Hiding behind a pillar at the very top floor of the workshop, Jack peeked out from his hiding spot and looked down at the place.
The workshop had several floors and looked a lot bigger from inside. The center of the building was hollow, making space for an extra large globe model. The globe was spinning slowly on the spot and had lots of different colors on it. Jack swore that there won't be another globe model more 'Santa-like' than this one.
But what surprised him more than the interior design of the place was the fact that the yetis were making the toys. He was told to belief that the elves made the toys all his life!
"Well, that's an eye opener." Jack muttered with a grin as he continued to scan the place.
There were countless yetis walking around, busy with toy making and whatnot. The elves ran around in their ridiculous costumes, carrying plates of cookies with them. Oh, so now the elves were waiters? Jack watched as countless toys were tested at the same time. Toy trains and cars were running freely on the floors and all sort of flying toys roamed in the air; Jack had to duck a flying duck as it swooped over his head.
"Alright, the elves aren't the only ones that need a driving license." Feeling his grin grow, he looked down again.
Of all the yetis, however, two particular ones stood out. One looked extremely pissed … or depressed… he can't quite tell from the large amount of facial hair. But that yeti was definitely not happy as he painted a blue toy robot red using his small paint brush, mumbling or possibly swearing something at the same time. Jack was still wondering why the yeti was unhappy when he saw the huge stack of blue toy robots beside the yeti.
"Ohhhh. Santa's being picky huh?" Wow, now he actually felt sorry for the poor guy.
The other yeti who caught his eye was none other than Phil, or the yeti who always managed to lift him up from the hoodie as if he was some months old dirty laundry and toss him out of the place. Well Phil wasn't that bad. At least the guy would make sure that Jack land in soft snow. This other yeti tossed him out of the window and got him stuck on a dead tree's branches for half a day.
Deciding to 'thank' Phil for always tossing him out without fail, Jack tightened his hold on his staff and mentally counted to three. By three, he hopped out from his hiding place and pointed his staff downwards. Almost immediately, a track of clear ice appeared out of nowhere, leading downwards as Jack glided along the track, shouting 'woohoo' and attracting attention.
Make a flashy entrance. Check.
The track led him right to Phil, who turned around with a shocked expression. Realizing that Jack's most probably crashing into him, he quickly dropped his notepad and ducked down, just in time to see Jack glide back up and landed on the floor above him.
Element of surprise. Check.
"Hey Phil! How are you?" Jack laughed as he waved back at Phil, who was waving his hairy fist while shouting at him in some weird language. Jack didn't need to think twice before deciding that Phil was probably swearing at him in yeti.
"Nice to see you too!" He couldn't stop laughing at the reaction he received. Oh gosh, he should have taped Phil's expression just now. Way too epic to forget, that's for sure.
"Uh-oh." Before Jack could finish laughing, a crowd of elves and yetis were already charging at him from several directions. Hopping back on his foot, he flung himself over the floor's railing and with his staff, started his ice surfing in the air.
"Can't fly now, can you?" He joked and pointed his staff at the ground where the group was running towards. The ground was immediately covered in a thin and very slippery layer of ice. "Better know how to ice skate then!"
The yetis and elves leading the group immediately came to an emergency halt, heaving a sigh of relief when they managed to stop just before the ice patch. Though the ones at the back weren't about to stop in time… As the half at the back crashed into the front half, the whole group ended up rolling onto the huge patch of ice.
Dramatic fall. Check.
Jack was laughing so hard he was rolling around on his mid-air ice track as he watched the group below struggle to gain a stand. The yetis didn't have much problems, but the elves. Goddammit it was already hard enough normally, but with the pointy shoes that came with the costume, they could barely stand.
Seeing that the yetis couldn't move much with the randomly scattered elves everywhere, Jack took it that his job here was done and hopped off to explore the place. Hey, he barely managed to get past the yetis for the past 300 years, it's only normal for him to have a good look.
As he skidded over to what seemed like the coziest corner of the workshop, Jack fixed his eyes on a piece of paper stuck to the top of the fire place. Hopping over to it, he gave the paper a closer look. The paper had two columns printed on it. One column consisted of a vertical row of small boxes and the other was filled with lines of things to do.
Well look at that, Santa's to do list!
Seeing that Christmas was just a few days away, most of the boxes were ticked. Somewhat interested in what North's always doing in preparation for Christmas, Jack leaned closer and started reading the unchecked boxes.
"Feed the reindeers, fill the present bag, re-check good and naughty list, find Jack…?" Spotting his name on the list, the white haired teen's eyes widened. "Find me? Why would they find me?"
Quickly returning to the list, he read on. "Make Jack guardian, defeat Pitch… Me? A guardian? What about Pitch? Why do they- why must I join in defeating him?"
A guardian? No one told him anything about being a guardian! In fact, people haven't been telling him a lot of things lately. Jack stood rooted to the spot as he sorted things out in his confused mind.
If he was supposed to be the guardian, if he was supposed to help defeat Pitch, then why did Pitch come to him first? Why didn't he ever hear from any other guardians? It didn't make sense! Unless…
"Pitch." Jack muttered as he started pacing back and forth, thinking. "It must be him! He's not telling me anything and all I've been doing is what he's telling me to do." And as he thought of it, he realized that he had forgotten about the very reason he joined Pitch.
Just how exactly was Pitch going to make people, children out there, believe in them again?
"You seem to have questions."
A cold and calm voice sounded behind Jack, the latter spun around almost immediately, alert.
Pitch pursed his lips upon Jack's reaction; looked like the cat was out of the bag. Nonetheless, a careless mistake from his part.
"Yes, lots of them." Jack replied, sounding both mad and confused.
"Well, go ahead. Questions are meant to be asked." Pitched nodded, signaling for Jack to go on.
"Alright, why didn't you tell me that I'm supposed to be a guardian."
"You didn't ask me."
"But-"
"Before you ask me more questions, I suppose it's only fair for me to have some explanations done." Pitched lifted a hand as he cut into Jack's words. The latter frowned, but stayed quiet.
"It is in fact true that you are being chosen to be the next guardian, not by the guardians, but by the Man of the moon. But that's not the point. Jack, my boy, ask yourself, suppose the guardians really did come to you, do you want to be a guardian?" Pitch asked, moving to stand behind Jack as he placed a hand on his shoulder.
Jack didn't know how to answer this; he had never thought of being a guardian. Sure he had never really thought much about anything, but being a guardian is something of a different level of importance.
"Well?"
"I… I don't know."
"Hmm." Pitched let out a dry laugh. "Then take it as an advice from me, there's nothing fun about being a guardian. You are being tied down with a responsibility, and there's absolutely no fun in that, is there?"
"But you get believed in."
"Ahh, the only pathetic bit of benefit in a pile of inconvenience. Honestly Jack, if you are really meant to be a guardian, then why now? It's been 300 hundred years since you're here."
"Without a purpose."
"We all have a purpose. It's just a matter of time. Being a guardian however, is not your purpose. From the looks of it, I can safely conclude that the others think the same. Why else wouldn't they have showed up by now?"
"When you put it that way, I guess you're right."
"Of course I am. Aren't I always?"
"If you are, tell me. What do you have in mind to have us being believed in?"
"Ah, always aiming for bull's eye, I see." Pitched smiled coldly. "That's exactly why I'm here. Come; let me show you what I have in plan." He invited as he walked at the front.
"Alright, but no tricks this time." Casually pointing his staff at Pitch, Jack decided that Pitch meant no harm and followed suit.
"Oh, I wouldn't possibly dare to play tricks on the spirit of mischief himself, would I?" Pitch laughed, a little more friendly this time.
"Good, at least you know that." Jack smiled back, "Where are we going this time?"
"To town, I have to recall a certain boy saying that he wanted to mess with the guardians." Of course, he's planning something way beyond just messing around.
Something called a complete nightmare.
Hey guys, this is the first A/N in 4 chapters and I just want to give all of you a huge thanks for reading this story. I'm honestly not a good writer and this is supposed to be a oneshot. But your support made it a long story, so be proud. You are awesome. yes, you, the one reading this right now. Stay that way. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.