Ash instantly crumpled to the ground like a puppet who's strings had been severed.

A shadow member stood behind him, the barrel of their gun smoking as they let it lower limply to their side.

"About time, he deserved it." The person grumbled as they removed their mask.

It was Matthias.

Everyone else removed their masks as well, revealing them as the members of Hi-5 Studios.

"Matt? What the hell?!?" Mark charged towards him.

"Let me explain!" Matt held his hands up as a sign of peace, allowing his gun to fall from his hands and clatter onto the ground.

"He killed my parents as soon as this whole thing started. I didn't know that until he came to the office and threatened to kill everyone there and burn the office and our houses if we didn't join him. So we joined him. We never killed anyone, we only took supplies when necessary. And now we're finally free." Matt explained, glancing around at everyone else.

"He taught us how to defend ourselves, and we'd been planning on getting rid of him for awhile." J-Fred chimed in.

"Seeing him almost kill him and that kid was the last straw." Matt added.

"Is he..." Kaitlyn trailed off.

"No, he's not dead. I'm not a murderer like him." Matt shook his head.

"So what now?" Kevin asked, glancing around him.

"We can take everyone to the office until this is over." Bryan suggested with a shrug.

Everyone loaded into the black jeeps and drove off to the office, the silence deafening.

"How much more time?" Gunner asked Mike once everyone was inside the office.

"It's nine-thirty." Mike sighed in relief, glad that the nightmare was over.

Everyone cheered on response, hugging each other and celebrating.

"What does everyone want to do since we're all here?" Matt asked the group.

"Nerf Battle!"

Vince and Thomas answered excitedly in unison.

"Alright, we'll make two teams." Matt decided.

"Kevin, Paul, Connor, J-Fred, Bryan, the kids, Wade, and I will be a team. Team two is Mark, Bob, Jack, Ken, Sam, Mariah, Felix, Mike, and Gunner." Matt listed off.

"We're short one person!" Bob interjected.

"No you're not."

They whirled around to find Dustin standing behind them, bandages wrapped around his chest and a weak smile on his face.

He was nearly tackled to the floor when Mark ran over and hugged him, careful to not squeeze him to tightly due to his wound.

"Now it's even." Matt nodded with a smirk.

They divided weapons and gave each person either a blue or red bandanna before the red team, or Matt's team, gathered at one end of the hallway that led to the warehouse, blue team, or Mark's team, waiting on the other side.

"Headshots kill, limbs that get shot aren't usable. Ready?" Matt called out.

Red team let out a battle cry in response.

"Three, two, one..."

Matt trailed off, watching red team grow more anxious as the seconds ticked by.

"Go!"

Both sides charged towards each other, firing wildly as if thrown into a real battlefield.

I never knew what I had until it was gone, Mark realized as he laughed, shooting and missing Bryan.

I'm never gonna lose what I had ever again, Mark decided, watching the kids smile genuinely got the first time since he met them.

After the battle was over, blue team being victorious since they had more experience with NERF guns, Mark adopted the three kids and took them home with him. Wade, Bob, Ken, and Jack spent one more day with Mark until they flew home. President Obama cancelled having Freedom days ever again much to everyone's relief.

Nothing was ever gone for them, even though they were far from home.

Their family and friends was with them the entire time.

Now for real this book is over, I hope everyone enjoyed! Thanks to everyone for inspiring me to come back and finish this, it was a lot of fun!