Hoseok and Yoongi's clunky ship landed as gracefully as a massive tankard is capable of nuzzling into sandy soil and sparse clearings amidst a tightly packed rainforest.

Whenever the full crew of Yoongi and Hoseok's ragtag team of rogues walked out of the shuttle and onto the soft, loose turf, they were engulfed in the thick sticky heat and the sound of unexpectedly raucous applause. The small clearing they'd landed in was surrounded on every side by lively figures all clapping and shouting in congratulations at the arrival of the Noon Mool crew.

Yoongi folded his arms and gave an almost-smile at the sight, his hip cocking to one side.

Woozi stood next to Yoongi—like a shorter, pink-haired mirror image with his own hip cocked sidelong in tow.

Hoseok shamelessly lifted his clasped hands into the air, gave them a shake this way and that, and did a playful series of jumps and butt-wiggles to mirror back the crowd's enthusiasm—making everyone cheer even louder.

Taehyung leaned down towards Woozi's short shoulder. "Why are they cheering?"

Woozi shouted back through the sound, "Because they saw the fight. It was broadcasted here."

"What?!" Tae couldn't quite make out the words.

"THEY SAW THE ARENA FIGHT!"

"OH."

Recognizing that these people had seen him die a gruesome--and somewhat deserved--death in real time... left the starry-eyed young Tae feeling incredibly shy. He shuffled his feet in the loose topsoil to stand just behind Jungkook's broad shoulders, trying to make himself appear less noticeable amongst the new arrivals. He had little success.

Meanwhile, Jungkook's sharp brown eyes scanned the crowd. There were more people than he could count pouring out from the treeline around the clearing they'd landed in. They were all mostly dressed in khakis and camo and green and brown. Combat boots, tennis shoes, or hiking sandals. Swords strapped here and there, a few people holding fat blaster guns, and...a whole lot of young people. Some of the kids wearing swords strapped to their sides or their backs didn't look like they'd even made it to puberty.

Where are all the old people?

Foreboding sank into Jungkook's chest as a particularly young girl raced across the sandy clearing.

The little girl didn't look older than four, with dark chocolate skin and long black braids waving in the wind behind her as she ran. And she had a giant sunflower clasped tightly in two hands as she ran, her smile gleaming.

"HOBIIII!"

Hoseok leaned down and scooped up the small girl with the sunflower, hoisting her high up into the air as she squealed with delight. He spun her around, then pulled her in and propped her onto his hip, holding her with one arm as his free hand reached forward to take the sunflower she eagerly offered to him.

"Keeks, what did you bring me?"

"Flower. Welcome hooooome!"

Hoseok took the sunflower and smelled it with a dramatic, "AH!"

Keeks giggled with glee. "Missed you, Hobi."

"And I you, sweet Keeks." Hoseok gave her little chocolate cheek a kiss, hoisted her up into the air once more as she let out fresh giggles, and then set her down again onto the sandy terrain. She proceeded to cling to his pant leg, and his beaming smile down at her never wavered.

Shae watched this affectionate exchange with a soft, warm glow showing on her face. Which Ava so astutely observed.

Ava leaned into Shae's ear and stage-whispered about the crowd and the noise, "He's good with kids. What more could you want?"

Shae's soft-glow look disappeared and she frowned in Ava's direction. "Ohmygosh, you literally never quit."

"But you love it."

Shae rolled her eyes. She was quietly annoyed at her friend's seed-planting, but Shae couldn't help but laugh anyway.

Jungkook stood at Tae's shoulder, but he quite suddenly became oblivious to anything that anyone around him might be saying.

Instead, his every sense was drawn and fixed on one face standing in the crowd. A young man in flowing black robes, with a shaggy black mullet, and a slightly elongated face was glowering across the field at Jeon Jungkook. Kookie was returning the favor, his fists clenching and his jaw tightening.

Taehyung had been resting his chin on Jungkook's shoulder, and he felt Kookie go tense. "Hey. You alright?"

"That guy," Jungkook muttered under his breath. "I know him."

Tae looked, blue eyes wide and innocent and unseeing. "Who?"

But Jungkook could see, and he watched as the man-in-black disappeared into the crowd just as the fuss of their arrival was dying down and people were wandering back into the trees, getting back to their routines. In a blink, the suspicious young man was gone.

Jungkook swore under his breath. "What the hell are Yoongi and Hobi thinking?"

Hoseok shuffled into a small crowd that was still gathered, where about eight young people came forward and stood around listening to him tell some joke—which everyone laughed loudly at—and then Hoseok started to bark orders. Two of the young strangers had clipboards out, taking notes. Then Hoseok picked Keeks up, hoisted the grinning little girl onto his hip again, and walked away with the small crowd on his heels, while one of them was explaining something to him and leading the way in a set direction through the dense trees.

Yoongi, on the other hand, turned towards the Noon Mool crew and planted his feet. Everyone turned to listen.

"Alright, folks, welcome to Camp Haenam. Time for some ground rules."

Ava, Shae, Jungkook and Tae all shifted to watch Yoongi give his schpeal, with little Woozi at his heels like an earnest little mime of Yoongi's every stern emotion.

Yoongi grumbled, "Well alright then. Basic rules are: no fighting except in the arenas during training. Resources are pretty communal around here but don't steal people's shit. There is no single person in charge, but we do have a hierarchy and we kick people's asses good for not sticking to it, so listen up. Some folks are on the Special Counsel, including me and Hobi, and we make the big decisions around here. With input from others, of course."

"Interesting," Taehyung was instantly fascinated by this court-style concept.

Yoongi went on, "But y'all, if we're in combat mode, hierarchy wins. You shut the fuck up, tuck in, and do what you're told by your superior officer. Or you get more than an ass kicking after the fact. Understood?"

Ava, Shae, Jungkook and Taehyung answered collectively, "Understood."

"Great. Woozi, why don't you show the guys on their way. Quarters, showers, schedules." Yoongi handed over a clipboard, and Woozi clasped it in his tiny hands.

"Yes, Suga-nim," the small young man answered politely. Then, Woozi gave a sharp wave of that clipboard, like an arrogant summons towards the other Noon Moolites, and he started walking across the field. Jungkook and Taehyung followed the small young man's footsteps. They wandered through dense undergrowth and wedged through trees, until they stumbled into an open clearing where the rows upon rows of neatly arrayed military style bunks were set up. Woozi charged ahead between rows as if he knew exactly where he was going, with Tae and Kookie following after his bobbing pink head like a little cotton candy homing device.

Tae was taking in the sights of the camp with wide, wonder-filled eyes.

Jungkook gazed at the musty looking tents and the scrappy looking young people racing around busy at SOME kind of work with suspicious scrutiny.

Woozi's small voice crackled back at them to explain as he led them along, "The showers are back there. You'll both get assigned roles, as well as odd jobs throughout each week to help keep this place running like the well-oiled machine that it is. And yes, everyone ends up on bathroom duty, so just suck it up and do it when it's your week and everyone stays happy around here. There's a mess hall, storage units, armory, medical tent, that big black-ish looking tent over there is for strategy meetings and stuff. You've both been offered a unit to join. My advice is to take the offers. You won't get better ones."

At this point, Woozi stopped in his tracks outside of the big black meeting tent and turned around to frown up at Jungkook and Tae.

"Jungkook, you've been offered a place in Hoseok's special operations unit. All the best fighters. The coolest missions. The stuff of dreams." Woozi said all of this in a tone of voice that said he'd rather die than join Hoseok's unit, personally.

Jungkook sighed. "Not even here a day and they're putting us to work."

"I'll take that as a yes." Woozi shifted his attention. "Taehyhung, you've been offered a position in admin. They need a new department head, and Yoongi thinks you'd be good for the job."

Taehyung flashed a stunned, amazed expression beneath his crimped silver hair. "Oh? Not...not combat?"

Woozi shrugged his shoulders. "Lemme know if you wanna make any requests for something different and I can pass that along. Thoughts?"

Taehyung gave a slow nod. "I mean, I'm down. Admin sounds good to me."

"Great. Tae, come with me and I'll introduce you to your team. Jungkook, you can wait here. Hoseok's inside the meeting tent. He can get you acquainted with your new unit."

Jungkook grumbled to himself, "Great," as he watched Tae and Woozi wander away. Jungkook shuffled around, his eyes slowly taking in the expanse of the camp around him once again. It all felt so distinctly 'other'--the loose soil beneath his feet, the thick heavy air pressing under his shirt and into his lungs, the busy clamor of young bodies all in a hurry to get something done... the messy order of it all. It felt distinctly different than the top-down hierarchical setup of operations at Noon Mool fortress.

A voice crackled behind Jungkook that made his blood boil faster than the tropical heat.

"It's been a while."

Jungkook spun around, his body instantly tense, landing on the tips of his toes and ready to spring to action.

But the young man he turned to face leaned casually against a tent pole. The man in black. He was smiling lazily, his sharp eyes narrowed sleepily, lazily, arrogantly.

"Minghao."

"Jungkook."

"What the hell are you doing here?" Jungkook wanted to leap at the young man and pound a fist into that arrogant, lazy smile. He didn't.

Minghao answered back, "Surviving. Some of us are good at it." Minghao looked Jungkook up and down slowly. "It's too bad you got snuffed out in the arena like that. I pitied you when you were dead."

Jungkook snarled, "Pity? You? Save it."

Minghao shrugged, as if without a care. "Your Satoor Ai is a curious creature. She seems too sincere to live very long. I pity her still."

"Is that a threat?" Jungkook took a step forward, still springy and on his toes. Ready.

Minghao shrugged off of the tent pole and started to slink away. "Oh, Jungkook. You haven't changed." Then, like a flicker, Minghao slid into a sliver of tent shadow...and disappeared without a trace.

Just then, Hoseok flung open the front of the black meeting tent. Three people Jungkook didn't recognize all scattered out the front flap and on their way. Then Hoseok gave a wave in Jungkook's direction.

"Come on in, Kookie. Let's have a chat."

--

Yoongi looked from Shae to Ava. He seemed more uncomfortable than usual to Shae, and the thought surprised her.

That was when Shae remembered that something, still unknown, had transpired between Ava and Min Yoongi that had caused her dear friend to shift her burning curiosity for the rough-around-the-edges inventor. But what?

Shae asked, "So what's next for us here? I'm assuming you have some kind of jobs for us to do."

Yoongi gave a nod. "Ava, you've been assigned to a combat unit. Relatively general infantry, nothing too extreme. Your commander is good at her job, so you'll be in good hands."

Ava gave a single nod.

Shae felt incredibly uncomfortable at the idea of being in a combat unit herself. She crossed her fingers and hoped. "And what about me? Also combat?"

Yoongi outright laughed. "No. Definitely not. Shae, you'll be working in admin on most days. But Hoseok and I will need you to help us with some random things here and there, too."

Ava scoffed. "Admin? Shae? She's not exactly the most organized person on the planet."

"Hey!"

"Hey, it's the truth, Shae."

Shae sighed. "I know. I'm working on it."

Yoongi interrupted to say, "Listen, ladies. I gotta let you know. Although everyone in this camp has sworn allegiance to our cause, that doesn't mean that they all can be trusted. People get drawn to rebellion for a looooot of different reasons. Some noble, and some not. Shae's... particularly vulnerable and valuable to our cause. So Hoseok and I decided to assign her to a unit with trustworthy people IN it, in one of the safest and most secure facilities on the base, doing relatively harmless work. Where she'll never be by herself."

Ava answered quietly, "Well someone was really thinking this through, huh?"

Shae asked, "Who's my unit leader then?"

Yoongi said, "Oh, it's Tae. It'll be you, Tae, and this kid who's been running things by himself for the past couple of weeks. He should be a lot of help to you both—if he hasn't lost his damn mind at this point."

Shae asked, amazed, "ONE kid has been running your admin and inventory around here? But this place is HUGE!"

To which Yoongi replied soberly, "Eh, it used to be a group of six people managing it all together. Then five of the six died a few weeks ago."

Ava bristled. "Dead how?" She stepped defensively closer to her best friend.

Yoongi sighed. "Our last base got found out and raided. We've only been at this camp for a few weeks. So, dead because we got taken by surprise on our home turf. Wouldn't have happened if Hoseok and I had been here, but... we were a little busy with you lot."

"Raided by who?" Shae wondered. "It didn't seem like Petra knew anything about you guys."

Yoongi shook his head. "Not Petra. That's a story for another day. Let's get you two moved in properly first. C'mon, I'll show you around."