Things get rough for our little spirits *snickers*
Pairing: N/A (will change)
Genre: Humor, Parody
Rating: T (for swearing, no smut)
Word Count: 3,379
Chapter 7 - Part Two: Complications (MSW)
''So you should always watch over them- Sandy, leave that eggnog. The elves might get underfoot sometimes but usually- Don't touch that, please. You must just work continuously and you will be- Sandy!''
North slapped the cup out of the colored Sandy's hand, and Sandy watched it fall to the ground, its contents spilling across the floor. He frowned and looked to the red and black rabbit, whose nose merely twitched before he continued talking.
''As I was saying...''
''You're rude, I can't wait for Bunny to spit poison in your eyes and chop yours off.''
North stared at the small, colored Sandy, who had a normal little smile on his face. After a few moments however, that smile vanished.
''Oh... I forgot you could hear me.''
''Get away from me!'' a voice screamed, and North and Sandy turned around to the windows of his office, where in the distance on a few hills, he could see Jack - a black spot among all white - running. He tripped, then slid on his stomach down a hill. By the look of his horrified face, North and Sandy guessed that the black nightmares were not helping him, but the ones chasing their new master. Jack made swimming motions in the sand, failing miserably according to his high and scared whines.
North sighed, and looked to Sandy. ''So, where were we?''
Sandy grabbed his stomach and made a pirate expression.
''Right,'' North whispered, ''The Yeti. They are under your control, but you can't quite completely order them, no? They're your friends, your helpers, your-''
A loud thump made North jump, and Sandy and he veered back to the window again. Jack's face stood plastered against the window, tongue out, eyes manic. A small 'help' escaped his parted lips, almost too quiet to hear, and then he slid down. Excruciatingly slow.
North and Sandy winced, but not more than when they flinched when the nightmares rode the air to the window and dived down where Jack was falling.
Both of them leaned forward, peering down. A scream made them hiss and move back.
''He'll be fine,'' North said, shaking his rabbit head. Sandy nodded slowly.
That's when unexpectedly Bunny walked into the room, panting. ''That Wind'' *pant* ''needs'' *pant* ''a good beating.''
''Can't beat it, it's an elemental,'' Sandy repeated Jack's words, widely smiling.
''Wait,'' North said, jumping up to Bunny, the two rabbits now gazing at each other. ''You learned to use Wind.''
''No,'' Bunny said, shaking miserably from the cold, ''I used one of the stolen globes Jack had. I found it in my fur, there's some seriously wrong things in there.''
''Blame it on yourself, Carrot,'' Jack said, standing at the entrance to the office, face overshadowed. Sandy gasped for emphasis, though it was dully noted. Bunny snorted, and North smiled uneasily at their youngest member.
''Ah, Jack, we were just about to go and help you-''
''Save your pitful lies,'' Jack interrupted him and walked up toward the window. He gave a narrowed look to Sandy, whose eyes widened and he looked away.
''Why are you two here?'' North asked, clearing his throat and changing the subject, scratching his throat uncomfortably.
Jack stared out the window, his presence suddenly... darkening the room. The silence rang out throughout the office, and Bunny thought he heard the wind whistling against the window, creating the perfect atmosphere for a dramatic reveal.
Then Jack turned around and his surprised eyes landed on them. ''The hell am I supposed to know? I came for our planned tea party.''
''Pitch and Tooth are on the way,'' Bunny said, and Sandy and North looked to him. Jack merely spared a glance, crossing his arms, before turning to the window. ''The spirits know about us.''
''What?'' North uttered an automatic response.
''I met April today,'' Bunny whispered.
''Oh, the fool. What about her?'' Jack asked, and turned to Bunny again.
The white rabbit connected his eyes with Jack and frowned. ''She wasn't surprised to see me in this form.''
''She wasn't?'' Sandy asked.
''No,'' the new Guardian of Fun said, gesturing around with his paws, ''In fact, she seemed to have expected it. Even planned to make fun of it, I'm certain.''
''But we're the only ones that know. The fact that someone ravaged my home can't mean anyone knew about our weak state.'' North said, grasping his furry chin with his furry paw. The motion seemed uncomfortable now because of the claws, but for the sake of his past form, he didn't relent repeating it.
''Exactly,'' Bunny said, and looked around again, as if anyone might hear them. ''I was wondering if any one of you said to anyone. Or maybe was seen... Maybe this spell wasn't even Jack's fault. Maybe it was intentional.'' He turned to the former winter spirit for his reaction.
Jack had returned to staring out the window with his arms crossed, a thoughtful, dark expression overtaking his features. Outside, a small snowstorm blocked out the sun and made everything look like a rare night at the North Pole, all greyness and no white, all darkness and no light.
He couldn't help but to think there was something out there, behind the churning grey snow, waiting for them to slip.
''This better be good,'' Pitch grunted, shaking off his feathers and shivering almost uncontrollably. ''Give me that,'' he said and snatched a glass of eggnog from Sandy's hand.
The former Guardian of Dreams stood abruptly from his armchair, the glow of the fire accentuating all his colors and his anger at the former Boogeyman. He reached out to grasp his drink but Pitch was too tall, and the new Guardian of Memories merely put a foot out on Sandy, who tried reaching his legs. Sandman fumed and ran in place, trying to reach his legs, but the Boogeyman's foot stood firm on him as he stared at the far wall in boredom and sipped the eggnog.
North, Jack and Bunny were standing in their own spots in the Globe Room, waiting for Tooth. Sandy had said she was going to be late - he hadn't really taught her to be that fast. At least the snowstorm outside subsided, and whiteness shone through the windows. Plenty of hours before dark.
The crashing and bellowing of the yeti was the only thing that announced her arrival.
She arrived in a sand creation.
She spun around in the thing, blindingly fast, around the Globe. A sense of deja vu overpowered North - like the Sandman's airplane. The Guardians and Pitch watched on, the latter stopping his drinking to stare, and lowering his foot from Sandy's face.
When the former Guardian of Memories landed, the force of it was not enough to disintegrate her... airplane?... but enough to throw her out of it when it hit the ground. The force was too great, and she skidded across the floor, past the Guardians, and then stumbled.
Right into the fire.
Pitch raised an eyebrow as the four Guardians screamed in horror. They rushed forward to the fire, but the dream spirit was way ahead of them.
She burst out of the fire place, on fire, and ran to them. It was almost comical how all four halted to an abrupt stop, then fell, twisted and stumbled to get back. Jack and Bunny almost trampled North, then the three of them stepped over Sandy, each having a turn at stomping down on the small body that had the feel of a pillow. Needless to say, Sandy didn't immediately get up after that, though an unsaid 'why' was on his lips.
Pitch stared at the chaos in front of him, holding his drink, and followed the fiery golden ball as she darted from one side of the room to the other, strangely without a sound of pain.
When Bunny finally found an extinguisher, he put her out. Pitch took a sip of his eggnog.
Turned out, Tooth wasn't even in pain. She was laughing.
''Oh, my God!'' she screeched, rolling over on the floor in a roaring laughter, ''I couldn't help myself! I'm sorry!'' Even Pitch was mildly surprised.
''You're no longer my friend,'' Sandy said, still on the floor.
Jack rolled his eyes so far back, Pitch thought they would pierce his skull and escape into the hollow where his brain should be out of embarrassment. He savored the girly scream Jack released when Tooth came rushing at them for later.
Bunny gritted his teeth, then took some extinguisher cream and ate it subconsciously, looking around. ''Now that we're all here'' - his gaze landed on Tooth's creation - ''we can discuss- Tooth, the hell is that thing?''
Tooth stopped laughing and raised her head to the dream sand creation. When she made it - in a rush, really, she was falling out of the sky with a handful of teeth and she didn't want to lose them - she didn't really think about the shape of it. The shape was quite, positively inappropriate.
''Geesh, Tooth,'' Jack said, moving away from the sand, ''Disintegrate it. I don't think I'm supposed to be seeing this.''
''I knew you were more than cheers and childish sentences, but not really in this way,'' Pitch commented. He looked down at his empty cup in disdain. ''I could use some tequila.''
''Tooth,'' Bunny drawled, putting the extinguisher down when he realized in horror that he was eating it. ''We make toys for children here, for heaven's sake. Destroy it.''
But Tooth was staring at it with a tight-lipped expression. The teeth were in there. Her friends couldn't know she was collecting teeth despite agreeing that they would do the job their forms allowed. She just didn't trust Pitch. For all she knew, he could be ordering fairies to places there were no teeth, claiming to feel where they were, or, worst case scenario, giving them jobs then secretly destroying the teeth behind their backs.
''Don't be so perverse,'' she said, getting up and shrugging off some dead sand from her body. New sand came instantly and her appearance was shiny and glistening in no time. ''It looks like... a weirdy shaped vase to me.''
''A vase does not look like that,'' North said, coming into the room with a tray of cookies.
''Where did you go, I wonder,'' was the Boogeyman's comment on the disappearance of the former fairy. Pitch was shaking a frozen elf above his mug. Chocolates and treats fell from the small creature, and when the cup was full of it, he dropped the thing unceremoniously then strolled over to the fire. Careful not to burn himself, he heated the mug and waited for the contents to melt.
''Cookies. We're all hungry, ey?'' The former Guardian of Wonder said, eyes darting around for any sign of disbelief from his friends.
''So,'' Jack started, sparing a glance at Tooth, who was sparing a glance at Bunny's mouth smeared with something like whipped cream, and the rabbit was sparing a glance at the untoward shape of the dream creation. It was hard not to look at. ''Who did it?''
''Who did what?'' Tooth instantly asked, eyes going around everyone in the room. ''I didn't do anything. I wasn't doing anything at all. Did you do anything? Because I wasn't doing anything-''
''Okay! Tooth,'' Jack started. He gestured to Sandy. ''You?''
The Sandman shook his head. He still lay on the floor, but he was just resting. He thought his coat buttons (at least they were colored black so he could tell them apart from the 'coat') were starting to go back up from his back, where they had been savagely pushed.
''North?'' The thin, muscled rabbit shook his head as he took a bite out of a cookie. He winced and dropped the plate. Pieces of a broken snowglobe filled his mouth and he rushed to the dream creation to spit in it before Tooth could stop him.
As the new Guardian of Dreams rushed to the new Guardian of Hope to lean him back from her airplane-craft, Jack looked to Bunny. ''You have something,'' he said, and tapped his chin, ''There.''
''I didn't,'' Bunny hissed, wipping the cream on his white fur, since it made no difference. Jack took it as both denial that he didn't say their obvious secret to anyone and the denial that he was eating the extinguisher.
''I didn't either,'' Jack said, then tapped his foot in anger. They were getting nowhere again.
''Let's just check MSW,'' Tooth proposed nonchalantly, pushing North away from her creation, her back pressed against his chest. Thankfully, he didn't see anything but his own snowglobe on the golden sand, and he was still trying to wipe away the snowglobe taste. He didn't even know his snowglobes had a taste.
''What's MSW?'' Jack asked, crossing his arms. He gave Tooth a questioning look.
The atmosphere in the room froze.
Pitch took his eyes off his mug and turned to the Guardians, staring at Jack emotionlessly, the fire still licking at the sugar-filled object. Tooth stopped pushing, and slid down to the floor, though not taking her disbelieving eyes off the former winter sprite, whereas North forgot the taste of snowglobe in favor of looking at Jack with surprise. Bunny helped Sandy sit up, so that the two of them could stare in their own surprise as well.
The look they all gave him was worth taking a picture of. If any of them had a camera.
''Oh, brother.'' The voices in his head were no less appalled by the sentence.
''Are you saying you don't know the spirit world's most famous internet website!?'' Tooth incredulously asked. She exclaimed, ''My teeth and memories!'' Jack felt embarrassed just by the looks the Guardians were giving him. At least Pitch was kind enough to stay impassive.
Either that or he was just too shocked to react.
''Ugh, no,'' Jack lamely offered, ''What does it stand for?''
''My Spirit World!''
''Okay, no need to be that surprised, I just asked for a name,'' Jack skeptically said to Tooth, who instantly shook her head in even more surprise, scrunching her lips in more disbelief.
''That's the name, it's 'My Spirit World','' Tooth incredulously explained, and Jack thankfully nodded his head, like he realized. Tooth sighed in relief, along with the rest of their small posse, who also smiled to each other. Even Pitch returned back to his mug, which was almost ready.
That was until Jack said, ''I have no idea what that is.''
The gasps the Guardian's released were also worth recording.
Sandy silently put a hand to his mouth in utter shock, while North went rigid like a statue. Bunny's legs buckled beneath him, as if he would topple over Sandy that very moment, and Tooth would have fallen further to the floor, if it were not for North managing to help her up, and still stay rigid with wide eyes at the same time.
The only moving thing in the room was Pitch fainting. The mug shattered and its half-melted chocolate was perfect for the oncoming hoard of elves, who kicked at each other and licked it off the floor in a contest of whose tongue would get less burnt.
A rush of craziness, was all that Jack could think of. Little did he know that the craziness was only half their reactions.
''Do you know what My Space is?'' Tooth tried, finally standing almost steadily on her legs.
''Of course,'' Jack said, offended.
''Facebook?''
''Aha.''
''Twitter.''
''Yup.''
''YouTube.''
''Definitely.''
''Well,'' Tooth said, her face still in shock, ''Then you'll learn quite easily that My Spirit World is the merging of those for our world.'' Tooth unceremoniously turned around to walk to North's office to get the common laptop. One that North made himself, and it only took him twenty-five years.
''Dude,'' Bunny started, ''If I had known you're that behind Spirit World things, I would have made you an account myself.''
''Hey,'' Jack let out, ''I'm not that behind.''
''Boy,'' Pitch interfered while he got up from the floor, ''Even I know what MSW is. Heck, half of my nightmares had their own accounts.''
''Right?'' North also added, ''Even elves and yeti, da?''
''Okay, I get it, I get it,'' Jack raised his hands in defeat, ''I may am a little behind things. But it's not like there is a site where I can see all new things that just got in.''
''Actually,'' Pitch started, ''New Things Yo! is quite a useful site for that.''
''Ah, come on!'' Jack exclaimed at Pitch's and Guardians' serious expression.
A few minutes later, Tooth walked into the room with the laptop. The anxious spirits gathered around Tooth as she sat down on the floor.
''We'll get in my account first,'' Pitch stated matter-of-factly, before Sandy objected.
''No, my account has more stuff in it,'' he said, and pushed the Boogeyman out of the way, typing in his email address.
''No! I have more friends and better profile picture.'' Bunny kicked Sandy, who landed flat on his behind, and the Pooka deleted his email address.
''No, my account!'' North pushed his way through, and over the fallen sprits beneath, elbowing Bunny out of the way. It felt like he elbowed a marshmallow.
And that's when the Nightmare King jumped on the one with the computer, North, rabidly like an animal.
North snarled like one too, and really put an effort to shake, jumping on his fours like a bull, shaking his head with Pitch on top, who held on and growled all the way. Bunny got a start on Sandy, getting into a fight with him when the colored puff tried to use the distraction to start typing his password from the floor. Tooth, with the laptop still in her lap, sighed.
She rubbed her golden face with her hand, sighing again more exasperatedly. She typed in her email and password quickly and started looking through some new posts, grunts and yelps behind her too distant to take into consideration.
''Like that, comment that, oh April, like your new profile picture...'' she mumbled as the fight behind her went on. Jack walked up behind her and looked at what she was doing, sparing a small glance at the fighting quartet.
''So, any strange news?''
''Not from what I can see...''
Jack cocked an eyebrow. He looked over her back and shoulder to look at what she was searching. ''That's because you're looking at the newest Fall collection of jewelry.''
Tooth startled and quickly changed the website, typing in something else.
''Oh no,'' she whispered. Jack almost slammed his head against her back.
''Don't say that, it's never good when someone says 'oh no'. Why don't people say 'oh, yes' to signal that they've found something that doesn't necessarily mean bad... wait... never mind.''
''No, no, no,'' Tooth whispered, each 'no' higher and more urgent than the other. It attracted the attention of the battle behind her, which stopped shortly.
Jack's eyes widened. ''No,'' he whispered too, and grasped the laptop by its screen. ''Mother Nature's account...''
Quickly, though now less urgently than when Tooth expressed her surprise, Pitch, Bunny, Sandy and North piled around Tooth like she was the Earth's center, and the laptop was the start of their horror. Because beneath Mother Nature's account was the epic shock that couldn't compare to when they first woke up in their forms.
''NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!''
''Now I really need a tequila.''
I do wonder if anyone can guess what they might have seen in her account xD