Hi everybody!
Wow I'm pleased to say I got 6 reviews already! I'm really grateful to Seryyth, Melantha Frost, Guest, ROTGLOVER, Amberflame805, and princesslolitatheorca654 for reviewing!
So hopefully this chapter was a bit more interesting than the last.
Enjoy!
Jack spun through the chilly morning air on his staff, heading straight for Easton Street, where Jamie Bennett and his friends lived.
The sun was up, staining the sky a rosy pink, and Jack spotted Jamie and his friends running by the frozen pond.
Grinning, Jack took off, launching himself while wrapping his lanky thin legs around his staff.
"Hey, kiddos!" Jack called, landing neatly.
"Jack!"
"Jack?!"
"Jack Frost! Hi!"
All around him, Jamie and his friends clustered, eager to know where he'd been, what he'd been doing after he had left them to return to his home at the North Pole.
About a year had come and gone, and Jamie was a bit older now, but still young enough to have snowball fights outside on a snow day.
"Who wants to have a snowball fight?" crowed Jack, rising into the air and creating the perfectly iced snowball. He launched it at Pippa, Jack's friend, who fell to the ground.
"No fair!" she giggled and threw a snowball back at Jack.
Soon, it was chaos at the frozen pond.
Jack zipped around, laughing, yelling, "Who needs ammo? Here's some more! Watch your back, Claude! Here, Pippa, catch! Jamie—you might wanna duck, buddy!"
In all the commotion, nobody noticed Sophie, Jamie's younger sister, waddle through the snow in her pajamas to tug at the bottom of Jack's pants.
Jack glanced down, and grinned. "Hey, Soph!" He ruffled her hair and let her play while flying around supplying Cupcake with three extra snowballs.
Suddenly, there was a shriek.
Jack looked around, trying to find the person who had screamed, and only saw a hole in the ice.
The ice had cracked, and there was a big piece missing.
And so was Sophie Bennett.
"SOPHIE!" cried Jamie, dropping the snowballs he held. They crumbled on the ground.
Jack lifted himself off into the air and dove towards the frozen pond, circling it warily.
He had no clue how to swim and didn't know how to get Sophie out. Frozen ponds brought back too many memories for Jack.
He remembered the cracking noise, and the sensation of ice cold water, and then the moonlight shining onto his face. Then next thing he knew, he was a Guardian.
"Jack! Help her!" Tears ran down Jamie's face as he ran for the pond.
Jack made up his mind and slipped through the hole, knowing one flick of the staff would send him flying to the surface.
Jack's ice blue eyes surveyed down under, and spotted a flash of corn-yellow hair. Jack shot after the blur of hair, and grabbed Sophie around the middle, finally emerging. Jamie had ran across the ice, but Jack held up a hand, trying to shake wet hair out of his eyes so he could get a firm leash on his thoughts. "Stop, Jamie," Jack said, shaking. "Stop. Stay right there. Back off the ice."
Jamie took a hesitant step back.
Jack saw the thin lines cracking underneath his boots. "Go, Jamie," he said, lifting off into the air, still cradling Sophie in the crook of his arm. "Off the ice. Now. Please."
Jamie backed up off the ice, tripping into a giant snowdrift in his hurry to get to his sister.
Jack knelt down. Sophie was wet and curled into a ball, her teeth chattering. Jack shoved Sophie into Jamie's arms. "Get her home. I'm only making her colder."
Jamie nodded. "Okay," he whispered. "Thanks for saving her, Jack."
Jack didn't say a word. He closed his eyes, grabbed his staff, and shot skyward.
Jack circled the city for a while after that to try and get his mind off what had just happened. If he had delayed for a split second longer—Sophie might've died.
A flash of black slipped across Jack's vision.
Jack whirled around to glance at the ground. He had seen—did he dare think of it?—something like a shadow snaking across the ground.
Jack landed, twirling his staff and walking barefoot across the icy sidewalk, balancing perfectly. He stared down, and suddenly, the flash of black disappeared into the grate on the side of the street.
Jack gasped, shocked. Was that an actual Nightmare? They were all supposed to be gone. Dreams had been going perfectly so far.
Children had gotten their memories, and lights gleamed on the the Globe at North's place everyday from morning till night.
Jack blinked. Did the shadows mean...Pitch was out there somewhere? Waiting to attack the Guardians again?
Sucking air sharply into his lungs, Jack flew off his perch and straight north, towards the snowy mountains in the distance.
He needed to speak with the Guardians.
"VAT DO YOU MEAN YOU SAW A SHADOW?!" North was taking it worse than expected, and Jack backed up a few steps, holding up his hands in front of him.
North was huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf. "Bingle!" he barked at a small elf. "Bring the cookies!"
The Tooth Fairy was fluttering around, her feathers ruffled, her fairies following behind her faithfully, chirping into her ear. She pressed her hand to her mouth and moaned. "But how can that be? Pitch was taken by the Nightmares. And without Pitch, the Nightmares are really nothing."
"Yeah, mate." Bunny raised his emerald green eyes to look at Jack. "You must've seen...I dunno, an oil puddle or something."
Jack was dumbfounded. "An oil puddle?" He threw his arms up in the air. "I know what I saw, Peter Cottontail. I saw a shadow."
Bunnymund snorted. "It was probably yours."
Jack tried to contain his anger. "No. This was a Nightmare Shadow. And it disappeared right into the grate on the side of the street."
"This cannot be right!" North warbled in his thick Russian accent as he paced around the room.
Bingle the Elf held up a plate of halfeaten chocolate chip cookies. North swiped one, looked at it, disgusted, and then threw it back on the plate.
Bingle offered it to Bunnymund, who sniffed and glanced away. "Not on yer nelly."
"Pitch is gone, Jack," Tooth tried to comfort him, fluttering to his side. "Maybe you're just seeing—"
"No!" Jack nearly shouted. "I know what I saw." He lowered his voice. "I know what I saw, Tooth, and what I saw was a Nightmare Shadow."
Bunnymund shook his head. "Can't be a bloody Nightmare. They're gone, Frostbite. All of 'em. We smoked 'em all. Or did you forget already?"
"It's all those paint fumes from the Warren, Kangaroo," Jack taunted, turning to glare at the giant rabbit. "They're shooting your senses dead. You can't understand one damn thing."
Sandy made a no-no-no motion with his finger.
"Sandy is right." North nodded. "Enough of the language."
"Fine," Jack said sourly. "Don't believe me?" He pointed at the giant skylight above the Globe. "Ask Man in Moon."
"Manny?" North's voice echoed disbelief. "Do we really vant to bring Manny into this?"
"If you don't believe me." Jack's voice was flat.
Sandy raised his hand and pointed at the skylight.
Four heads turned to look.
The moon was a big sphere, floating in the light blue sky.
North let out a laugh that was meant to be happy, but it really sounded like he was choking. "Manny! Vat gives? It's been awhile, old friend!"
Bunnymund leaned against the wall to clean off his boomerangs, making a harrumph noise.
Tooth floated by the Globe, eager to listen.
Manny cast a shadow on the floor.
It morphed into a very familiar shape.
North closed his eyes. "No. NO."
Tooth gasped. "Jack—"
"No way!" Bunnymund leaned over to see the shape.
Sandy looked up at Jack admiringly.
Jack leaned cockily against his staff. "Looks like Jack was right."
"For once," Bunnymund retorted.
"Better once than never, Fluffy," Jack shot back.
"Vat do you mean Pitch is back?!" North demanded, whirling around to face the skylight. "We already wage battle. Pitch was gone. Now he decides to come back?"
Suddenly, the centerpiece in the floor was rising again.
All of the Guardians knew what was happening.
"How did he become this strong in so little time?" Tooth tittered, massaging her temples and flying around like a crazy overgrown hummingbird.
"He's choosing—" Bunny sucked in air.
"A new Guardian!" North turned to Jack. "Can you believe this, Jack?"
Jack just stared at the blue light coming out of the raised podium. "Who is it? Do you know?"
"Maybe this time it'll be the Leprechaun?" Tooth offered.
"Maybe it'll be the Groundhog," North joked at Bunny, but no one laughed. Bunny didn't even offer a sarcastic commment back—he only eyed the podium warily.
The Guardians were not in the mood to laugh. Just thinking of Pitch growing stronger and feeding on fear made them tremble.
"Ve are not exactly a vell-oiled machine," North began. "But Manny has given us the message thanks to Jack. So ve must begin to prepare."
Bunnymund was incredulous. "Prepare what? A cookie feast for you?"
North rolled his eyes. "Nonsense. Ve must prepare to fight."
"Shhhh!" Tooth silenced them and pointed. "Look!"
The blue light revealed a slender, petite figure wearing what looked like a thin spaghetti-strap dress, her chest length hair floating behind her.
North grunted. "Rimsky-Korsakov. It's the light girl. I forget name. Jack?"
Jack was staring at the girl. He had seen her before, they had talked once or twice in the last couple centuries, but never really interacted.
"Starla," Jack said finally. "She puts the stars in the sky. And the lights in the forests and the water and all that. Kids love the lights."
North smiled. "Hmm. That's good. Do you know Starla?"
Jack glanced up. "Not really."
"Well." Tooth smiled. "I'll be glad to have another girl on the team. Bunny? Sandy?"
Sandy gave a thumbs up, nodded, and smiled.
Bunny shrugged and continued to rub his boomerangs. "Eh. She's just another sheila for Jack to flirt with."
"Hey!" Jack crossed his arms over his chest. "Girls naturally love me."
"Hah!" Bunny started to leave. "You wish, Frosty the Snowman."
"Have you ever spoken to her?" North grabbed Jack by the shoulders and turned him away from Bunny. "Focus, Jack? Ever?"
Jack nodded. "I—I guess."
"Ah-HAH!" North whacked him on the back, which almost sent Jack flying across the room. "Then you vill be...salesperson."
Jack leaned back. "A...a salesperson? North, what are you—"
"Salesperson!" North exclaimed, exasperated. "You vill be person who brings her to the North Pole to become Guardian. Your job? Good vith that?"
"Um, no!" Jack leaned forward to protest, but North had already nodded, a smug smile on his pink face, and left the room, his back hunched in thought.
Bunny had already streaked for the Warren, mumbling an excuse about lonely eggs and "feeling the need to paint some googies."
Sandy had fallen asleep.
Jack looked at Tooth helplessly.
Her eyes were closed.
"Don't tell me you're asleep, too," Jack moaned, walking towards her.
Tooth smiled and opened her violet eyes. "No. I was thinking. About Starla. Her teeth. They carry sad memories."
Jack blinked. "Really? About what?"
"Sorry!" Tooth shot for the Globe. "It's in my Privacy Contract as an Honorary Guardian as well as Fairy. I can't tell any third party about memories. They're strictly disclosed." She grinned. "I can't disgrace the uniform."
Jack sighed. "I guess I'm the bait, huh?"
Tooth nodded. "Hook, line, and sinker, and we've got ourselves a new Guardian."
As Jack left the North Pole to attempt to find this "Starla" girl, he kept thinking:
Why would Manny appoint a new Guardian—unless Pitch is strong enough to defeat us all? And what happens when he defeats the Guardians?
There is nothing left but fear.
Hope you guys enjoyed that! Reviews are very much appreciated! :)
Jack: Crystal, why'd you update so fast? I didn't even have time to build myself a snowman?
Me: I wanted to. *smirk*
Bunny: LOL.
Me: It's funny when Bunny says LOL.
Tooth: That was almost like a poem! Get it? 'Cuz bunny and funny rhymes!
Jack: Bunny and dummy.
Bunny: ...that doesn't really rhyme.
North: Enough! Everyone, remember to read and review! And follow/favorite! And remember: Keep Calm and Love North!
Jack: I believe the expression is "Keep Calm and Believe in Jack Frost."
North: TT_TT
Thanks for all the reviews! Bye guys! I'll update again soon!