I walked back into the main street to find the Guardian's surrounding Pitch. By this point the adrenaline had faded, and I could feel how tired my body was. It wasn't bad, I wasn't going to collapse, but I wasn't going to be fighting soon.
I leaned back against the wall, not paying attention to the Guardians. My eyes found the close to full moon and I relaxed, now able to focus my full attention to the Lupine and ice tiger fight.
My ice tiger wasn't in great shape, a leg and half its jaw was missing. I re-formed it and it continued battling Lupine, who didn't really stand a chance.
The pair ran into the same road we were all on. Lupine skidded to a halt when he saw that the Guardians had Pitch surrounded, then turned in fear as my ice tiger growled.
He glared in my direction and snarled.
"One day, I will destroy you."
"Good luck with that." I wasn't in the mood for villain declarations.
Lupine wasn't done.
"You and your little pigs couldn't hope to take me on, you'll need an army!"
"I'd hate to cut down your ego, but I have to correct you. We have always been an army. We just haven't had to go to war in a while. Now, are you done?"
Lupine growled at me, then glanced at the Guardians. He looked back at my ice tiger and snarled one last time.
From there he seemed to melt into the shadows and disappeared.
I looked over at my ice tiger and let it quickly melt. I'd grown kinda fond of it; I didn't want it to suffer. Even though it was made of ice, so it didn't feel pain.
I waited until the Guardians were done. I wasn't paying much attention to what was going on, other than the bright glow of Dreamsand. But when they were done I caught North giving me a concerned look.
"What?" I asked.
"You be careful. That tiger, that's a dangerous path for your power. It could gain its own mind if not careful." He said, sheathing both his swords
"And since when were you an expert on my kind of power?"
"I know a lot about magic Jackie, that's a dangerous road to go down."
"Okay okay, I get the point." I said, raising my hands into the air.
"Someone's a bit crabby today." Commented Jack.
I sighed and took off my helmet to get some proper air.
"I've been hanging around the Heads for the past three days, and they annoy me." I said, tucking my helmet under my arm. I felt a small stab of pain in my side, reminding me that I was actually injured.
"That would explain it."
"They don't annoy me all the time, Alexander and Alfred are alright, and Jason is sometimes. They can just be so uptight, and afraid to get into involved today because if they get killed they'll leave a power vacuum." I said, pressing my fingers against the cut and covering it with a layer of frost.
I sighed again and ruffled my hair, "so yeah, they can really annoy me."
"Okay, kid, there's something I've been wondering." Said Bunnymund, tapping his boomerang against the back of his shoulder, then pointing it at me as he spoke. "How did you get here? And what were you even doing?"
"I used the last snow globe to find the rest of HOG and it dumped me in the middle of a group of Pitch Descendants, so it was a bit of mad fight. I started freeing some of them and using ice tigers. Next thing I know I'm grabbed from behind and, I think pulled away via shadow travel. Which if you don't know can make you really travel sick, so I appear out here, not really knowing what the heck just happened and about to lose my breakfast. I get thrown to the side by a furball and Samuel comes out of nowhere and tries to throttle me."
"You took a hit from Lupine. Again." Said Toothiana, looking concerned. Looking down at my armour I saw that it bore no sign of the impact.
"Well, the new armour's holding up well. You probably saw the state of the old armour after it got backhanded by Lupine."
"You mentioned an army." Said North, clearly opening up the question.
"According to Nigel that's the original purpose of the Human Order of Guardians, we just
haven't done it since the dark ages." I explained. "The last time we did it was four years ago, and most of us weren't exactly battle ready. I personally sat out most of it, since I wasn't 18."
At that moment the ground next to me cracked and opened. Out hopped Alexander, who looked around for a bit before landing his gaze on me.
"Ah, Davies! We were wondering what happened to you."
"Well the answer to that is hanging up by ice just down that alleyway if you want to look Alexander." I said, pointing down said alley.
"And don't expect me to salute." I added.
He chuckled, "I think I'll trust you judgment, Davies. You have a tendency for dealing with these matters."
I felt my face frown. "I haven't done anything to him, other than got him a bit bruised in the struggle. I think you'll find that he's unfrozen."
"I'm sorry, I couldn't help but assume. We'll leave him for the authorities to handle."
As much as I liked Alexander, it was suddenly very tempting to punch him.
"Anyway, I've brought some people that you'd probably like to see."
Out of the Tunnel popped, Nigel, Billy, Tina and Sally. My Branch.
A fortnight's worth of worry was lifted from my shoulders and I felt myself relax properly. They were okay, they were alive.
"Guys..."
Billy bounded up towards me. "It's good to see you're alright kiddo." He grinned.
"I'm nineteen; don't you think I'm a little old for the nickname 'kiddo'?"
"Nope. Once kiddo, always kiddo." He replied, ruffling my hair. I was too relieved to see him to try and wave his hand away.
Billy stepped back slightly, got a good look up and down and clapped a hand to my shoulder.
"Look at you in that armour. Proper little badass."
"Oh stop teasing Jackie." I heard Tina say. "She's probably been worried sick without you making jokes about it."
"What are you going to do about it Pixie?" taunted Billy, but even I could tell his heart wasn't really in the mood to be arguing with Tina.
She also seemed to not be in the mood, as she let the 'Pixie' comment go, for now.
I felt my throat burn as the others walked up and I had to try to not burst into relieved tears.
"I was so worried about you guys." I admitted, choked up.
Sally was the first to pull me into a hug, which ended up in a group hug.
"We were also worried, when we couldn't find you down there, we assumed the worst." Said Nigel.
"You have no idea how much of a relief to see you storming in like that." Said Tina, "but we lost you again in the crowd."
"Yeah, what took you so long this time?" joked Billy.
"I'm sorry that I couldn't pull the ability to shadow travel out of my behind."
I pulled out of the hug and looked at my Branch and at the Guardians, who Alexander was now bowing to.
"Anyway, guys, these are the Guardians, Guardians, that's Alexander, Head of the Descendants of Bunnymund. This is the Burgess Branch." I gestured to my Branch.
"Nigel Smith, Billy Osbourne, Tina Hawkins and Sally Jeffries." I said, pointing to each member.
My Branch reacted surprisingly calmly, well, in Billy's case that still meant rocking back and forth on his heels. Tina was managing to keep calm, but I knew her well enough to know that she was only just holding it back. Although I wasn't sure that I wanted to know what 'it' was.
"I guess its story time then." I said after a few awkward seconds.
I began to explain what happened with me, getting the call from Jason, finding the cavern empty, not being able to contact them. I went straight through until the fight I had just finished, skipping over the details, such as the flamethrowers, I didn't want to remember them.
Once I was done, Nigel, the oldest of the Branch, looked very concerned.
"Lupine, the Big Bad Wolf. This is not good."
"You don't say." I replied.
"Can you please tone down the sarcasm, I know you haven't had the easiest time, but there's no need for that."
I held up my hands in mock surrender. "Okay, I'm sorry."
I could hear a soft whirring as Toothiana flew over.
"Hey, I hate to interrupt, but one, this probably isn't the best place to discuss this kind of thing, and two. Jackie took on Lupine and lived, twice. Doesn't that warrant some congratulations?"
"Jackie has a habit of surviving the impossible." Replied Tina, who was looking at Toothiana in wonder.
"You make it sound so mundane!" I protested, "Plus, I haven't done anything death defying in four years!"
Nigel visibly winced, "and I think we should avoid more incidents like that."
"I'm sorry that I reacted in a reasonable manner to the death of my friend."
"You froze two hundred people."
I held up and finger and opened my mouth to make come back, then closed it when I realised that I didn't have one.
"Alright, you got me there."
"Whoa whoa whoa, hold on a second." Said Bunnymund walking over, "You froze two hundred people? In one big go?"
"Yeeeah, it wasn't planned if that's what you're worried about."
"That's worse; that means you haven't got under control!"
"I didn't have it properly under control, but it was four years ago, after some practice, and some help from Jack here." I nudged the Spirit of Winter, suddenly noticing that I was the same height as him now. "And I got it together."
"How do you know? From the sounds if it you went crazy because your friend died!"
"My friend was executed, I think I had every right to lose control right then."
Bunnymund made to reply, but something made him stop in his tracks.