Disclaimer: I am not the owner of The Incredibles, How to Train Your Dragon, Brave, Tangled, Frozen, or Rise of the Guardians
Note: This is a sequel to Incredible Fears. You are welcome to try and read this as a standalone story, but it is likely to be confusing without the context from the prior story.
"Hey, it's the fairy tale nerd again," a high schooler sneered as Jamie walked down the sidewalk towards his Mom's car with his bag slung over his shoulder. Swallowing, he ducked his head and quickened his pace, hoping to avoid further confrontation. "What, got nothing to say? Not gonna defend your 'awesome' friends again?"
A shove came from behind, making Jamie stumble a few steps forward. Spinning around, he glared at the bully. "Hey! Stop it already." Rubbing his back, Jamie grimaced and let out a long exhale. "What's there to defend anyway? You were right, I was childish and wrong. Can you leave me alone now?"
There was a car honk and the bully turned towards the sound. Taking advantage of the distraction, Jamie hustled over to his Mom's car and got in. "Ready to head home, kiddo?" He nodded in response.
"Jamie, Jamie, guess what?" From behind him, Sophie started shouting to get his attention immediately. "My friend got an awesome new stuffed bunny thanks to me. They were inspired by my intrepid tales of the Easter Bunny and how he once saved the children of the world."
Sophie was twelve now and still had a wild imagination. Jamie couldn't help but feel a pang in his chest at her words, already aware of what would start soon if she didn't learn how to keep those beliefs to herself or wake up to the reality of them just not being real. "That's great, Soph," Jamie said. He tried to put some enthusiasm into his tone, but based on her frown, he'd failed to sound genuine.
Sophie opened her mouth for a moment, before closing it and shaking her head. Leaning back in her seat, she turned her head to gaze out the window as Mom continued the drive home. "You never get excited about this stuff anymore," she said quietly, almost to the point where Jamie couldn't hear.
"Sorry, Soph." He turned away, straightening in his seat. "You'll get it soon. I'm just too old for the Easter Bunny."
He heard a snort from behind him. "Says the guy who claimed he'd never be too old for snow days with Jack Frost."
Chuckling, Jamie felt a small smile begin to grow on his face. It was just a small expression, with a slight upturn at the corners of his mouth. Really, he'd had such a wild imagination now that he thought about it. He supposed it just made things more fun in the winter. Now, winter meant helping with shoveling and being forced to endure the cold. Even snow days lost their appeal once Jamie realized it was his best opportunity to make some extra cash around town - his neighbors were happy to pay him a few bucks to shovel out their driveways and his lack of an allowance meant it was his only way to really earn much on his own.
"What, not gonna say anything? Not gonna brag about how he's better than Bunny again? Because you know you'll just loose that argument. No one's better than Bunny."
Clearly, his sister had a favorite holiday. Even as a kid, she'd loved the idea of Easter with all of the egg hunts and the central figure being a fluffy rabbit. He couldn't blame her for that belief. "Sure. The Easter Bunny's great," he said, agreeing and waiting for her to move on.
"You're not supposed to say that! Mom, can't you tell Jamie to stop being so weird? He's supposed to defend Jack."
"Sophie, leave your brother alone," Mom shook her head. "He can change his mind if he wants to, you know. You'll understand more when you're older." She smiled, reaching over to the passenger seat and ruffling Jamie's hair.
Jamie leaned away from her hand, feeling his cheeks grow warm. "I'm not a kid anymore, Mom."
"You'll always be a kid to me, Jamie." Her hand was back on the wheel though, no longer reaching out.
The rest of the ride back was relatively quiet, though Jamie could practically feel his sister's irritation over his lack of enthusiasm for her games. As soon as they got home, she rushed out of the car. Sophie turned to stick her tongue out at him as a taunt, before rushing towards the door. Rolling his eyes, Jamie walked calmly behind her, not interested in joining in on the race she wanted to start.
"I'm going to get dinner started." Mom glanced down the hall where Sophie had ran. "Work on your homework, Sophie! I don't want to see you playing around before your schoolwork is finished."
"But, Mom! It's snowing outside." Sophie ran back towards them. "That means it's time for sledding, snowball fights, and—"
"No buts, Sophie. You can play with your friends when your work is done."
With a huff, Sophie stomped over to the table and threw her bag onto the ground. "Stupid work. We were going to try and hunt down Jack today. He's gotta be able to convince Bunny to join us one of these times. At the very least, he could convince Tooth to come - he'd just need to start another convenient sledding accident."
"Don't encourage that, Soph." Jamie sighed, rubbing his cheek at the memory. "Loosing teeth hurts - it isn't worth the quarter to intentionally knock one out."
"You were laughing about it though!"
"Because I didn't want to look like a crybaby in front of my friends," he claimed. Really, it was embarrassing how much he thought it mattered.
"Yeah, and bragging about meeting the tooth fairy later on."
Frowning, Jamie was quiet. She was too old for this stuff, but just like him, she wasn't willing to let go of that childlike imagination. Maybe…it would be better, coming from him. "Hey, Soph?" She looked up from her homework, pausing at his tone. "Look, I know you really like the Easter Bunny, and Santa, and—"
"Yeah, they're awesome. What about it?"
Swallowing, Jamie avoided looking into her eyes. "Well, the thing is…it's fun to believe in them as a kid. But, Sophie, you're almost a teenager now. Haven't you started to realize that there's a better explanation for all of that stuff?"
"Better explanation?" She frowned, confusion clear on her face.
"I mean, Mom gets us presents for Christmas. The neighbors probably help with painting and hiding eggs for Easter. And snow is just frozen rain - there's no magic needed to make it happen."
Sophie's eyes were wide. "But…I've seen them. We play with them all the time." Sophie frowned, tilting her head. "And it snowed in your room once! You told me about it and then Jack decided to show off and do the same for me! How is that possible?"
"It was a dream, Soph." He ruffled her hair. "A good dream, but still a dream."
"If it was a dream, then it was Sandy who showed it to you!"
"The Sandman isn't real." Jamie shook his head. "Look, I'm trying to be nice about this. But…others aren't as nice when they learn you're a freak who still believes in fairy tales. You should start facing reality now, before you really start to stand out."
"He is real! They're all real!" Sophie was getting louder now, her hands shaking. "What's wrong with you? Is this why you've been acting so weird these last few months?" She glared at him. "Who cares what the other idiots think? We both promised we'd always believe and I'm not going to break my promise! The Guardians need us, Jamie. You told me that! That if we believed, we'd be Guardians too!"
"Guardians of what? There's nothing we need to protect anyone from." Jamie chewed on his lower lip, about to continue.
"Of course there is! Pitch hasn't just disappeared, even if you think he isn't real anymore. Didn't you see the news with Mom yesterday?"
"I was doing homework, Soph." He frowned, less familiar with that name. Out of her fantasies, she usually stuck to the main fairy tales. Pitch wasn't a name he remembered hearing about before. "What was on the news anyway?"
"Some super villain attacking in a major city. Of course, they blamed it all on Miss Terror, but I saw Pitch and Jack! He's still out there causing problems." She scooted her chair closer, a fierce light burning in her eyes. Pulling out her phone, she set it on the table between them. "Look, I'll pull up the story now. Watch and you'll see - you'll see that Jack and Pitch are both real and realize you're just being stupid now."
Sighing, he kept himself quiet as Sophie pulled up a short clip of the news story. He'd humor her for now, watch the video, and then have a real explanation of what was going on. When super villains were involved, it was almost easier - there weren't many in Burgess, but supers definitely explained the majority of any supernatural phenomenon he once blamed on fairy tales.
The video began to play, showing a dark scene as the reporter began to speak. "We are reporting live from the scene of the ongoing battle between Miss Terror and the Incredibles." Behind her, chaos was already emerging. There was a massive snowstorm making it difficult to make out many details, but Jamie did see a massive black beast of some kind, along with flashes of red costumes fighting back against a young, masked villainess.
"Miss Terror has made nightmares come to life and does not appear to have a clear goal in mind. Yet, our heroes will valiantly step in and make sure our town is safe once more." Suddenly, a massive pillar of ice formed from nowhere, freezing solid with an unusual coloration for ice. Frowning, Jamie felt something prickle in the back of his mind. His hair stood on end, seeing the dark, shadowy patterns swirling throughout the frozen structure. Why did that pattern look so familiar to him?
Shaking his head, Jamie kept his eyes on the screen. A muffled shout came from within the blizzard and Jamie thought he heard the villain mention Jack, just like Sophie had. More ice blasts formed, freezing with the same odd coloration as the first and the blizzard itself seemed to grow suddenly weaker. Before long, the villain was running off onto the literal dragon on the scene. "Miss Terror has escaped! What will we do now with such a fearsome villain loose in our city?"
Sophie stopped the video at that point, looking at him with a raised eyebrow. "See? Jack and Pitch were fighting."
Her words were distant as Jamie kept his focus on the darkened ice statues, spiking upward into the air with an ominous aura about them. He leaned closer, swallowing as he frowned at the image. Jamie didn't know where he'd seen them - was it a dream? Had he met this super before? That shouldn't be possible - they were miles away from the incident, based on the description in the video. Yet, it seemed too familiar.
He blinked, rubbing his forehead and leaning back. There was a flash of an image in his mind, an image of a man in black robes sending out a wave of dark shadows towards a barefoot teenager with a staff. A wave of the staff seemed to produce an arc of ice, freezing the shadows into a pattern much like what was on the screen before. When Jamie opened his eyes, he frowned. Had…when had that happened?
The white haired boy, Jamie could have sworn they'd actually met before, outside of a dream. He knew that face and the laugh he'd given off. It was always a sound that cheered him up, now that he remembered it. Had he really forgotten about something that relaxed him so much? About a person that made him feel this warm and safe?
Swallowing, Jamie looked over at Sophie. He'd been trying to tell her to stop believing, that none of it was real. Yet, maybe he was wrong. Maybe he'd believed in them for so long for a reason and had only stopped when he couldn't stand how others treated him anymore. Had he stopped to fit in? To be normal?
Jack Frost…Sophie said that was his favorite. Maybe it was the white haired boy he was struggling to remember. As he stared at the frozen video, he saw a flash of a face suddenly appear on the screen. Standing in the chaos that was beginning to fade away, the boy with the staff remained. "Jack…" Jamie's voice trailed off.
"Exactly! And Pitch, he's their enemy. He gave us all those nightmares before, remember?"
Except he still had nightmares. For months, he'd been tormented by dreams of being cast aside for his beliefs. His friends, Caleb and Cupcake, refused to speak to him because he insisted on believing in Jack Frost. Once he gave up on that belief, they still abandoned him in those dreams; he'd held onto his childhood for too long and they'd outgrown his childish behavior.
Just last night, it had happened again. Beaten up by his former best friends in a dream, Jamie had felt more drained than ever before. Yet, Sophie was forcing him to believe now. Pitch…Pitch Black was responsible. That was the name of the boogeyman, the one he'd almost forgotten entirely.
"Yeah." Jamie swallowed. "Pitch gave us a lot of bad dreams." Yet, he was doing the same now. Why wasn't Jack here? Why did he disappear off to that other town? They needed the Guardians in Burgess too. Yet, staring at the screen, Jamie realized he had his answer. He hadn't been able to see Jack in the video at all as it played. Somewhere along the line, Pitch Black had managed to convince him that his belief was wrong. Jamie had given up on Jack Frost, so now, Jack Frost had given up on them.
Alright everyone, I am back with a rare sequel! It has been almost a year now (or maybe longer actually) since I last wrote fanfiction. Life got busy, I moved around a bit, started new jobs, and just really lacked inspiration and time for writing for quite a while. It is true that this isn't my usual fandom, but between reviews and some PMs, I thought that a sequel to Incredible Fears would be a good place to start small before returning to my more common Fairy Tail stories. I can't say I have a ton of new ideas at the moment, though I do still have some old abandoned drafts from before I stopped that I will hopefully return to at one point. For now, I hope you enjoy this sequel which will be very Jamie-centric compared to the last story. Feel free to review and tell me what you think!
