Thinker Notes: Well this is my first time posting a story on this website. So please go easy on me :)
Prologue
The night was clear. The wind was calm and gentle. The stars above shone brightly on the surface of the earth. The clouds were moving in a slow pace.
The desert plain was empty and lifeless. The dangerous insects and animals throve and walked on the land, enjoying the peaceful night sky.
Suddenly the insects and animals felt the ground shake. The night creatures looked up to the night sky and saw a falling meteor.
The meteorite was falling in an increasing speed; the whole rock was burning with bright yellow-red light. The rock crashed with a very loud bang. The animals and insects fled, avoiding more rocks from the heavenly sky.
The rock was still burning when a silhouette emerged from the inside. A coyote saw the silhouette of a human walking slowly away from the rock, making it growl in alarm.
Slowly the silhouette stopped and looked at the distressed animal. The coyote suddenly ran in fear, leaving the silhouette—a boy—alone.
The boy, in a daze, slowly walked towards the darkness of the desert that stretched for miles before him. He then opened his mouth and, with a raspy voice, murmured:
"Where…am I?"
400 years later
A soft chuckle escaped the lips of the winter sprite; he was floating above a playground.
"Jack! Not fair!" the child below protested with a pouting face. The winter sprite descended happily as his playmate threw a snowball at him.
Jack merely dodged it and went on badgering his 11-year old believer.
Jack Frost and Jamie played all afternoon until the human spent all his energy and finally called it a day. They both rested on a bench facing a frozen pond.
Snow days sure are fun! Jack thought with a smile on his face.
"Strange things are happening Jack." The winter sprite's thought was cut when Jamie spoke.
"What do you mean by strange things?"
"Well…cupcakes have gone missing." The winter sprite laughed heartily at the boy, who was staring at him with a serious face. Jack Frost's laughter slowly died down when he noticed the boy's reaction still didn't change.
Jack Frost cleared his throat. "So uh…what's strange about it? A cat could have eaten a cupcake—"
"A cupcake factory was ransacked last night. Jack, hundreds of cupcakes have gone missing," Jamie said excitedly to his still skeptical Guardian, who merely responded with a smirk.
"This is serious Jack…three days from now Burgess will celebrate Sweets and Teas Day. The main part of the event is the giving of cupcakes," Jamie went on.
"Well...Jamie it could be just a burglar or something."
Jack was cut off as Jamie began explaining the more mysterious details of the "Cupcake Incident." He listened, half-eager and half-skeptical, as the boy mentioned that the door wasn't forced open, all windows are closed, and that all of the security cameras were tampered with, among other things.
"So Jack…um well…I and my sister are kind of worried. You see, the last batches of cupcakes might be the next target…"
"So there are still more?" Jack said, mostly to humor his young friend.
"Can you guard it?" Jamie asked the winter sprite, who then smiled excitedly.
The blue-hooded guardian stood with his staff on his back and said, "Okay Jamie, but make sure I'll have a share of your cupcakes." The boy nodded gleefully as they began another game.
Burgess had a large cupcake factory located on the outskirts. Jack Frost was standing in the middle of a large warehouse of the cupcake factory. Despite the fancy colorful design on the walls, the warehouse looked a little sinister at night.
"So you're saying…" Jack turned to face his fellow Guardian, the Easter Bunny, who was touching a box of cupcakes. "We must guard the whole place against—" Bunny chuckled before he continued. "—this so-called cupcake thief." He air-quoted the words "cupcake thief" then chuckled again.
"Bunny, you know how the kids like us right? We're just doing a favor, that's all." The winter sprite smiled to the six-footer rabbit. Bunnymund just shrugged and hopped away, inspecting every nook and cranny of the warehouse for loopholes.
Jack hovered around the warehouse. "The windows are locked, the doors are locked, the adults have the keys and they'd finished their last patrol one hour ago," he said thoughtfully, his blue eyes scanning the whole place again.
"The human guards have strengthened their security, so no human can enter here, unless the thief is-"
The Easter Bunny was interrupted when the lights suddenly turned off.
Jack quickly landed on the floor, eyes and ears alert.
"Hey Bunny!"
"Right here mate!" Bunny stood behind the winter sprite, whose staff emitted a bright blue glow. "The thief's here."
The whole warehouse was enveloped in eerie, inky blackness.
The two slowly moved around with their backs against each other, trying to catch a glimpse of the intruder.
Suddenly, an invisible force pushed the two guardians away from each other. Jack floated above in search of their attacker, but it was too dark to make out anything else.
Then, as fast as they were put out, the lights were turned on once again, making Jack squint at the sudden brightness. But it was after he noticed a shadow move from the corner of his eye. Swiftly, he landed on the floor, guarding against another attack.
The shadow descended in front of Jack, finally giving him a clear view of the appearance of the Cupcake Thief.
It was a boy, wearing a dark-green hooded cloak and brown, high-cut boots over white pants. A pair of strange, rectangular machines was mounted around his waist. Because of his hood and windbreaker, the boy's face was completely concealed apart from his grey eyes, which were currently locked on the winter sprite.
Jack was very much surprised with the boy's appearance. "What are you?" he asked. Even if he looked human, something told the Guardian that this boy was not an ordinary mortal.
Instead of responding, however, the boy charged towards him.
The boy took out something from the inside of his cloak and swung it towards the winter sprite. Jack, due to his quick reflexes, managed to avoid the boy's weapon—which was revealed to be a pair of large segmented blades.
"Whoa, easy there! I'm not a threat! I just want to talk to you!" Jack said loudly, but the boy ignored him and continued attacking him.
The winter sprite raised his staff to block the boy's blade from slicing his head in half. "Can we talk about this?" he asked.
"No," the boy simply said as he planted a swift kick on the Guardian. Once he gained enough distance, he went to the offensive once again by lunging at the winter sprite and swinging his two blades, but Jack already predicted his actions and effectively blocked it once again with his staff. Grey and blue light clashed and emitted a blinding spark that lit up the inside of the warehouse.
"HEY YOU! CUPCAKE THIEF!"
The boy distractedly turned around at the source of the new voice—just in time to block a boomerang aimed for his neck. He looked up and saw the Easter Bunny plunge towards him, forcing him to take a huge leap backwards and land on a container placed against the wall.
Jack saw his chance and used his staff to produce an ice spear that harpooned towards the thief. The boy, however, placed his twin blades in a cross before him and successfully blocked the attack.
Jack's eyes widened in surprise. Just how strong are those blades?
"My turn," the boy said, and, before Jack could even react, jumped and threw his blades at him.
"Gaah!" One of the blades snagged on Jack's sweater, pinning him to the ground and forcing him to let go of his staff.
"Hang on there!" Bunnymund hopped and threw his boomerang towards the boy, but his opponent drew a new pair of blades from his sides and, like with Jack's ice spear, managed to deflect the attack without much difficulty. However, in his haste to avoid Bunny's boomerang, he didn't notice that he was backed up against a corner.
"Fell for my trap, didn't ya?" Bunnymund smirked haughtily as he circled around the boy. "Give up before you get hurt, mate!"
The boy stared at the Guardian with angry eyes, but didn't move another inch. Then, after what seemed like a minute, he let go of his blades and let them fall to the ground with a loud clang, before he slowly raised both of his hands in the air, seemingly as an act of surrender.
The Easter Bunny blinked in surprise. Well, that was easier than I thought. After a moment's hesitation, he swiftly hopped towards the boy, forced him to face the wall and held his hands behind his back.
"Now who're ya' mate? We can touch you, and I can smell you…are you a perhaps a spirit?" he demanded, but the stranger remained silent. "Oi, I'm talkin' to ya!"
The boy opened his mouth and said something.
"What's that?!" the Guardian said angrily.
The Cupcake Thief, who was a whole head shorter than him, looked over his shoulder and bore his gray eyes on him. "I said," he muttered slowly, "'Piss off.'" Then, before the Guardian could even react, he bended his knees and used his whole body's strength to hit Bunnymund's jaw with the top of his head.
"OW!" Bunny reflexively clutched his jaw in pain, consequently letting go of the thief. The boy, in the brink of a second, used his foot to hoist one of his blades off the ground, catching it deftly in one hand as he bent down to pick up the second blade with his other hand. Then, aiming them at the disoriented Rabbit, he pressed the trigger placed on the hilt of his blades, which released a pair of grappling hooks that wrapped around Bunnymund's arms. With great strength, he wildly spun around, dragging his opponent with him and sending him flying to the wall.
Bunnymund hit the wall with a resounding thud and he fell to the floor, unconscious.
"Bunny…" Jack, who still had his back on the floor in a dazed state, dimly saw his fellow Guardian's unconscious state and began to reach out for his staff, which was lying not too far from him. Before his fingers could touch his weapon, however, the boy's foot stepped on his hand, sending him grunting in pain.
"Who the hell are you!?" the boy's voice drifted in from above him. Jack felt the thief grab the front of his sweater, forcing him to look up at his half-concealed face.
"We're—not a-" he tried saying, but the boy slammed him back on the floor.
"Who the hell are you?! I'm going to break your skull if you don't answer me!"
"I'm-Jack Frost, Guardian of Fun-" Jack struggled to say, using his free hand to feebly resist the boy.
"Jack Frost," the Cupcake Thief repeated. Then he straightened up and removed his foot from Jack's hand, planting it on the side of Jack's face instead. "Next time you interfere, I'm going to eat you…understand?!"
"Who…are…you…" Jack tried to look up from under the boy's foot, meeting his attacker's cold, grey eyes, which looked like they were staring down on cattle that's about to be slaughtered.
"Eren…Eren Jaeger, remember that, you piece of trash." The boy named Eren finally lifted his foot off Jack's face—only to deliver a powerful, finishing kick on his head.
The winter sprite slowly drifted to unconsciousness from the impact, drinking in the boy's eyes before darkness overtook him.