Chapter 12

Startled by Alice's abrupt statement, Jack flew after her as she bolted away.

"What do you mean, this guy's going after time?" he asked as he flew along beside her.

She glared at him as she ran. "You're not going, you're injured," she snapped.

"What? These?" said Jack, as he carelessly gestured to the injuries he'd obtained in his fight with the Dollmaker. "I'm an immortal spirit. These'll be gone in another ten minutes. And I'm not leaving you to face this guy alone."

"I can fight him myself," Alice snapped.

"But having friends means you don't have to, and we are friends, Alice," he replied with determination. "Sooo…?"

Alice scowled at his insistence, but didn't rebuke him. "Time here in Wonderland is sentient, a person, and he is quite fickle. He can make the time here go faster, or slower, or go to a different time all together. It was he who cursed the Hatter to always be stuck at teatime after the Queen of Hearts accused the idiot of 'murdering time'. If the Dollmaker goes after him, there is no telling what damage it could do."

Jack, realizing how serious this was, scooped Alice up bridal style. When she yelled in protest he said, "We have to get there quickly, right? We'll get there a lot faster if we fly there. Just tell me the way."

Alice huffed in indignation, but seeing as they were going much quicker now, she began giving him the directions to Time's clock tower.

"Who, and for that matter, What is the Dollmaker anyway?" asked Jack as they flew at top speed over Wonderland.

Alice's scowl deepened. "Go right," she instructed before answering, "He is corruption. He seeks to destroy Wonderland, and turn its inhabitants into mindless puppets. Last time he was free he went after the Insane Children, and was responsible for their scars."

Jack frowned, remembering the Dollmaker's attack. "Yeah, I can see that, the kids were terrified of him. But where'd he come from? I don't remember him from any of the stories."

Alice's scowl turned to shame. "(Fly higher here). Those stories are from my youth, the Dollmaker was put in my Wonderland after leaving the Asylum when I was eighteen. (Turn left)."

"Put in?" asked Jack. "I thought everyone from Wonderland was made here by you?"

Alice really didn't want to admit her shame for trusting Bumby, but she knew if Jack was going to help her, he needed to know what he was up against.

"You told me about the news article you found that told of my last moments in the real world. What that article didn't say is that I was also one of Bumby's patients, as well as the working there. (Go above those trees) When I got the job, Bumby offered to help me come to terms with my past, and help me forget the pain it caused. To my eternal shame I accepted his offer," Alice admitted. "But what Bumby wanted was to erase my mind completely, or in failing to do that, leave me in such a mad state that no one would ever believe me (go left). I later found out that he was doing it to cover up the fact that he was the one to set the fire that killed my family, and before he did that he- he did something terrible to Lizzie."

Jack, knowing Bumby's record, could guess what 'something terrible' could be.

"Then this Doll guy is the manifestation of Bumby's manipulations?" he asked, having trouble keeping his voice even.

Alice nodded. "And like Bumby, the Dollmaker seeks to destroy me, and turn children into his mindless puppets. At the very least, during his imprisonment I rendered him mute."

By this time they had reached Tundraful, and were flying above the glaciers.

Alice pointed towards the moon smoking his pipe. "Fly in the direction of moon. Time has a clock tower rising out of the far edge of the Deluded Depth."

Jack nodded and had the wind take them faster. Soon the clock tower came into view. The tower was a single point jutting out of the water, and appeared to be made entirely of clock faces and hourglasses. But as it came into view, they could see the Dollmaker had beaten them there. There was Ruin splattered all over the place, the clock faces were bent and broken, and the most of the hourglasses were shattered.

Seeing this, Jack pushed them even faster, and they entered trough one of the broken clocks, and Jack set Alice down.

Like the outside, the walls, ceiling and floor were lined with all sorts of time keeping devices, all spinning at different times and speeds. There was no light save for the dim glow of the clock faces, leaving the halls bathed in a dim glow.

"He's probably this way," said Jack, pointing in the direction the trail of destruction and Ruin splatters the Dollmaker had left.

"How kind of him to leave us a clear path to follow," said Alice sarcastically, as she and Jack followed the Ruin.

It wasn't long before they found an entryway to a large room that looked, if possible, even more wrecked than the rest of the clock tower. They immediately saw the Dollmaker making his way towards a gigantic gilded mirror at the other side of the room, and took up most of the wall.

The two were abut to rush towards him when a voice rasped out at them. "You must stop him!"

They looked to where the voice had come from, and saw a formless figure in a long dark cloak sprawled across the floor. The hood of the cloak was facing them weakly, but it was impossible to see any face within.

"Time!" shouted Alice, and started towards the figure, but its next words stopped her in her tracks.

"Never mind me, child! You must stop the Dollmaker NOW! If he passes through that mirror, there is no telling where or when he will go!" Time hissed. "Or what damage to the time-stream he could do while he is there."

Alice quickly changed direction, and both she and Jack rushed towards the Dollmaker.

Fortunately, the Dollmaker was hulking and slow, thanks to the damage Jack had been able to hit him with before saving the children. The two were able to intercept him before he reached the mirror.

Alice whipped out her Teapot Cannon and began firing it at the Dollmaker's legs, and Jack flew ahead of the monster, and created a sheet of ice to cover the floor, making it slippery and hard to maneuver on. Then he flew up to the Dollmaker's face and shoved a large icicle into the Dollmaker's other eye socket.

"That's for trying to kill the kids at the Skool!" he yelled as the Dollmaker reeled back in pain. He then had to fly away to dodge and incoming swipe from one of the Dollmaker's hands. But as he flew, he continued to shoot ice and frost at the Dollmaker's head.

Alice, meanwhile, was using her long ranged weaponry to attack the joints on the Dollmaker's legs, assuming they were the weak spots. Sure enough, after hitting it enough times with her Jacks and Pepper Grinder his right knee gave out, and the Dollmaker stumbled and flailed to regain his balance.

Emboldened by this Jack flew down lower, and helped Alice attack the joints, all the while dodging the Dollmaker's hands, which flew at them in retaliation for their attacks.

Finally the Dollmaker's other knee gave in, and the massive monster began to fall over. Unfortunately, the Dollmaker was falling directly towards the mirror.

"Get me up higher!" shouted Alice. "We have to change his direction!"

Jack hooked an arm around Alice's waist and they both shot upwards. As they rose Alice fired her Teapot Cannon at the Dollmaker, hoping the force of the tea blasts would change his direction.

But before they could make any progress, one of the Dollmaker's hands lashed out and smacked into the two of them. Jack, Alice, and the Dollmaker's hand all hit the giant mirror, and it began to glow brightly.

There was a brilliant flash of light, and once it faded only Time was left in the room.

Time slowly got up and limped over to the mirror. After examining it he nodded in satisfaction.

"The boy and the girl both hit the glass first," Time rasped. "No telling where their combined minds took the three of them, but at least it was not the Dollmaker's intended destination."

"Thank goodness for small favors," said the Cheshire Cat, as he appeared next to Time.

"You know there is a possibility they could never return," said Time dryly, not even turning to look at the Cat.

"You underestimate them both. Alice is stubborn, and Frost is a trickster. They will make it back. The only question is, what state will they be in when they do," said the Cat as he vanished.

Time looked again at the mirror, and nodded in agreement. They would be back… in time.

*A*A*A*

When Jack and Alice hit the mirror it was as if the world had exploded around them, sending the two hurtling through a vortex of color and light.

It felt to Jack like the first few times he had ridden the wind, before he had gotten better at harnessing it. The two were tossed every which way like shoes in a laundry dryer.

It was only Jack's hugging Alice tightly to his chest that he hadn't lost her in the vortex yet. The Dollmaker had, for a time, been tossed along with them, but somewhere along the way he had vanished from sight.

Suddenly the vortex opened up and Jack and Alice were freefalling in the open air. That sensation didn't last long, as Jack was hit by the familiar sensation of falling in a snow bank, made more painful than usual by the fact that Alice landed on top of him.

Alice quickly climbed off of him and helped Jack to his feet. When he looked around, it looked like he and Alice had landed on the edge of a Christmas tree forest. Tall evergreens were spread in front of them, all twinkling with lights. Away from the trees them was frozen tundra that stretched on for miles.

"Is this part of Wonderland?" asked Jack, taking in the new sights, and still dizzy from their rough ride.

Alice shook her head and shivered. Unlike in Wonderland, where even in Tundraful she never felt uncomfortably cold, this place chilled her to the bone. This was most definitely not her world.

Seeing this, Jack nodded towards the forest. "Let's head this way. With these lights, there has to be people. We can get you a coat and warm you up."

Alice shook her head stubbornly. "No, we should search for the Dollmaker. He came though with us, he must be here somewhere."

Jack sighed in exasperation at her stubbornness. "I hate to say it, but you said the Dollmaker would target people to turn into dolls. If he is here, he'll have gone to where there are people to do that too. Like the people who put up all these lights."

Alice grudgingly conceded his point, and they set off through the woods.

Eventually they reached the center of the forest, and the two saw a village that seemed to shine brightly with a cheerful and friendly light. Many of the buildings looked brand new, while others were older and sat on plots of land that looked as though they had been pulled out of the ground somewhere else and placed on top of the snow. But it was the building in the center of the village that made the two immortal teens stare in shock.

"I-is that North's Workshop?" asked Jack incredulously.

"I believe so," said Alice. She was less startled than Jack, but she was still curious as to what had happened.

In the center of the village was undoubtedly North's Workshop. It looked a little smaller, and newer, but there was no mistaking it.

With his eyes locked on the workshop, Jack started forward to enter the village, only to stop short when he felt a cold blade pressed against his neck.

Alice let out a shout of alarm and rushed forward, and there was a loud clang. When Jack turned around he saw that Alice had her Vorpal Blade locked against the one who had held a blade to Jack.

It was a boy. He didn't look like he was far out of his preteens, but there was nothing normal about him. Like Jack, the boy was white haired and pale, but his paleness gave off an unearthly glow that was luminous even amongst the shine of the village. He was clad in black form fitting body armor, and held a staff with a dagger made of a glowing diamond on the tip. The staff was what he was using to combat Alice's blade.

Jack leveled his own staff at the glowing boy, making him jump away from Alice, and take a defensive position…

… While floating in midair.

"Dude, you are stealing my thunder," said Jack in exasperation. It irked him to see someone with similarities to himself in combat with Alice.

Alice rolled her eyes at Jack's antics, but didn't take her gaze off the floating boy. "Do you greet all visitors to your village with a knife to the neck?" she asked the boy with sarcasm dripping from every word.

The boy lowered his defense a bit, before shaking his head and glaring at them.

'What are you doing here?'

Jack and Alice blinked in surprise, and exchanged glances. The boy had somehow managed to ask them a question without actually asking it.

"We're lost," said Jack honestly. "We were just trying to find where we are, and get my friend here a winter coat."

The glowing boy was about to reply, but another more familiar Russian accented voice rang out.

"Nightlight! Vhat are you doing all the way out here?"

A wide grin broke across Jack's face at the sound, and he turned to face the new arrival. Coming towards them was North. Like the rest of this place they'd seen so far, North looked different. His hair was black, he seemed thinner, and his beard was shorter.

But Jack didn't care, it was still North.

"North!" Jack called in greeting, hurrying over to meet his friend, much to the bewilderment of the glowing boy, who was apparently called Nightlight.

Alice was also confused. What was going on here? Why did everything look so different?

"North!" Jack called again when the leader of the Guardians didn't respond. "You doing some redecorating? Getting a few touch-ups yourself too? Won't the kids be disappointed if Santa doesn't look like-?"

Jack was cut off as North passed right though him as though he wasn't even there.

*A*A*A*

A/N Sorry this is late, my internet was down all day yesterday. Now I'm just being mean to these two. Alice's worst nightmare has broken free, and Jack is stuck in a place where not even his friends can see him. This is the part where the crossover begins to include the Guardians of Childhood book series. They've been sent back in time to right after Sandman and the War of Dreams. Hopefully, nothing in the next book in the series will screw up this story too badly.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. The Guardians of Childhood book series belongs to William Joyce.