Alright, here is the next part in the story. I'm not completely satisfied with how all of how it turned out, but this chapter is necessary mostly for a few running details in this story. I hope that it's enough to sate everyone until the next update, and while we wait for the next episode to come this following Saturday for what I hope is an awesome fight sequence. Enjoy!

Frost awoke with a groan as his eyes slowly flickered open. After everything that had occurred the last few days, having the chance to finally kick back for the trip to Atlas was a welcome relief. As he reached his arms up to stretch out his joints however he noticed that something seemed off. With that in mind he slowly get up so that he was propping his upper body up with his elbows, to which he immediately noticed what the problem was.

He was no longer on the ship.

Instead, he seemed to be in an open field, with a clear sky above and grassy plains as far as the eye could see. His head swiveled back and forth as he attempted to gather his bearings, but to no avail. There seemed to be no sign of Neo or Emerald, let alone anything to indicate how he had ended up in this place.

"Okay," Frost spoke to himself as he got up to his feet before starting to head in a random direction. "Either I got high as fuck last night and forgot about it, or Emerald is messing with my head big time as some sort of joke and any minute now I'm going to end up suddenly soaked and swimming in the ocean because I walked overboard." Frost paused for a moment as he considered the second option. "You know I would probably go overboard anyways if I was high, considering I don't have any clue what's actually in front of me. Guess I should be expecting to get soaked any moment now. Probably should be expecting a feeling of falling, too."

However, as time passed and Frost continued walking along, he noticed no sudden damp feeling or sense of falling, leading to him being even more confused as he continued along. As his mind continued to find ways to grasp what was going on, he noticed objects begin to rise up on the horizon as he seemed to approach something. It was with that in his current attention that Frost broke into a light jog so as to reach answers faster.

As he got closer and closer to the group of buildings, a pressure in the back of his head began to build up slightly, to the point that it was a dull throb every few seconds as he reached the outskirts of what appeared to be a rather homely looking village. Strangely enough however the village appeared to be empty even though the buildings showed no signs of wear or damage, as though the place had just simply been abandoned by its inhabitants for no clear reason and left to stand the test of time. What was even stranger was that there were no signs of overgrowth or wear on any buildings. This meant that either something strange was in effect in this village, or it had only recently been abandoned. After looking around for any tracks in the dirt however, it seemed that there hadn't been anyone around here for some time save for him. It was with that thought in the back of his head that Frost took a readied stance, noticing that he suddenly had his gauntlets and greaves suddenly on his person when he hadn't moments earlier.

"Okay." Frost spoke to himself as he raised his voice in his defensive stance. "I don't know what's going on here, but someone had better come out right now and explain what the hell is going on! I was on my way to Atlas on a ship a few hours ago, so why am I suddenly in the middle of nowhere in some ghost town?!"

Frost was met only with silence as he whirled around in an effort to try to spot anything out of the ordinary that could explain the situation. "Answer me!"

"I don't think anyone's going to answer your question there, champ."

Frost whirled to face the direction that the voice had come from, only to see nothing in his immediate sight. He began to whirl back and forth, his paranoia now at its peak as he tried to keep a grip on his emotions and not resort to lashing out at the very sign of anything unclear. He needed answers more that he needed to get in a fight right now.

"Aww, but where's the fun in that? I thought you liked getting into a scrap every now and then?"

Frost swung around with his hand out, hoping to grab onto something in case it was someone messing with him and always standing behind his back. He couldn't take any chances at this point as he felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise as his skin crawled with discomfort. However, he once again came up with nothing as he spun to meet only open air once more, his frustration mounting even further as he grated his teeth against one another.

"Alright, that's enough!" Frost shouted as he dropped his arms to his sides and closed his eyes in deep breaths to calm his emotions. His voice lowered to a regular speaking volume as he continued. "I don't know who you are, but clearly you know something about me. When I open my eyes, I want you to be standing in front of me so that we can talk rather than playing this pointless game anymore. On the count of three, I'm going to open my eyes and you'll be standing in front of me." Frost paused as he took a steadying breath, mentally preparing himself for anything at this point.

"1." A gust of wind blew by, lightly brushing his skin as it passed from behind him.

"2." His skin crawled as a chill sent goosebumps up his arms.

"3." Everything suddenly went silent as Frost slowly opened his eyes, immediately freezing in place out of shock at the sight in front of him.

"Hey there, sport. Long time no see."

It was himself. A mirror image standing directly in front of him with a cocky smirk on its face as it leaned against the side of a well that lay in the centre of the village. However there was one problem, something that made the doppelganger slightly wrong aside from its overall appearance. It had pale, white skin with dark tendrils creeping up on the sides of his face, and appeared to be wearing no weapons unlike Frost. But that wasn't the most concerning part. What truly had Frost frozen was one thing in particular.

The black eyes with red irises that screamed death in Frost's mind as his headache came back full force.

Neo and Emerald were both taking a few deep breaths as they both stood leaning against the railings of the ship overlooking the ocean as they plowed along in the direction of Atlas. Every once in a while voices could be heard from the deck above as crew worked to keep everything in order while the passengers aboard enjoyed the peaceful day. After everything that happened, a brief respite was well received as the two wore calm smiles on their faces.

"You know, this is pretty nice." Emerald stated matter-of-factly as she took a deep breath of the sea air. "I haven't had a chance to just relax and not worry about the next heist or attack for some time now, so getting a chance to actually stretch my legs for once is kind of relaxing."

"Yes, well take advantage of it while you can." Neo stated as she got up from the railing and started walking along the decks with Emerald shortly behind with her arms behind her head in a stretch. "I can't imagine we'll get much of a break once we reach Atlas. Frost seemed pretty deadest on getting in touch with each of the girls from Beacon, and since the Schnee heiress was the only other one we knew exact location on, she's our best bet."

Emerald smirked from behind Neo. "Is it just me, or do I detect a hint of jealousy in that tone?"

Neo whirled to face Emerald with a raised eyebrow and questioning look as she crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Emerald, seriously. You've been like this for at least a day or two now. What has you saying stuff like this and trying to push my buttons when we're trying to give you a chance?"

Emerald scoffed at Neo's words before continuing past the girl without a hitch in her step. "Please. I know that Frost can be a bit of a dunce, but I know you're not that stupid. Every time you mention one of the girls from Beacon- minus Ruby- you get this slight hitch to your voice as though you don't like to talk about them. Why is that?"

"If you think I have a problem with those girls, then I think you need your eyes and ears checked. I don't have a problem with any of them in the slightest."

Emerald raised an eyebrow with skepticism as Neo tried to act tough in front of her. However, the act only lasted for so long before Neo sighed in defeat and stepped over to lean against the ship's railing once more.

"Fine. I have a problem. But it's not with them." Neo relented after a few moments of silence.

"Then why do you get so grouchy when they come up in conversation?" Emerald asked as she leaned her back against the railing awaiting Neo's response.

"…Because they were there for him when I wasn't able to." Neo whispered just loud enough for Emerald to hear as she continued. "Frost had to deal with having to leave me behind because of the situation that happened back in the old warehouse. He was forced to handle things on his own when the two of us had each other's backs for years until I started doing more individual assignments for Torchwick at Cinder's orders. I couldn't even tell him what was going on because of the tracker that was in my Scroll that allowed Cinder to monitor whatever I told him due to my voice not being healed yet at the time. I was forced to leave him in the dark and wander as he tried to solve things on his own. And I hated myself for it."

Emerald's eyes fell to the ground slightly, as at the time she had been some of the direct opposition to Frost when he had enacted his escape plan and they had gotten in his path and effectively forced him to leave without Neo like he had intended. "Neo, I'm sorry. I know that I can't take back what I've done, but I never knew things were like that."

"I don't blame you, Emerald. At the time we both saw each other as accomplices and nothing more. We didn't know anything about you wanting to leave, and you didn't know about our separate plans that we were enacting to try and foil Cinder. I guess we all screwed up, myself most of all."

"Ok, seriously, stop that." Emerald stated with a sharp tone as Neo looked at her with surprise written on her face. "None of us is completely blameless here. But neither are any of us more at fault than another. We all made our fair share of mistakes, and now we're trying our best to fix them. If it hadn't been for what had happened, could you say that any of us could even be alive or free of Cinder's plans now? Frost would have been dead within weeks had he stayed due to his ineffectiveness in the face of the plans Cinder wanted to use. She would have had one of us take him down as a message at some point regardless. If you had escaped with him, would the two of you have been able to stop Cinder with that book alone? If he couldn't do it by himself with all of the proof he had, I doubt a second person would have helped, especially since at the time you would have been recognized by someone both from the street fight and the train encounter. I could have tried to stop Cinder or just plain left, but I was too afraid to try anything. Besides, him getting to know them helped him anyways, even if it wasn't you that did it. By now it's obvious that you two care a lot about each other, maybe even more than you realize."

Neo lowered her head in defeat. "I know. And I wish I could take away the feelings of uselessness and fear that came with all of that, but I can't. Besides," Emerald looked over and her eyes widened at the sight of tears falling from Neo's eyes as she looked over the sea. "You were right, anyways. I am jealous of them- even Ruby to a lesser extent. The other three are these incredibly attractive girls that each have their own strengths that I could never hope to have. One's a bombshell with the same type of humor as him from what I've seen speaking with her. Another is a heiress, never stopping to let anyone tell her what to do, not even her own family. And another is an ex-White Fang member trying to find a balance of equality for everyone. What am I compared to all of that? I'm just some girl that he knew growing up in the orphanage that happened to be from the same village that got destroyed when we were kids. I'm not even family to him."

"Okay, you know what? Enough of this." Emerald said as Neo felt a rough tug on the back of her jacket. "I'm tired of hearing this pity party when we can solve this in five seconds. We're going to sit the two of you down so you can talk things out. Period."

"Emerald wait!" Neo exclaimed as she managed to squirm out of the jacket, the sudden breeze on her exposed shoulders making her shiver somewhat from the cool ocean air. "Please don't do this. Not right now. I understand that we need to sit down and talk about things at some point over everything that's happened. But right now is a bad time. I can't go to him with my small problems when the whole world is at stake. I'll talk to him when the time is right, and no later. Okay?"

Emerald clenched her hand that wasn't holding Neo's coat into a fist as she took a deep breath. "Fine. I'll give you this one chance. But if that time comes and you chicken out I will tell him myself what you told me. You can't expect me to accept your help and not try to offer some of my own at some point. Got it?"

"Agreed."

Suddenly, the two of them heard a sharp thud come from their bunks down the corridor as they both turned to face the noise.

"Well, seems like Sleeping Beauty finally woke up. Wanna go see what kind of mess he's gotten himself into?" Emerald said with a grin.

"You just want a chance to get an embarrassing photo on your Scroll in case he's wrapped up in bedsheets.

"Damn straight, I do."

Frost took deep, rasping breaths as he held both hands against his head, the throbbing from his dream still present in the back of head, and the image of his alternate self still implanted fresh in his mind. As he tried to get a grip on his breathing and emotions while he lay in the fetal position on the floor beside the bed, the door to the room slid open as Neo and Emerald entered. At the sight of Frost curled up in pain however, any calmness on their faces was destroyed as Neo immediately knelt down to see if Frost was okay.

Frost slowly cracked his eyes open as he felt a warm hand on his arm, his body slowly turning to face the other presence in the room, only for the feeling to disappear as his eyes opened fully with a gasp. He blearily blinked his eyes a few times to clear his vision, only to find that part of his sight seemed to stay blurry rather than clear up as usual. He frowned as he got up and started to stand; only now noticing Neo and Emerald in the room with Neo crying openly into Emerald's arms that looked on with worry between the two of them.

"Hey, you guys." Frost started slowly as he stretched his back with a groan. "Is…everything okay? What happened while I was out?"

Emerald looked down to Neo as she guided the girl to one of the other beds before guiding her to a sitting position slowly before pulling out her Scroll and looking at it for a moment. "You…might want to see this." She then turned on the personal camera of the Scroll before turning it over and passing it to Frost for him to look at the screen, only for him to drop it moments with a yell as he backed into the far wall with a rush. By accident, he had activated the camera in his shock, capturing an image of the last thing seen as he dropped it.

His face- with his left eye black with a red iris. Just like in the dream.