Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians.
Chapter 2: Center?
~~~~~Flashback~~~~~
"To apprehend the ex-Guardians, we'll have to split up," Tooth announced to her friends. "North, Sandy and I will look for the April fool while Jack and Bunnymund catch Hal."
"Wait, why do I have to work with the stupid rabbit?" Jack protested.
"If anyone should be complaining about partners, it's me!" Bunnymund yelled.
"Boys!" Tooth screamed, stopping Jack and the Easter bunny from engaging in another fight. "Look, the reason us three are together is because the April fool is much stronger than Hal, and you don't even know what you're up against. Therefore, more people should be chasing down the April fool, but we can't just ignore the spirit of Halloween either."
"Fine," Jack pouted and crossed his arms. "Whatever."
Tooth rolled her eyes and turned to face the Easter bunny. "According to the tracking device, Hal is somewhere in America. Since we're currently at the North Pole, I don't have a very strong signal to track him. Once you get to America, you should have an exact location." She tossed the rabbit a device that started beeping.
"Alright." The bunny turned to Jack. "Come on, you bloody ice freak."
"Oh that was mature," Jack said sarcastically while the bunny suppressed the urge to throw his boomerang right into the ice sprit's face.
"Good luck you two!" Tooth called, waving as the duo disappeared down Bunnymund's tunnels. North laid a hand on her shoulder.
"They'll be fine," he said, a huge smile on his face.
"I know…" Tooth replied. "They'll succeed if they manage to not kill each other first."
~~~~~Flashback over~~~~~
"Out of all the Guardians…" Bunnymund muttered, growing more irritated as he watched Jack do somersaults in the air and cause someone to slip on a patch of ice.
"Oh, lighten up!" Jack said. "We've been searching for hours and we still haven't found any trace of this guy. Why not have some fun?"
The Easter bunny just rolled his eyes as he sat down on the ground and fiddled with the device. "Must be busted," he said, shaking it to see if it was working properly.
"Hey!" Jack yelled, getting the bunny's attention. "Watch this!" Jack buzzed directly overhead of a mother and father with their two children. The family immediately pulled their coats tighter to their bodies.
"Mom!" the girl complained. "It's cold!"
"We'll be home in a few minutes, sweetie," her mother replied. The girl shivered and then glanced directly at Bunnymund.
"Bunny!" she yelled, pointing directly at Bunnymund who gave her a half wave. The girl's brother turned to where she was pointing.
"Mom, Dad! Look at the big bunny!"
"What are you talking about sweethearts, there's nothing there," the mother said, looking at where Bunnymund sat.
"But-!" the little girl protested.
"No buts," their father said sternly. "You both must be very tired if you're seeing giant rabbits."
"It's really there!"
"You shouldn't lie, sweetie." The girl continued to protest, as did her brother, but soon the family moved out of the Guardians' earshot.
"Hm…" Jack said.
"What do you mean, 'Hm'?"
"It's just interesting to know that even you can't be seen by some people."
"Well that's how it works with all of us. Most of the ankle-biters can see the Guardians, but the adults…" he trailed off absentmindedly, hitting random buttons on the device before flinging it to the ground. "It's bloody broken! It keeps saying that Hal should be right next to us, but we haven't seen him this entire time!"
Jack picked up the device to examine it before seeing that the rabbit was right. He rolled his eyes and batted the tracker into a tree with his staff. "Home run!" he yelled triumphantly.
"What the-?!" a startled voice yelled from the branches. Jack and Bunnymund had the time to look shocked before a teenager fell out of the tree to crash gracelessly to the ground.
"Ow…" the teenager groaned, rubbing the back of his head.
"Hal?" Jack asked, approaching the figure. The teen was certainly wearing the clothes he had last seen Hal in, but instead of the pumpkin mask, the kid was wearing a hockey mask with some very suspicious stains.
"Speaking," the kid said, sounding irritated.
"Uh… your mask," Jack began.
"You haven't gotten it yet? I'm the spirit of Halloween, so changing my costume is a fairly regular occurrence."
Bunnymund snapped out of his shocked state to pick Hal up by the collar and slam him against the tree trunk, causing the kid to grunt in surprise. "You little twerp, where are the memories?" he growled.
"Woah, woah, woah," Hal said, holding up his hands. "You said 'memories', plural. I only have one tube of memories." He lifted his foot to kick Bunnymund with enough force that he was released, but not so much that he actually did any damage.
"Whatever," Bunnymund said, regaining his footing. "Just give them back and we'll be gone. You can go back to… scaring people, or whatever it is you do." Though his face wasn't clear because of the hockey mask, Jack was fairly certain Hal was giving Bunnymund an eye roll of epic proportions.
Hal ignored the rabbit, causing Bunnymund to splutter indignantly, and turned to face Jack. "I haven't seen you working with these people before. I thought you were a regular kid when we bumped into each other. Who are you really?"
Jack lifted his chin to try and appear more in control of the situation. "Like I said earlier, my name is Jack Frost. I control winter weather."
"No, no," Hal said with a wave of his hand. "I already got that. I mean really, what do you guard in kids?"
"Fun," Jack said, a note of pride in his voice. "I guard the happiness of children."
"I see," Hal said. The teenager then turned to face the Easter bunny whose hands were slowly inching towards his boomerangs. "Did the other Guardians mention what I guarded when I was one of you?"
Jack tilted his head in confusion. 'I guess he did have to guard something…' he thought. 'But what would a Halloween spirit, whose purpose is to scare people, guard in children?' Jack shook his head to indicate to Hal he was clueless.
"I thought so," Hal stated, continuing to glare at the rabbit while continuing his conversation with Jack. "I guarded imagination. Children's creativity. On Halloween, for at least one night, kids were allowed to be whoever they wanted. They were astronauts, dragons, princesses, monsters; anything they could imagine! That was what I guarded. A child's ability to create a fantasy from thin air."
"This is all very fascinating," Bunnymund growled, out of patience. "But you really should hand over the memories before things get ugly."
"I'm afraid I can't do that," Hal stated. "These are my memories and I believe that no one else has the right to view them at their leisure. After all, I should get to decide who controls my past, right?"
Jack was suddenly on the attack mode. Hal's demeanor had shifted and now the Halloween spirit looked downright dangerous. Bunnymund caught Jack's eye and motioned him over before hurling his boomerang at the backpack slung on Hal's shoulder. The strap broke and its contents were spilled on the ground. Jack had enough time to observe that it was full of sketchbooks and pencils.
"Whatever you do," the rabbit yelled. "Don't let him get ahold of any-" he was cut off when Hal reached to the ground to grab one of the sketch books faster than Jack could use his staff and rolled out of the way to dodge Jack's icy attack. "-drawing materials," Bunnymund finished. "Bloody hell…" the rabbit muttered, alarming Jack. Could the Halloween spirit be so powerful that even the rabbit was scared?
"That was my only bag, man!" Hal complained as he opened the sketch book to a fresh page. "What am I going to do now?" Then, with inhuman speed, Hal sketched a quick drawing in the book before holding it up for the Guardians to see. "Well?" he asked. "Pretty awesome, right?"
Jack was confused as to why Hal had just drawn a rather realistic dragon instead of attacking, but he saw Bunnymund stiffen out of the corner of his eye. The rabbit grabbed Jack's shoulder. "Run, mate!" he yelled as an unearthly roar split the air.
The ice spirit covered his ears, still ringing from the sudden noise and glanced up to see a huge black dragon. It snorted and blew a huge column of fire at Jack who managed to dodge it just in time. Bunnymund was attempting to hit its eyes with his boomerangs with limited success.
"What the heck is that thing?!" Jack yelled to the rabbit as he shot beams of ice at the dragon, which proceeded to shake it off and swipe at Jack with its talons. Jack hissed in pain as they grazed his leg.
"It's his ability!" Bunnymund yelled back, barely managing to dodge the flames with the help of his tunnels. "He can make any of his drawings reality!"
"Well, it's a really huge pain in the a-!" Jack was cut off as a foot planted itself in his back and shoved him forward. He fell to the ground, the wind knocked out of him.
"Alright." Jack heard Hal's voice say. "That's enough." Suddenly, the sound of the roaring dragon was gone and Jack looked up to see it was as if the beast had vanished into thin air. About 20 yards away, Bunnymund lay in a similar state. Not extremely hurt, but obviously in no condition to get up and continue fighting anytime soon. Hal stood right next to Jack and glanced down at him looking…disappointed?
"Well," Hal said, voice muffled by the mask. "I had hoped that you two would last a little longer, but I see I was mistaken." The African American teenager shook his head. However, he seemed to perk up at a sudden thought. "I know!" he pointed at Jack and Bunnymund. "Y'all should visit my realm sometime. We can have a better fight there!" Seemingly satisfied with his idea, Hal nodded his head in approval before gathering his sketchbooks and walking off to who knows where.
Much later Jack had regained full mobility, but was still sore, both mentally and physically, from getting his butt handed to him earlier. He dragged himself over to Bunnymund who was in the process of bandaging his arm. "What did Hal mean when he said we should visit his 'realm'?"
Bunnymund gave Jack an odd look before realization dawned in his eyes. "Oh, I keep forgetting you're new at this, mate. Each guardian has a realm. Tooth has her palace, North has his workshop, Sandy has his dream cloud and I have the Warren."
"I don't have a realm!" Jack protested.
"Sure you do, mate. That ice pond you hang out at. Basically the one place you spend the most time at is your 'realm' so to speak." Bunnymund nearly started laughing when he saw how disappointed Jack was that his realm was a frozen lake.
Jack shook off his depression after a minute. "So where's Hal's realm?" he asked the rabbit.
Bunnymund sighed and tied off the bandage. "He likes to hang out in a place called Reaper's Alley. I really don't want to go there again…"
A/N: Wow...another chapter already... Hooray for break! Well, this is really one of my favorite fanfictions I'm writing because I might kind of have an obsession with Jack Frost. Maybe. No, I'm perfectly sane, why do you ask? I've only seen the movie like 5 times... hahaha...
Anyways, Please review! That would be totally awesome! :D
