"Frank." Jack says slowly his voice revealing his slight irritation with the large brown yeti in front of him. "I've been a guardian for over a year now. I've been into the workshop countless times by now. The man in the moon has freaking made me the Guardian of Fun and you still won't let me in?"
The Yeti pauses, seeming the think about it. After a moment he shakes his head firmly.
"FRANK!" Jack shoted impatiently. The yeti jumps, startled. He makes a light noise of distress before looking at Jack with innocent confusion. "Oh for the love of Pete, Frank those are all the reasons that you should be letting me in! Why don't you get it?"
Before the Yeti can answer there is a sudden pick up of wind in the air. Jack frowns as the wind around the two whooshes about and the snow is picked up off the ground. Frank glares at the Spirit of Winter accusingly but Jack quickly raises both his hands in innocence.
"Hey it wasn't me this time I swear! I'm not doing this!" Jack blinks in surprise as the statement registers for him. "Wait if I'm not… then who's…"
Before Jack can speculate further the air begins to slowly circle forming what seems to be a small tornado of snow. He covers his eyes as he looks up into the eye of the tornado directly above him, squinting at the bright light forming in the center of it.
Was that…was that light pink? Jack thinks briefly before something suddenly drops out of the center of the light falling swiftly through the tornado to land to his left. The snow around the object puffs up around it while the snow from the tornado begins to slowly fall around them all. With a flick of his staff, Jack effortlessly clears the snow away to focus of the object that had landed. The object that was…a guy.
Jack blinks as he watches the guy slowly stand from his crouched position in the snow without even glancing at either Frank or himself. The boy is tall and lean and as far as Jack could tell those are the only familiar things about him, every other aspect of his appearance is utterly foreign. First, the boy is in what looks like a white hazard suit with a pink tool belt around his waist. He has on what seems to be a dark red varsity jacket with a light pink V on the breast. He is carrying a crossbow made of cherry red wood over his shoulder and his hands are covered with dark red fingerless gloves. He has a white helmet on with a bright pink screen on it. The screen has a million white little messages flitting across it at lightning speed with figures and shapes that Jack doesn't recognize. Finally, on his feet he is wearing sleek pink, red, and white sneakers with rather chunky white soles. They were pretty cool Jack admits but there is something distinctly off about them.
Perhaps, Jack thinks, it's the fluffy white wings flapping on the side.
The guy in front of them sighs tiredly as he give the workshop a once over. He swiftly raises his hand to press a small pink heart on the side of his helmet. The helmet smoothly shifts, making light flicking noises as it fluidly transforms into a headset, and the pink visor still in place over his eyes as a mouth piece gracefully slides into place from the heart over his ear. Jack can now clearly see his shockingly red hair and freckles along with the large dove tattooed on his neck.
"Dove agent 270 reporting. I have arrived at the poles, defenses seem low. I will begin to infiltrate the premises. Going in after big man, I repeat I am going in after the big man." The boy says slowly and precisely. Jack barely has time to notice his thick Brooklyn accent before his eyes are on him. Jack blinks at his sharp abrupt movement and shrinks underneath his cold calculating gaze as he expertly sizes him up.
"Uhm…Hi. I'm Jack." Jack says slowly, laughing nervously he holds his hand out to the boy to shake. Jack wasn't stupid. He heard what the guy had said and can guess exactly who he's referring to as 'Big Man' and no way was he going to allow anyone to hurt his friend. He was going to freeze this guy's butt into an icicle as soon as he touched his and then drag him into North's for a good old interrogation but this kid didn't have to know that. The boy smiles a bright crooked smile at Jack and he notices that the boy has teeth to rival his own. He finds himself momentarily thinking of the field day Tooth was going to have at the sight of them.
"Skipp." The boy says curtly, not even pretending to go and return his handshake. Before Jake could be offended or even register what is happening the boys crossbow is loaded and a bright white glowing arrow is shot at him. Jack froze it easily and smirks in triumph before he yelps in pain at the feeling of a sharp stab in his arm. He blinks down at the arrow in his arm in alarm before a shock goes through his body. Jack shudders with the electric currents and grits his teeth to counter the pain. He stares back at Skipp in horror for a moment before realizing that the boy is not even looking at him anymore, much too busy with taking down his large yeti companion. Skipp shot several arrows Frank's way as he holds his crossbow like a sniper gun. Jack watches helplessly as the electricity bounces off the Yetis form as the large beast yells in pain. Jack feels his head begin to get fuzzy as his vision blurs as he fell to his knees. He had just about lost all feeling in his body when he heard Skipp. His attacker's voice sounded as if Jack was hearing him from underwater but the Guardian still managed to clearly hear him say 'slight complication. No worries it was taken care of.'
XxX
"Jack?"
Jack blinks slowly he begins to wake up. He wrinkles his nose at his pounding headache and tries to squint through the blinding light around him. Tooth frets worriedly as she dusts the snow from his hair, her fairies flying about nervously around her. Sandman puffs out a worried mess of squiggles as he taps Jack's shoulder, obviously concerned.
"Jack can you hear me? Jack how many fingers am I holding up?" Tooth asks softly as she hold up two fingers underneath Jack's nose. Jack groans deeply as he sluggishly swats her fingers away, ending up dropping his arm heavily over his eyes to block the light around him.
"Wake up you bloody menace! Say something!" Aster shouts into Jack's ear, moving his arm so that he can more accurately scream into it. Jack flinches and groans again, rubbing his eyes irritably as he grumbles about kangaroo soup under his breath, in what is likely meant to be a threatening way, but only comes off as really tired.
"What did you just say to me?!" Aster growled half-heartedly as the spirit tried to sit up. Jack doesn't even have the energy to answer as he slouches over, his body curling into it. "Boy, that bird really did a number on you didn't he?"
Jack mutters something unintelligible under his breath accentuated with groans and high pitched pained whines.
"How're you feeling Jack?" Tooth asked softly.
"Like someone's knocked my head in… my bodies heavy…Ugh my head kills…" Jack mumbles slowly as he is prompted to straighten his back by the patting of several tiny elf hands along his back. The elves all yip to themselves in some odd conversation and Jack snappishly shushes them, shoeing them away with the hand that isn't clutching his aching head. They all drop their jaws in exaggerated offense before stomping off angrily, yipping dramatically to each other to in a conversation probably along the lines of 'well, I never! But Jack's head is pounding too much for him to even feel guilty. He hears a worried ringing behind him and sighs slightly. "Thanks for the concern Sandy…"
"So what they've said is true…" Tooth murmured softly as she stroked that last bit of snow out of his hair. Jack inclines his chin in a silent thanks as he opens one eye in question, his other covered by his clutching hand.
"Wha who said 'bout wha?" He asks groggily. Jack sighs slapping his own cheeks and shaking his face in effort to get some feeling back into his body.
"What everyone says. About the Doves. Those who've faced them have said once you feel the Dove's love you won't know what hit you…" Tooth whispered scandalously. Jack looks at her incredulously before sighing and stretching his neck.
"Tooth why do you believe that gossip?" He asks slowly as he rolls his neck. He was finally getting some movement back but his headache was still going strong. He stretched his arms over his head as he simultaneously arched his back.
"Well…because it's true Jack! You got hit by a dove right?" Tooth asked, her tone verging on excitement. Jack stared at her tiredly.
"I haven't seen any birds since I got into the poles Tooth, not even a freaking penguin…" Jack mutters as he stands slowly. Stretching he slowly begins to feel normal again before he opens his eyes again. His jaw dropped as he took in the chaos around him. "What…the …hell…"
"These Doves aren't birds Jack." Aster sayslowly.
Jack spun around slowly trying to take in everything going on around him in the trashed workshop. Yetis knocked out at every corner, Elves running about in confusion, toys smashed, windows broken, pipes spewing out water, Yetis and Elves trying desperately to escape traps that ranged from rope ties to bubble gum like goop tying them together, arrows sticking out of walls, floors ,tables and the freaking Globe of Belief for Spirits sake.
Even I had never done this much damage… Jack briefly thinks to himself. Who the heck were these doves-
Wait, Doves.
A detailed tattoo of a dove chirping menacingly flashes through Jack's memory before his eyes begin to search the room with purpose.
"Where is he?" He asks suddenly as he scrambled to find the evil little ginger.
"Where's who?" Bunnymund asks.
"The Dove or whatever! The guy he was wearing pink and he had a cross bow…he was pretty tall so it's not like he can be hiding in here…" Jack said as he tried to shove over a Yeti in his path. He eventually decides to just hop over it.
"Wait you saw him?! I thought you just got hit from behind! I mean when we found you outside…" Tooth says in excitement as she quickly flew to Jack's side. He stares at her for a moment in confusion and she slowly lowers to the ground as she chuckles uneasily in embarrassment.
"Yeah I saw him. He attacked me, shot at me with some weird electric arrow. He was a complete jerk and his name was-"
"Skipp!"
Jack turned swiftly to see the red haired 'Dove' standing on top of the globe, cross bow in hand and a pleasant half-grin on his face.
"Skipp Hart. Pleasure honestly." He says loudly as he rests his crossbow on his shoulder.
"Uhm…Hi I'm Tooth!" Tooth said brightly as she giggled slightly. I glanced at her before sighing. She was practically drooling. It was the teeth. It was always the teeth. Skipp looked away from me to glance at her, giving her the once over with slowly and purposefully, the grin still plastered on his face.
"Yeah I've heard of you. Toothina the Tooth Fairy. Collects teeth, and leaves a nickel. Guardian of memories… yep all on record. What isn't on record is how beautiful your eyes are… but I guess they wouldn't be able to portray something that gorgeous in writing would they Fairy?" He said with a slight smirk. Tooth blushed a deep red before giggling like a school girl, her fairies huddling around her to create a exaggerated heart. Skipp winked.
"Hey hey hey! Tooth remember what this guy did? He's trashed the workshop!" Aster shouted, snapping Tooth out of her daze.
"Correction," Skipp interrupted quickly, Bunnymund glared at him, his ears twitching in annoyance. "The Yetis trashed the workshop. I was just defending myself. You ask them for one thing and the get all defensive…"
"You attacked me!" I shouted back at him as I grabbed my staff from the floor. He eyed me coolly.
"Only because you planned to attack me first. Plus you were iun the way. I knew the Yeti was going to get all defensive once I took you out so I figured I'd take him out…" Skipp flicked his wrist in a 'and you know the rest' kind of way and I scowled.
"I wasn't going to attack you!" I growled at him but he only rolled his eyes seeming unphased as he snorted.
"Oh, please. The RTint could sense your intent in your body language before the thought even gully registered in your puny little head. Grab em, Freeze em, Bag em, Tag em, is there any part of your little plan that I missed?" Skipp asked condescendingly. I scowled darkly. "Thought so. I couldn't have you doing that cause then it'd mess up the mission and that can't be happening."
"What's you mission?" Tooth asked softly as she fiddled with her fingers. Skipp grinned brightly at her.
"Well pretty lady, that's where I need your help. Can you tell me when the big man is?" He asked sweetly. Tooth blushed for the umpteenth time and tried desperately to hide it.
"What do you need North for?" Bunnymund growled from my left. I nodded as I narrowed my eyes at Skipp.
"None of your effing business, thanks." Skipp said curtly. I glared at him while Aster let out a soft 'why I outta.'
"It is our business if you want out help." I said as I crossed my arms, tapping my staff impatiently. Skipp pursed his lips in clear impatience. He turned away from me and looked surprisingly to Sandy.
"Sandman listen to me. You know it's his time, I know it's his time. Timing is important in both of our occupations buddy and I really don't have time to waste if you know what I mean. He can't fight this. It will either happen the easy way of the hard way. Honestly it's not even going to be that bad, he might even like it! I don't get why he's being so doving stubborn." Skipp said slowly. Sandy looked conflicted. "Tell me where he is and I will make this as easy as possible for him. It's going to happen sooner or later whether you help me or not."
"I will pick later. You know what I would actually like to pick never!" North shouted as he suddenly appeared behind Skipp. I noticed Skipp smile minutely before North sacked him from behind.
My take on what Cupid would be like in the RoTG World. Reviews are welcomed :) More to come!