Chapter Two
"Elliot was last seen passing through Death Valley," Mother Nature said, striding back over to her reindeer. She mounted and looked down at the Guardians and her General. "We must hurry, Jack can't survive in such hot conditions for long."
The Guardians scrambled up onto their own reindeer and Sunny pulled herself up behind Mother Nature.
"Wind," she called, and the wind swirled as if in answer. "Tell Ash and Lila that Jack is in Death Valley." The wind swirled again, stronger this time, and then settled down after a while. "Let's go, Mother."
Mother Nature dug her foot into the reindeer's side and it took off at a sprint, eventually soaring into the air with the other four hot on its tail. Nothing was said as North threw a snowglobe into the air, nor as they passed through the swirling vortex into the valley. But when they emerged from the portal and were met with nothing but desert and heat, a few curse words were muttered, courtesy of one spirit of Easter and Guardian of Hope.
"Let's land," Mother Nature called over her shoulder. They guided the reindeer down to the base of a small mountain range near the edge of the valley, where they dismounted and stood tensely.
"Do you think they're still here, Mother?" Sunny asked, looking up at Mother Nature with a worried expression on her face.
"I know not," Mother Nature replied. "But if they are, Wind will find them. Until then, I will ask the Earth if it has seen anything."
She crouched and placed her hand flat against the soil. Once more, the strange green glow shot out of her hand and into the sand, only this time there were many more of them and they stayed connected to her.
The threads of power snaked along the ground until none of the Guardians could see where they were going anymore. It was only a few minutes until one of the threads glowed white and Mother Nature stood up, but for the Guardians it felt like forever.
They were all sweating bullets in the dry desert heat, and if they were being affected this much, how long could Jack last? Sunny and Emily Jane didn't seem affected as they followed the thread of power, Guardians trailing behind. Then again, Sunny was the spirit of summer and Mother Nature was, well… Mother Nature.
The six of them trekked across the hot sand for half an hour before Mother Nature stopped. The Guardians, all of them damp with sweat and flushed with exertion, looked around.
"Why did we stop?" Tooth asked, panting slightly.
"Because this is where Jack is," Mother Nature answered. The glowing white thread they were following had stopped, pointing to the mouth of a cave. "Sunny, proceed with caution. We will wait for Ash and Lila. If you find Jack, try to get him out. If you can't, report back to me and we'll think of something."
Sunny nodded and slid up to the cave, hiding in the shadows cast by the setting sun. She peered into the darkness for a moment before silently slipping inside. The Guardians and Mother Nature found a relatively cool patch of rock underneath a small outcropping and huddled in the shade, all of them practically oozing worry.
"I hope Jack's alright," Tooth said, wings fluttering on her back though she stayed firmly on the ground.
"I'm sure he is fine," North boomed, although quieter than normal. "Jack is very strong boy."
Nothing more was said after that. With every passing minute they became more and more worried. Finally, after exactly six and a half minutes of waiting, Bunny stopped his restless pacing, lifting one long ear and tilting his head.
"Vhat is it, Bunny?" North asked, getting to his feet and pulling out his swords. Bunny sniffed the air and his eyes widened a little.
"Sunny," he said. "And… I smell Jack."
Sandy's face lit up with glee and Tooth shot into the air, but Mother Nature's face remained impassive. She waited calmly until Sunny came into view, but there was no one else with her. The Guardian's stopped their celebrating, watching with growing apprehension as Sunny came closer. She made immediately for Mother Nature.
"He-he was there!" she cried, a few tears streaming down her face. Mother Nature kneeled on the ground and hugged Sunny to her tightly, letting the spirit sob into her shoulder. "I could sense his magic and it was so fresh! They must have left just a few hours ago!"
"Sunny, calm down," Mother Nature ordered gently. "Listen to me, we'll find him. He'll be fine, alright?" Sunny shook her head vehemently.
"No, look!"
She reached into her pocket and pulled something out. Well, four somethings. They all stiffened when they saw the pieces of Jack's staff, all four of them charred a little on the sides.
"He's defenseless!" Sunny exclaimed. Her voice dropped to a whisper as more tears filled her eyes. "And he must be in so much pain."
Mother Nature's eyes flashed briefly with fury and all of the Guardians stepped back instinctively. Before anything else could happen, however, Bunny's ear shot up once more. He turned his head just in time to see Ash and Lila slide to a stop, panting a little from what looked like a long run.
"Where is he?" Lila demanded. Sunny looked up at her and shook her head, holding up one of the pieces of Jack's staff. The spring spirit gasped and one of her hands shot up to cover her mouth.
"I'm going to kill him," Ash declared, glaring at the staff. "I'm going to kill Elliot!"
"Peace, Ash," Mother Nature said. She stood up off the ground, pulling Sunny up with her. "We were too late to save Jack this time," she said, addressing the whole group, "but we will not give Elliot another chance to escape."
"How, Mother?" Sunny asked, wiping the tears off of her cheeks.
"If we can find some of Elliot's followers, we might be able to discern his location and get there before he disappears again."
Ash's brown eyes narrowed. "John Haze."
"Who's John Haze?" Bunny asked. The group, led by Mother Nature, started walking back to where the reindeer waited.
"He's the spirit of fog, mist and smoke," Lila answered. "He and Elliot are best friends."
"You know what they say," Ash said darkly. "Where there's smoke, there's fire."
...oO()Oo…
It took them an entire day to locate John.
Once they finally made it back to Santoff Clausen, the unofficial base of operations for the whole rescue mission, they all went to work tracking him down.
Sandy had to go out and provide good dreams to the children and destroy nightmares, but used his network of Dreamsand to search the globe at the same time.
Tooth and her mini fairies, while they were gathering teeth, asked every spirit they came across if anyone had seen or heard anything about John.
North and Bunny took time out of preparing for their holidays to search the world, North in his sleigh and Bunny in his tunnels. Of course, Ash, Lila and Sunny had gone out and were using all of their resources to track down anything related to Elliot, John or Jack.
Mother Nature stayed behind to keep an eye on everything.
It was Lila who found him first. The spring spirit was in Maine when Wind told the Earth spirit at the North Pole that Lila had successfully captured John. Mother Nature contacted Ash and Sunny, through Wind, who then went and found all of the Guardians and took them to Maine.
While Lila brought John back to Santoff Clausen, Ash and the Guardians split up and searched around Maine in case Jack or Elliot was there. Mother Nature was waiting in the globe room when Lila and John arrived. The spring spirit was towing an unconscious John behind her.
"What happened?" Mother Nature asked as Lila dumped John unceremoniously on the floor and came up to her. Lila crossed her arms and smirked, though her blue eyes were flashing with anger.
"When I found him, I asked him if he knew where Elliot was," Lila said. "That little prick had the nerve to laugh and say some pretty rude things. I'm surprised at him, honestly. He helps me a lot with my season in some countries and you'd think he'd be more respectful to one of the Generals.."
Mother Nature sighed, both for the temper of her spring General and the stupidity of her elemental.
"Well, we'll just have to wait until he wakes up, then."
They decided to lock him up in a supply closet for now, simply because both of them were extremely pissed at him and they didn't want to give him a room that had anything comfortable in it. One of the yetis offered to keep watch outside of the door, so Mother Nature and Lila decided to check on how Ash, Sunny and the Guardians were doing.
They had no idea where the best place would be to talk to Wind, so they asked a passing yeti if any of the rooms had a balcony. The yeti happily gave them directions to Jack's room, where he said a rather large balcony was.
It didn't take them long to find the room the yeti spoke of. It was in the hallway that housed the rooms for all of the Guardians. Each door had a picture of its owner in the middle and Jack's was all the way at the end.
When they opened the door, they weren't surprised when they were immediately blasted with a wave of cold air. Pushing the door all the way open, they stepped inside and let the wind close the door behind them.
The room was comfortable and homey, with pale blue walls decorated with white frost patterns. The only furniture was a bed with blue and white bedding, an armchair, a chest of drawers, a dresser and a desk on which resided a blue reading lamp.
The balcony was directly opposite the door that led to the hallway. They stepped outside and Lila, who was shivering terribly inside the room, started turning an unhealthy shade of blue. Mother Nature waved her hand and the air around Lila warmed up to a temperature more suitable for a spring spirit.
"Thanks, Mother," Lila said. Mother nature smiled at her and then turned her attention to the frozen landscape in front of them.
"Wind," she called. The wind swirled around her dress in answer. "Tell Ash and Sunny that we've apprehended John Haze, and ask them if they've had any luck with the search so far." The wind swirled again before speeding off to deliver her message.
Not ten minutes later she was back.
Neither of the Generals could find any sign of Jack or Elliot, the wind sighed, her voice growing sad when she mentioned her friend. They are returning now.
"Thank you, Wind," Mother Nature said. She turned to the girl standing at her side. "Come, Lila. Let's go see if John has woken up yet."
The two spirits walked back inside, leaving the balcony door open. They made their way back down to the floor where they had left John and walked up to the closet. The yeti who had volunteered to watch the prisoner was sitting in front of the door, snickering as he listened to John pound on the door and yell threats.
"Thank you for watching him," Mother Nature said to the yeti. "We'll take it from here."
The yeti nodded and stood up and the door burst open, a very angry looking John stepping through. Eerie fog swirled around his feet and his gray eyes were narrowed in anger, though he froze when he caught sight of Mother Nature.
"Hello, John," she said silkily. John swallowed loudly and chuckled nervously, eyes darting around as if looking for an escape route.
"Mother, what are you doing here?" he asked, voice cracking a little near the end.
"Oh, nothing much," Mother Nature answered, waving her hand dismissively. "Just looking for my missing General that your best friend kidnapped. Happen to know anything about that, John?"
"W-what makes you think I'd know anything about Jack being kidnapped?" he asked. More and more fog was swirling around his ankles now and it was looking more and more like smoke.
"I didn't say it was Jack." Mother Nature pinned him down with her black-eyed stare, and John's gray eyes widened. "What have you done?"
John's eyes hardened and he leaned forward. "I've done what I had to for the planet. Spirits like Jack-"
"There are no spirits like Jack," Lila interrupted angrily.
"Exactly!" John cried. "He's a winter spirit, the only winter spirit. Doesn't that seem just a little bit suspicious? Winter is abnormal and he only causes harm to the planet, killing plants and animals and freezing everything. Elliot's going to kill him, and then there won't be any more winter and the planet will be saved."
He looked up at Mother Nature defiantly.
"Winter is a crucial part of life," Mother nature said furiously, the clouds swirling around her growing darker. "You, Elliot and whoever else he has sweet talked into following him are going to disrupt the balance of nature! You are going to destroy the planet!"
"And I swear, if you have hurt him," Lila started threateningly, but Mother Nature cut her off.
"There will be no place on Earth that you or Elliot will be able to hide. I will hunt you down and I will kill you, and it will not be pretty."
John's eyes held a flash of fear as he looked up at his queen. Mother Nature leaned down until her mouth was right next to John's ear.
"I will ask you one more time," she whispered, voice wavering with the force of her fury. "What do you know about where Elliot has Jack?"
John glanced up at Lila and saw only cold anger. He shivered and stepped back, into the safety of the supply closet. After a few tense seconds he closed his eyes and sighed.
"Elliot has Jack in Greenland," he said. Mother Nature frowned and a glance at Lila showed the spring spirit to be wearing the same expression.
"Why Greenland?" Lila asked. The country was an extremely cold place, covered almost entirely with glaciers. She had been expecting Elliot to take Jack somewhere hot.
"I don't know," John said, then backed up even more when Lila started forward threateningly. "I don't, honestly! All Elliot told me was that he wanted to make sure that nothing like the Ice Age ever happened to the planet again."
"The Ice Age wasn't Jack's doing," Mother Nature said, eyes widening slightly. "He wasn't even alive at the time."
"Tell that to Elliot," John said, and Lila glared at him.
"You're coming with us to Greenland," she said. "And know that if you're lying, no matter where you hide, I will find you and I will skin you."
"Lila, bring John and follow me," Mother Nature said. "The Guardians and other Generals should be back soon."
The spirit of spring grabbed John by the arm, dragging him after Mother Nature. Because he was behind them both, neither of them noticed the tiny smirk on his face.
Can anyone tell me what show Lila's threat was from? I bet most of you know it but for those of you that don't, I'll give you a clue. The character who said it was a villain who controlled a Chinese gang and was in contact with a dominatrix.