Author's Note: I cannot believe this chapter. This chapter wasn't even going to exist and then so much happened! But man am I having fun with it. :P I hope you guys enjoy all the extra drama!
And Crossover Junkie, I already thought of that about Jamie's adventure. That actually occurred to me long after Jamie had gotten the letter, and that lead me to thinking.. How did she know?! She wouldn't remember! In fact, as far as anyone else is concerned, nothing happened! So.. yeaah. That'll be addressed if Jamie succeeds. At this point, who knows what's going to happen!
I hope everyone else is enjoying this and you guys don't mind the unusually fast updates. (For me, anyway.) Next chapter might feature some of human Lillian.. Who knows!
Chapter Sixty-Four: Jamie's Adventure: Rise of the Guardians
Current time: Last Easter
Jamie appeared suddenly in a swirl of magical bronze sparkles, with Father Time's warning still ringing in his ears.
Don't be seen.
Right.
He can do this, right?
Jamie looked around and noticed that he was no longer at Father Time's and was instead across the street from his house. It was the morning of last Easter, and he quickly ducked behind a tree. He peeked out to see that he was in the backyard with his friends.
His eyes widened as he was essentially looking at the Jamie that was only a little younger.
Whoa.
Time travel was weird.
No wonder Father Time wanted him to hurry up and travel to the past. He knew from watching movies that seeing yourself was bad. Like, really bad.
He listened as best he could as his friends complained about Easter and that past Jamie was insisting the Easter Bunny was real.
Time traveler Jamie furrowed his brow at the sight. So much had happened since then, it was hard to keep track of it all. What had happened last Easter?
Oh, right..
Jamie deflated as he remembered. Nothing had really happened until that night when his belief was wavering. All the Guardians had come bursting into his room and convinced him to still believe in them and the Easter Bunny. That was also the night that he learned all about Jack and Lillian.
Jamie frowned a bit to himself. What was he going to do for hours?
Several veeery boring hours later, Jamie was perched in a tree in his backyard, trying his hardest to feel invisible and not like a creeper.
He felt the cold winter wind whip by him as Jack Frost flew up to his window.
Jamie's jaw dropped.
What?
Jack was normal!
He wasn't all dark and creepy at all! Jamie stared as Jack stared intently inside the window.
"No.. no.." Jack muttered in distress as he watched past Jamie's belief start to fade. Then he glanced at his staff and smirked.
Jack carefully let himself inside Jamie's room and with a quick tap on the window, he quickly frosted it over. Jack slowly drew out a little Easter egg in the frost and Jamie could hear the past Jamie let out an exclamation of surprise.
Time traveler Jamie saw Jack draw something else in the frost and squinted - was that a bunny? He watched as it looked like the bunny came off the window and.. started hopping in the air?
He couldn't quite see what was going on clearly, but then he heard past Jamie say "Jack Frost?"
And Jack's surprised exclamation.
"You.. you said my name." Jack said, sounding so surprised. "Wait.. can you.. can you hear me? Can you see me?"
Time traveler Jamie couldn't hear past Jamie's response, so he could only assume the past Jamie was in shock. Time traveler Jamie frowned. Where were the Guardians? Weren't they supposed to show up? Everything was so different now!
"He sees me.. He sees me!" Jack cried out happily, and that made time traveler Jamie pause. This Jack didn't have his best friend, Lillian. Did this Jack have anyone? Come to think of it.. if Lillian had grown up, that meant that she was somewhere in the town right now, right? Had her belief been stamped out by the evil Pitch?
He wished he had thought of finding her earlier. How old would she be now?
Oh.. wait.. If she was a kid in 1968, she'd be all old. She wouldn't have any belief anyway. Only kids believed in the Guardians.
Jamie was jarred out of his thoughts as he saw a flash of red and then heard a spectacular crash.
"Ohhh, is official. My powers are kaput." he heard North's voice say from out front. Jamie quickly scrambled down from his tree and snuck around the house to go peek out at the Guardians.
He saw the Tooth Fairy try to fly and instead she just fell to the ground.
What were they saying? Something about how there wasn't enough belief left and how the Easter Bunny was the most affected.
Jamie saw the tiny Easter Bunny and covered his mouth. It was hard to look at the Easter Bunny like that and not laugh.
The Easter Bunny, however, was not jumping out of the sleigh. He was perched on the globe in North's sleigh and was frowning at it.
"This says there's a really powerful believer nearby," Bunny exclaimed as Jack snorted at Bunny's appearance.
Jack couldn't help but grin at him.
"Aww, you look so cute."
Time traveler Jamie saw that past Jamie was there too and standing right by Jack.
"Maybe is him?" North asked Bunny as he gestured at past Jamie.
"Nah," Bunny said with a shake of his head, ignoring Jack. "There's two of 'em. And somethin' blue.. Can't quite figure it out."
Bunny thumped the globe with a tiny paw.
"Maybe it's broken."
Time traveler Jamie let out a gasp that had Bunny's ears twitching. Time traveler Jamie pulled back fast as Bunny glanced in his direction with a frown.
Oh. My. Gosh.
Were they sensing him?
No wonder Father Time wanted him to leave so fast! Nobody had ever told him that the Guardians could sense kids' beliefs like that!
Before time traveler Jamie had time to dwell on that however, Jack was yelling at the Guardians to look after Jamie and then he flew off after Pitch.
Past Jamie started running with the Guardians with Bunny in the lead.
"This way, this way!"
Time traveler Jamie thought about chasing after them, but he was frozen as he had discreetly followed only to stop as he saw Jack facing off with Pitch on a roof.
That wasn't supposed to happen!
Where were all the explanations by the Easter Bunny about how Pitch was after him, and then Jack being all dark! They didn't even tell him that there were other spirits! And they didn't get his friends!
Time traveler Jamie's eyes widened in horror as Jack shot a bolt of pure winter magic at Pitch, only to have Pitch laugh at Jack and tell him that little trick didn't work anymore.
"Other way, other way!" Bunny cried in panic as he accidentally lead the past Jamie and Guardians into a dead end alley.
They didn't have time to get away though as Jack fell out of the air and bounced off a dumpster with a groan.
"He's stronger.." Jack said as he sat up. "I couldn't beat him."
The past Guardians all exchanged looks at that. What were they going to do? They still hadn't gotten their powers back and Jack was the strongest out of all of them right now.
No one seemed to notice as a time traveler Jamie snuck closer to the alley, the better to hear them all with. He had to find out what was going to happen. After all, if he failed in his mission.. This would be the new reality.
"How adorable!" he heard Pitch exclaim. "Would you like a scratch behind the ear?"
Time traveler Jamie heard the Easter Bunny reply angrily and then Pitch's claim that there was more than one way to snuff out a light.
Jamie stifled a gasp at that. Was Pitch.. Was he actually threatening to..?
"Are you afraid of the Boogey - " Pitch started, but was cut off.
Then Jamie heard laughter and the next thing he knew, he was diving behind some parked cars because past Jack, the Guardians and past Jamie were all zooming by on sleds.
"Let's get your friends!" Jack exclaimed.
Past Jamie stared after them in dismay, since there was no way he'd be able to keep up. What was going on?! Were the other Guardians still sensing him? Had he already changed this past? Man.. He'd barely even started his mission and he was already messing it up!
As his fear began to mount, he failed to notice the sound of footsteps nearby. He let out a huge gasp as he suddenly felt a hand fall on his shoulder.
"Well, well.. What do we have here?" Pitch's smooth voice said from behind.
Time traveler Jamie looked up in horror at the gray face of the Boogeyman.
Past Jack and the Guardians had gathered all of Jamie's friends and now stood in the street as a huge wave of Nightmares and black sand began to gather behind Pitch.
Only this time, Pitch wasn't alone.
Time traveler Jamie's eyes were filled with tears as he stared in despair at the astonished look on past Jamie's face and the shocked expressions of the Guardians and Jack.
He failed.
He ruined everything.
Now Pitch was going to get rid of him and he wouldn't even be able to save Lillian -
"Let him go!" Jack said harshly as he glared at Pitch.
Pitch had a firm grip on time traveler Jamie's arm. He grinned maliciously at Jack and the Guardians and especially past Jamie.
"Why would I want to do a thing like that?" he said with dark amusement. He looked from one Jamie to the other. "My, my.. It looks like we have a set of twins here, wouldn't you say?"
He looked particularly at Bunny as he said this and Bunny's eyes widened.
Bunny saw the necklaces that Jamie had failed to tuck under his shirt. He recognized those! What was this kid playing at?!
"What are ya doing?!" Bunny exclaimed as he stared at Jamie in horror. Was the kid trying to create a paradox?!
Time traveler Jamie's lip trembled as the Easter Bunny yelled at him. Could this day get any worse?
"Pitch," Jack glared at him.
"What do you think would happen if I were to borrow some of these, hm?" Pitch said as he reached for the necklaces that time traveler Jamie was wearing.
Time traveler Jamie tried to jerk away from Pitch, but Pitch merely tightened his grip, causing Jamie to cry out in pain and alarm.
"Stop it..!" Jamie shouted, his voice getting more hysterical. "Let me go!"
Pitch was about to grab the necklaces when he was suddenly pelted with a barrage of snowballs. Time traveler Jamie could see that past Jamie and his friends were firing snowball after snowball at Pitch, courtesy of Jack Frost.
Time traveler Jamie took the opportunity to kick Pitch in the knee, causing Pitch to let out some choice words and loosen his grip on Jamie.
Jamie wrenched his arm away from Pitch and staggered back from him. He moved even farther back as Pitch glared at him.
"You little brat!" Pitch yelled at him. "You think you can escape me, the King of Nightmares?!"
With that, Pitch pointed at time traveler Jamie and the huge wave of Nightmares aimed right for him.
Yeah.. Now seemed like a good time to leave.
Time traveler Jamie hurriedly fumbled for the silver hour glass and hastily began to count as he turned it backward as fast as he could. The huge wave of Nightmares was coming straight at him and Jamie continued counting as fast as he could.
"Ten, eleven, twelve.." he said out loud as he tried very hard to ignore the impending doom that was headed right for him.
"Jamie!" Jack cried out in alarm and dismay as the Nightmares approached him.
"Fourteen!" Jamie's trembling voice shouted. "Fifteen.. Six.. sixteen..!"
He closed his eyes tightly as the Nightmares reached him and tried his best to not stop turning the hour glass.
Instead of being hurt by the Nightmares though, the black sand suddenly turned into bright gold as Jamie's very strong belief was too much for even the King of Nightmares.
"Seventeen.." Jamie gasped as he staggered from the outpouring of sand that was hitting him.
Past Jamie's friends were bolstered by the fact that the black sand wasn't hurting other Jamie, and soon all the kids were chasing after Nightmares.
North grinned as suddenly he was able to lift his swords and Tooth was happy that she could fly again.
Bunny, unfortunately, was being chased by a few Nightmares while he was still a Pooka kit and he was not happy about it. He glanced over at the other Jamie while he was running and saw Tooth swoop in to move him out of the way of the black sand that was still trying to get to him.
"Wait!" Bunny cried out. "Don't touch 'im!"
It was too late, however, as Tooth had reached the time traveler Jamie and lifted him up into her arms as she hastily flew with him off to the side of the road and away from the big fight.
"Whoa!" Jamie cried out as he fumbled with the silver hour glass in his hands. It turned over a few more times before he dropped it. "No..!"
He looked up at the Tooth fairy in dismay as the silver hour glass began to glow.
"You messed me up..!" he cried out as he struggled in her arms.
"Wait, what do you mean?!" she said anxiously as she hastily let Jamie down before he fell down.
Time traveler Jamie didn't respond as he moved even further away from her. He looked completely panicked and seemed to be having a hard time breathing.
"I won't.. I won't be able to.." he said to himself as he was freaking out.
Bunny, still quite small, had managed to ditch the Nightmares and raced over to time traveler Jamie.
"Don't panic!" Bunny called out to time traveler Jamie. "Remember how many turns ya did! You can fix it!"
"I don't know..!" Jamie wailed as the time magic began to envelop him in silvery swirls of sparkly magic. "I won't be able to save her..! You won't.. you won't ever know..!"
"Calm down and count 'em out ya gumby!" Bunny said in irritation. "Count 'em when ya get there! Then turn it either forward or backward, dependin' on how much you were over or under by!"
The Guardians, Jack Frost and the Burgess kids all stared at the tortured look on time traveler Jamie's face as he vanished from their sight.
"What. Was. That!" Past Jamie exclaimed as he stared at the spot where his doppelganger had been.
"That," Bunny said in frustration as he wiped a paw down his face. "Is what happens when ya mess with time. Nothin' good ever comes of it."
Jamie's eyes practically fell out of his head at that.
"Am I going to time travel?!" he squeaked. "M-me?!"
Bunny shook his head.
"Dunno," he said. "That kid's already messed things up. He's changed things and that's never a good thing. Especially seein' yerself. If you didn't already have such a strong belief, it coulda driven you crazy."
As Jamie was talking with Bunny, nobody noticed Pitch Black sneaking up behind Jack Frost, his black scythe raised, poised to strike.
Author's Note: Sorry this chapter is shorter than more recent ones, but I couldn't resist stopping there. It seemed like a good place to quit. I'm evil, I know. And no, I didn't forget about Bunny. He still has yet to change back. This whole chapter totally went off on its own here. I was only going to skim through some events and Jamie was merely going to be an observer. Yeah, like that was going to happen.
Next chapter we'll see if past Jack survives or not (I'm not that evil, don't worry.. I won't leave you hanging, even if it technically doesn't matter what happens as long as Jamie successfully changes the past anyway) and then we'll see more of Jamie's time traveling adventures. I hope I did a good job on referring to the two Jamie's so it wasn't too confusing.
Let me know what you guys think so far!
