AN: 100 reviews! Oh my gosh! "*Does insane happy dance*" Ahem, anyway…Thank you SO much for everyone that has ever reviewed, subscribed and favourite this story! When I posted the first chapter, I had no idea that it would ever get this response. I'm being completely sincere when I say that I appreciate each and every person that has supported this story so far!

And now, let us continue! Please, read and tell me what you think! (And I'm done using exclamation marks.)

Chapter 29

"And then we need to have you fitted for a few new outfits and don't forget that you are posing for a portrait this afternoon, after which…"

Hobson kept droning on, but Annabelle completely blocked his nasally voice out. Her thoughts were filled with bigger problems and listening to the annoying man prattling on about nonsense was pushing her patience to the limit.

"And then-"

"That's enough, Hobson," she interrupted. "I have other appointments that are more pressing than these. Inform me when something urgent comes up. If anyone is looking for me, and I mean someone important, not the royal artist-" she added quickly before Hobson could interrupt. "-I'll be in the royal barracks. Goodbye." With this she pivoted on her heel and headed out of the door.

"Madam, wait!" he called after her, but she just kept on walking towards the barracks.

Though she was still furious with Ben, she was not going to be unprofessional about it.

"Majesty!" The guardsman at the entrance of the soldiers' quarters gave her a sharp salute, a huge grin on his young face. "It's good to see you!"

"Good morning, Guardsman," she replied, returning his smile. He's so young…how are we going to prepare these men to fight the Darkness? she thought grimly. "Where can I find Captain Finn?"

The man seemed to think for a moment. "I last saw him on the sparring grounds, destroying some training mannequins with his rifle," he said.

Well, someone's still upset…"Thank you," she nodded curtly before heading inside. Sure enough she found the blond captain firing away at straw dummies On the training field. "Don't you think they've had enough punishment, Captain?" she asked in a dry tone as she approached him.

"Not if they still have stuffing in them," he replied curtly before unleashing another round of bullets on the dummies. He reloaded the rifle while eyeing her warily. "Something I can help you with, Majesty?"

"I told you that we'd be meeting sometime this week. Is this a good time or should I come back later?" She couldn't help the detached note that slipped into her tone and she sighed inwardly. If both of us could stop being so stubborn, this would be so much easier…

"Yes, now's fine. Let's head inside," he muttered while slinging the rifle over his shoulder and held an arm out for her to take.

Well, he's nothing if not a gentleman, she thought dryly as she gingerly took his arm.

"I thought you'd give us a few days to get everything in order before inspection," he said after a while of walking in silence.

"This isn't inspection. I just want to make an announcement," she snapped, her eyes fixed forward. "Speaking of which, do we still have an accord regarding you becoming the temporary general?"

"I said I'd do it, didn't I? I'm a man of my word, Majesty," he replied tersely.

When they reached the strategy room, she yanked her arm out of Ben's and hastily moved away from him. She had to concentrate on breathing slowly so that she wouldn't lose her calm. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him still scowling.

"Good morning men," she announced loudly. The men immediately turned in her direction and hastily saluted.

"Majesty," they said as one and she nodded in acknowledgement.

"At ease, sirs. You may take your seats." She walked to the center of the room and scanned the men sitting around her. Most of them had served under Major Swift and had fought with her during the revolution. The remaining soldiers had defected to their side after or during the battle of Bowerstone or signed up right after Logan's deposition. She recognized the young lieutenant who she'd convinced to join them amongst the sea of faces and he shot her a huge smile, which she gladly returned.

"Now, men, first things first. Let me introduce the new leader of your brigade, General Benjamin Finn," she declared with a motion of her head for Ben to come forward. Ben hesitantly took a step to the front and bowed slightly.

"I'm sorry this is so impromptu…If you want I can still organise a ceremony, but right now I need to get everything underway," she said quietly so that only Ben could hear as she pinned his new rank to his jacket, willing herself not to stab it right through to his skin.

"Don't bother, Majesty. I'm not one for pomp and fanfare," he responded and she turned to face the men once again.

"Next order of business. By now, most of you would have heard about something called "the Darkness", also known as the Crawler." She sat down on the corner of the table and crossed her ankles. "The first thing you need to know is that it is extremely dangerous. In fact, it's more dangerous than anything else you have or will face. If we do not stop it, Albion will be destroyed. Those of you who know me know that I'm not one for dramatics and that I am speaking the truth." The soldiers looked at her in disbelief before looking at each other.

"I know this sounds far-fetched. Believe me, if someone told me that some faceless evil would be landing on Albion shores in a year I wouldn't have believed it either, but I've faced this darkness and it terrified me. I want to protect as many people as I can from experiencing it," she said honestly. "If there are any of you that don't want to do this, feel free to leave. I won't think worse of you or anything, but this is your last chance to turn around."

All of the men wore grave expressions, but not one got to their feet. "Good. Now, I'm leaving you in the capable, if slightly sullied hands of General Finn. He knows what he's doing and I trust him with my life. With regards to the hardships you will be facing in the next year, I'm allowing all of you leave for this week to sort out all of your affairs and visit with your families. I'll be checking in again in a month. Good luck men," she said as she got to her feet. Ben also clambered to his feet and held out his arm again, but she stopped him. "Don't fret, General, I'll see myself out. You have work to do."

"I insist," he said with a raised eyebrow, his arm still extended towards her.

She uttered a sigh before barely placing her hand on his elbow and heading to the door. "What do you think about your brigade? Do you think they'll be ready?"

"I hope so. They have heart and they're talented men, but you've faced it before and you're still terrified and you're a Hero," he admitted with a shrug. "We'll have to see."

Her eyes flickered to his grim expression and she knew he was worried about leading and training the men. "I was being sincere with what I said. You'll be a wonderful general, Ben. You were Major Swift's right-hand man. You must have picked up a few tricks," she said sincerely, attempting to set him at ease. She might be angry, but she wasn't cruel.

"I know, but you're not exactly making my first assignment easy," he replied and ran his free hand through his hair. "Albion was peaceful for how long and the moment I become something in the army, we're at the brink of a bloody war!"

"Sorry, but I didn't expect some horrible creature to attack the country during my first year of ruling, either," she countered.

He flashed her a cheerless smirk. "Guess we both got a raw deal, huh?"

"It seems so." They finally reached the exit and she took her hand off his arm. "Good luck, General."

"For you as well, your Majesty," he said with a nod. "Avo only knows you'll need it."

"Avo only knows how much we all need it."

oOoOoOo

"Anna!"

Annabelle looked up from the papers in front of her in surprise at the gruff voice. "Good morning, Walter." Her eyes flickered to his face. "What's wrong?" she asked in concern. His normally jovial expression was clouded with worry.

He exhaled loudly, a thoughtful expression on his weathered face. It was clear that he had bad news. "Has Hobson given you the estimate on what we need to cover our expenses?" he asked finally.

An involuntary sigh slipped past her lips. "No, I kicked him out after the fourth time he tried to convince me to choose a colour scheme for the throne room. What is it?" A hesitant note sounded in her question.

"About four and a half million gold."

She couldn't help but gasp as she looked at Walter in disbelief.. "What? That much?"

"And you still need to keep the promises you made during the revolution," Walter added quickly.

"How...that…It's absurd!" she muttered as she massaged her temples. "What is the worst case scenario? If we don't cover the minimum, I mean."

Walter's expression grew even more grim. "That is the minimum we need to keep everyone alive…and even then it's not guaranteed. If we don't have enough money, most of the citizens will die."

"I…What am I going to do, Walter? How am I going to raise that much money in only one year?" she asked, feeling completely defeated. Now wonder Logan did what he did…

He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I'm not going to lie, Anna. I don't know." She looked up at him in surprise and he shot her an encouraging smile. "But I know you and you're the most resourceful person I know. You'll make a plan."

"I'm glad you have so much faith in me, Walter," she replied, returning his smile, albeit a bit reluctantly. "But right now, I'm honestly considering running away."

"I'll be with you every step of the way," he assured her. "Now, Kalin told me about a rare diamond in Aurora that might be worth a few hundred thousand and there have been some problems with balverines attacking the nobles in Millfields. Let's start there."

A glance out her window confirmed that it was early afternoon. "Right. I think I'll deal with the balverines first thing tomorrow and then I'll set of for Aurora early the day after that."

oOoOoOo

The next day

Ben glanced at the overcast sky for a moment before angrily stalking down the worn path to Millfields. Rain would do little to worsen his already sour mood, but he had no desire to get unnecessarily wet.

Seeing as he had the week off, he decided to take the time to scout out the areas that they would need to defend in the coming attack. It's not like I have anything better to do, he thought morosely.

Ben had woken up that morning feeling a rather familiar bout of self-pity. Though he'd experienced it less often since joining the army and meeting Major Swift, there were still days that he couldn't shake the dark memories of his past and his family and he'd either spend the day cursing deities, drinking himself into a stupor, fighting in a bar, or merely lament over the fact that fate hated him enough to take everything he'd ever held dear to him.

Add his enormous fight with Annabelle and one could see why he was so upset.

Would it be so hard for her to concede that I was right and that I'm perfectly justified in wanting Logan dead? He felt slightly selfish for thinking those thoughts, but some part of him couldn't allow himself to admit that she might be right. It outraged him that she even dared to compare himself to her brother.

"Damnation!" he cried again, wringing his hands in his hair. If something vicious didn't come across his way soon, he might just lose the thin hold he had on his code of morality and kill someone unarmed and innocent.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he heard a loud, feminine cry of pain in the distance. "Finally," he muttered as he ran in the direction of the sound. He followed the din of clashing swords and smell of gunpowder into a large clearing in the dark forest.

When he saw who was fighting a rather large horde of balverines, he couldn't help the exasperated sigh that slipped past his lips. "For Avo's sake! I can't leave her alone for one day without her getting into trouble," he grumbled before rushing in, his rifle already drawn. There was about eight balverines already lying defeated in the ground, but the six that remained seemed particularly vicious.

At the sound of him cocking his rifle, a couple of the beasts turned their snarling maws in his direction and he took the opportunity to shoot the closest one through the eye. Annabelle spun around to look at him, her eyes practically blazing with the same fury that was burning in the balverines' yellow orbs. Her blouse was ripped and splattered with blood and he could see that she was favouring her left leg.

"What the HELL are you doing here?" she spat as she whirled around to slash at the white balverine behind her.

"As it seems, saving your life, Princess," he retorted, firing again.

"Get out of here, Finn! You're getting in the way and you're only going to get hurt!"

Ignoring her, he managed to dive down in time to avoid one of the wolf-like creatures that pounced in his direction and shot it from his position on the ground. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Annabelle decapitated another one of them and simultaneously killed another with her will. Ben started to close the distance between them when a flash appeared behind her. Before he could call out a warning, the white balverine lunged towards her again.

The same scream that he heard before tore through the air and he watched in horror as she fell to her knees, bloodied lines appearing on her back.

"Annabelle!" he cried as he rushed towards her. The white beast move to pounce again and Ben squeezed the trigger of his rifle, but the hollow sound of a jammed barrel forced every shred of hope out of his body.

Luckily, being the Hero that she was, she flipped over onto her back and managed to bring her sword up in time to impale the diving balverine. The creature howled in pain before going limp on top of her.

Ben tossed the useless rifle out of the way and hurriedly unsheathed his cutlass. Though there were plenty of people that were better than him with blades, he was good enough to take down the single balverine that remained standing. Sure enough, the balverine fell dead as well a few moments later.

Annabelle still hadn't gotten up from under the hulking mass of fur and he rushed to her side. Oh, Avo…If I lose her too…With growing dread, he managed to wrestle the dead balverine off her and saw that her eyes were dulled and her breathing was shallow. "Annabelle," he breathed, cradling her in his lap. "Bells…"

Her eyes seemed to focus on his face. "You idiot…You…you could have…gotten hurt," she hissed, struggling to sit upright. "And you could…have killed…me!

"You're one to talk, sweetheart," he breathed in relief. "Who's the one with their back ripped open?"

She gingerly reached behind her back and winced visibly. "Well, thankfully they're closed now."

When it was clear that she wasn't in any mortal danger, he felt his anger with her returning. "What were you thinking? You-"

Rolling her eyes, she pushed herself away from him and started to get to her feet, only to fall down again. He moved to help her, but she held up a hand. "Don't even think about patronising me, Ben. I'm a Hero for goodness sake."

"You almost died, Princess! Or are you suffering from some misguided belief that you are invincible?"

"At least I'm not suffering from some misguided belief that the entire female population needs to be constantly rescued," she countered. "I would have been fine if you hadn't shown up."

"It sure looked like it," he said sarcastically. "I could see that you were in complete control of the situation."

Her eyes blazing, she yanked a purple summoning bottle out of her pocket. "I had this, but I couldn't use it out of the fear that they might attack you as well," she sneered. "So don't you dare act snide."

He opened his mouth to argue, but he couldn't dispute that she was right. It was his fault that their new ruler had a few new additions to the scars that already riddled her body. He mentally kicked himself for being so stubborn. She clearly told him to stay away and he didn't listen.

"Just go. I don't have the strength to deal with you right now," she whispered, getting to her feet. "Though my wounds heal faster, they still burn as though doused with fire."

He couldn't help but notice that they were practically right back where they started in Mourningwood, except this time she was right to blame him. Even so, his twisted pride prevented him from apologizing or leaving for that matter.

"What are you doing out here anyway?" he asked as he retrieved his discarded rifle.

If looks could kill, Ben would have been little more than a pile of smouldering ashes. "Frankly that's none of your concern, Captain." She winced visibly when she put weight on her left leg. "What I decide to do in my capacity as a Hero doesn't need to carry your approval."

"It's General. If you're going to insist on distancing yourself from me by using my title, use the correct one, please," he snapped in reply. Admittedly childish, but who cares?

Her green eyes rolled again. "Now if you'll excuse me, General Finn, I have much better things to than to sit around listening to you jabber on. I'm sure there is some noblewoman struggling to get her cat down from a tree. Go and rescue that "damsel in distress", because I'm not going to wait around for you to get me killed again." The words were positively dripping with venom and it took everything he had to bite back the retort on the tip of his tongue. As angry as he might be, he'd almost lost her again, this time due to his own stupidity and that realisation was enough to let him back down for a while.

"Fine," he settled for saying.

"Good." He opened his mouth to say something more, but before he could blink, she'd already teleported away.

"She always has to get the last word in," he grumbled as he headed in a different direction.

Maybe Mourningwood would prove less hostile.

oOoOoOo

It did. Aside from the occasional Hobbe, the road to the fort was quiet and he couldn't decide if that annoyed or pleased him. On the one hand he was tired of fighting, but on the other hand, he really wanted to shoot something's head off.

He reached the fort by early afternoon and after managing to clamber over the stone wall, he gladly sank down onto one of crates to eat his lunch. As he munched on a stale piece of bread and cheese, he glanced around the fort. It hadn't changed much in the few months since they left the fort. Aside from the increase of moss, cobwebs and a wide variety of insects, it was still exactly the same.

A smirk spread over his lips as a barrage of memories hit him. The crate he was currently seated on was the very crate he had sat on when he had written his autobiography. Across the fort was the remains of the fire they'd used to cook and were they'd spent the evenings playing cards and telling stories.

His eyes moved to the top battlement where the mortar still stood. Out of everyone that they lost to the hollow men in the fort, he missed Jammy the most. He was a good man and a good friend.

As his gaze passed the place where Jammy used to load the mortar, something bright caught his eye. In surprise, he squinted hard to determine what he saw and his eyes widened in realisation. "Is that…it can't be," he muttered, a giant smile on his face.

Taking the steps two at a time, he reached the mortar and looked into the face, albeit ghostly one, of his old friend. "Jammy? You came back!"

"Captain Ben! Captain Benjamin Finn!" Jammy's ghost sniffed loudly before breaking into a huge smile. "I thought you were dead!"

Ben couldn't wipe the smile off of his face. "I thought the same about you, Jammy! What are you doing here?"

Jammy gave an awkward shrug and motioned for him to sit down on the crate next to him. "I figured if I could kill a few more hollow men since all of you left. Congratulations on succeeding with the Revolution!"

"Thank you, Jammy. I'm sorry you had to miss it," Ben said with true regret.

"It alright." A strange smile spread over his face. "Speaking of which…How is the dear Princess?"

Ben felt another flare of anger ignite at the mention of her Majesty. "She's fine. She's queen now in fact," Ben replied. "Already delivered her first royal decree and everything." He couldn't help the biting tone that slipped into his voice.

A knowing grin split over Jammy's face. "That wasn't what I was talking about, Captain."

"Oh." It took Ben another moment to realise what he was referring to. "OH! How…how do you know about that?"

"One of the ghost that haunts the castle came through here the other day. Apparently you weren't exaggerating when you bragged about your…prowess," Jammy said with slyness that Ben hadn't known he possessed. "Good job, Captain!"

"He heard us. Are you telling me that a ghost overheard me and Annabelle…?" The corner of his mouth quirked into a lopsided smile at the thought. "That's quite funny actually," he admitted. "At least we gave him a good performance."

"More than good if I can believe Mr Smith." Jammy's smile grew even broader. "But I'm glad for the two of you. She's a great girl and you deserve some happiness as well, Captain. I knew you were going to hit it off the moment she flushed when you touched her."

"Well…things aren't going so well right now. We had a huge fight a few days ago. That's partly why I'm out here," Ben admitted, motioning to fort.

"What you fight about?"

"She let Logan live after all he's done and I didn't agree with her. I made her very aware of that fact." He quickly filled Jammy in on what had happened in the clearing as well. "But she's wrong, isn't she?"

Jammy shrugged again. "I'm not going to get involved, but it sounds as if you overreacted, Captain. Logan is her brother after all."

"He killed Swift, Jammy! And it's his fault you're dead, Jammy. He's the one that stationed you here," Ben argued.

"I could have just as easily been killed on my way to the store in Industrial with my luck," Jammy chuckled. "I don't blame Logan. Besides, Swift knew what he was getting into. It's horrible, but there's nothing you can do to bring him back, including killing Logan."

Jammy took a deep breath before continuing. "I think that you need to apologize for yelling at her. Like I said, Captain, she's a great girl. Beautiful, smart, deadly and if your stories are anything to go by, that's the type of woman you go for. However, she isn't going to forgive you every time you screw up and mouth off to her and a girl like that is not going to have a hard time finding someone to fill your shoes."

"You can't be serious, Jammy. She loves me," Ben countered.

"I know she loves you, but if you don't give her a reason to keep you around, she's not going to. She has enough to deal with to be bothered with a difficult relationship. Besides, if you end up almost killing her…"

He started to argue, but then he saw the wisdom of Jammy's words. "I…You're right. I need to apologise to her. He's her brother and she knows him better than anyone. I might not like him, but she loves him and I love her. Besides, I feel like a total arse for letting her get hurt," he said more to himself than to Jammy. The blond captain practically sprang to his feet. "I'm heading back now."

Jammy, however, pointed out that she likely wasn't in the castle or anywhere else where he could find her. "And, Ben, you're forgetting about the hollow men. So, why don't we use the mortar to take out a few of these bastards," Jammy said in a sadistic tone of voice.

Ben couldn't bear to disagree.