[Outside]
Outside the lodge, the forest had gone still in that unnatural way it does right before violence breaks loose. Cold air drifted between the trees, carrying the faint scent of pine and damp earth, while shadows stretched long under the thin wash of moonlight.
Rosa lay prone behind a fallen log, her rifle steady against her shoulder, thermal scope painting the world in ghostly shades of heat. Her finger rested along the trigger guard, controlled, patient, waiting. "What's taking him so long?" she muttered under her breath, eyes locked on a moving silhouette near the treeline.
Beside her, Amy adjusted her grip, breath slow and measured the way she had practiced a hundred times, but never under stakes like this. "We wait for Ray's signal," she whispered, though her pulse was loud enough in her ears to drown out everything else.
A soft click sounded in all their earpieces.
"Shoot 'em up."
Amy didn't hesitate. Her finger tightened.
The first shot cracked through the silence, suppressed but still sharp enough to echo through the trees. A man near the perimeter jerked violently before collapsing face-first into the dirt, his rifle slipping from his hands.
A half-second later, Rosa fired.
Another body dropped.
Across the ridge, Jake let out a quiet, "Oh damn," before squeezing his trigger, the recoil nudging his shoulder as his target spun and went down hard behind a tree. "Okay, okay, this is happening. We are doing this. We're basically Sniper Ghost Warriors."
Next to him, Charles flinched at his own shot but kept his scope trained forward. "I think I hit him. I definitely hit him. Oh wow, I actually hit him."
"Focus, Boyle," Jake muttered, already lining up another target moving toward the roofline. "Less celebrating, more not getting murdered."
On higher ground, Terry adjusted his stance, massive frame steady as a rock while he tracked two men trying to flank through the brush. "Terry's got two on the left," he said under his breath, then fired twice in quick succession. Both figures dropped before they even understood where the shots were coming from. "And now Terry doesn't."
A few yards away, Captain Holt remained perfectly still, his expression as composed as ever despite the situation. In a normal scenario, he would never have allowed an operation like this, but considering how they almost killed his officers and detectives, he decided to make an exception.
His eye stayed fixed to the scope. "Wind negligible. Targets unaware. Continue controlled fire."
He squeezed the trigger once.
A guard on the rooftop stiffened, then collapsed over the edge, his weapon clattering down onto the wooden porch below.
Near the opposite flank, Elle exhaled slowly, the world narrowing down to the shape of a man moving between two trees. "You picked the wrong night," she murmured, then fired. The bullet struck clean, dropping him mid-step.
One of Colt's men burst through the back door, shouting, "Snipers, we've got snipers in the tree..." The sentence cut off as a round tore through his chest, dropping him backward onto the porch.
Another tried to return fire blindly into the woods, panic wrecking his aim.
A shot rang out.
He dropped.
In the trees, Amy adjusted her position, her voice tighter now but steady. "They're scattering. Some are trying to retreat toward the north side."
"Not happening," Rosa said flatly, already tracking one of them through her scope. She fired, and the man crumpled before he made it five steps.
Jake let out a quiet, disbelieving laugh as he worked the bolt. "This is insane. We are basically a very aggressive nature documentary right now."
"Shut up and shoot," Amy snapped, though there was a flicker of something else in her voice, adrenaline, fear, something sharper.
Boyle swallowed hard and nodded to himself even though no one could see it. "Right. Shooting. More shooting."
He fired again.
Missed.
"Okay, less missing," he muttered, adjusting quickly.
Up near the lodge, Terry's voice cut in, low and controlled. "Two heading for the vehicles. They're trying to get out."
"Negative," Holt replied immediately, already shifting his aim. "They do not leave this property. Not on my watch."
Two shots followed, clean and final.
The goons fired blindly, but sadly, it was a useless struggle.
Silence started to creep back in between the bursts of gunfire, the number of moving targets dropping fast.
On the other side, Ray got out of the building and scanned the tree line once, eyes sharp, then tapped his earpiece again. "Status."
Amy's voice came first, steady but breathing a little heavier than before. "Multiple targets down. No movement on my side."
"Terry's clear," Terry added.
"Perimeter secure," Holt followed.
Rosa took a second longer before speaking. "Last one just dropped. Nobody left standing."
There was a brief pause.
Then Jake's voice came through, a mix of adrenaline and disbelief. "Did we just… win that?"
Ray's gaze lingered on the dark woods for one more second before he finally relaxed his grip on the weapon, just slightly. "Yeah," he said quietly. "We did."
"Alright," Ray checked his wrist watch. "Time for the final phase."
[30 minutes later...]
The team stood at a safe distance as Ray stood before them, holding a red trigger. He turned toward Holt and held the trigger before him. "Care to do the honor, Captain?"
Holt took the trigger. "With pleasure."
Jake lowered his rifle and stared at the lodge like it had personally offended him, chest still rising and falling from the adrenaline rush. "Hold up, hold up," he said, stepping forward a little as Holt took the trigger from Ray. "We are not just blowing up an evil mastermind's secret base without saying something cool first. That is a massive missed opportunity."
Rosa didn't even look at him as she reloaded out of habit, movements sharp and efficient. "We already did the cool part. It's called not dying."
Jake shook his head, waving a hand like she was completely missing the point. "No, that was survival cool. I'm talking cinematic cool. One-liner cool. The kind of thing people quote later."
Amy folded her arms, though there was still tension in her shoulders from the fight. "Jake, this isn't a movie."
"It could be," Jake shot back immediately, then pointed at the lodge. "We just sniped like fifty guys in the woods at night. If that's not movie material, I don't know what is."
Terry let out a low breath, glancing between them while keeping half an eye on the perimeter. "Terry thinks we should finish the mission before debating catchphrases."
Jake ignored that completely and turned to Holt, who stood perfectly composed with the trigger in hand. "Captain, you especially need a line. This is your moment. You've been waiting your whole career for something this dramatic."
Holt looked down at the trigger, then back at the lodge, his face unreadable as always. "I have not been waiting for an opportunity to destroy private property, Peralta. This is a necessary tactical decision."
Jake leaned in slightly, lowering his voice like he was offering something sacred. "Exactly. So say something like… 'Justice has been served.' Or… 'This ends now.' Or… oh, oh, 'Time to close the case.' That one's strong. Very Holt."
Boyle nodded enthusiastically, clearly invested now. "I like that one. It has closure, but also authority."
Rosa finally looked up, deadpan. "If anyone says 'hasta la vista,' I'm leaving."
Ray stood off to the side, arms relaxed, watching the exchange with a faint smirk like he was enjoying the chaos more than he should have been. "Let him have it," he said casually. "Guy just survived getting outgunned by a small army. He earned his dramatic moment."
Amy glanced at Ray for a second, something softer passing through her expression before she looked back at Holt. "Just… make it quick. We don't know how stable whatever's left in there is and we need to get out of here before the feds or CIA arrive."
Holt adjusted his grip on the trigger, shoulders squared, posture as precise as ever. He looked at the lodge one last time, eyes steady behind the calm. When he spoke, his voice carried that same quiet authority that cut through all the noise.
"This," he said evenly, "is the consequence of underestimating the Nine-Nine..."
Jake's eyes widened slightly. "Oh damn," he whispered, clearly impressed.
Holt pressed the trigger. "Night night... Scumbags."
For half a second, nothing happened. Then the ground seemed to breathe.
A deep, heavy thud rolled out from beneath the lodge, followed by a violent eruption of fire and debris that tore through the structure from the inside. The roof lifted and split apart as flames burst through the windows, glass shattering outward in a spray of glittering shards. The shockwave rippled through the trees, leaves shaking loose as the sound slammed across the ridge.
Jake flinched, then broke into a wide grin as the fire climbed higher into the night sky. "Okay," he said, nodding slowly. "That was worth the wait. That line was solid. Not my best work, but solid."
Terry exhaled, tension finally leaving his shoulders as he watched the flames consume what was left of the lodge. "Terry is glad that's over."
Boyle lowered his weapon, eyes still fixed on the fire. "That place is definitely not passing inspection now."
Rosa slung her rifle over her shoulder, gaze lingering on the burning wreckage for a second longer before she turned away. "Good."
Amy stepped closer to Ray, her voice quieter now that the noise had settled into crackling wood and distant echoes. "You knew exactly where to hit it, didn't you?"
Ray watched the fire without answering right away, the orange glow reflecting faintly in his eyes. "Structural weak points," he said after a moment. "Old buildings like that always have them if you know where to look."
She studied him for a second, then nodded slowly, like she expected nothing less.
Jake clapped his hands once, breaking the moment. "Alright, team. We stopped a corrupt ex-commissioner, survived a bomb, won a sniper battle, and blew up a secret evil lodge. I'm calling it now. This is the top one Nine-Nine days."
By the time the feds arrived, it was all over. The place was a burning mess. There was no way to recover the bodies or any evidence.