…and I know he wants to be one of us."

Hiro felt his stomach churn just that little bit as he listened to both Kozmotis' words and the silence that befell the room just a few steps ahead. He was thankful that no-one was walking the corridor at that point, as they would surely have nonchalantly greeted him and given away his presence, and heaven help him if he was caught.

"Innocence is a rare thing in this world. Hiro lost too much of it the night I rescued him, and I'll be damned if I allow him to lose any more. The instant he is forced to fire a weapon, whether it be in defence or not, I will have failed in my guardianship of him. Whatever this meeting entails cannot be good, and I would like to make sure Hiro is still a child for a little while longer."

"Wow," Hiccup said in surprise and almost mock-awe, "I never knew that Pitch Black had a heart under all that grouchiness and sarcasm. You actually care! That was beautiful, dude. I'm really fighting back tears."

There was a beat; had Hiro been in the room at the time, he would have seen Hiccup receive a death glare. Of course, he didn't need to be present to know that that would have been the customary reaction.

"No, really! I'm all choked up!"

"Shut up," Kozmotis snapped, "and I swear, if Jack hears anything of this I will toss your false leg overboard and you can swim for it. Bad enough to have to tell you this to get you to back off, but if Frost gets wind of this conversation…"

A single boot step towards the open doorway was all it took for Hiro feel the fleeting surge of panic, and he quickly retreated to his original position and hid behind one of the protruding sections of the bulkhead just in time for Kozmotis to sweep out of the room and resume his thudding footsteps towards the mysterious meeting. Quietly waiting for Hiccup to leave the room as well, with his strides decidedly lighter and mingling with muffled chortles, the young boy peered out from his place of stealth and waited for the two men to disappear up the ladder that would take them to the next level – he knew where the meeting room was located so there was no need to follow them anymore, and he could use the space to think. So, as Hiccup's foot disappeared through the hole in the ceiling, Hiro crept from his hiding place and quietly made his way in the same direction, his mind ablaze with questions.

Why was Kozmotis being so overprotective? He knew that he was treated differently to all the other teenagers in the classes that the tall Ghost taught, since he was given the tougher questions and vastly more homework to do. Of course, Hiro knew he could take it – he had a sneaking suspicion that his I.Q. was greater than any of the other students…but he had a feeling that it wasn't his intelligence that made him a target.

All he knew was that he had to be at that meeting, whether Kozmotis wanted him there or not. He's one of the cleverest people on the Guardian Star, if not the cleverest. He had a right to be there, damn it, regardless of his age. Kozmotis just didn't understand his desire to be one of the team, right? He wasn't stupid, he was aware of the bleak nature of life as an abnormal and the world's disdain and hate for them. He just hadn't experienced it fully, aside from the incident four years ago.

So, even if he was just going to hide outside the door and eavesdrop as much as he could, he was going to be there. Kozmotis couldn't stop him; he was as much a Ghost as any of them.

He just needed to prove it.

The stealthy trip to his destination took less time than he thought it would, especially given that when your mind is occupied as you walk, the seconds tend to fly by.

Passing an empty stock room that lay adjacent to his goal, he slowed his pace and craned his head to the right, checking to see if the watertight door was closed…which, as he found out to his dismay, it was. Muttering a quiet "dammit…" to himself he silently crept forward and, upon reaching the metal obstruction to the mysteries he so desired to solve, he placed his ear against the cold surface and strained to make out any sounds coming from within; a word, laughter, movement…anything.

There was nothing.

He felt the iron-heavy ball of disappointment drop from his heart into his stomach, and grumbled to himself that the only obstacle, the only thing stopping him was a freaking door. His quest was stymied by an inanimate object. Attempting to open it would only give away his presence, and Kozmotis would be pissed.

"You win this round, door."

Turning to skulk off back to the galley and resume banging his head against the metaphorical algorithmic wall of Baymax's murderous A.I., yet another source of irritation as it was something he knew he could solve, Hiro dragged his steps down the corridor.

"Achoo!"

It was lucky that he was so slow. With the ladders that would take him down one deck ahead of him, he heard the slightly clumping footsteps of someone climbing up along with a rather loud sneeze. Like the metaphorical deer in the headlights, split between darting for safety and remaining frozen in place, his legs and mind automatically chose the former and rushed the rest of his body into the empty stock room, flattening him against the wall where he could peer into the corridor.

A few seconds after that, he spotted Anna – or, at least, the back of her body – pass by the doorway, stopping once to double over and fire off another sneeze into her hands and a dismayed "ugh" as she wiped them down her black pants.

Was it his imagination, or did her hands suddenly ignite with the nasal evacuation?

He paid no further attention to the odd sight as, satisfied that she had control over her nose, Anna continued on her journey into the meeting room. Hiro felt the fleeting glimmer of hope as he peered out into the corridor and watched her push open the doorway and enter, offering a slightly muffled and glum "Hi, guys…" to announce her arrival.

Hiro didn't hear her close the door behind her.

Feeling the surge of excitement at the second chance, he quickly darted out of the room and crept low, carefully stepping over the inconveniently placed knee-knocker and crouched just beside the doorway, grinning in glee when he found that he wasn't hearing things – the door was indeed open.

"You okay there, Anna? You look a little red-nosed." Hiccup's voice swam out of the room.

"I'm fine, Hic! Just a few sneezes, that's all. Hey, what's this all about anyway?"

"Yes, I'd like to know too," Kozmotis joined in, "I have to prepare for class soon, so I'd like to get this over quickly."

"Don't fret, Mr Pitchiner. We'll be finished with plenty of time to spare." That was Neve. Her voice told Hiro that whatever it was they would be discussing was definitely important.

"As you remember, I have asked each of you questions that seemed a little…pointed. It was…unintentional; however I know you are all intelligent enough to know the devil is in the details."

Hiro heard a deep sigh that could only have come from the boss-lady herself, and his heart began to race just that little bit more with the prospect of juicy details.

"The reason I asked those questions is because of an idea that Kristoff and I call Sanctuary-"

"One moment," Kozmotis interrupted her, and Hiro heard the scrape of a metal chair followed by several footsteps towards him. Frozen in place, his heart went nineteen-to-the-dozen as he listened to the approach of his scary-uncle, and when his body ignored his mind's orders to scramble to his feet and hide, he prayed that Kozmotis wouldn't be too angry at the flagrant disobedience.

He was lucky. Kozmotis didn't step through the doorway…but he did shut the door with a metal clank. Hiro felt the wave of relief that crashed through him mingle with the irritated disappointment that, at the most critical point of the conversation, he was cut off.

"You win again, door." he muttered grumpily. Rising awkwardly to his feet, Hiro continued to grumble as he skulked off toward the ladder…but felt the faint glimmer of hope and determination in his heart as he realised something – he now knew about Sanctuary, even if he didn't know precisely what it was…and that alone might be enough to get Hiccup or Kozmotis to tell him about it.

Hopefully.

Time: 20:16

Eight o'clock came and went as Hiro knocked on the door that led to the engine control room, having been summoned there fifteen minutes previously. He was unsure of why he was needed, given that his great talent lay elsewhere other than metal pipes, flick switches and old-fashioned dials. Either way, Hiccup asked for his help with something – surprise, surprise – so Hiro wasn't going to miss the chance to assist and later remind him of how valuable his help was, so naturally he responded to the call.

He might even get a chance to ask about Sanctuary, depending on whether Hiccup wasn't rushed off his feet like he was all day.

"Come in!" yelled a voice from the other side of the watertight door, which was instantly recognisable as his not-as-smart rival. Smirking to himself, Hiro pushed open the door with a little more effort than it needed as the day's events were starting to tire him out, and stepped over the knee-knocker into the room.

Passing a shiny dividing steel wall filled with circular dials of various sizes to his left, and another wall of differently coloured blinking lights to his right, Hiro remembered that he had never actually been in the engine control room before – so he certainly took the opportunity to commit the small location to memory. Two rows of thin metal desks sat in the middle of the room, upon each of them sat small triangular blocks with little flick switches, and on the furthest desk was perched an old-fashioned telephone – an ancient relic of a forgotten time. The ceiling was low and adorned with heavy piping, air circulation vents, strip lights and a few handheld speaker mics attached by coiled cables, with the buttons on the side to allow speech – through one of which, standing by an old and decrepit chair behind the furthest desk, Hiccup was issuing orders to the engineering volunteers in the propulsion deck.

"Hey buddy, be with you in a second…no, try altering the flow regulator on the sixth fuel cell…I'm just trying to work a miracle here…what do you mean it's not working? That's a fresh cell, dude!"

Hiro grimaced as he listened to Hiccup's attempts to vicariously fix the problem in the propulsion deck – if he was actually there, the problem would mostly likely have been solved, but the engineer was confident in his team enough to stay in the control room and monitor the readings from there, and basically act as a glorified Uni-Com repair technician.

Leaning his hip casually on the closest desk, Hiro smirked as with one hand on his hip and the other clutching the mic, Hiccup shook his head with mild exasperation and a strangely amused smile on his face, as though he found the situation vaguely humorous.

"Murphy's Law hard at work, eh buddy? Propellers are okay, turbines are fine…pipes are a bit rusty but they'll be fine, the ship's ready to move and what goes wrong? The fuel cells. Seriously, you can't make this up."

"Well, she is kind of old…" Hiro shrugged.

"Hey," Hiccup mock-scolded him, "the lady is not old, she's seasoned. Just because she's been around for nearly a century doesn't mean she's old!"

He reached his hand to the ceiling and lovingly stroked it, crooning, "Don't you listen to the mean little scamp; you are a graceful, badass woman!"

"Sure, whatever you say gearhead. The ship is ancient." Hiro continued the relentless tease, greatly enjoying the look of jaw-dropped mock offence that was shot at him. Software versus hardware, an age-old battle fought with sarcasm and jabs.

"Well, she's still going strong, unlike your Baymax. 'New' doesn't always mean 'better', dude."

"I'm inclined to agree," a smooth, silky voice from behind Hiro caught everyone's attention, "I trust old-world technology far more than anything Unity will ever create."

The young boy turned to find Kozmotis, clad in his special operations gear – worn utility vest, fingerless gloves, his mask and goggles attached to his belt – eyeing him with curiosity and a little confusion, as though he did not expect his student to be there.

"Truer words were never spoken. Anyway, if you've got that glass tablet, can you connect with the Uni-Com up in the briefing room and use it to keep an eye on the software systems, Hiro? I wanna make sure we're not gonna screw anything up when we take the lady for a spin."

Hiro nodded his acknowledgement, and smirked a little in self-important pride as he fished out the tablet from his pocket and, with finger movements too rapid for anyone but him to follow, he navigated the humongous amount of programs that were running concurrently to find the one that interfaced with the Uni-Com, all under the watchful eye of his teacher.

"So you basically want me to do your job for you?" he drawled, and watched as several different readings, all with percentage efficiencies flooded the right side of the tablet. Some, like the Phalanx turrets, sat at eighty percent while others straddled either side of fifty five. Each day Hiro was amazed that the Star didn't fall apart – though he wouldn't deny he would miss the old girl.

Hiccup ignored the comment and chose to issue a few more commands through the mic, effectively taking him out of the conversation – which was kind of what Hiro wanted. Without looking up from the tablet, he spoke in as much of an offhand, nonchalant voice as he could muster to hide his curiosity.

"So…are you going somewhere?"

He didn't see the narrowing of Kozmotis' eyes, though did sense the change in tone from unemotional to almost suspicious.

"Yes. Haddock and I are going to Greenland. It's a secret task."

"Is it something to do with Sanctuary?"

The sudden silence was deafening, and an ironically loud signal to Hiro that he struck true. Looking up with a smirk, he saw that Hiccup had frozen mid-sentence, his eyes glancing between him and Kozmotis, completely oblivious to the woman on the other end of the mic repeatedly calling his name to no avail. However, it was the taller Ghost's reaction that sent a pang of guilt through the fourteen year old's stomach – the golden eyes that bored into his very soul radiated not just anger…but disappointment.

"I should have known better than to trust you, Hiro," his teacher spoke in a low, firm growl that sent a flicker of fear through the young boy's spine, "you think that because you possess a higher I.Q. than anyone on the ship, the rules do not apply to you. I am disappointed in you, Mr Hamada."

Hiro slowly dropped his head, feeling shame settle in his heart and stomach. Despite the fact that Kozmotis seemed to be a cantankerous ass to him nearly all the time, especially to the point of giving him extra homework in class, the conversation he overheard was indication enough that Kozmotis Pitchiner actually cared.

"Sorry. I just…I wanted to…" he mumbled, but was harshly cut off.

"Wanted to what, exactly? Eavesdrop on a private meeting because you could, or because I told you not to?"

Hiro found himself with nothing he could say, the words seemed to still in his throat. Coupled with the fact that the only sounds were the loud hums of the engine room, along with the decidedly audible breathing of his teacher, the air around them was awkward…until Hiccup quietly broke it, much to the boy's relief.

"You might as well tell him, Koz. The cat's pretty far out of the bag."

Hiro's head jerked up in time to see Kozmotis shoot the engineer a death glare and fold his arms for emphasis. Following his gaze, he saw Hiccup shrug as if to say 'nothing you can do about it now…' before returning his attention to the mic and the woman now shouting his name. Hearing a deep sigh, Hiro's hopeful gaze returned to the pair of eyes almost twice his height, which closed in resignation.

"Sanctuary…" Kozmotis spoke clearly and quietly…and Hiro felt a buzz of anticipation course through his mind as he listened to every word. "…is not a plan, but the name of our new home. Kristoff and Neve both knew that eventually our numbers would exceed that which the Guardian Star can support, so we needed to find a new place to call our own. A place where we can thrive in secret so, to that end, Hiccup and I will fly to the Toxin facility in Greenland to find out if the rumours are true of an underground bunker designed to survive a nuclear holocaust, large enough for five thousand people or more."

"Okay," Hiro nodded, "that makes sense. We're kinda exposed here in the Atlantic, so…yeah. What would happen to the Star, if there is a bunker?"

Kozmotis paused for a second and cast another sidelong glance, one that was met by Hiccup. Both faces showed uncertainty and more than a little grim resignation…and a strange sorrow in the engineer's eyes.

"She will be stripped of everything that will help our kind survive. Everything. When we finish, she will be nothing but a shell, a shadow of her former glory. We will be taking apart one home to build another."

Hiro felt his breath catch in his throat, and a twinge of sadness shoot through his chest. Sure, he held a mild disdain for the aging aircraft carrier…but she was home. She was all he ever knew for four years, and supported nearly twelve hundred souls like a titanic, steel-crafted mother.

"Ouch. No wonder you wanted to keep it secret…" he murmured.

"That's not all," Kozmotis slowly shook his head, "not by a long shot. Four days ago, Jack broke radio silence to warn us that something was coming. He didn't say what, but it was enough to worry Neve and Kristoff into action – because of that, they decided that the best chance for our survival no longer lies on the Star, but in Greenland. It's easier to hide underground."

"That's why we only move at night, because of the Dead Zone. Unity pilots can't use their scanners here, so they have to fly by sight – and the longer they spend searching for us, the more they risk being spotted by Alliance patrols…and war. That's pretty much the only reason we're still here." Hiccup added.

"…but why are you trying to get the ship moving, if you don't know whether this bunker is real or not?" Hiro questioned, but this time it was Anna that answered.

"Well, it's bedder to dow if she can sail when de time comes…" she muttered, her words hilariously muted by the obvious congestion in her nose as she parked herself near Kozmotis, having entered the room without anyone noticing.

"You okay there, Anna? You look like hell; shouldn't you be in bed or something?" Hiccup frowned, cocking his head to the side as she wiped her nose with her arm. For some reason, both Hiro and Kozmotis felt the urge to step back a few paces and press themselves against the blinking lights on the wall behind them, regarding her with a wary expression.

"I'm fine, Hic! No way'm I gonna miss dis…achoo!"

It was lucky that they did; when she wiped her nose on her arm once more, another sneeze erupted which caused a surge in her powers, and a medium-sized fireball shot out from her fingertips, flew past Kozmotis, narrowly missed Hiro's messy buoyant hair, and hit the wall opposite, causing a patch of angry flames on impact. Three pairs of eyes darted between the fire and the fire-weaver, who wore an expression of wide-eyed horror.

"Crap!" she hissed, and ran out of the room, a staccato uttering of "crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap!" following her and with incredulous surprise Hiro watched as she returned with a fire extinguisher, brushed past them while lifting the canister and shot the white powder at the circular blaze, her mutters of "crapcrapcrapcrapcrap" not ceasing even once.

"What the hell just happened?" Hiro asked, staring bewilderedly at the embarrassing scene.

"Anna has a cold." Kozmotis answered simply.

"You're joking."

"Do I look like Jack Frost?"

"…how? She's a fire-weaver, how the heck is she bothered by the cold?" Hiro gaped in incredulity, glancing at Hiccup for enlightenment – receiving nothing but a shrug. Kozmotis on the other hand, covered his face in the palm of his hand and groaned in exasperation.

"She's not cold; she has a cold…please tell me that the man in charge of maintaining our home and the boy in charge of keeping its software running, two of the most intelligent people on the ship are aware of the basic concept of viral infections?"

Hiccup opened his mouth to retort the ill-disguised snark, but a gleeful voice emanating from the handheld mic snapped his attention. As he listened to the woman's voice on the other end a wild grin appeared on his lips, and with a pleased "copy that" he hooked the mic back onto the receiver and picked up the aging telephone from its cradle on the nearby desk.

"Bridge, this is Hiccup. The fuel cells are hooked up and waiting. We're good to go down here…right…okay…will do. Wish me luck."

Quickly replacing the telephone receiver on the cradle, Hiccup reached up to unhook the handheld mic once more, flicked a switch to set it to a ship-wide P.A. system and, with as breezy a voice and nonchalant an expression he could muster, he cheerfully prepared the crew.

"All hands, this is your chief engineer speaking! We're about to start sailing at a steady speed of three knots for the first time in two years, so please keep your belongings secured, stow all tables in the upright position, fasten your seatbelts and get ready to kiss your butts goodbye!"

He glanced over with a cheeky grin at his fellow occupants, who all regarded him with expressions that danced between bemusement and wide-eyed concern, forcing a hasty amendment from the chocolate-haired man.

"…that last part was a joke. Yeesh, tough crowd. Okay, in five…four…three…two…"

Hiro assumed that when Hiccup reached "one" that the four underwater propellers, now fed by the six fuel cells in lieu of the nuclear reactor that once acted in their place, slowly began to revolve and commence the task of pushing the hundred thousand ton behemoth through the water, but he heard no sound from the turbines below.

What he did hear, however, was a long and agonised metallic creaking and groaning that undoubtedly echoed throughout the ship, as though the very act of movement was something that caused the ancient carrier an aching pain, much like arthritis in elderly joints. The Guardian Star continued to utter her dismayed opinions for a long time, prompting all heads in the room, including Anna's – who by that point had completely forgotten that she put out the fire a while ago and still clutched the extinguisher – and for the first time in a long time, Hiccup looked mildly concerned. Catching Hiro's disconcerted gaze, he quickly curled his lips into an awkward smile and threw a shrug in for emphasis.

"Hey, don't worry. She'll hold together," he spoke cheerily, before another load groan tore its way through the bowels of the craft, "please hold together…"

After what felt like an eternity, filled with nervous looks and tensed bodies, the groaning eventually stopped and the engine room reported a steady speed of three knots in a northerly direction. Hiccup exhaled a relieved sigh, and grinned awkwardly when quiet applause rang out through the room – sans Kozmotis of course.

"Aw, stop it guys," he waved dismissively, and then inclined his head toward Hiro's tablet, "how's it looking?"

Hiro glanced down at the percentage readouts that shone from the transparent surface. "Everything looks okay from here – a couple of power fluctuations, but nothing bad. You know, as much as I hate to say it…nice going, Hic."

"Eh, it's nothing. I'm just happy there's still life left in the lady. Anyway," he grinned, changing the subject when he spotted Kozmotis' impatient taps of an imaginary watch, "I should probably get ready to go. Toothless is gonna love this."

Offering a cheery goodbye, the affable engineer sidled past the desks and passed Kozmotis towards the door on the other side of the dial-filled wall, and after a pair of curt nods as a silent farewell, the black-haired Ghost also turned to leave. Before he knew it Hiro's hand shot out and tapped his teacher on his right arm, and quailed slightly under his questioning gaze.

"Is there something further you wish to discuss, Mr Hamada?"

"No…nothing. I just…wanted to tell you I already did today's homework." the young boy offered awkwardly. Kozmotis gazed at him for a short time, enough for Hiro to feel the burn of those golden eyes and avert his gaze.

"I look forward to marking it."

Just in time, Hiro looked up at the uncharacteristically not-cold words to see a respectful nod from his teacher, before he too swept out of the room towards the hangar deck. Staring at the empty space in thought, Hiro clutched the glass tablet and felt something that could oddly be described as worry, and nearly jumped when a decidedly warm hand rested upon his shoulder.

"So, on a scale of one do den, how much are you going do miss Principal Pitchiner?" Anna soothed, and Hiro turned his head up and to the right to meet her smiling face and sympathetic sapphire eyes – and felt a rush of embarrassment in his cheeks.

"Zero…duh, he's my teacher…" he frowned at the implication, before a lightbulb suddenly switched on and an idea shot through his mind like a bullet, "wait…that's it!"

Ignoring the quirk of Anna's eyebrow at the sudden change of demeanour, Hiro quickly swept aside the percentage readouts and pulled up the errant A.I., and with manic speed born of a glorious epiphany, his fingers rushed across the shimmering white keypad, creating and deleting lines upon lines of code in a matter of seconds.

"…what's it?" Anna asked curiously, as she tried to make sense of it all.

"Shhh!" he hissed as his fingers and eyes darted left and right across the tablet, "I'm working!"

He sensed the lowering of Anna's head nearby and, had he not been so focused on finally solving the problem, he would have sniggered internally at the thought of her futile attempts to understand software language and computer algorithms. She wasn't stupid, he was acutely aware of that, but he was so much better at it than she was.

Finally, after several furious and paradoxically agonising minutes, Hiro tapped the last letter and held his trembling finger over the ACTIVATE icon. His heart thundered in his chest while his breath stilled with anticipation, hoping that after several long months he might have actually solved the A.I.'s quirks once and for all. For a moment, he was frozen in time as he watched the code lazily drift across the tablet, patiently waiting for his response…

…and with a deep breath, he gently tapped the icon.

The countless lines of letters and numbers began to furiously shoot across the screen in any and all directions like a series of numerical and alphabetical fireworks, racing around each other in what anyone else would constitute as a frenetic mess, eventually colliding in the centre and condensing to form a shimmering white sphere, with lines of code lazily floating around it like the rings of Saturn. To Hiro, however, it was so much more than that.

It was a birth – and as a rectangular window gently opened itself underneath the sphere, he felt his breath catch as words began to form inside it.

Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion. On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?

"YES! I RULE!" he cheered, the tablet nearly colliding with Anna's face as his arms shot up in victory. Now that he perfected the A.I., all he needed to do was build a chassis for it…and he grudgingly figured he might need Hiccup for that.

But it didn't matter; Sanctuary would have its own medical robot, free of prejudice or hate, programmed to diagnose, heal and care.

Of course, Hiro had a few ideas for a role other than that…and they all involved badass armour.

COUNTDOWN TO THE PURGE (MONTHS/DAYS/HOURS/MINS/SECS): 02:18:01:15:26

A/N:

Sorry about the chapter length. And for the flashback. That one was kind of important. Also, the theme for this was Project Insight from the Winter Soldier OST.

Next up: Three Valkyries walk into a bar...

Thanks again for all the follows, favourites and reviews. I hope this one wasn't too tedious.

For the Ghosts,

Furiyan