Jack took a deep breath as he stared at himself in the mirror, eyeing his white suit with care as he slicked back his hair and straightened his bow tie.

"You look fabulous." Elizabeth smiled, fiddling with the boy's tie as well.

"Thanks." The teen grinned, slipping his phone into his pocket, triple checking to ensure that the sound was on. Bunny said that the Pooka could contact them any time now, and if they did then getting to the workshop to fill the trucks took precedent over, well, everything. He told Peter and the man agreed, rescuing children was more important than finding a high profile but relatively harmless smuggler any day, and if the man couldn't convince Jack to let him send an agent to replace him, then the teen would have to go. Still, the boy knew that all fingers were crossed that he would be able to finish the mission. Of course, none of them knew that their targets were the Guardians… but still.

The boy turned to where Elizabeth still sat with a proud smile on her face. "Nervous?" She asked.

"Kinda." He admitted.

"Because of the dance, or because of the mission?"

"Um. Both?"

The woman opened her mouth, no doubt to pass on some calming adage, when suddenly the bell rang

The woman brightened. "Oh, she's here!" And she was on her feet and out the door in a second, leaving Jack to call after her.

"But we're going to her house!"

But the woman was too far gone to hear him. The boy shook his head and slowly followed, only to be nearly bowled over by Mozzie running up the stairs yelling. "She messaged me back! She messaged me back!"

"Um, good for you, Moz. Maybe ask Neal for the flirting advice though, not me."

"What? No! The Vulture!"

"The… vulture…"

"Yes, Jack! Vulture, the hacker!"

"Wait, you mean Pitch's hacker?" The teen exclaimed.

"Yes!"

"Really? You know them?"

"I thought it might be her, she's brilliant, but she would never do what Pitch is doing. Not knowingly at least. She is against oppression, determined that everyone should know the truth of what the Government is keeping from us and-"

"Mozz!"

"Right, sorry. There was a bit of… miscommunication last time we met-"

"Mozzie burned her phone number to show that he didn't want any ties to hold him down." Neal said with a smirk as he joined the two shorter thieves. Jack tsked at the man.

"I had it memorized!"

"But you never called, did you?"

"I messaged her!"

"Yeah two weeks ago, years after she gave you the number." Neal smirked.

"Whatever, the important thing is, she replied!"

"Uh huh."

"And, she agreed to meet with me for dinner. I just have to show her the truth about Pitch, maybe sweet talk her a little, and boom! Hacker problem solved."

"No way! That's amazing, I gotta call the Guardians and-"

"When?" Neal suddenly interrupted.

Mozzie frowned and looked down to his phone. "She wouldn't tell me. She said today or tomorrow, when she's cleared her schedule. I think she's just trying to make me sweat for not calling her back."

"Well then can't you try and convince her to meet earlier? I mean, the sooner, the better."

"I'm not exactly in a good bargaining position here, Jack."

"And we don't want to force Pitch into a position where he acts before we can respond. We'll be done around 9 tonight anyway, and then you'll be free to help the Guardians if Pitch does anything drastic in response."

"Right." Jack said, biting his lip. The prom started at 7, he was supposed to give Neal 2 hour's playing card with Noel, spending the time dancing with "Bethany" until a little before 9 o'clock when he would fake some emergency. Really he could even stay at the dance, he just had to make sure the limo driver called back with something important enough that Noel would be on his way. He already had that planned, Evan and Chloe were helping with that.

And they wouldn't even be able to sneak off to help the Guardians in the meantime was the killer part, half the supervisors were FBI agents sent in to manage the case. So he was actually going to have to go to the dance, actually dance with Baby Tooth, and actually slip away when Evan makes his move. It was going to be a full night.

"Don't worry." Neal said, placing a comforting hand on the teen's shoulder. "Mozzie will keep us updated."

"Right, thanks. I just-"

"Time to go!" Peter's voice boomed to the waiting trio. Neal turned to grin at Jack.

"Well? Don't want to keep the date waiting."

The teen shook himself off, since Peter likely already knew, he'd call the Guardians from the car. "Right, here we go."

"Have fun," Neal said as he slammed the limo door shut on Jack and his date, both teens still somewhat blind from the barrage of photos that were sure to someday be used as blackmail. Still the boy managed to wave back dazedly, slumping back in the chair as soon as the car drove away. Neal and "Noel" had had a fairly civil second meeting, soon "warming up to each other" as the conversation shifted to cards. A few other Yeti were there, people acting as friends of Noel and gamblers set out to liven up the games. When Noel, Phil, got the phone call that would make him leave, the others would as well, assuming that game night was over. Neal just had to linger in the back of the room until they all cleared out and he had the whole house and all of it's secrets to explore. And the Guardians made sure that they would find enough for Jack's mission to be over.

Jack slumped down in his seat as the limo pulled away from the house. "Two more hours." He said weakly.

Baby Tooth laughed, "And then the real work begins."

"If the Pooka accept."

"They will. Trust me."

"Right." Jack groaned.

"Right." B.T insisted.

For a moment the car descended into silence before it was broken by Baby Tooth. "Hey, you can cover me if I have to disappear some time tonight, right? I mean, if it's time to pack then they'll text both of us, of course, but if something happens and I need to get to my computer and help…"

"Only if you promise to cover for me if they need my help and not yours." The teen returned. Not that there was much chance of that happening. They had a detailed map of where the kids were, exact knowledge of their aboveground location, anything useful that Jack could give. He'd gone back before everyone else woke up Monday to check his sign. It was faint, but the slightest hint of a smiley face drawn in the condensation of the glass stared back at him. His message had been received. The kids had hope. That was enough for Jack, for now at least.

The man driving them shifted in his seat, and Jack was reminded that for the yetis assigned to help out with the FBI problem there was absolutely no way to know if the Pooka had reached out to the Guardians. There was no way for them to help. The Guardians placed this as there top priority. There were still plenty of yeti at the workshop to help with the transfer after all, but Jack knew the expense must be killing the man. It was killing him and he knew that they would contact him. Technically Jack had the sweet end of the deal.

"Deal." The girl smiled.

"Deal."

The dance went about as well as one could expect a dance to go when a dozen FBI agent were subtly breathing down your neck and the lives of six children could soon be resting on your shoulders. The two checked their phones nearly constantly, and Jack wasn't terribly surprised when he left to get drinks and she wasn't there when he got back. He made a show of looking around for her, but it was 8:42 anyway. Might as well call find Evan and Chloe, time to get this show on the road.


Mozzie sat alone in the secluded table in the back of the restaurant. He'd gotten the text only minutes ago, the Vulture saying that her schedule was done and to find a place for them to meet for 9. She would know where to find him. The restaurant used a digital seating program and he'd made reservations under the name of the man they'd caught together. He knew she would show, right on the dot, not a minute more, not a minute less. It was her style. He just had to wait now, just had to wait.


"Oops, sorry." Evan cried out, helping the chauffer off the ground. Bill the yeti grumbled to himself, even as he assured the boy it was ok. Jack had insisted he stand outside the car to read, and while he was well prepared and warm, the wind was whipping the pages of his book around and he was only half paying attention, most of his focus on searching for the 'sign' Jack had assured him he would 'know when he saw it'. He didn't have time for the clumsy kid who fell into him.

"Again, I'm really sorr-"

"Evan!" A girl called, her hand waiving over the tops of the cars. "Hurry up! We're missing the best parts of the party. Bethany and Jack are ready and we have to drive them back before prom is over cause they're just little sophomores."

"Then you shouldn't have invited them to the Senior party." The boy mumbled to himself, yelling "Coming!" Only a moment later.

Bill frowned as the boy ran off. Jack and Bethany. That was interesting, Bethany was the minitooth's codename and- oh. Oooooooohhhh. Well, he supposed that worked.

The game was in full swing, Neal could feel the burning gaze of one of his few remaining opponents, but forced himself to only glance at the man, coolly, confidently. He didn't linger long enough for it to actually be considered staring back, but nor did he attempt to avoid eye contact. His posture gave nothing away, antagonizing them by being as un-antagonizing as possible.

Finally the man folded, as did one of the others. The final man, Noel himself, called and Neal laid down his cards, revealing a hand that was slightly worse than the smuggler's. He groaned good-naturedly as the man cheered and raked the chips, one of the others already drawing in the cards for the next deal. Neal had barely picked up his cards when the low ding of a text tone filled the air. Neal looked down to his cell, seeing a single message from Jack.

If you can, get out of the room in a min. This'll work better if he doesn't see you right after it happens.

Neal let it go a few rounds around the table before folding and excusing himself to the bathroom. It must have been good timing, because only a few seconds after he left the shrill ring of a phone broke through the relatively silent room. Noel grunted before answering. "Hey Bill, what-" For a good moment there was silence, and Neal found himself leaning forward in anticipation. Jack had refused to say his plan, saying only that it would work, he was sure of it. Neal was almost worried that it would involve the Greek fire Mozzie had showed him.

"THEY WENT WHERE?" The man suddenly bellowed. "I knew I shouldn't have let that brat take my daughter anywhere."

"What hap-" One of those at the table- Will?- began, only to be cut off by a furious Noel.

"That little-" a stream of foreign words, each one fast and furious, presumably curses, flowed from the man's mouth for almost a full minute until- "Drug my baby girl off to some upperclassman party away from the school. When I get my hands on him- get out of my way!" The man growled, the words punctuated by the heavy slam of the door.

For a moment Neal could only stand frozen, hoping against hope that the other men would forget that the father of said boy was only a few rooms away. After a moment of awkward silence it would seem that they had. Or had just assumed that he's run away instead of going to the bathroom. Chairs scraped against wood and the light sounds of farewells floated to where Neal stood waiting in the shadows until every last guest was finally gone. It was only then that he could breathe.

Couldn't Jack have thought have something that wouldn't almost lead to 'death-by-protective-father'? No, of course not, the boy probably though that this was hilarious. It had worked perfectly, too. And the boy was right, it was one thing that a man of Noel's reputation was sure to respond to absolutely immediately.

Neal sighed, a low smile blossoming on his face. Now, it was time to do what he was here to do.


"Hello Mozzie." A familiar voice sounded, and the man turned to see the beauty of the digital age smirking gently at him.

"Ah, Vulture, how lovely to see you again."

"Yes. It's been far too long." She replied pointedly.

"Uh, yeah, about that. Origionally, I had been planning to leave town and-"

"Save it. I don't care about what you did back then. I just want to know why you're bothering me again now. What do you want?"

"It's not about what I need, it's what you need to do. Or not do."

"What are you talking about?"

"Look, your current employer, he's bad news. Like, insane, and not in the good way. He-"

"I'm leaving."

"Wait! No, listen."

"No. You listen. I'm auditioning to be a part of the Guardians. This guy is testing me, says I've almost passed. After tonight I'm going to be part of the underworld's legends and you're not messing this up for me."

"Wait, you think- you honestly think Pitch is a Guardian? He is not a Guardian, he's anti-guardian! He- he kidnaps children!"

"No he doesn't. I haven't heard anything about that."

"Oh yeah, have you been everywhere in his big labyrinth thing?"

"I don't have the clearance to go through the Guardian's headquarters yet."

"What about the hacking stuff? Doesn't anything he told you to do strike you as suspicious?"

The woman paused, thinking of dozens of young girl's faces streaming to her computer after hours of hacking work to get through the best firewalls she'd ever seen. She thought of what she had done that very night.

"They're tests." She finally answered. "To asses my skill."

"That's not what the Guardians do! That's not how they are."

"Yes, because you know all about the Guardians. Not all conspiracy theories are right, Mozz."

"I know one of them! Personally. Look!" The man pulled out his phone, drawing out the contact labeled Jack, a blurry image of the teen's face on the screen. "You hear about Jack Frost?"

"Heard about him, didn't hear anything about him being about a Guardian." She grumbled before really looking at the phone, her breath catching as she saw the phone number on the screen. She did know about Jack Frost, the young pick pocket who spent his days at the park she liked to frequent. The polite teen who played with children and left them presents even though they never seemed to see him. The boy who had given bandages and joy to the child of a woman she'd seen begging on the streets. The boy who had the heart of what the Guardians stood for. The boy who, admittedly on a very small scale, fought against the unfairness of the world to give hope to those often ignored and looked down on. Just as she tried to do with her hacking skills.

And that number, his number. That was the number Pitch had given to her to block. He'd given her the number, commanded her to find a way to intercept and block any and all calls to it. The phone's owner would never know anything was wrong, but no one would have any way to contact him. No one would be able to contact Jack, the boy who lived the life of a Guardian.

Immediately a computer was on the table, hands moving furiously across the keys, but the majority of the damage was already done. What had she done?


Making his way down the street from the dance Jack suddenly jumped as his phone roared to life. 23 missed text. 17 missed calls. 10 voicemail. From The Guardians, From The Guardians, From The Guardians.