Hey, peeps! Sorry this took a while to write. First my computer died, then my tablet died, so now I have to either get to a library or steal my dad's computer. Eh heh... fun stuff, fun stuff. I'll try to update more often though if I can. ;) Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter.

Disclaimer: Don't own nuttin'.

I was worthless without my staff. That was no secret, and I'm pretty sure everybody knew it. My freezing powers or ability to imbue others with the spirit of fun hadn't come into play yet, and I wasn't sure if they ever would. I was only useful for my magic, and without my ability to fly, I was afraid I wasn't even useful for that.

"Well, I guess we'd better just get going," said Brent. "If the pattern holds up as it has been, we'll be punished if we stay in one place for too long. I guess we're too boring for that guy when we're not moving." None of us disagreed with his conclusion. It did seem to be the case.

The underground cavern ahead of us seemed to be quite dark, and the only light source as far as I could see was the light water in the fountain. Amanda and Brent had played in it, and so it had soaked into their clothes. They now glowed with it, enough to light up their footsteps. That was good for them, but it didn't really help me much.

While Brent had dabbed some of the light water on me to wake me up, as soon as it froze, it began to crumble off. That would never work for me.

I wasn't completely helpless, however, as I thrust my hands into the fountain and began to freeze some of the light water into the shape of a ball so I could carry it. I lifted the finished product triumphantly out of the fountain and balanced it in my hand, smirking proudly as I did so. It glowed its ethereal glow in the same way that Brent's and Amanda's skin now glowed, enough to light my footsteps. I wouldn't be completely dependent on them.

As soon as I was ready, we began to walk down a dark tunnel, me holding my frozen orb over my head in order to give everyone a little more light. My light may not have been as convenient as theirs, but at least it was easier to control.

"So, something strange happened to me while I was knocked out," I said, which immediately garnered the other two's attention. "I was still conscious of everything around me, but I was standing outside of my own body like I was dead. And the one who trapped us here spoke to me."

"What did he say?" said Brent.

My eyebrows knitted together, but the memories from my out-of-body experience were already getting fuzzy. It was a good thing I was talking about the experience now, because I could forget it soon. "Not much," I said. "He was mostly heckling me. I guess that's not too surprising."

Brent rolled his eyes. "Not surprising at all, coming from that creep."

I felt a pang of guilt, though I didn't know why it was there, so I brushed it off. "He called himself Chaos," I said.

"Someone thinks he's all high and mighty with a name like that," said Brent.

"Maybe…" I said, uncomfortable with the situation, but I didn't know why.

For the most part, there was really nothing to see in our underground tunnel. A rock here and a bulge there. Fascinating material for spelunkers I supposed, but none of us seemed the types who would normally be exploring through caves like this, and for the most part, we were just bored and scared. Which I suppose was the one fascinating thing about the situation, feeling both of those emotions at once.

However, the boringness of the situation had to come to an end at some point. Even a normal cave would have either ended or opened up into a cavern, but there was nothing normal about this cave or anything else in this land of Chaos. We just couldn't tell what was unusual about it yet, but our guards were constantly up, just in case.

When we saw the glow in the distance, we simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief at having the boredom end, and grew apprehensive at what we would be experiencing next. Some of the things we had already experienced had been hell. Would this be one of those things too, or would it just be weird? I was okay with ordinary weirdness. I lived it every day.

Upon coming close to the glow, I let out a chuckle at the unexpected sight. "Are we expected to dance?" I said. Brent shrugged, but he had raised an eyebrow at the sight, and I could tell he was thinking the same thing.

Stretched out before us lay a floor full of tiles all of a different color, neon light backlighting each of them, casting an unearthly glow on the cave walls. Now if only a disco ball were to drop down from somewhere, the illusion would be complete. I was tempted to yell at Chaos for forgetting something, but then seeing the look on Brent's face, I held my tongue. No need to make the guy more upset than he probably already was.

Each tile was about as big as Amanda, which was a bit larger of a scale than a normal dance floor, but that didn't surprise me much. Chaos had to do something different than the norm, right? I shrugged and sauntered forward, all prepared for lights and music to spring up out of nowhere as soon as I stepped out onto the floor, when just as I tried to step on the first tile, the tile uprooted itself and rushed up to block my way. I smacked into it and then fell down onto my back. That certainly hadn't been what I'd expected. I rubbed my nose while I cursed Chaos under my breath.

Brent raised an eyebrow at the observation of my little experience, and he cautiously approached the board, walking slower than I had done so as to observe what would happen without getting hit. Sure enough, as soon as he was about to step on the first tile, it flew up and blocked his path. Since he had moved slower, he was able to pull back without getting hit. Darn him for making me look so stupid.

"Amanda," said Brent, "See if you can step onto the board, but go slowly." She nodded and slowly walked up to the board, but the tile flew up in her face too. It seemed we were stuck.

"How are we supposed to get around this thing?" I growled and pulled myself to my feet. This wasn't fun anymore. This was just annoying.

Brent turned toward me and looked as though he was trying to process something. "Hmm…" he said, "Can you fly at all, Jack?"

I shook my head. "Not without my staff."

Brent sighed and rolled his eyes. "Which I'm sure is what Mr. Chaos was counting on." He turned back to face me. "How high can you jump?"

"Um…" I looked down at my feet and chuckled awkwardly, not really knowing the answer to that myself. I hadn't tried to jump without my staff since becoming Jack Frost, as the question had never come up. But I knew that my running speed was faster than any mortal could run, and I didn't use magic for that. I was just built better. Maybe jumping worked the same way. "I'll find out," I said.

I ran up to the board again, and just before I stepped onto it, I jumped upward instead of trying to take a step forward, which again launched the tile up after me. I indeed could jump much higher than the average mortal could jump, even without magic, but the tile was fully prepared for this, and it launched itself up to meet me at my level. Great. It seemed that even if I had been able to fly at the moment, it wouldn't have done a lick of good.

"Hmmm…" said Brent after seeing this, and he stroked his chin in thought. "If we can't merely walk over it, and you can't fly or jump over it, then we must be expected to think our way through it. This must be a gigantic puzzle."

I raised my eyebrows at this, that thought not quite registering in my head. "A puzzle?"

"Yes," said Brent. "I think we're supposed to target certain tiles in certain ways, or at certain times. I'm not exactly sure of the pattern yet, but I think I can work it out if given time."

This was the first time that Chaos had pulled a feat of logic out of his bag of tricks, and I was suddenly so grateful to have Brent on my team. We weren't in any immediate danger as far as I knew, but the last thing I wanted was to be stuck underground forever, being hemmed in by a bunch of self-launching, glowy tiles. I raised my hands in surrender and stepped back from the floor. "Please, take all the time you need. Work your magic."

Brent seemed amused at my choice of wording, and he nodded as he stepped up to the floor and began studying the pattern to the best of his ability, then he walked up to each and every tile he could reach to see if all of them reacted in the same way. As it turned out, one tile, a blue one, did not leap up when he approached it. It seemed he was on the right track.

He stepped onto the blue tile and then turned toward the adjacent tile on his right, only to have that one leap up at him like all the others had. He turned to face the next tile, only to have the same thing happen. In fact, none of the tiles he was next to would allow him passage off of it, which seemed to make a mockery of his puzzle theory. Maybe this was only an act of Chaos without any rhyme or reason to it.

"Jack, come here," said Brent. I shook my head to snap myself out of my daze, and then I walked over toward him to see what he wanted. Brent stepped off the blue tile, and then he commanded me to step onto the blue tile instead. I couldn't see what good that would do, but what harm would it do? I shrugged and stepped onto it.

"Good," he said, "Now don't step off of that tile until I tell you to, okay?"

I smiled nervously at the way he'd worded that, but I agreed.

Brent then walked away and rechecked all the tiles he had checked before, trying to find a loophole in one of them. This time, he found that one more tile refused to jump up and block him. A pink one this time. It seemed that so long as I stood on this tile, that other tile would stay down too. Interesting. Maybe his puzzle theory was correct.

"Amanda." He gestured for her to come to him, and he pointed to the tile and ordered her to stand on it like I was doing and to stay put until he said otherwise. Since I was already following Brent's orders, she decided that it was worth listening to him on this issue, even though I could tell that she wished I was doing something fun with her instead. Fun would just have to come later.

Finally, Brent ran around the exposed tiles again and found a purple tile that stayed down for him, and all three of us were finally on the floor. Phew! But there was still a long way to go, and it seemed like it was going to be a large effort for us to get all the way across if we were going to have to figure out each and every tile we could step on by trial and error.

Brent held up his index finger to get our attention before doing anything else. "Okay, I have several theories as to what kind of puzzle we're looking at here, but I need to do a few more experiments to be sure of the pattern." He pointed to me. "Jack, you were the first tile to lie flat, so I want you to see if one of your adjacent tiles will let you move onto it."

"Okay," I said, and I turned toward the nearest tile, which flew up in my face as the tiles before. Then I turned to the next tile, with the same results. I tried each one around me without any luck.

"Alright," said Brent, "So we are not going in order of persons." He turned to face Amanda. "You have a blue tile in front of you, which was the first color we were able to get to let us on. See if that one stays down for you." She tried approaching that tile, but it flew up in her face. It seemed the pattern wasn't one of color order either.

"Hmmm…" Brent rubbed his chin as he stared out at the tiles before him, trying to sort out the pattern. "We started with blue on the left, then pink on the right, and then purple in the middle. Blue plus pink makes purple." He looked back up at where Amanda and I were from him, respectively. "Jack is two squares away from me, and Amanda is three. Jack's color may have a stronger affect on my next move than Amanda's color does because of the proximity."

I didn't entirely know what he had just said, but it sounded like brilliance, whatever it was.

"What does that mean?" I shouted over to him.

He smirked back at me, the first time I'd seen him do so since we'd come here. "It means it's time for me to shine." Then without any further warning, he took a flying leap off of his purple square and he landed on another one, which didn't fly up at him. A green tile.

My mind was blown that he had figured out where to go next without trying each and every tile before making a decision on where to go. And he had been absolutely right. "How did you do that?" I said. Now this, this was magic. The stuff I did was just parlor tricks.

He threw his arms out to his sides in what was perhaps an overly confident gesture, but I laughed. At least he was finally starting to have fun. "Elementary, my dear Jackson." This only made me laugh again as he continued to explain. "My color was the merging of your color plus Amanda's, indicating an implied movement toward me. Therefore, I only had to notice that your color would have a stronger effect on my next move than Amanda's, which led me to green. It is composed of your color plus another color, but Amanda's color has been cast aside for now."

Yep, I was right. Brilliance. I had no words for this, so I just raised my hands and silently applauded. I wished I was smart enough to figure out something like this. Brent smiled and bowed proudly at me and Amanda, and I suspected that this was just a parlor trick to him. He could do much more complicated puzzles than this, but it was the first test Chaos had given him.

"Okay!" said Brent, and he turned and pointed to Amanda. "You have a yellow tile catty-corner to you. Step on that one now, please."

"Kay!" said Amanda, and she stepped onto the yellow tile without a fuss, the tile staying down according to Brent's bidding. This guy was good. Now I hoped that I would be able to move soon. I really wanted to get across this board as quickly as possible.

Brent turned back to face me, looked at my situation, and then frowned. I supposed the problem was largely due to the fact that he couldn't just tell me to step on another blue tile so that his green one made sense since I had no blue tiles near me. He turned around to look at what tiles were ahead of him and looked back and forth between his tile area and mine several times. Then he cleared his throat and turned back to me. "Jack, I want you to step onto the red tile."

"Red?!" I said. "Seriously? How did you ever reach that conclusion? No one is standing on anything remotely red."

"Jack, trust me. You're the one with the freaky magic, not the logic. Let me solve the puzzle." I huffed, not really wanting to step onto a tile only to get smacked, but I knew he was right. He was really the only one with the knowledge to solve a puzzle like this, and like it or not, whether he was wrong or right about his guess, I was just going to have to trust him. So, after taking a breath and holding it, I headed toward the red tile, and then stepped on it.

It didn't move. I let my breath out. Brent knew what he was doing. I didn't know how, but he really knew what he was doing. "Sorry, you were right," I said sheepishly. Brent either didn't notice or didn't care, as he turned around and then stepped onto a new tile of his own. And orange one. I smacked my face as the realization of the logic sunk in. Orange was yellow plus red. Somehow he'd figured out that he was going to have to step onto an orange tile. No wonder I had to change colors.

We continued in this way with turn after turn, Brent calling out a tile for one of us to step on and us obeying him, and then him stepping on a tile for himself, then doing it all over again. When we finally had the last person step off of the last tile (it was me), we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. Well, except for Amanda. She was jumping up and down, begging to go play on the pretty floor again. I laughed in amusement and shook my head. There was no way I was going back there and getting myself stuck.

Our next surprise occurred when we had walked away from the dance floor thing for a few minutes and found that light shone down on us from somewhere above, and we all looked up and saw a hole in the ceiling, which led outside. It would work great for getting us out of here, if only I had my…

Suddenly a familiar feeling materialized in my hand, and I looked down and gasped. My staff was back for seemingly no reason. I couldn't fathom why Chaos had willingly given it back when he'd had every opportunity to keep it from me and just torture me with my inability to fly, but for the time being, I was grateful.

"Well, since I apparently can fly again," I held my staff up in front of Brent, who gasped at the sight as well, "I'm going to fly up and check out that hole to see where we would end up." Brent nodded, and I launched myself up into the air, amazed at how grateful I was to be flying again, even though I had only been out of commission for a few hours.

My head popped up through the hole, and my eyes widened at the sudden change in scenery. It wasn't the lush hills that we had encountered when we first entered this labyrinth, nor was it the weird desert with the two alien suns. This was a lush jungle with so many plants that the sun didn't shine directly anywhere without being filtered through countless leaves before hitting the person's skin. Every few feet, there was a trickle of a waterfall cascading down from some rock wall. Birds flew by and animals cackled. I'd never seen a jungle in this much detail before, being that I couldn't stand the heat, but my heart skipped a beat at the sight of this place. It was beautiful beyond words.

I was briefly afraid of the temperature I would have to face, when I realized that my head wasn't getting overheated from peeking out into this new world. Just to make sure, I raised my hand to fully expose it to the air outside the underground cave. It didn't get overheated either. I guessed that Chaos had tweaked the temperature of this jungle so I wouldn't suffer. The next challenge he had for us must not involve me passing out. At least, not from heat exhaustion.

I flew back down and landed before the other two. "It's a jungle out there," I said. Then, realizing I had just made it sound like there was complete and utter chaos running around outside, I corrected myself. "No, I mean, really. It's a jungle. The next world is a weird jungle thing."

"We get to be tigers!" said Amanda, and she proceeded to start growling and stalking around like a tiger.

Brent raised an eyebrow. "But won't you overheat again? I don't know if Chaos will let us come back here if that happens."

"I'll be fine," I said. "For some reason, it's not very hot out there."

Brent rolled his eyes, not really liking the illogic of that statement, but he took it in stride. I guessed that a mild-temperatured jungle was a lot less to deal with than a lot of the other things he had recently dealt with. "Alright," he said. "Get us up there, fly boy."

I snapped my face toward him. "What?!" Brent just laughed, and so I rolled my eyes and grabbed his arm. "Just for that, you're going first." I jumped into the air, dragging a slightly unwilling Brent behind me, and I shoved him up through the hole, then went back down and grabbed Amanda the baby tiger and flew back up with her.

Amanda squealed with joy as soon as we emerged into the jungle, and I let go of her so she could run around and be happy. That was the most important thing right then, to stay happy. The whole ordeal was going to be hard enough without us losing our spirits too. Amanda was setting a good example for us right then.

"Come on, let's play tigers!" Amanda said, running up and grabbing my arm as she jumped up and down. "Tigers! Tigers! Tigers!"

I snorted and then started laughing. She was just too adorable for me to resist, and I ruffled her hair before I stood up. "You'd better run, because Daddy Tiger is gonna eat you!" She screamed and ran away from me as I chased her and roared. She ducked behind trees and rocks as she tried to get away from Jack the fearsome tiger, but I always found her too quickly for her liking, and she always ran away squealing with laughter.

Brent was having none of it and seemed to think we were just being stupid until Amanda ran up to him and said, "Save me, Mommy!"

"Mommy?!"

I clutched my stomach as I tried to control myself through my laughter, but soon found myself failing and I fell over as laughter took over my body. "Yes, Mommy," I said between spurts of laughter, "Save her from the big, evil, daddy tiger!"

Brent stood up then, and I thought he was going to storm away like he had the last time Amanda and I tried to drag him into having fun. But instead of doing that, he grabbed a large leaf, then walked over to me and shoved it in my face, which effectively covered most of my body. "There, Amanda. You're safe from Jack now."

I flailed and kicked the leaf off of myself, then sat up and pointed decisively at Brent, just daring him to try a stunt like that again, though no words came forth. He looked at my reaction, smirked, and then picked Amanda up and shoved her at me. "You'd better not try anything, Jack. I've got a tiger, and I know how to use it."

"Rawr!" Amanda waved her paw hands, trying to reach me, and I found myself falling victim to laughter again.

"Rawr!" I answered back, and I got to my feet and raised my hands over my head. "I'm gonna get you now!"

As I chased those two over the terrain, I felt the dark cloud from earlier in the day lift from my spirit. It really was possible to find joy in any situation. One sometimes just had to look for it, and somehow these two were providing me with all the joy I needed to stay alive through this dire situation.

I vowed right then and there that even after we got out of here, I would make a special effort to take care of them both for the rest of their lives. Even if they never believed in me, even if they couldn't see me, they would always have Jack Frost looking out for them. It was the very least I could do.

Hope you enjoyed that. Anyway, thank you to everyone who has been reading this story. Leave me some reviews if you're so inclined, and I'll update as soon as I can! (By the way, I know where I'm going with this story now, and I'm pretty excited about it. But feel free to suggest chaotic things for them to experience in the meantime. I haven't decided all of those yet.)

See you next time!