A/N: Chapter Theme, the music that started all of this: "Taking a Stand", from the Captain America: The Winter Soldier OST.

"Camp Serenity, Part I"

"There it is again…"

In the darkness of the pilot cabin, Jack glanced over at Anna upon hearing her puzzled voice over the Fairy's intercom. He habitually adjusted the position of the headset over his ears. "What?"

Faintly illuminated by the cabin's blue light, she manipulated the small holo-interface with the fingers of her right hand as she guided the humming Fairy with the other. "The computer keeps registering a power fluctuation in the engines, but every time I run a basic diagnostic, it goes away."

"Should we be worried?"

Anna closed and jutted out her lower lip as she shook her head, but her frown remained. "Only minor fluctuations, like one percent."

"Alright." Jack looked out the window at the clouds racing below them, and the full moon turning them into a bed of white down. "Carry on as normal, but keep an eye on it. Hiccup can take a look once the mission's over."

"Copy." Anna returned her right hand to the control stick, but every now and then her eyes flicked over to the translucent image of the Fairy's systems. "Hopefully she won't give out on us later on."

"Throttle back on the speed. Maybe that'll help."

"Alright."

Jack felt the Fairy's velocity slow down, even if only a little. "Did it work?"

Anna fiddled with the holo-interface once again, and stared at it for a few moments. "Seems to. Power looks pretty steady."

"Alright. Stay on this speed for now, and let me know if anything changes."

"Copy that."

Anna returned to her steady guidance of the Fairy's flight, and Jack gazed at a shadowed spot of the co-pilot's dash, as the atmosphere quickly became one of silent thought. Ordinarily he would have asked her what she was thinking, or vice versa, but in that moment he scarcely cared. His body had been host to a taut tension, a kind of laser-focused awareness in which his mind was totally and wholly alert, and his thoughts fixed on the approaching mission. Leading was never Jack's strong suit and he was the first to admit it, but it forced him to think like one. The live-by-the-moment guy became the planner, the prankster became the adult, and it all constituted such a change within him he wondered if, should the inmates be anyone he knew, they would recognise the Frost before them.

"So…"

Anna had evidently become aware of the thick silence.

"You and my sister, huh—"

"I have no comment on the matter."

There was a pang inside him of surprise that he spoke more like Elsa than himself, but the meaning would have been the same. Anna was probably making polite conversation, he knew that, but the faint resentment he had ever since the talk on the roof was still there. Besides, it wasn't the time for small talk.

"Mmkay."

Jack quickly shut down further needless chit-chat. "Candace," he spoke over the intercom, "you picked a callsign, yet?"

"Um, yeah? Maybe?"

"What is it?"

"I was thinking Phoenix."

Jack smiled. As far as it went, the callsign wasn't appropriate; rather, it nailed it. "Alright, Phoenix. You mind if I come sit by you?"

"Uh… sure?"

Jack half-smiled to himself and indicated he would be right there. He pulled off the headset, and disconnected the safety harness so he could stand. As he entered the cabin proper, Rapunzel stood at the back, flapping her arms up and down so the thin fabric wings rippled in the air. She was probably smiling, had her personal Ghost mask not been obscuring her face. It was that moment that reality struck him; the ex-Valkyries becoming Ghosts was a concept, a sort of idea that became acutely real when he saw both Rapunzel and Elsa wearing their masks. Kozmotis, however, remained as still as a tree, likely losing himself in the moment, while Elsa played at summoning and dissolving Coldheart over and over.

Candace, on the other hand, sat in the corner just inside of the dividing wall between the cabins, staring at an invisible spot on the floor. Noting with amusement and sympathy the mildly terrified look on her face - though she did look the part in a hand-me-down Ghost uniform - Jack held onto the rigging just above his head, and leaned down slightly so she would catch his eye. She abruptly looked up, and blinked a few times before remembering something.

"Oh! Right. Sorry. I was miles away."

"You looked it. Am I still okay to sit by you?"

"Yeah! Yeah. Sorry. I—" she shuffled herself further into the corner, and made a point of dusting off the space beside her. "Here."

Jack thanked her as he chuckled, then gently sat alongside her - though remembered to give her a good foot or so of space. He leaned down, resting his elbows on his knees whilst he gazed at the opposite wall, and his hands slowly rubbed with each other - though more out of something to occupy them rather than anxiety.

"How're you feeling, Phoenix?"

She gave a rapid chuckle, though it wasn't mirthful. "Did you want a list?"

"Sure." Jack caught her glancing at him in mild surprise, and shrugged. "If you want to, that is."

Candace looked away, her eyebrows high, and shrugged too. "Mmkay. Um… nervous. Scared. Worried I'm not going to live up to your expectations, thinking I'm out of my depth. I feel safe, but at the same time, I feel like I'm in so much danger. I feel… a little out of place. Like I'm not meant to be here… and because of that, I keep worrying I'm going to drag you all down."

Jack smiled to himself, and dipped his head briefly before looking around the cabin. Elsa kept throwing them a glance, judging by the way her head would subtly incline toward them and back. He considered his words.

"Look around this cabin. When you look at the people… what do you see?"

Candace took a moment, ostensibly doing so. "I see soldiers. Warriors. Confident people. Ready and capable people."

"So, would you say they—yours truly included—are veterans of combat?"

Candace looked at him and quickly nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, easily."

"Well, I'm gonna blow your mind. Every one of them is scared."

She gave him a funny look, and then shook her head. "Bullshit."

"I'm absolutely serious. It doesn't matter how many battles we've fought, whether it's our first or our hundredth, in the moments before every fight, we're all scared. Worried. Nervous. Anxious. We're all looking at the soldier next to us and praying that when the shooting starts, we won't be a liability. We're all hoping that when it's all over, we'll still be standing. Everyone feels that fear, Phoenix, and anyone who says different is either a liar or a psychopath."

Candace looked at Elsa, who by that point had abandoned all pretense of overhearing and had simply elected to join the conversation. "Even you?"

Elsa let out a quiet chuckle as she disconnected the straps of her mask. "Especially me. When I was a Valkyrie, on the outside I was calm, confident and… well, a total bitch."

Jack rose his eyebrows and blinked in surprise.

"Inside was another story. Inside, I was a terrified little girl, afraid that when I stepped out onto the battlefield, I would die there."

Candace looked between them. "How did you two meet, anyhow?"

Jack gave Elsa a knowing glance, and she smiled as she dipped her head. "She tried to kill me."

There was a feminine bark of laughter that broke the air of the cabin. Jack shot an amused look at Candace, her mirth of nervousness, before she clocked his expression. "Wait… really?"

"Yes. Romantic, isn't it?" Elsa rolled her eyes as she smiled wider, and looked away as she began to act out a conversation. "So how did you two meet? Well, it was attraction at first sight, really. I tried to kill him, he tried to kill me in return, I nearly died twice during the Purge, almost killed him and destroyed his home. It was a romance worthy of song."

"I can't tell if you're joking."

"We're not," Jack said, "but that's pretty much how it went. In any case, there's a certain strength to be gained from knowing other people are counting on you."

"So how do you do it, then? How do you beat that fear?"

"Everyone has their own ways, I guess. Pitch likes to recite particular passages from something called the Bible—"

"That is my secret," Kozmotis called out, still in exactly the same posture as before, "and if you must know, it is a passage. Ezekiel, twenty five, verse seventeen."

Jack nodded at him. "What he said. Anna sings to herself, but quiet enough so only she can hear it."

"And you?"

"Me? Well… for me it's about finding my centre, and using it to… well, center myself. I like to think back on all the fun I had with my friends, all the practical jokes and the snowball fights, looking after my kids. For me, it's not about beating fear—it's about creating something else to focus on. Something worth fighting for."

Candace's eyes distantly rested on the floor of the cabin. "I don't know how to do any of that. I… can't remember being happy until I came to Bravo."

"Well, we've had experience and time to find out what works for us. Just remember that it's absolutely natural to be scared. Want advice from an old soldier?"

"You're not old, but please."

"Breathe. Just… breathe. Focus on your breathing, and while you do that, just think about your next step. That's all you need to. Then when you've reached that step, think about your next one, and so on. It's easy to get lost in the rabbit hole, but if you just take it one step at a time, then you won't lose your way."

"We're about five minutes out, Cap," Anna called. "If you're gonna do a speech, now's the time."

Jack smiled at Candace, before lightly clapping his hands together and rising to his feet. "Frost to all Ghosts," he announced. "Sound off for comms check."

Eight voices came back one by one, some exclusively over the radio channel, and others creating the odd aural sensation of hearing them in stereo since they were less than ten feet away from him.

"Alright, listen up." Jack reached up to hold the cargo rigging fixed to the ceiling. "We're less than ten minutes from showtime, so I'm gonna keep this brief."

"We getting a speech? Sounds like we're getting a speech."

"Zip it, flyboy. I wanna hear this."

"Why don't you come over here and make me?"

Jack chuckled, shaking his head. "You kids done?"

"Sorry, chief."

Jack adjusted his grip on the rigging when minor turbulence rocked the Fairy. "If someone had told me, six months ago, that I'd be flying into battle with the very people who'd been trying to kill us all, I'd have laughed in their face and whacked them upside the head."

"Now you're here, about to fight alongside us, and I realise… how I can't think of what life would be like without you all. You were everything we'd been missing and we didn't even know it, and if you weren't here, we'd be lost. You're more than just soldiers, more than Ghosts. You're brothers, sisters… lovers."

Jack failed to stop his eyes from resting upon Elsa's newly masked visage.

"You're family. You gave us something we never thought we'd have again. You gave us hope. You gave us a fighting chance—and together, we'll take the next chance, and the next, and the next, until we're the last ones standing… or all our chances run out. And I'll tell you this: if the day comes that I do fall, then I'll do so knowing I had the honor of fighting beside you all. Abnormal and human."

What followed was a few seconds of silence, broken by Astrid's excellent timing. "Y'know, I'm getting all choked up. Honestly. There might be tears."

Laughter broke out within the Fairy and over the comms. "Well, as far as speeches go," said Hiccup, "I rate that four stars out of five. Would listen again."

"Yeah, wasn't bad at—" Astrid suddenly broke off, and a pang of worry settled in Jack's stomach… at least, until she spoke again.

"Hunter… are you crying?"

"No."

"You sure? 'Cause I can—"

"Finish that sentence and I'll make yer hair stand on end fer a month."

Jack was just about to either preemptively end the squabbling, or poke further fun at the poor Hunter, when Anna's voice rang out over the comms. In an instant, the good humour and levity vanished in place of steely resolve and focus.

"Coming up over the drop zone, Cap."

Jack unclasped the mask from his belt, and fixed it over his face albeit with some minor adjustments. He took the staff from his bracer and extended it, and used his newly free hand to whack the button on the inner hull separating the passenger cabin from the pilot's. With a metallic groan, the Fairy opened her innards to the outside air, and the cabin was filled with a deafening roar as the wind rushed to fill the space inside, carrying with it the fury of the Fairy's engines.

"For the three of you in here," he yelled to make his voice heard over the noise, "keep your arms and legs apart, and let me guide you down. Rest of you know what you have to do."

He walked past the standing Ghosts, sensing them take position behind him as he stood at the hinges of the ramp, and began walking backwards. "If they're not wearing Ghost uniforms, or if they don't look like prisoners, they're in our way. So, there's only one rule - tear them apart. You get hurt, hurt 'em back. You get killed—"

"WALK IT OFF!"

The chorus, three words yelled in unison filled his ears like the battle horns of old, and as he allowed gravity to pull him off the edge of the ramp into the night air, he felt the briefest surge of confidence. Righting himself, he spread out his arms and legs, staff in hand, feeling the inertia shove his insides into his back and send the blood rushing through his ears. Cold air blasted upwards, chilling his fingers and violently whipping his hair as the invisible downward force pulled him inexorably to earth - and the feeling not only of freedom but of a meteor of righteous abnormal vengeance was incomparable.

Set like diamonds in the velvet black fabric of night, the miniature lights of the camp rushed to meet him, growing in size with every foot his fall claimed. He called upon the wind, his protector and ally, to guide not only him but his friends… and his love, safely to earth.

The wind answered, and just as a black shadow veiled the camp's lights for the briefest of moments, the vicious updraught of air changed to a controlled, almost sentient force. Rather than fall, he was cradled, gliding like a leaf rather than plummet with all the grace of a misshapen hailstone.

Toothless' battle shriek cut through the night air even over the roar of the wind in his ears, and the dark earth below him became host to a sudden brilliant burst of amber light and then a second. Wheezing out a command to zoom in, Jack managed to pick out Stormfly, illuminated by the bright flames. Bathing one watchtower in her spitting fury, she nimbly evaded the bolts of red before latching onto the second with her claws, darting her head inside and yanking the sentry guard out with her teeth before tossing him outside the camp - where a tiny explosion meant the poor bastard landed on a mine.

Jack zoomed back out in time to recognise impending landfall, and with his usual grace he righted himself and landed a little too heavily on his feet on the side of the inmates building between the wall and the fence. He could hear the agitated yells and barked orders of the camp personnel mingling with the bestial roars of Stormfly and Toothless; taking advantage of the chaos, he turned around and pointed his staff high behind him. Three black shadows floated down like leaves in a strong breeze, illuminated by the torch-like burning of the southern watchtowers.

Elsa touched down first with elegant grace, whereas Kozmotis elected for a more abrupt three-point landing, and finally Rapunzel met the ground with an ill-hidden stumble.

"Ditch the suits," Jack hissed as he collapsed his staff and shoved it into his bracer, before taking Pippa in his hands. "We won't need them now."

He moved to the corner of the building whilst the other three unfastened their wingsuits, and peered around for a look at the chaos. Silhouettes framed against the flames of what used to be the comms tower yelled and gestured at each other, with some taking shots at the two dragons before darting off for cover. Every now and then they would throw themselves to the ground to avoid a swooping Toothless, though two of the soldiers were unlucky and found themselves in the grip of Stormfly's claws moments before they were flung with sickening force against the barracks wall.

There came a pat on his shoulder. Jack didn't even need to look to know it was Elsa. "What's the view?"

"Fury and Viking are doing a great job of distracting them, but it won't stay like that for long."

"And Hunter?"

Jack glanced up at the command building's roof, where a small shape was crouched near the edge. "She's in position, but as soon as they click where the arrows're coming from, they'll pin her down."

"Then I suggest we join the fray," Kozmotis said.

"Pitch and Blondie, you go on the other side of this building." Jack gestured at the inmate structure running parallel to the one from which he was peering behind. "Snow Queen and I will move up here. We'll need cover."

"I can provide that," Elsa said.

"Right." Jack made two flicks with his index and middle fingers, a silent direction Kozmotis and Rapunzel took as they scurried past and out of sight around the corner. Jack and Elsa darted up the long space between the two buildings, and crouched in the shadows.

"Fury," Jack murmured over the comms, "there's a lot of space in the northwest of the camp. Why?"

"No idea!" Hiccup yelled back. "We watched, but nothing happened there!"

"Alright, well, keep an eye out. Blondie, Pitch—you ready?"

"In position."

"Hunter?"

"Ready."

"Alright." Jack shouldered his rifle. "Raise hell on my mark. Three… two… one…mark."

Bullets sang from Pippa just as a jet of ice whizzed past his face, chilling the winter air even further for a moment, and impact the grassy ground twenty feet ahead. From the corner of his eye as he crept forward, he saw the muzzle flash of Emily Jane begin her deadly verse, just as the icy patch became a long line before shooting up to create a thick wall of hardened ice.

The first of the unsuspecting guards fell immediately to the hail of gunfire, but humans always had a quicker reaction time compared to clones, and it wasn't long before rapid bolts of orange were the answers to Pippa, Emily Jane and Hailstorm's roars.

"Move to cover!"

The four advanced to the wall, with Jack and Kozmotis applying covering fire whilst Elsa and Rapunzel darted forward, and vice versa. Bolts of blue rained down from the pitch black sky, ripping the ground below the soldiers apart, but the incoming fire was still too intense for the Ghosts to fire more than three rounds before ducking for cover again.

"We're wasting time," Jack hissed. "Longer we wait—"

"TITAN!"

Jack peeked over the wall at Merida's yell, in time to see a hulking monstrosity of muscle barrelling toward them, its black silhouette framed by the flames. Jack roared an order to bring it down, and three assault rifles peppered it with a blistering volley. Howling in rage, it threw itself at them whilst covering its face with its right arm, before slamming full force into the wall and smashing through it, scattering the Ghosts and causing Jack, his heart in his mouth, to lunge away.

Elsa subjected it to a hail of bullets, but she did little more than enrage the beast further; with a blind swing and a pained grunt she was sent flying back and rolled haphazardly across the grass. Roaring, the Titan brought a huge fist down upon Jack, who narrowly dodged it by parting his legs and then kicking against its fist to push him away.

The Titan screamed in fury. Scrambling to his feet, Jack aimed a burst at the Titan's face, forcing it to howl and throw an arm up to protect itself as it advanced upon him, and as it brought up its fists to bring them down upon him, Jack crouched and prepared to roll aside. Yet, two vines of black sand lashed around its wrists and tensed, yanking its arms back to either side of it. As it struggled and growled, Jack glanced behind it; his arms bulging with exertion, Kozmotis pulled back on the vines with all his might, aided by Rapunzel and Elsa as they too held onto the tendrils. Even so, the sheer strength of the beast was pulling them along the ground despite their efforts.

"Fury!" he yelled. "Blow it—"

Cutting his words in two, the head of an arrow punched out from the Titan's forehead. The beast's face went blank, and it swayed a little on its feet as its arms dropped, and one hand went to pitifully touch the arrow head before it crashed face first into the ground, narrowly missing Jack.

"...never mind."

"Yer welcome."

"That only counts as one!" Kozmotis hollered as he dropped down behind the wall.

"Yeah, yeah. Ye're still laggin' behind by three."

Jack ducked low and scurried over to Elsa, whose right hand gingerly rested upon her utility vest-covered chest. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she winced slightly. "It was only a glancing blow."

"You went back, like, fifteen feet," Rapunzel drawled.

"Trust me - my own sister has hit me harder than that."

"I don't know if I should be proud or ashamed of that," came Anna's voice over the comms.

"Sorry tae interrupt yer chinwag," Merida chimed in, "but tha big guys are just there ta distract ye."

"She's not wrong!" Astrid added. "Soon as that thing went for you, they started a fighting retreat to the northwest!"

Jack peeked over the ruined wall enough to take a glimpse before a hail of bolts forced him to duck again. Dozens of the camp guards were indeed in the process of running to the empty space in the northwest, with some occasionally stopping to suppress them with covering fire. Classic tactical withdrawal. "Can you see where they're going, Hunter?"

"They're goin' through some kinda entrance hidden in tha ground! I cannae see—Titan comin' at ye, twelve o' clock!"

Jack peeked over just as the second Titan burst through the barracks wall, sending bricks and dust flying into the air and charged toward them, howling pure fury into the night. Eyes widening, Jack yelled out a command to open fire.

"I got this," Astrid called out. "Fury, on my six!"

Stormfly swooped down from the sky like a predator, and embedded her claws into the Titan's shoulders. Screeching in agony, it futilely swiped and scratched at her as, with moderate difficulty, she lifted off with her prey and took it well away from from the ground.

"He's all yours, flyboy!"

Stormfly let go of the hapless beast, who spent all of one second in the air before Toothless zoomed by and blasted it with a blue torpedo, causing an explosion of flesh and blood, organs and bones that rained down on the battlefield.

"Oh, that's just nasty," Rapunzel groaned.

Jack turned his attention from the admittedly disgusting sight to the retreating guards, of whom only five remained. None of it felt right; he'd expected intense pressure and a furious firefight, not an enemy that took great pains and sacrificed two Titans to retreat. "Snow Queen, Pitch, on me! Blondie, try and open the doors to the inmates!"

Jack sprang out from cover and unleashed Pippa's fury, in concert with Elsa and Kozmotis. Bullets zipped through the air and slammed into the first two guards, yielding screams of agony as they spun with the force of the impact - but then the damndest thing happened that stayed Jack's trigger finger.

The middle soldier, wearing a cap, threw down his assault rifle and shot his hands up into the air. The other two hesitated, tossing glances at each other, before doing the same. "Don't shoot!" the cap-wearing man yelled. "We surrender!"

"The hell…" Jack muttered, before holding a clenched fist up into the air. "Hold fire."

"I must say, this is turning out to be somewhat disappointing," Kozmotis slowly murmured in a silky voice.

"Whatever. Just keep your guns on them." He called over to the guards. "Keep your hands in the air, and walk slowly over to us. Any sudden moves, we drop you like a bad habit."

With a robotic air, the three guards turned and walked over to them, eyes firmly fixed upon the ground.

"I got 'em dead ta rights, Cap," Merida declared.

"So have I," Kozmotis said. "They'll be dead before you fire an arrow."

"Wanna bet?"

"Enough." Jack nodded at them as they drew up to the team. "Snow Queen, relieve them of their sidearms."

Elsa glided past him, and while Jack and Kozmotis' weapons were trained upon their heads, she moved behind them, pulled out their EP-4 pistols and tossed them aside. Jack moved to the side and gestured with his head toward the inmates building - yet, the way the man with the cap kept his eyes fixed upon Jack until he moved past set a knot of consternation in his gut.

It grew to a full-on churning when the first of the inmates emerged from the darkness of their prison walls, shielding their eyes from the cleansing flames of the power relay station. Dressed in uniformly grey rags, their emaciated bodies stumbled out like near skeletons, sunken eyes in shaven heads gazing with confusion at their surroundings. Some looked healthier than others, but all were in dire need of help, and all wore strange steel collars around their necks.

"Oh, my God..." he whispered.

Rapunzel walked over to them from the closest building, her gait slow and stumbling. Her mask in her right hand, she stared at Jack with blank, uncomprehending eyes, like she dare not believe what she had seen.

"I… I opened the doors… heard them say a switch in the security hut... and they…"

Jack lowered his rifle and immediately rested his left hand on her right shoulder, whilst he unclasped his mask with his other hand. "Blondie," he murmured, stooping a little so their eyes were level. "Are you with me?"

"I…"

His hand moved up to her face. "Are you with me?"

She stared at him for a few more seconds, before her lips closed. Air was sucked in through her nose. "Yes."

"Come here," Elsa said in a calm, motherly voice, and moved to embrace Rapunzel - who responded by melting herself into the hug. Jack watched them for a few seconds, as Elsa stroked Rapunzel's back, and then donned his mask once again.

"Frost…"

Jack turned to glance at Kozmotis, whose head was darting every which way, arms raised to shoulder height, as several of the more emaciated prisoners reached out to touch him as though he was a mirage, a figment of their imagination. It occurred to Jack, then, that they could very well be fearing a hallucination.

He turned back to the guards. "I have questions. Answer them. I don't like them, I shoot you. First up - we're looking for a man and a woman. Scientists. The man has a moustache, the woman has brown hair." He pointed at the so-called munitions bunker. "Are they in there?"

The man with the cap, watching him with piercing eyes, answered in a gravelly voice. "Yes."

The guard to his right hissed, "Sir? Should we be—"

"It doesn't matter," the cap-man snapped. "None of it matters. They'll all be dead soon."

"Guess that answers my next question of who's in charge of this house of horrors."

Cap-Man nodded again, yet his eyes never left Jack's. It was as though he was watching him, scrutinising him. "I am. Commander Derrickson, at your temporary service."

A small flurry of movement in the corner of Jack's eye drew his attention. Rapunzel pulled herself from Elsa's embrace, and stared at Derrickson with widened eyes. "You? All of this… under you?"

Derrickson's eyes did leave Jack for a moment, if only to widen in fear when Rapunzel lunged at him and wrapped a hand around his neck. He gurgled and wheezed as, her face contorted with pure rage and vengeance, Rapunzel lifted him off the ground solely by her grip. For a few seconds, Jack was struck with awe that such a comparatively smaller person - Derrickson was, like Jack, just over a head taller than Rapunzel - she had him dangling six inches off the grass.

"You. Are. Responsible. For. Their. Suffering," she spat. "This. Is. Your. Fault."

Derrickson clawed and scratched at her grip, his eyes beginning to roll back into his head. "Hey," Jack called. "That's enough."

"No." Rapunzel's face grew darker. "He deserves this."

"That's enough, Blondie," came a male voice that danced at the edges of Jack's recognition. "This isn't you. Not my Rapunzel."

"How do you know?" she snarled, and shot a withering scowl at the man whose hand gently rested on her forearm. "And how do you know my—"

It was then Derrickson dropped to the ground in a crumpled heap, his hoarse coughs and pained gasps for air falling on deaf ears. Jack stared at the man, the puzzle pieces fitting into place. His warm hazel eyes, rugged jaw and impish twinkle–despite the signs of malnutrition and shaven head.

"Eugene…" Rapunzel breathed. The hand which choked the life out of Derrickson trembled as it moved to touch his face, as though scarcely able to believe her eyes. He smiled down at her with cracked lips, as the shaking fingers found his cheeks.

"One and only," he murmured. "Told you we'd meet again."

Rapunzel let out a whimper, before throwing herself into his arms. Jack gaped in complete shock, barely registering the sound of Rapunzel's sobs into Eugene's shoulder. "Holy shit," was all he could manage.

"Yo, dude." Eugene grinned at him as he stroked the back of Rapunzel's head.

She pulled back and held his face. "I thought I'd lost you!"

"You look terrible," Kozmotis drawled. If he was surprised, he hid it well.

"It's the new diet. Daily abuse and borderline starvation." Eugene sneered at him. "You're no oil painting, either."

"How did you—you're alive—"

"Not just me," Eugene winked, before calling over his shoulder. "Hey, big guy. Wanna come remind me I was wrong?"

One of the other inmates who had up until then been tending to his fellow prisoners, checking them over for injuries or helping them walk, looked up upon hearing Eugene's voice. Clapping another inmate on the shoulder, he made his way over to them, wiping his hands on his pitiful excuse for a tunic.

"Well, now," Kozmotis said, tangible surprise in his voice. "It appears Frost is not the only one with a penchant for coming back from the dead."

"Motherfucker." Jack raised both his hands behind his head in complete shock. "No fucking way."

"Good to see you too, Frost." Kristoff grinned at him. Like Eugene, Kristoff showed signs of physical abuse, hunger and a head void of hair, but he had lost none of his imposing size. Jack let go of his head to clap him several times on the upper arms, before grasping him by the shoulders and giving him a light shake. Kristoff's mouth cut into a wince before he pushed Jack's arms away.

"Easy there, buddy. For once, you've got the strength advantage."

"But you died!"

Kristoff merely shrugged. "Long story. Speaking of which—" he looked around, lips curled into half an impressed smile, "—you seem to have added a few more names to the team."

"Right, yeah." Jack felt a strong bolt of anxiety in his chest - he was about to introduce the very people who had crippled their network for years. "This is my X.O, Snow Queen."

Kristoff's smile dropped like a rock. His brow furrowed, and with it, an air of tension descended over the group. Elsa herself shifted awkwardly in place as Kristoff's eyes followed Jack's gesture at her, settling into a sidelong look. "Snow Queen? As in, leader of the Valkyries, slicer of your back, no more Furies and Spirits Snow Queen?"

Jack stiffened, rolling his shoulders back and lifting his chin. It felt odd to be squaring up to Kristoff, even if it was indirect and instinctive. "Yeah. That's in the past. She's one of us."

"I can see that."

"No, I mean… one of us."

On cue, Elsa drew her hand away from the stock of Hailstorm and conjured a delicate snowflake over her palm. Kristoff's eyebrows rose as he took in the small elegance of the object—and even Eugene blinked in surprise.

"Well, ain't this a turn up for the books."

"You're not kidding, Flynn." Kristoff looked at Rapunzel. "So if she's Snow Queen, you must be Goldilocks."

"Blondie," Rapunzel corrected him, hesitantly offering her hand. "Ghost medic. Goldilocks died with the Valkyries."

"Huh." Kristoff slowly accepted the handshake, though it was clear he wasn't sure how to proceed.

"Viking is up there," Jack pointed upwards, just as Stormfly soared over them, and then nodded at the figure approaching them from the command building, "and over there is—"

"Bear." Kristoff turned, and something in his tone caused Kozmotis to push past the inmates circling him and take up a protective position near Merida.

"Name's Hunter, now," Merida said, her voice firm, almost challenging.

"I remember our last meeting." Kristoff watched her closely. "I remember how much your arrows hurt."

"An' I remember shittin' meself, thinkin' ye were about ta cut me in half with a door," Merida retorted. Jack watched with anxious eyes the staring contest between the two, before Merida seemingly relaxed and offered her hand. "No hard feelings?"

Kristoff studied her for a moment, before he did something that didn't take Jack aback so much as nearly floored him - he shook her hand. "Well, if anyone was to hold a grudge against you, it'd be Pitch - and you all seem to have gained Frost's trust, so… we'll call it even."

"I really wanna know how four Valkyries wound up on our side," Eugene grinned, "but I'm pretty sure I know what Frost's gonna say next."

Kozmotis got there before Jack. "It is a long story—"

"Or Pitch."

"—but time is not on our side."

"Yeah." Kristoff folded his arms, and jerked his head away. "Frost, a word?"

"Yeah, no. Kind of on the clock, here. Already wasted time with the ol' introductions, so whatever it is, tell me when we get out of this mess." Jack made to walk off, before stopping and adding over his shoulder, "Good to see you again, buddy."

Jack turned away before Kristoff could protest, though the expression of his erstwhile C.O. suggested acceptance rather than argument. He strode over to the three guards; by then, Derrickson had recovered from his impromptu choking. "Next question: are there any vehicles in this hellhole?"

Derrickson smiled at him, a malicious, wicked curve that alternately chilled Jack's spine and filled him with the urge to punch him in the face. "Yes. In fact, that was where we were going before you shot at us."

"Right. Eugene, you up for a little scouting?"

Eugene let go of Rapunzel to offer him a salute. "Gimme a ration bar and I'm good to go, boss."

"Good. You and Blondie, go—"

"It won't matter."

Jack glared at Derrickson, and the urge to punch him became a desire to knock him the fuck out. His wicked grin hadn't changed in the slightest.

"My men will already have taken the trucks, and whatever's left will not be enough for you to save your kind." Derrickson let out a vicious chuckle. "You're all going to die here."

"We're hard to kill." Jack pulled a ration bar from the lower pocket of his utility vest and tossed it to Eugene before he looked back at Rapunzel. "Go anyway. He's probably blowing hot air."

Rapunzel nodded. She took Eugene by the hand, and the two of them raced off in the direction the camp personnel had taken, with Eugene stopping halfway to pick up one of the pulse carbines discarded by the surrendered guards.

"Snow Queen and I will—"

It was then that a piercing, banshee-like shrieking tore the heavens apart, distant yet still able to send a bolt of fear down Jack's spine. Each Ghost looked at each other in worry, and the inmates let out a wail of terror in chorus.

Derrickson let out a low, malevolent, guttural chuckle, the left side of his mouth curling into a vicious smirk.

"Time's up."

Jack looked up at the sky. "Streak, you reading me?"

"Loud and clear, Cap. What's the sitch?"

"Reapers inbound. I need you to locate where they are and how long we've got."

"Copy."

Jack saw the blue discharge from the Fairy's thrusters burst into life, and watched her head off to the north. He turned his attention to Kozmotis, who was already closely watching him. "Snow Queen and I'll—"

Kozmotis held up a hand. "We will buy you the time you need, but do hurry. As pleased as I am to see our old friends, valuable time has been wasted exchanging words. Go."

"Right." Jack made to head off toward the bunker. "All Ghosts, Pitch Black is in charge until I get back. Direct all comms to him."

The word 'copy' was returned in several different voices as Jack, with Elsa beside him, sprinted off toward the munitions bunker. It was only a short distance by human standards, so they reached the open entrance in less than four seconds, but each slam of his foot into the ground felt like an eternity.

The munitions storage bunker was a large semi-circle in design, a wide rectangle denoting the open entrance which Jack surmised featured a verticular descending door. As they passed into the bunker proper, they were greeter with twenty square feet of open concrete flooring, with shallow steps and two ramps connecting it to another twenty square feet of floor. Dimly lit by two overhead strip lights, it housed several crates of the new pulse assault rifles and their accompanying power cells, which Elsa quickly mentioned to Kozmotis over the radio. Shelving units on the parallel, olive-painted walls had various combat accoutrements sat upon them, from stun grenades to electro-batons, and fixed to the leftmost wall upon entry were a pair of thick black cables that sprouted from the ceiling near the doorway, travelled a good twenty feet before burrowing into the ground where the slope began.

It was the rear wall that held Jack's attention, however. The rear wall that sent a trickle of worry through his gut, exchange a look with Elsa and caused him to utter a quiet, "Oh."

It was completely blank.

"Copy," Kozmotis said, barely bothering to quell the irritation in his voice. Seeing his old teammates alive and as well as could be, given their circumstances? A surprise, but a badly timed one. Precious minutes had been wasted on a reunion, and now Reapers were inbound.

"What's up?"

Kozmotis glanced at Kristoff. "According to Snow Queen, the so-called munitions bunker does indeed contain munitions."

"I could have told you that."

"Perhaps, but you can answer something else. How many of your fellow inmates would be able to hold a weapon?"

"I'm not sure, but I know someone who can answer that." Kristoff looked over Kozmotis' shoulder and whistled between his fingers. "Yo! Puss!"

His goggles hiding the confusion in his eyes, Kozmotis turned to look behind him just as a shorter, stockier man with olive skin left the group of freed inmates and walked toward them.

"Antonio."

The man smiled widely, which did little to offset the signs of starvation and weakness on his face. He offered his hand. "It is good to see you, old friend. The shadows have watched over you."

"And may they continue to do so," Kozmotis said, shaking his hand. "You look awful."

Antonio let out a hoarse bark of laughter just as Kristoff said, "Pitch wants to know if any of us can hold a weapon."

"Other than you and I, out of the forty-six of us still alive in this despicable place, I would say eight." Antonio's mirth left him faster than a breath as he looked back at the remaining inmates. "The rest can barely stand."

"Good. Arm yourselves, and then standby near the bunker. Have those too frail for combat take refuge inside. We'll make our stand there."

Antonio nodded and turned away, just as Kozmotis added, "Are you all that remains of the Spirits?"

Green eyes met gold, and Kozmotis saw the weight of fear and despair in Antonio's eyes. "Si. My friends… they were taken to that same place your friend and Eugene went. I never saw them again."

"I am sorry."

Antonio did a light shrug. "I am not. Wherever they are, they are no longer here. That is a blessing."

He turned away, and headed off back to the group. Kozmotis watched him talk to several of the healthier-looking inmates, before he made his way toward the bunker. "Pitch Black to Blondie. Do you have anything?"

"Yes and no. We found a wide ramp that leads to an underground parking lot,but that jerkoff was right; there were supposed to be four troop trucks here, but it looks like the camp staff took 'em when they split. There's a tunnel heading west - they probably took that."

Kozmotis snorted. "Of course they did."

"How're we gonna get the prisoners out, without the trucks?"

"Clearly we will have to find another method of egress. Is there anything else we can use?"

"Well, there are three hover jeeps here."

"Ordnance?"

"Heavy pulse turrets mounted on the back."

Good news, at least. The jeeps would provide cover as well as heavy fire support. "Bring them up, and position them in a semicircle perimeter around the entrance to the bunker. Hunter will help."

Kozmotis looked at Merida, whose masked face was pointed directly at Antonio's back. He didn't need to see her expression to know she was troubled.

"What's the matter?"

"He dinnae even notice I was here."

"Should he?"

"Probably not." Merida rolled her shoulders back, and started off the same way Rapunzel and Eugene went. "After all—it was my arrows that put him in this place."

She launched into a run before Kozmotis could say anything, his gaze resting on her back. It occurred to him that Merida, and the other three, had come face to face with the realisation of possibly where their quarries had been taken once captured. Responsibility was a big thing for her, he had learned, and seeing Antonio had revealed to her where his journey, and that of everyone else the Valkyries had captured, ended.

Brushing away the thought, he turned and strode up to Derrickson and the two guards, and shouldered Emily Jane with all the purpose in the world.

"You three currently have two choices. The first is that you arm yourselves and assist with the defense of this bunker, and in doing so, create for yourselves the chance of surviving the next hour."

The left guard, a young man in his early twenties with hazel eyes was the first to ask. "And the other?"

Kozmotis moved Emily Jane just enough to grab their attention. "The alternative is I shoot you where you stand. I do so despise dead weight."

"You're trusting us with guns?" The other guard, glanced between Kozmotis and his colleague with a skeptical face. "Who says we won't shoot you first?"

"If you do, I suggest you kill me with the first shot." Kozmotis bent over just enough to look the guard in the eye. "Because you will not live long enough to take a second."

"Frost to Pitch."

Kozmotis straightened up, though watched the newly anxious guard with a close eye. "Pitch here."

"Bring that assclown Derrickson to the bunker. We need his hand."

"And what of the rest of him, or shall I remove his hand and bring it to you?"

Kozmotis took distinct pleasure in the expressions of anxiety on the faces of the two guards. Derrickson, sadly, still looked as smug as he had done so far.

"All of him. Much as I wouldn't blink if you carved him up."

"Understood." Kozmotis addressed the three. "To the bunker, if you would be so kind. Attempt to run and I'll shoot you in the femoral artery, then walk over you as you bleed to death."

As ordered, the three quickly jogged to the bunker's north-facing entrance, with Kozmotis following closely behind, his finger resting near the trigger, eyes watching them with a hawk's focus and muscles ready to snap into action in an instant. Upon entering, he noted how the two younger guards immediately went to the rifle racks and began arming themselves.

Derrickson, however, did no such thing.

Kozmotis sought Jack and Elsa, and found them at the far wall, either side of a small open panel in the middle-right. Elsa's masked gaze was turned at the guards, Hailstorm at the ready. Jack nodded his head at him.

"Thought we'd been given the runaround, until Snow Queen had the idea of covering the wall in frost. Turns out there's a secret panel with—you guessed it—a biometric reader. Reckon Mr. Charisma over here has the access."

"Snow Queen?" Derrickson snarled. "The Valkyrie traitor?"

Elsa's head turned toward him, and in a flash she strode over and gripped Derrickson by the wrist and yanked him over to the biometric reader, practically slamming his hand on the screen.

"Snow Queen the Ghost," she said with firm purpose.

The reader beeped with affirmative satisfaction, however, when a speech line replaced the image of a hand, Kozmotis felt a mild surge of annoyance.

"Voice identification required."

Derrickson made a point of looking each of them in the eye, adding a smirk at the inmates Antonio had selected as they began filing into the bunker, and theatrically drew a zip across his lips.

Jack, however, winked at him, his lips cocked in a smug smirk that rivalled the commander's. He walked over to Derrickson and took his other arm, drew his sleeve back and slipped his communication bracelet from his wrist.

"What are you—"

Jack held up a finger and turned away, then fiddled with the device to bring up the small holo-display. Kozmotis took a moment to appraise himself of his surroundings; Elsa watched Derrickson like a hawk, Hailstorm at the ready. The two guards stood on the opposite side to the newly-armed inmates, eyeing the weapons in their hands with anxiety. One of the hover-jeeps pulled up outside to the right of the entrance, and Rapunzel hopped out to guide the second into position.

Kozmotis turned back just in time for Jack to hold the bracelet to the reader. It loudly repeated an audio playback of Derrickson's voice via its out-of-contact functionality, and he found himself mildly amused yet annoyed the biometric reader was so easily satisfied.

"Please be a secret door. Please be a secret door," Jack chanted.

In the centre of the wall a large vertical rectangle recessed an inch before sliding aside, revealing an elevator wide enough for five, by Kozmotis' estimation.

"Yay!" Jack cheered quietly. "I'm the best."

Derrickson sputtered and gaped. "How did you know to do that?"

"I'm the best, is how." Jack roughly tossed the bracelet back at Derrickson , who barely caught it before it hit his dumbfounded face. Kozmotis could practically sense Jack's false smile, when he added in a sweet voice, "Thank you for your cooperation."

Jack then went into the elevator, and Elsa followed behind him, and said to Kozmotis as she turned, "We'll be as expedient as we can."

"See that you are," Kozmotis said. "It is likely we'll run out of bullets before they run out of Reapers."

Elsa gave him a slow nod, and gently hit the only button in the elevator with a loose fist. The green panel slid across to banish them from Kozmotis' sight, leaving him with an alien sense of concern: the two most powerful Ghosts, possibly abnormals, would be absent from the fight of their lives.

"Shame we cannot use them," Antonio remarked. "A winter storm would come in handy soon."

"Sure, if you wanna bat our only sources of air support out of the sky," Kristoff drawled. "Not to mention, y'know, hypothermia."

"So, mi amigo," Antonio called to him, prompting Kozmotis to turn around. "What's the first order of business?"

"It's simple." Kozmotis walked toward and past him, making for the newly-created jeep barricade.

"If it walks on more than two legs, kill it."

"Reapers inbound. I need you to locate where they are and how long we've got."

"Copy," Anna replied into her headset, and swung the Fairy onto a northerly heading before pushing the accelerator lever forward. The Fairy's engines roared with power, filling the interior with a growling she'd not often heard through the speakers covering her ears.

"What do I do?"

Her eyes on the sky ahead, Anna answered Candace with a firm tone. "Keep your finger on the trigger, but don't shoot until I say."

"Right."

"Computer, get me a topographical scan, include heat and movement signatures. Two mile radius."

"Working."

As the Fairy raced on, the holo-emitters embedded in the centre console blinked into life and conjured a translucent image of the surrounding area, with the Fairy herself represented as a white dot in the centre. The holographic ground rushed under the dot, a real time image of the real ground below them.

And so far, as Anna glanced repeatedly down to the moving display, relievedly empty.

She completed a wide circle of the base at a respectable speed, and came to a hovering stop over the point she'd begun the search, and still nothing appeared on the sensors. Dissatisfied and unable to shake the clenching of her gut, Anna took the Fairy on another circle of the camp, once more coming to a hover over her point of initiation.

"Maybe they were just calling, and they're not actually inbound?"

Anna twisted her lips, unconvinced. She liked Candace's optimism, but time and experience had beaten that out of Anna long ago, as far as Reapers were concerned. "If they're coming, they're coming. Just need to—"

Beep.

Anna's eyes shot down to the display… where a tiny red dot had appeared at the very edge of the sensor range. Slowly, it made its way toward them, and toward the camp. Her gut twisted with unease, so with a voice taut with tension, she ordered the Fairy's computer to expand the sensor radius to five miles.

"Maybe… m-maybe there's just the one?"

Anna slowly shook her head, feeling her heart sinking to her feet. "Not just one," she whispered. "There's never just one."

The pilot's cabin was filled with so many pips they became one solid tone, and the entire northern arc of the sensor circle was swarming with countless tiny dots, all moving in the same direction, of only one colour.

Red.

A/N:

I'm going to lead this with an apology. This chapter has been ready for over a month, albeit with a few changes here and there. I just haven't been motivated to post it, and I can tell you why.

My best friend bought Destiny 2: Forsaken as an early birthday present for me, and I jumped right in. Completely lost myself in the gameplay, and primarily, the lore. Warmind, and Rasputin, especially. I'd left D2 before the first expansion was released, bored with the game, but Forsaken fixed all of it. Of course, that means this story fell by the wayside.

Which means many of you, as fans of the story, have been waiting when you should not have been. You honestly deserved better, and I should have been better. I intend to try, because it isn't fair on you, my treasured readers, to have to wait too long.

To that end, I bid you all farewell and see you soon, because the story isn't over yet.

Furiyan