Some Big Hero 6 reference at the bottom, but nothing too big. See if you spot it though.

Oh. Yeah. There's a song bit, but it's not very long. Enjoy.

He had come here before, with his hair newly-bleached white and contacts to make his eyes look blue. At that point of time, he hadn't been to certain of the whether the German police would be interested chasing down an American fugitive that had supposedly committed mariticide. The Brits had, and also the Italians, and with all his hopes for an honest, steady job dashed after his face got splattered on the web, he had searched for this dingy, old pub in downtown Munich, seeking the only person whom he believed could help him. On that day, Jack Overland had been tossed in the mothballs, and Jack Frost had come into the world through faked papers and computer hacking.

Now when he strode down the dirty dim-lit streets, his apprehension towards being seen in the public stemmed form entirely different reasons. Jack Overland was some unimportant murderer suffering from fifteen minutes of unwanted fame. On the other hand, Jack Frost was an internationally infamous corporate parasite; skilled at extraction, mercenary to a fault, and completely unpredictable. If he wasn't currently in your pocketbook, then it was best that he was dead.

Pushing back the glass door of the same dingy, old pub that he had gone into three years ago, he was careful not to meet any eyes, silently strolling to the bar. In the background, he could hear the half-hearted playing of an accordion against the muttered growls that came from the blocky, brawny patrons gulping their ale and rolling their dice. Many were middle-aged men - bikers, brawlers and more unsavory characters that did under-the-table work. They were also rather unkempt in dressage and unrefined in behaviors, something that had frightened Jack the first time he had arrive. But three years had taken him to worse places, so by now, he was almost completely desensitized to the hostile atmosphere.

You get lots of practice after infiltrating that many dreams.

Ducking his head, he asked the bartender, remembering to switch to German in time, "The finest table?"

The bartender understood, and nodded to a table near a door with dubious sign claiming that it lead to the toilet.

"Mucha dank." He headed to that table at once. It already had a customer seated there, a brunette man just slightly older than him, dressed in slim fit green vest with light brown pants. Jack dragged one of the chair out and plopped himself in it, just across the other customer.

"Don't turn," he heard the man mutter in English without looking up, "but the fellow three o'clock - mustache and white coat. He's staring."

So Jack didn't turn his head, choosing instead to squint at the one of the flanking windows, observing at the described person through the reflection instead. Indeed, his brunette table-companion was telling the truth about the thick-lipped gentleman with the twirly mustache spying on them.

"For me or you?" Jack asked the other customer, who was currently focused on the poster he had in his his hand. It was crumpled, torn-up old thing, splashed with cheaply printed German words, with an equally fuzzy picture on it.

"Definitely you," the brunette man said, before folding the sheet and slipping it into his pocket. "I sold the Stabbington Bros out to their competitors about three hours ago. They're too busy being bankrupt to deal with me for now."

Jack harrumphed disapproving at that. "That's contract breach, Rider."

The older man seated across him merely shrugged. "It's not as if they can sue me. That's the advantage of our job, Frost."

"It isn't right."

The other extractor rolled his eyes, before saying, "So, to what do I owe this pleasure? I trust you're not risking prison to gaze upon my handsome face."

While Jack's busy gagging, a waiter comes by, dropping to massive pints of alcohol. The man called Flynn Rider shoved over some notes and coins, which the muscular man scrutinized carefully before snatching up and hobbling away. The white-haired man had also spent some time examining it himself before they were removed from the table.

"I see your printing is still on par," Jack commented, after the waiter was out of earshot. "What about handwriting?"

"Depends on the language," the other man answered, taking up the mug and holding it to his mouth. "And the purpose." He took a gulp.

"Inception."

Flynn raised a brow at him, before lowering his drink, letting the base of the glass slam against the wooden table top.

The white-haired man began, "Alright, before you say it's impossible-"

"No, it's possible," his companion interrupted much to his own surprise. "Just incredibly difficult."

Jack blinked, absorbing this response. "Wow. And Kristoff spent three hours trying to talk me out of it."

"Bjorgman? You still work with that blockhead?" Flynn remarked with a hint of derision. "He doesn't even a degree."

"He's loyal," Jack defended, a wry expression appearing on his mien, "and he wasn't the one who sold me out to Takachiho Tech."

Flynn chuckled, before taking another sip. "You're not still mad about that, are you?"

The younger man gave him a sidelong glance, before asking, "So, have you done it before?"

"Inception? Tried." The brunette man made a face. "Got the idea in, but the guy didn't take it up."

"You didn't plant deep enough?"

"No. His prejudices clogged it up, and he trashed it." Memory of the failure must have irritated Flynn, because the next gulp was much longer.

When he set down the mug, it was three-quarters empty. "That's the problem with inception. The idea has to be simple, succinct - easier to remember that way - yet attractive enough to fester into something more." He eyed Jack's still-full mug. "Aren't you going to drink that, or still too goody-two-shoes to get drunk?"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure Mustacho slipped something into it at the counter, so…" Jack scrunched up his face at the suspicious beverage.

"Shrewd." Flynn nodded approvingly. "So, who's the mark?"

Jack sucked in a breath, before leaning closer, letting his voice drop several decibels. "Marie Frederica Eliza Augusta the Fourth."

He received a blank look.

Jack huffed, before adding, "The Lost Princess of Corona?"

"Oh, that one." The other extractor hummed, scratching his chin as tried to remember what he knew. "The one who got kidnapped when she was a baby, right?"

"Pretty much. They found only her, like, three years ago." Jack pretended to glance at the clock near the counter, just to check on his tail. The Mustacho-man was fiddling with his phone - not a good sign. He did all that, trying to not remember where he was three years ago. "Grew up in Melbourne believing the old hag who kidnapped her was her mother."

"Well, everyone knows Aussies are a bit crazy." Flynn shrugged. "Do you know that when the princess was in high school, she refused to cut her hair for four years straight. It was some kinda protest against shampoo companies - ones that test their products on rabbits?" He ran his fingers through his own dark locks, shuddering, possibly at the thought of never washing his own wonderful brown strands. "Got on Guinness World Records 'cause of that. That's how her parents found her - definitely the weirdest reunion in the history of mankind." He paused, tapping his chin in thought. "They had a funny nickname for her. Something that sounded like lettuce."

Jack deadpanned. "Rapunzel doesn't sound anything like lettuce."

"It does in certain German dialects," Flynn retorted. "Anyway, what's her problem?"

"The King of Corona passed away a week ago, and Princess 'Rapunzel' is being pressured to give up the throne in favor of her second cousin, who's actually grew up in royalty and can speak Coronese. She's going to announce the handover two weeks from now at the capitol. The client wants me to change her mind."

"Well, I can see millions of political complications in this already," mused Flynn. He began to count them off his fingers. "Constitutional monarchy or not, royalty is huge part of Coronian sovereignty, so whoever's on is going to be a huge deal. I've a feeling the reluctant princess doesn't care much about that though, especially if she didn't grow up on the Coronian soil. The second-cousin - he's not really Coronian either, is he?"

"He's actually the thirteenth prince of Westergaard." Seeing the puzzled look on Flynn's face, Jack grudgingly elaborated, "The neighboring nation? His eldest brother's the current King, but his own mother's Coronian."

"Oh, right," the older man replied. "I heard he's got fingers into the parliaments of both Corona and Westergaard. Shady fellow, that one."

"I got a job offer from him before. He's got plenty of dirt, alright." Jack made a distasteful hum, before changing the topic. "So, you want in?"

Flynn considered this for a moment, unconsciously digging a hand into his pocket and pulling out the folded poster again. "Why me? You and Kristoff should be sufficient."

"For an extraction, yes. But inception, we need a Forger." There was a rare light behind his blue-colored contacts - a look that he wore only when sharing secrets. "I know no better imitator than you, Fitzherbert."

The brunette stiffened, the fingers holding the paper slip frozen. Exhaling deeply, he quickly unfolded the sheet, squinting at it for a second or two. Finally, he said, "You have a chemist?"

Jack grinned, pleased. "I know a guy who'd be willing. He's in Nuremburg right now."

"Well, I hope your employer has deep pockets, because I'm saving up."

The white-haired man cocked an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Buying myself an island for retirement. Heard there're some nice ones off-coast Jakarta - warm and sunny, great for tanning."

"Well, you're in luck. They're filthy rich, too the point it's almost-" Jack broke off when he noted that from the corner of his eye, Mustacho-man was now on the phone, speaking hurriedly and shooting many not-so-subtle looks in the direction of their table. He swore under his breath.

Flynn followed his scowl to assess the situation, before asking, "So, what's the plan?"

"I'm open to suggestions."

There was a silence between both men before Flynn inquires again, "How good's your singing?"

It was Jack's turn to be bemused. "I have been compared to a yowling cat and a dying chicken. Why?"

The elder man drew out a long sigh, then downed the rest of his drink. "Well,-" he slammed his mug on the table again, making Jack jump while he rose from his seat, "-see you at Nuremberg then."

With those baffling words, Flynn strode off to another part of the pub, leaving Jack feeling rather unsettled that he was left alone with a full mug, and the piercing eyes of his watcher.

Mercenary or Police? Jack pretended to take swig of beer just to so he could arch his head back and get better view, letting the liquid dribble down his chin as he did. There was two guns strapped to Mustacho-man's belt, hidden by the folds of his coat. Probably mercenary, which meant that when this guy shot, he shot to kill.

The Mustacho-man hung up from his phone now, narrowing his eyes at his white-headed target before hopping off the bar seat. Jack's twitching hands longed to reach for the back of his hoodie and cover way-too-conspicuous hair (what was he thinking when he bleached it?), but he furtively slid them off the table instead, feeling for his own belt and the shotgun attached to it. After years of practice, his aim was pretty much spot on, but all the same, he still hesitated.

'This isn't a dream, Jack,' he reminded himself, as his fingers curled around the gun, one slipping to the trigger. This guy wasn't a projection. He was real. This man, mercenary or police, was still a man. He probably had a family somewhere, maybe kids even. Maybe he was the only son to some doddering old woman who's livelihood depended solely on him. Maybe he wasn't any of that, but perhaps he had friends, comrades that called him brother, that shared fist-bumps and dirty jokes with him.

He was a man with two guns strapped to his belt, but he was also a man. If he put a bullet through this man's brain, he's not going to wake up. Ever.

Jack's fingers relaxed.

Mustacho-man made a beeline for his table, shoving pass some other half-drunken patrons. His own hands slipped under his coat to his guns. Jack placed his hands to the corners of the table, bracing himself for the confrontation and praying that his reaction time in reality was at half as as good as that in dream space.

And suddenly, the lights when off. There was a yell of something in German, a sharp clinking against the wooden wall, before the lackadaisical pumping on the accordion became something sharper and actually musical. Jack's hunter and himself were as entranced the rest of the pub customers when the spotlight blinkered into existence over the head of bald, stocky-man hook-handed man - a patron that Jack had noted sitting near by the roulette table when he had walked in. A raspy, deep voice, the hook-handed man began to sing, "I'm malicious, mean and scary, my sneer could curdle dairy. And violence-wise my hand's are not the cleanest-"

Taking advantage of the mercenary's distraction, Jack grabbed his mug of beer, rising slowly from his chair as not to draw attention to himself. He stepped himself right behind the Mustacho-man, and in one swift motion, hooked an arm around the taller man's neck, dragged him down and, using the same hand, pinched the man's nose.

"Sorry," he told his hunter, who was still waking up to the fact that he was now the hunted. With that said, Jack used his free hand to shoved the rim of the mug against the man's parted lips, roughly decanting the liquid down his throat. The man struggled, flailing his arms and making choking noises, but all of it was drowned out by the hammering on the piano that now accompanied the music.

"-Yes, I'd rather be called deadly, for my killer show-tune medley!-"

As the running upward scale of the piano finished, Mustacho-man managed to break free from his grip, elbowing him in the nose. Jack spat a curse, clutching his nose. The bruise that Anna had given a day prior had yet to heal itself completely.

"-I've got a dream!"

Deep voices from all over the pub began to join in, "He's got a dream! He's got a -"

The mercenary swung at him, but his movements were too slow at this point due to the drugging. Angling himself out the way in time, Jack delivered an uppercut then sent the man staggering back. It wasn't a particularly powerful blow, but the dope in the beer must have been taking effect, because for some reason or another, the man toppled backwards, taking a head-behind another table and his legs flopping awkwardly upwards when he hit the planks. Fortunately, the diners on that table were far too occupied in singing along to even notice.

"Laaaaaaa,la,la,la,la,la,la,la,la,la,la,la,la, LAAAAAAA!"

Jack should have remembered that the guys that came after him rarely came alone. No sooner did the second verse of the song begin than another brute lunge at him. Even in the dimly-lit atmosphere, Jack's eyes were still keen enough to perceive that coming, so after ducking, he used the mug as a hammer, smacking its side against the attacker's cheek before shoving up up against his jaw. When the man stumbled back, Jack shot in, delivering four consecutive blows at some rather sensitive areas, before finally smashing the glass over the man's head and knocking his daylights out.

"-Though my face leaves people screaming, there's a child behind it dreaming. Like everybody else, I've got a dream!"

More of the customers started getting more involved apparently, singing sometimes in parts and others in chorus. Most of them were on their feet, stomping and clapping. Jack yanked up his hood and wove through the crowds, muttering a couple of 'excuse-mes' in their native tongue as he headed for the exit.

That was till some tall guy blocked his way, grabbing him by the collar. The alertness in the man's eyes told him that immediately this was no drunk fellow, and the communicator strapped to his shoulder told him that he was no backstreet hoodlum. The guy pulled his own arm back to punch him, while Jack's hands immediately went for his gun.

And suddenly a wash of light flooded over them.

Under the gaze of the dozens of club patrons, both the assailant and assailed froze, uncertain of how they came to be, or why they were now in the limelight.

"You!" Jack's head jerked in the direction of the guttural voice. It was in German, uttered by the hook-handed man Jack had seen at the piano earlier on.

"What's your dream?" A man with an atrociously large nose demanded.

Jack blinked, and he had to bite back a sharp laughter. Dreams? When was the last time he had a dream? With an almost regular diet of somnacin, thanks to his job, he couldn't dream properly anymore.

It took him two seconds to work out that they weren't talking about that kind of dreams, and five to realize that all stares were directed at his attacker, not him.

It was at this point of time that his attacker let him slip out his grasp, facing the other bar patrons and informing them them quite certainly that he was did not sing. At that, a dozen guns suddenly popped out of nowhere, pointing at the man's head. Lowering his head, Jack took a step back and quietly slipped away.

When he finally managed to entangle himself from the crowd, he heard some rather nervous and off-key singing, which didn't bother him much as long as it kept his pursuers occupied.

"You!" This time it was said in English, but it was the same voice.

Jack found himself face to face with the hook-handed man again, and immediately his muscled tensed up, readying himself to battle again. The man however bore no hostility, merely jerking his chin sideways, saying in language so foreign to himself, "Rider asked. Follow."

The hook-handed man headed behind the bar counter, which was presently unoccupied while the bartender participated in the strange festivities. Intrigued, Jack dismissed his usual wariness to follow the stranger. On the back wall of the bar, there was a strange assortment various levers, and the hook-handed man pulled one of them. There was a short 'creak', before part of the wall opened up, revealing the secret tunnel.

"Too many in front," the bulky man told him simply. His English wasn't polished, as evident from his thick accent, but the words were sufficient to tell Jack that there were too many mercenaries near the front of the pub.

"Danke." He did not question Flynn's present absence. The forger was just quite a loner, so he wasn't in the habit of disclosing his plans. But if he said that he would be in Nuremberg, then the only chance of finding him was to go to Nuremberg. If he broke his word, then too bad.

As Jack crouched down, about to crawl through the small crevice, the hook-handed man made one last comment, one that was no doubt intended as some kind of farewell. "Go. Live your dream."

The white-haired man was startled initially, before his face crumpled. "I can't."

The sober words left by the young fugitive continued to disturb the pub thug over the next several days.

He was just fitting in new tubes for the PASIV machine when she came strolling in. Her strawberry-blonde hair was again plaited into two loose braids by her face, one of them holding her signature streak of white. Her face was flushed red, and she seemed unwilling to meet his eyes, but there was a unexplainable firmness in her walk before she stopped before him.

Kristoff frowned, not because he was upset about her presence, but because he now owed Jack fifty euros - such a shame. "He said you be back."

"Oh, really?" Then there was a shift in her emotions. "I mean, who are we talking about again?"

Kristoff shook his head, sighing. He may be an idiot in human relationships, but it had been pretty obvious from day one that Anna and her brother-in-law had serious issues. Jack had been vague about why he had left the States, but he had mentioned that it involved a misunderstanding with authorities and a catatonic wife, so Kristoff had always imagined it to be a drunk driving incident or the like. But by the flashes of hate that he had seen Anna shoot at his white-haired associate, he was starting to get an inkling that it was much more than that.

Those flashes fortunately weren't present at the moment, and the architect student was busy trying to keep her expression expressionless, which wasn't working. There was a brightness in her eyes however, an eagerness that he had seen only once in Jack's eyes when he had been so absorbed in teaching him dream concepts that he forgot all else, even toilet breaks.

"There's nothing quite like it, is there?" he asked of her in amusement.

Anna sighed with reluctance, then admitted, "Building palaces in seconds? Twisting stairwells? It's, well,-" her shining eyes now seemed to sparkle "-it's amazing."

He shook his head again, but this time with a smile. "C'mon," he beckoned her to one of the lawn chairs. "If you're going to build the worlds, you need to know more dream space."

Much of the afternoon involved Kristoff teaching her the fundamentals of dream designing - or it felt like the whole afternoon, but probably wasn't, considering that most of it took place in dream time. Her job as an architect was indeed a complex one. There also had to be a snippet of reality in the dream, Kristoff had explained, enough to convince the subject that he was awake, but only a snippet. The rest of the illusion had to be personalized for the Mark. If the person was easily scared, a hostile environment could created, like a dim-lit warehouse or a rundown hotel. Keep it all dark, flick some lighters, swing some crowbars, and the fellow would be keeling over to spill the beans. If the person was the sentimental kind, a home or another place of significance was used to lower their guard, and the secret could be found through some lighthearted conversation. If the person was the egoistic type, build him a palace, stoke his ego a little, then dive into his treasure hoard.

"But that's hardly the best part," Kristoff was saying as they ascended the ebony staircase. They were in a modernized office tower constructed from his own imagination, crowded with figures that were the projections of his subconscious. This time Anna was careful not to meet any in the eye or draw any attention to herself, and so far none had shown her any hostility. Or maybe Kristoff had a nicer subconscious. "You know how sometimes after waking up from a dream, you barely remember it?"

"Totally," she answered, stepping out of the way in time as a projectile, a bald, middle-aged gentleman in a business suit, had dropped his coffee cup on the ground. The gentleman made a hasty apology to her, to which she answered with a smile, going on his knees to clear up the mess. "I know Elsa could, because she kept huge diaries about them - not that I'd ever read them. But me, never."

"Huh." Kristoff always seemed to stiffen at the mention of her sister. She wondered if Jack had told him anything about her, maybe some confession about actually being as guilty as she had often made him out to be. But he didn't speak on the topic, going on with the lesson instead. "The greatest advantage of extraction is that the target barely remembers what was taken from him or her after waking, even less who was the one who took it. It's an almost untraceable crime. I mean, there are no cameras in the mind, after all. No evidence, no conviction, no prison."

"Attractive prospects for an illegal job, I suppose." At the back of her head, Anna knew that the are definitely ethical issues with messing with people's head. Taking things from people when they were most vulnerable - sounded like a bully move. "How do you guys keep convincing yourselves that it's okay?"

She heard Kristoff hesitate. "It's good money. We do have families to feed, after all."

"But it isn't right."

He huffed, halting his climb. Anna took the opportunity to hurry up the steps to where he was, biting her lip nervously as she scanned his face, hoping she didn't accidentally offend him.

There was a pause before Kristoff finally spoke again, a stone set in his eyes, "If you really want to know, here's why." He sucked in a breath, before continuing, "I'm adopted. I lost both my parents when I was little."

Anna tensed, alarmed that perhaps she might have stuck herself into the wrong territory. "I'm sorry."

"It's not that bad. I hardly remember them." He shrugged, before his voice thickened. "But I was told that they committed suicide. It was a bad time for the economy, and they lost their jobs, got depressed and yeah." He cleared his throat awkwardly, before going on, "My foster parents are good people, but simple. They're farming folk - always been in the family. But cooperation and big industries started rolling, and buying up land, and using their genetically modified stuff, so, well, my parent's have been struggling pull their weight everyday. I'm the only thing keeping them afloat." There was a bitterness in his tone, and Anna noticed that he had clenched his fists as he resumed his sullen climb. "I guess I don't like rich people, I guess. I don't like big companies and their business and how they take things from people without asking, or even if they pay, they just rob 'me blind. It's not right to the small folk."

Anna didn't know quite what to say, because she had never quite felt that way before. When their parents had died, Elsa and her hadn't been that young nor especially poor. There was always enough for education, and there was always hope for a better future. She had never quite known the helplessness one could feel against the unmoveable cooperate giants. However, since she was probably going to work for such firms after graduating, perhaps she would learn that entrapment sooner than she expected. That was not a pleasant thought.

"When Jack picked me up, I was actually a delivery boy for an ice-producing firm back in Oslo. He had performed an extraction on the CEO - some information to discredit him - and he stole my van to get away. I was pretty mad with him, because I just had paid off, so I chased him down and gave him a piece of my mind." At that, Anna burst out laughing as an image of the blocky blonde man hollering at her scrawny brother-in-law came to mind. Kristoff chuckled along too, so perhaps it was just as funny as she imagined it. "He didn't have a partner then, and thanks to his meddling, the ice company closed, so I lost my job. He offered to teach my extraction, so I've been here ever since."

"So you really in it for the money then?" she asked, glad that he was in better spirits.

"Well,-" he made a noncommittal noise, "-just till I get enough to buy a nice little home for my folks, and Sven, of course." He paused to ponder for a minute while they continued to ascend the steps, which seemed indeed to go on forever actually. "Well, there's also some really satisfying about punching wealthy, corrupted old men and not getting sued."

That set her off in guffaws again, till she spotted the man cleaning up his spilt coffee on the steps ahead. Anna spun her head back, before turning to Kristoff.

"Haven't we seen that guy just now?" She thumbed the coffee man.

"Oh, yeah." Kristoff smacked his own forehead. "Almost forgot. Welcome to the Penrose Stairs."

That earned a puzzled look from her, till she gazed up realized that for all the climbing upwards, they had actually arrived at the bottom most step. Then the name clicked in her. "Hang a sec. The Penrose Stairs paradox? The never-ending staircase?" She made a disbelieving sound as she gazed at the stairs floating above their head, then to the step they had stopped on. "That isn't physically possible - physically as in 'by physics', not physically as in 'in the body'," she explained hastily.

Kristoff didn't seem to bothered. "Dream space, remember? No physical laws."

"Oh."

"C'mon." He hopped off the steps, and she followed behind. "There's more stuff that I have to teach you before Jack gets back."

"Well, it's not as we don't have a lot of time, don't we?" Anna fell quiet as they passed a pair of teenage girls chatting happily with each other while fiddling with their phones. "Kristoff?"

"Yep?"

"What do you know about my sister?"

Again, he froze up, pursing his lips together. Reluctantly, as if he was afraid of saying more - "I know that she's very beautiful."

She was quick to latch onto that. "So, you know what she looks like."

"I've seen...projections of her before," he confessed haltingly, as they shuffled pass other people on the ground floor of the building.

Anna could feel the familiar weight of stares on her again, just like she had when she was dream-sharing with Jack. Emotions seemed to have quite an impact on the projections. She slotted that piece of knowledge for future reference, before wondering if she should stop before this lot decided to rip her to pieces too. But she wasn't about to let this go, not when she might just learn something new. "Were they from Jack?"

The look on his face told her the answer.

"Does he talk about her?" She knew that she should stop, judging by the increasingly hostile glares that she was earning from the passerbys. "What does he say?"

Kristoff exhaled, before replying with an almost pitying tone, "He blames himself for what happened, and he doesn't blame you for hating him."

It all had started two weeks ago, when they had been given an assignment by Krei Tech, one of the biggest electronics firms in the country. They had to perform an extraction on the owner of the rival company to steal plans of the new transmitter. Sounded easy enough.

Both of them had done extensive research on the sixteen year old CEO of Hamada Corp. prior to the mission, opting to do a double-layer dream, given the young prodigy's apparent experience with dream-sharing. The CEO, who really just a boy, took the Trans-Pacific bullet train from Neo-Hokkaido to San Fransokyo every week, so it had been easy to buy seats next to him, dope his drink and plug him to the dream machine. It had been supposed to be an easy mission; half-an-hour gave them easily six hours in the dream world.

But of course, somebody's projection of his pretty but pretty vicious blonde wife had decided to mess things up by killing him too early in the dream, and the whole mission had been botched.

They had escaped before Hamada had woken up, but it had been undeniable that they had failed. Krei Tech hadn't been the type to to take failure well, so naturally, they had arranged for a copter to take them of the rooftop of the Shirayuki Hotel and flee to some place that Krei didn't have tentacles in.

Of course, they had only realized the slight miscalculation when the vehicles door slid open, and there was already a passenger inside.

"G'day, mate." There was a click from the revolver pointed at his silver head. "You too, Mr. Bjorgman."

Kristoff scowled. He hadn't packed his own revolver in their rush to leave, and Jack knew that it had been sometime since he had managed to replenish his own depleted ammo.

"Won't you gents get on? It's very hard to talk to you both like this."

Both extractors exchanged looks, and eventually reached the same conclusion. They climbed on to the vehicle, plopping themselves unwillingly onto the seats. Kristoff immediately grabbed seatbelt and strapped it on, much to the bemusement of their gun-wielding host, while Jack simply reclined back on the leather seat, as the whirring helicopter finally took off from the helipad.

The aerial view of San Fransokyo was quite a remarkable one, with the gleaming lights of the city sparkling against the setting sun. But the current passengers on the six seater helicopter paid no attention on the sights, choosing to fix their eyes on each other suspiciously.

Finally, Jack spoke to the gun-wielder, "Alright. Spill the beans, Bunnymund. What do you want?"

Kristoff's mouth fell open, indignant. "You know this guy?"

"Easter 1968. Ugly encounter." The lean man in the business suit slid the revolver back into his holster. He appeared to be in his fifties, by the grey-hairs on his head, but the firm form that he had deterred any assumptions of weakness. Despite the formality, his Australian accent was thick and clear in his every word. "I trust that you'll be civilized."

Kristoff shot the older man a skeptical look, then one at Jack.

"Not 1968 in this world," Jack explained.

It took a while for Kristoff to get it. "Oh."

Facing Bunnymund again, he then asked, "So, why are we here?"

"Because one of our agents informed us that they had encountered a certain Jack Frost in their dreams," the older man replied cryptically, raising at the white-hailed extractor. "Oh, yes, Hamada was trained well enough to recognize when he had been infiltrated."

Jack frowned. "Hamada was one of you?"

"Hamada's one of you? Who's you?" Kristoff was starting to get annoyed.

"What Frost is clumsily referring is the organization that I work for," Bunnymund addressed the blonde man. "The Guardians."

Kristoff gave a look in askance to his partner, who added drily, "Modern Illuminati-like secret organization that manipulates the world to their own end."

"The Guardians," Bunnymund put in, apparently irritated by Jack's dismissive manner, "only have the world's best interest at heart, Frost. You know it as well as I do that whatever we do is for the greater good."

"Like putting a bounty on my head? Thanks." Jack snorted scornfully, before glancing away.

"You can't expect us to turn a blind eye to extraction," the older man pointed out. "What y'all are doing is against fundamental human rights."

Jack made a derisive sound. "Yeah. The rights of the wealthy to steal from the poor."

Kristoff nodded in agreement, which gained a defeated groan from the Australian, resignedly shaking his head.

"So, what do you want?" Jack repeated. The only thing that betrayed his nervousness was the slightest twitch in his cold, blue eyes.

"Well, I really want to deliver you to the relevant authorities and have you both in cuffs, but-" Bunnymund pulled a face, "-Mim wants me to give you an offer, in exchange for removing the bounty.

There was a long-drawn lull as Kristoff gave the grey-haired man a dark look, then another one at Jack, then back at the grey-haired man.

Finally, Jack said, "Mim's short for Man-in-the-Moon. The top guy in the Guardians."

"Thank you!" Kristoff threw his hands up in mock gratitude, before asking the agent, "What's the deal, then?"

The Australian ran his eye critically over the other stocky man, as if he was wondering if he could be trusted. When Jack obviously was not going to make any comments on it, the agent made a breathy exhale, before saying, "Inception."

Kristoff answered first, "Impossible."

Jack made no comment, his lips pressed together as he gazed out of the copter window.

"Well, I'd be! If you can take an idea from a person's head, why not plant one?" Bunnymund argued impatiently.

The white-haired still gave no response. On the other hand, Krisotff ran a thick hand through his golden scalp, muttering a few oath in his native tongue, before drawing himself up to the agent. "Alright, see here, Mr Aussie-guy, this is idea-planting. If I say 'don't think about elephants', what do you think about?"

There was a pause, before the elder man replied, "Elephants?,

"Exactly! But you know that I'm the one who told you, so in other words, you know that it was never your own idea. True inspiration is impossible to fake, so there's no way to plant a powerful enough-"

"It's possible."

The quiet interruption left the blonde dumbstruck and the Australian surprised. The white-haired man met the latter's gaze, narrowing his eyes at him. Kristoff just threw his hands up in the air and started muttering inaudible complaints.

Bunnymund addressed the head of the duo, "Will you do it?"

The words returned were acrid. "Do I have a choice?"

"Yes, actually." That surprised both men. "Mim instructed that even if you'd refuse, we'd offer you day head start. A show of generosity." The snippy tone that Bunnymund had told them well enough that he didn't agree, but that didn't mean that he would disobey.

Again, the partners in crime exchanged look, before Jack answered for them both, "Then we choose no."

A man of his grudging word, Bunnymund ordered the helicopter pilot to land them at the San Fransokyo airport. Grabbing their own suitcases, the extractor descended from the helicopter, ready to walk off when the agent called out, "Hey, Frost!"

Both men stopped. Kristoff looked to Jack in deference, while the white haired man slowly spun on his heel, facing the agent again.

The elder man had a curious smile on his face. "How would you like to go home?"

Only the slightest flicker could be seen in Jack's eyes. "You can't fix that. No one can."

"Not even the ''Illuminati-like secret organization that manipulates the world to their own ends'?" The Australian sounded amused. "You claim that the Guardians are so powerful, yet you don't believe it yourself?"

Kristoff shook his head vehemently, but Jack wasn't looking at him. He bit his lip, before asking in a low voice, "What guarantee do I have that you'd deliver?"

Bunnymund shrugged. "None, mate. But I can deliver, and that's what you need to know." The older man shifted in his seat, leaning forward. "Your kid sister's growing up, Jack, and growing up without you. You're running out of time."

Jack couldn't speak, but he was listening.

"Ask yourself, mate, are you gonna wait till your hair really turns white, and you're an old man, withering with regret?"

Three years, he had been away from his hometown. Three years, he hadn't seen Emma. Three years, he hadn't seen his wife. His real wife.

"Or will you take a leap of faith?"

Three years, in real time. In dream time, it was much longer.

And after three years, hope, given by the unlikeliest of deliverers.

Without realizing what he was doing, Jack found himself dashing to the door, the desperation barely hidden in his voice, "What's the idea?"

Inception Lingo:

Inception - Planting an idea in someone's head, but letting the, think they thought it for themselves.

Forger - (Flynn's job) An imitator/actor in the dream. More about this will be explained later.

Layers - Dream within a dream

S/N:

The song used above is 'I got a dream' from Tangled, and the events that occurred there are actually based on the movie. Is the song sung in German or English? No idea actually.

The Penrose Stair Paradox - the Never-ending Staircase is one of the physical paradoxes shown in the movie itself.

I've never actually written a flashback without italicizing it. Tell me if it worked for you (that means, if you could tell if the last portion was a flashback eventually or not) so that next time I can think of better ways of doing it.

Still haven't decided on Jack's cursed Totem yet, so, you can still give your ideas if you have any. I think his staff made end up being one of his totems (yep, there can be more than one), but I still need another small one. The thing is, it's hard to find something as intriguing yet simple as a top.

A/N:

Found this lying in my hard drive, so I decided to finish it up. After this chapter though, this story is going on hiatus for four months like my other ones because of exams. This isn't my highest priority story, so yeah.

Mailbox:

the fan man: Hey dude! I really like the Russian doll idea, but the problem with that one is that it feel more like North's totem. It's possible that North could give his totem to Jack, but it may not be as significant unless it has Jack's face on it. Cool idea though.

M.A333: I had been toying with a pendant idea too, but my problem with it is that the change in the pendant doesn't feel poignant enough unless...maybe it changes color from dream to real world. I don't know, but thanks for the idea.

Guest: Glad you enjoyed it. Haha.

So that's all from me. Ciao. If you leave a review, I'll love it.