AN: Once I remembered it was Winter Wonderland's third anniversary, I knew I had to post something in celebration, so I wrote up this fun chapter. I hope you guys enjoy it!
Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Alice: Madness Returns.
"This isn't good," North remarked grimly as he watched the scorekeeping yeti mark up a point for Bunny's team.
The guardians were in the middle of an epic game of Capture the Flag with spirit against spirit, Yetis as the scorekeepers and Santoff Claussen as the playing field.
Granted, the workshop wasn't exactly the most ideal of places to hold a rowdy competition such as the one the guardians were currently engaged in, and the yetis had voiced this compliant loudly and angrily, but North had waved them off. It was about mid-January and the workshop had only been reopened a little over a week and a half ago. The majority of machinery hadn't even been turned on again and the usual mountain of presents had yet to become even a mere puddle. There was no danger in deeming the workshop as the goal area. The rest of Santoff Claussen was where most of the gameplay took place anyways since it was an avoidance game and the workshop, though large, was an enclosed area. The workshop was where their makeshift scoreboard had been constructed, fashioned creatively from an old Christmas countdown sign, and also where the players would bring their stolen opponents' flags and deposit them in their team baskets.
The guardians were broken down into two groups of three with North and Bunny as team captains, which only made sense because they were the most determined to prove who was the fastest, most efficient holiday spirit once and for all. The others didn't really care. They were just swept along in the whirlwind that was North and Bunny's neverending feud.
The Christmas spirit immediately called dibs on Tooth and Jack for his team, claiming they would make an unstoppable force, while Sandy and Alice went to Bunny by default. The pooka didn't seem at all put off by the arrangement. He only smirked at North's hasty pick, failing purposely to remind the Russian that while the winter spirit and fairy were both gifted with independent flight and were undeniably fast, Tooth was easily distracted and Jack tended to go rogue during team-based activities.
North let out a huff and placed his hands on his hips, just starting to realize this himself. He pulled his eyes from the scoreboard and looked around the rest of the workshop. It was almost empty, the yetis having refused to work on their toys while the guardians horsed around in the background. There were two yetis up manning the scoreboard, which hung from one of the balconies, while a few others milled about the ground floor.
The Russian looked down at the white strip of fabric that hung around his waist, double checking that all his flags were still intact like he had been doing almost religiously for the past hour. Each player had a game belt around their waists with three flags hanging from it, each the color that matched their team. Bunny's flags were green and North's were red. The pooka was putting up a better fight than North thought he would. Bunny, Alice and Sandy were being surprisingly evasive and no flags, from either team, had been claimed until now. North had been close to the workshop when he heard the score bell finally ring, but was disappointed when he rushed into the area and saw it was Bunny's team who scored the first point.
That wasn't necessarily bad, it was just one point out of nine total, but it wasn't good either. Things were not going as North had planned and he was starting to wonder if Bunny had a little fox in him too, considering how wily he was being. The few elves that littered the area converged around their boss, pulling on his pants to get his attention. He ignored them, bringing up a hand to stroke his beard in thought as he tried to think of a new game plan since his current one wasn't working. Apparently "see a flag, take the flag" was a little too broad.
"North!" Tooth's voice suddenly echoed from down the hallway behind him.
Startled, he turned and looked. "Tooth?"
He squinted through the dimly lit hallway and spotted two specks all the way at the other end, steadily growing bigger in size.
"North! Stop him! He has one of my flags!"
Before North could brace himself, a grey blur whizzed past him with unbelievable speed, nicking the large man's shoulder and causing him to spin with the force and lose his balance. The elves underfoot quickly scattered, avoiding their falling boss like a timbering oak tree. He let out a pained grunt as he fell backwards and landed heavily on his backside.
"Moi deti," He groaned, clutching at his head as the room spun behind his eyes.
The grey blur continued to push itself into the workshop, hopping from surface to surface until it made it to the third floor in record time. Tooth appeared next to a still fallen North, huffing and puffing with exertion while holding a hand to her heaving chest. She watched as Bunny flawlessly scaled the side of the workshop before looking down at North on the floor.
"Oh North, you let Bunny take one of yours too!"
The Russian looked up at the colorful fairy in confusion before looking down at his belt and realizing that one of his flags was missing. Now he only had two. His frown deepened and he let out a curse in Russian as Tooth let out a disappointed huff. They looked briefly at each other before looking back towards the hallway when they felt a sudden cold draft sweep over them. Seconds later, another blur came shooting out of the hallway and into the workshop, this time of stark white and blue.
"Did you get him! Did you get him!" Jack cried as he came to a skidding halt next to the fallen Christmas spirit, kicking up a thin sheet of frost beneath his feet to protect the bare skin from scraping across the stone flooring.
His white mop of hair swished back and forth as he quickly scanned his surroundings with wide, excited eyes. He held his trademark staff in his hands, brandished and glowing, ready to freeze some big, pooka feet to the floor. When he didn't see Bunnymund or his team's stolen flags, he turned towards North and Tooth, just then noticing that North was sitting sprawled on the ground, looking a bit dumbstruck.
"No," Tooth replied mournfully, looking up towards one of the upper balconies where Bunny's score basket was perched on a little pedestal. They all let out a frustrated groan as they watched the pooka drop two of their team's flag inside it.
Bunny hopped down from his team's basket and jumped on to the balcony railing. He looked down at the three spirits on the ground floor with a triumphant smirk. "Ha! Serves you right for callin' dibs, you overconfident gumby! Ever heard of slow and steady wins the race?"
"I thought the hare was supposed to lose in that scenario!" Jack called upwards with one hand cupping the side of his mouth.
"I'm not a hare! I'm a bunny!"
"Like that matters to anyone except you!"
"Whatever, you lot are still losin'!" Bunny laughed, jumping down from the railing and disappearing from view.
Jack let out a snort, waving the pooka off dismissively before turning back towards his teammates. He flopped down next to North on the floor with a sigh and folded his legs. "Well this sucks."
North frowned again, pursing his lips tightly in frustration as he looked up towards the scoreboard again. It was downright humiliating that the pooka had so easily stolen the Russian's flag. "We cannot lose to Bunny!"
"But he's too fast," Tooth gasped out, still trying to catch her breath after her mad dash to stop Bunny from scoring his goal. "And with Sandy springing up obstacles and Alice covering Bunny, we're going to lose badly. They're miles ahead of us!"
"What the heck Tooth?" Jack cried, gesturing to her belt. "You only have one flag left? What happened to the first one?"
"Sandy snuck up on me!" She whined defensively. "He was too sneaky. I didn't even notice it was gone until I heard the bell ringing."
"Ugh!" He threw his hands in the air in exasperation. "What the heck are we supposed to do now? I could handle losing this stupid game to Bunny if it was a close one, but they are dominating us right now! We've been trying to take their flags for hours now and they just stole three of ours in less than ten minutes! This defense approach was just as crappy as the offense one."
"We just need to keep trying. I vote we go on offense again."
"I vote we mutiny against North."
"I vote Jack stops being such a pessimist."
"I vote we break for lunch. I'm hungry."
"Stop it you two," North chided sternly at the bickering spirits before looking back up at the scoreboard, stroking his beard in thought. "I think I have new idea."
~O~
Deep in the bowels of Santoff Claussen, inside the massive boiler room that was almost like a red hot, burning heart beating in the very core of the complex, Alice let out a wistful sigh as she wiped the small beads of moisture that gathered along her forehead with the back of her hand. Several large boilers flanked her on both sides, making her feel claustrophobic and crabby because of the uncomfortable temperature of the chamber.
'Blasted steam,' She cursed as she tried to ignore the heat and overwhelming smell of wet yeti in the air. 'Surely there must be more ideal hiding places than this. What does Bunny take me for, a head of cabbage?'
Strategically, the boiler room was a rather clever hiding place and she credited Bunny with creativity points for thinking of it. The steam made the air wet and heavy, making it difficult for anyone covered in feathers, or anyone with a lot of muscle mass (or fat, as Bunny calls it), to navigate the chamber. The heat also warded off troublesome winter spirits who wouldn't be able to stand the atmosphere for very long before overheating. However, even for a spirit who didn't have to worry about such things, it was still a colossal pain in the backside to camp out in a giant boiler room just so Bunny could win a ridiculous game.
Sadly though, Bunny was an absolute boar's head when he was being competitive and there simply was no reasoning with him. When they realized North's team was going on offense again, the pooka ordered Sandy to stand guard in the workshop and intercept any opponents from scoring a goal, should they manage to snatch a flag from either Bunny or Alice.
Bunny took off for the reindeer stalls, the last place he would ever want to hide, which was the point because it would also be the last place anyone would look for him, but not before banishing Alice to the boiler room. She walked along the path in front of her, being mindful to avoid any scorching metal and burning coal. She held her blue umbrella shield above her head to protect her scalp from the drops of hot water that dripped down from the patches of condensation gathered along the ceiling. They bounced off the lacy material of her umbrella and fell to the ground.
Alice continued to walk around the boiler room, fighting the deep urge to complain to someone who wasn't there as she wanted for someone, anyone, to score a point and ring the bell so she could finally leave this steam-powered oven. She wasn't walking for very long when she suddenly felt a slight shift in the air, a subtle change in temperature. Normally, a small draft would've gone unnoticed if the room were at a reasonable temperature, but since Alice was strolling through a sauna, the cool breeze that suddenly swept over the warm, pink skin of her arms felt like a slap to the face.
She halted in mid-step and let out another sigh as the steam around her started to crystallize. She rolled her eyes, releasing the handle of her umbrella just as it disappeared from sight in a wisp of blue dust. Her arms fell to her sides and she briefly fingered one of the green flags that hung from the belt around her waist just as she sensed a new presence in the room.
Seeing no point in delaying the inevitable, Alice did a full one-eighty on the heels of her boots and faced the person behind her. She cocked a slim eyebrow in bemusement as she came face to face with an upside-down Jack Frost. He was hanging from his staff with his legs wrapped around it and the crook of it hooked on one of the steel pipes perturbing from the ceiling above. His silvery-white hair stood up straight with gravity working against it, making him look like an albino porcupine. There was a slight pink hue to his cheeks, no doubt from the room's high temperature, but his blue eyes were wide and shining with mischief.
"Hi," He smiled brightly at her. "Smart hiding spot."
"Not smart enough, evidently," She said around another sigh.
He smiled brighter and shook his head. "Hiding in the least expected place so nobody will look there is not exactly The Art of War material. It's more like textbook. You probably would have had more luck hiding somewhere totally obvious, like your bedroom or something."
"Is this some sort of ridiculous ploy to steal one of my flags?" Alice asked with her hands on her hips while Jack continued to hang upside down in front of her like Spider-man.
"Mmhm!" He quipped cheerfully before suddenly reaching out and grabbing the sides of Alice's head. He rocked forward on his staff until he was close enough and dragged his tongue up the side of Alice's face, immediately letting her go and swinging backwards, just barely missing the punch aimed for his temple.
"Ugh!" Alice reared back in disgust, smacking the winter spirit away and holding her arm up to wipe his cold saliva off her cheek. "You despicable, little cockroach! Did you just lick me!?"
Jack laughed devilishly before unwrapping his legs and unhooking his staff. With speed and agility unfair for a winter spirit under such conditions, he snatched a flag from Alice's belt and flew off in the opposite way, back towards the entrance of the boiler room. Alice quickly finished wiping the ice mutt's drool off her face and ran after him, angrily cursing herself for allowing Frost to catch her off guard like that. Her Vorpal blade materialized in her hand as she exited the boiler room and followed the trail of frost that no doubt led straight to the workshop.
Game rules dictated that no weapons were allowed to be used beyond the ones that couldn't fairly be excluded, such as the Sandman's dreamsand and Jack's staff, but the rules be damned. Alice was going to skewer the spirit of winter for pulling such a dirty trick!
It took her no time at all to follow Jack's trail to the workshop, but the scorekeeping yeti had already rung the score bell and North's team was celebrating their first point when she arrived. Bunny was practically foaming at the mouth as he watched North dance around and Jack and Tooth give each other a high-five by their score basket. Sandy was floating up near his own team's basket and Alice barely suppressed a flinch when she saw that he was asleep, which had allowed Jack and North (who had also somehow managed to steal a flag, judging by Bunny's belt) to drop their stolen bounty into their basket.
Fuming, Bunny jumped up into the air and grabbed the Sandman by one of his tiny feet, pulling the sand spirit back down to the ground floor like a wayward balloon.
"Hey! Wake up, beach ball," Bunny snapped, thumping Sandy with the underside of his foot, making him bouncing against the ground.
Sandy startled awake, flailing his arms and blinking his eyes incoherently. He reached up and rubbed his eyes with his hands. When he chased off the last remnants of his impromptu nap, he opened his eyes and looked up to see a very grumpy Bunnymund glaring down at him.
"You fell asleep!" He shouted, pointing up towards North's team. "They scored two points while you were off in dreamland, Mansnoozie!"
Sandy looked between the pooka and the celebrating team above them with a still slightly dazed expression on his face as he slowly put things together. When he realized what had happened, he flinched and flashed his teeth sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders in a 'whoops, my bad' fashion.
"I suppose that's what we get for making a narcoleptic our goalie," Alice remarked dryly, crossing her arms under her chest.
"Quiet you," Bunny barked before pointing a paw up in North's direction. "This ain't over, tubs! We're still winnin!"
The Russian frowned. One of his hands gripped the side of his belly, jiggling the small bit of fat gathered there, momentarily affronted by the "tubs" remark before brushing it off. He jumped on to the railing of the third floor and looked down at Bunny's team with his hands on his hips and a triumphant smile on his face, expertly mirroring Bunny's own gloating stance from just a short while ago.
"Well, Bunny, as the young ones would say - bring it!"
AN: Haha, that was cute. As I said before I will eventually start pumping out more serious chapters, but for now I'm just enjoying these short, funny ones while I still can.
Hope you enjoyed it. Happy third anniversary Rise of the Guardians and also Winter Wonderland!
~Scorpiofreak~
