Chapter four

As expected, Jack was the first of the guardians to arrive in the house though he had to admit he was curious about why Sandy was having them meet at Jamie's house.
"Hey Sandy what's wrong?" Jack asked curiously but the little guardian just shook his head pointing into Jamie's room, Jack raised an eyebrow and peered into the room, the scene of Iris curled up in her dad's bed tears still streaming down her face despite the sweet dream she was having Jack felt his heart practically break he then looked at Sandy "Where's Jamie?" he asked Sandy merely shrugged unsure of what happened, he had wanted to ask the child when she woke up which was why he allowed her to sleep until he could summon the other guardians. Jack nodded a little before going down to Iris's room and looking around at the decorated room, now that it was light out he smiled seeing the decorations that the child had clearly hand made he smiled poking a paper snow flake that hung from the ceiling next to some of the models of Tooth's fairies made out of clothes pins, feathers and paper for the noses he smiled a little bit, this kid was definitely creative with her work, Jack was pleasantly surprised with how much of a fan she was of them. As he looked around the room seeing all the things to resemble the guardians, the fake Easter eggs with little feet attached, the little bottles with plastic toys painted yellow in them , he thought it was kind of interesting he then noticed the large leather book on the table he looked over at it in messy Childs writing it read "My Myth journal" given the first word wasn't spelled correctly he could tell that Jamie had still helped her to the best of his abilities Jack opened the book and sat down on the plastic coloring table he flipped through smiling at all the drawings of the guardians as she had tried to scribble down anything she thought would prove something about each guardian he flipped to the back and frowned when he saw a note had been pinned to it where a teacher had examined the book, this told him it was a project but he frowned when he read what it said
"Dear Mr. Bennett,

We are becoming more and more concerned with your daughters imagination, this project was to make a journal about real people or Animals not "the guardians" I believe in the best interest of the child you should break the news to her that these are just figments of her imagination, the stories and the way she manages to turn every project into something about them is beginning to become concerning to us and to the school psychologist,"

Psychologist? They had her seeing someone about them? Jack turned the note over and frowned a little bit
"She's six" he found himself saying out loud as he rolled his eyes "She's supposed to imagine this kind of stuff don't try to make her grow up before she should" He told the note as if the teacher could hear his words through the note he then frowned though he smiled seeing it was from the beginning of the year and shook his head knowing that Jamie had ignored the note completely and probably left it there as almost like a trophy to show just how much his daughter actually believed
"Jack who are you talking to?" Jack jumped and looked up to see Toothiana had arrived he smiled sheepishly before showing her the note, Toothiana read it and smiled a little bit shaking her head
"The funny part is this isn't actually hers" Tooth said confusing Jack as Tooth sat down next to him "This is her sister's, Jade was just as big of a believer but she started to get picked on for it so she gave all of her things including this room to Iris when that happened." Tooth said she remembered hearing about it when she had gone to visit Jade and get the tooth that had been knocked out of her brother's mouth when he got in a fight defending her. Tooth herself had found the whole situation very sad but it needed to happen Tooth was just happy that the beliefs of the older sister had been passed down to Iris who had actually edited the journal
"The journal was actually about me and Bunnymund, looks like Iris has added quite a few things about you, Sandy and North though" Tooth said Jack laughed a little bit before the smile vanished he sighed
"I don't get it, Jamie would never abandon Iris, what could have-" Jack cut himself off as he noticed something on Iris's bed
"jack?" tooth asked as she saw him get up and walk over to the bed to examine something she followed him and her eyes grew wide, seeing what he saw, a small pile of black sand that was all to familiar to the two of them
"Pitch" Jack said glaring now it made sense, Pitch had taken Jamie, it was all him but why? Jack looked at Tooth who looked just as upset as he was he picked up the sand and walked into the hallway in time to meet the other two guardians who came up the stairs, both covered in soot which showed Bunny had entered the same way North had.
"What's the matter?" Bunny asked Jack held his hand out and opened it
"Pitch took Jamie" Jack said showing them the black sand which seemed to anger Sandy
"Alright, so why couldn't we have met at the warren or Tooth's palace?" Bunnymund asked this lead Sandy to again point into Jamie's room causing the other two to look and see the sleeping child
"Well where's 'er mum?" Bunny asked Jack looked away the guilt eating him again
"Sh-she passed away a couple of years ago" Jack said simply Tooth patted Jack's shoulder
"Jack you didn't mean for the ice to get there it wasn't your fault" Tooth told him Jack sighed
"I know I still feel like I could have done something-"
"Lets focus on the problem at hand" North said to them quickly before it got off topic, this was also a tactic he hoped to keep Jack's mind off of what had happened to Crystal Jack nodded afterwards as he entered the room and watched her
"Should we wake her up? She's going to have more information on this than anyone else" Jack said his eyes fell to Sandy knowing this was more of his choice, Sandy nodded a little.
Jack turned back to the child and gently put his hand on her shoulder that was enough to cause the child to jump awake because of the cold after a moment of being startled she stared wide eyed at the figure before her, Jack smiled a little bit at her
"Have a nice nap?" he asked her before he felt the child fling her arms around him
"jack! I knew it! I knew you were real!" she cheered happily "I knew you'd come, you're going to find daddy right?" she asked pulling back to look him in the face Jack laughed a little bit at the reaction to her seeing him, imagine what was going to happen when she saw the others,
"Of course we came, how could we ever let down our biggest believers?" Jack asked her with a smile but then Iris became sad again
"Pitch took daddy! I don't know where and I don't know why but he took him!" Iris said frowning her eyes filled with tears once more and Jack hugged her trying to comfort the child, so many emotions in a minute the child was definitely going to be a handful but Jack knew they could handle it
"Hey, don't cry we'll find him and we'll take care of you too" Jack told her pulling her forward gently to look him in the eyes as he brushed a little bit of her brown hair out of her eyes, Iris nodded and wiped the tears from her eyes
"A-And I get to help right?" she asked Jack looked back at the guardians who all didn't know how to react Jack looked at her
"Well…"
"I have to help! Pitch was going to take me too if Daddy hadn't stopped him" Iris told him pleadingly Jack sighed
"We'll talk about it, now where are your brother and sister?" Jack asked her curiously
Iris thought for a minute trying to remember
"They're in Italy for school, they won't be back for a few more weeks" Iris told him Jack smiled, well that was a relief chances are if they knew the authorities would get involved and there wouldn't be any hope in the world of them finding Jamie, not to mention some poor innocent soul would probably just be put in jail for absolutely no reason what so ever.
"Alright, well why don't you get dressed and we'll start trying to find some place for you to stay during all this chaos hm?" Jack asked Iris nodded before hopping down off the bed she hurried past the other guardians and down into her room to get dressed
"What do ya mean we'll talk bout it?" Bunny asked looking at Jack, who simply shrugged
"Did you want to hear her beg a million times?" Jack asked Bunny rolled his eyes
"Ya shoulda asked us!"
"You guys didn't know what to do what did you think that look was?!" Jack asked him getting annoyed Tooth quickly shushed them as their voices began to rise
"you guys now isn't the time to be arguing, if she hears us talking about this she's just going to get more upset, I think if Pitch was after her his next target will be the twins so chances are we should go get them" Tooth suggested but Jack frowned a little
"Trey and Jade don't believe in us any more, they're sixteen" Jack told her the others thought for a minute trying to think of what they could do in the mean time to try and get the twins it was then Bunnymund had an idea
"Sophie! She still believes I could ask her to come along and get the twins besides they need a family member to get them in an emergency" Bunnymund suggested Jack nodded a little with a smile
"Great! You guys take care of Iris, we'll get the Sophie and the twins and give them the low down on what's going on" Jack said but Tooth smiled a little
"Do you just want to go to see Kara?" she asked causing the frost guardian to frown at her as the others looked suddenly very interested

"Who is Kara?" North asked Jack shrugged a little bit knowing this was going to be some complicated explanation that was going to go on a lot of different ideas from the Guardians
"She's an old friend, me and her were on the same boat didn't remember our time alive but no one believed in us, she's the spirit of color" Jack said shrugging he didn't think it was that big of a deal after all "She's got some pretty powerful magic if she draws something in her sketchbook it's most likely to happen she doesn't know when or where but usually it does" Jack explained shrugging Bunnymund nodded a little bit
"I know er, Sheila drops by the Warren just before spring to make sure all the flowers are giving off the right colors" Bunnymund said thoughtfully Kara usually was a very quiet but also could often be a rather depressing person to be around no one had ever heard of her and she often found herself alone, especially now that Jack was a guardian though that never seemed to stop her. North chuckled a bit
"She is a very nice girl Jack"
"Hey don't get the wrong idea she's a friend" Jack said flat out knowing what they'd be thinking though the hearts being formed over Sandy's head as he laughed silently Jack frowned and shook his head a little bit before walking away to check on Iris the little girl had her backpack filled to the brim her toy bunny sticking out of one of the pockets and Jack grinned at her
"Hey you almost ready to go?" Iris nodded quickly with a smile as she put the backpack over her shoulders
"Alright North, Tooth and Sandy are going to take care of you Bunny and I got to go get your aunt Sophie, your brother and your sister ok?" Jack asked her Iris nodded before hugging Jack tightly
"Please be careful" she told him Jack smiled he knew the girl was afraid but he wasn't going to let anything happen to her he was determined to protect his Friend's family even if it killed him.

"HEY! Hey Jade check this out!" Trey called his blonde hair falling into his face from under the red bandanna that was tied around his head to hold his jaw length messy blonde hair out of his face, though his bangs still peeked through a little bit and got in his eyes he didn't care so much and was used to it, Jade looked up to him her brown eyes watching her brother who was on top of a flight of stairs at the hotel their class was staying at
"Trey! Trey get down from there right now or I'm coming up after you!" she shouted Trey laughed his skateboard was on the railing and it was clear he was going to grind down the rail, at the threat Trey merely grinned and turned to his friends
"I'm sorry did I hear a challenge?" He said his three friends cheered and Jade sighed
"Trey I swear though I learned Karate for self defense I will destroy you" Jade threatened but of course the threat fell on deaf ears as the sixteen year old quickly jumped onto the skateboard and grinded all the way down to the bottom before jumping straight into a teachers waiting arms he smiled sheepishly as the teacher glared and Jade did a face palm
"This is a school trip, I suggest you treat this place with respect" the teacher said dropping the boy flat on his ass before taking the skateboard from him and walking away Trey frowned as Jade helped him up pushing her reading glasses up on her brown eyes
"I warned you" she said fixing her long wavy blonde hair as she pulled it back once he was up she had a tall slender figure she wore a white V neck shirt underneath a brown jacket and blue jeans that fit her well and brown knee high boots, Trey frowned at his older sister
"Well you could have done a better job at warning me" he said standing up and brushing himself off Jade shook her head a little when had she become his babysitter? She then saw something out of the corner of her eye, a dark figure she turned to look and glanced around but there was nothing there
"Jade? You alright?" Jade snapped out of her thoughts and turned to her brother an almost foreboding feeling suddenly coming over her she took one look back to where she was sure she had seen someone but after a minute she turned back to her brother and smiled at his worried look, just like she always did
"Yeah I'm fine don't worry about it" she said before she grabbed her bags and tossed him his the two then set off for their hotel rooms not realizing the Tall black figure watching them from the shadows with an evil grin plastered on that wicked face
"Well now what an interesting twist, the twins don't believe"