AN: Alright, I suppose this is going to be a short opening note. I can't think of much to say other than a quick warning. There is mild cursing in this chapter. No F-bombs though!
Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Alice: Madness Returns.
And where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How To Save A Life ~ The Fray
Alice looked around the empty space of the colossal hallway in confusion.
Instead of opening up back on her guest room balcony, the swirling portal landed the two spirits in the main entrance hallway of North's workshop.
"Where are we? Why aren't we in my room?"
Jack looked around, mirroring Alice's expression. "Whoops."
"What?"
He smiled sheepishly before holding up the snow globe. "I keep forgetting that you need to be kinda specific with these little guys, or else they'll spit you up just about anywhere. Seriously, this one time I needed to do a little Winter work up in Montana but I was too lazy to fly, so I used one of North's snowglobes. I forgot to be specific and I ended up right in the middle of a shooting range, nearly got my head blown off."
"Oh really?" Alice asked with a light, dubious tone.
"Yep, but thanks to my expert sense of finesse and well-tuned reflexes," Jack smiled one of his off-kilter smiles as he striked a silly pose to demonstrate his 'reflexes'. "I was able to escape with only one bullet hole in my hoodie."
Alice only rolled her eyes in response and moved to walk down the long hallway. "As delightfully entertaining as your storytelling is, Frost, I do believe we should inform the other guardians of Mr. Black's return. I'm sure that's something they would appreciate being made aware of."
The Winter spirit visibly deflated when he watched his witty attempt at lightening the mood get ripped apart so mercilessly by the dark-haired girl, abruptly reminding him of why their situation was so serious in the first place. "Oh...yeah. You're probably right. Sorry."
Jack quickly moved forward and followed Alice down the hallway.
Maybe if he hadn't been involuntarily watching Alice stroll down the hall with long, confident strides - and not to mention the almost alluring sway of her hips - he would've noticed the grand hallway was empty, void of both bustling yetis, and wandering elves, which was very unusual. Rarely ever were the hallways of Santa's workshop empty, especially at that point in the year.
As it were though, he didn't take notice. The only thing he noticed was the bored, thickening silence between him and Alice.
"So...," Jack drawled slowly until Alice looked at him from the corner of her eye. "Besides the surprise cameo from the Boogeyman, how was your first trip back into the human world?"
"Enlightening."
Her tone of voice sounded so flat, Jack almost believed she saw her visit as everything but. The only thing that kept him from actually believing it were the memories he chose to cement in his head of Alice's awestruck expression at seeing the advancements of the mortal world since leaving, and the very brief, very genuine smile she gave him in Jamie's backyard.
"How'd you like Sophie?"
"She was sweet and delightful...just how all children should be," Alice spoke very curtly with little emotion, but her clover eyes seemed to darken at her own words when they took on a forlorn dullness. She stared straight ahead of herself and refused to meet Jack's own brilliantly blue stare. "I can see why Mr. Bunnymund chose her as my replacement."
"Yeah," Jack chuckled lightly before stopping short in his tracks when the second half of Alice's statement finally sunk in. "Wait, what?"
"She's everything I used to be, and more," Alice didn't lose that dry tone as she continued to speak. She did stop walking though when Frost's muffled footsteps creased to echo throughout the empty hallway along with hers. No need to let him fall too far behind. "I always figured she would be, knowing Bunny as well as I do, but I never imagined how perfect-"
"Wait, wait, wait," Jack shook his head. "What do you mean "replacement"? Who said anything about Bunny trying to replace you?"
"I wouldn't expect you to know anything about it."
The comment was said offhandedly. She didn't mean it as an insult, just a simple fact. They've only known each other a little over two days.
"Maybe I do," Jack insisted flippantly. "You don't know my mind."
"And nor do I ever want to."
"Ouch. That was a little uncalled for," Jack remarked gruffly as they moved down the hallway again. "But seriously, why do you think Bunny is replacing you?"
Alice only shook her head. "I'd rather we forget I ever brought it up."
"Well, I don't think Bunny's trying to replace you," Jack offered up lightly, hoping to ease her doubts in some way.
"Oh what would you know?" Alice snapped, making Jack jump and stop when she suddenly whipped around to face him. "You weren't even aware I existed until two days ago! How could you possibly know, or understand the complexities of my relationship with Mr. Bunnymund?"
"Never said I did," Jack shrugged his shoulders as he resisted the urge to take a step back when Alice slowly started to advance.
After spending so many hours with the whiplash queen, Jack believed he was finally starting to learn how to deal with Alice's constantly shift in moods, albeit the learning process was extremely repetitive and incredibly slow, but he was still learning nonetheless. He knew enough already to realize that it wasn't a good idea to get angry when she was angry, it would only make her temper rise further to better match her opponent's. Cool, collected, and fearless was the only way to deal with Alice Liddell, all of which Jack Frost found himself to excel fabulously at.
"Well you implied it."
He pretended to think about it for a moment as he twirled his staff between his pale fingers. "Hmm, nope. I don't remember that. I never claimed to understand anything about you guys. You two are the most crotchety spirits I've ever met and I doubt I'll ever understand how you can function so easily when it seems like you always have an angry bee stuck in your stockings, but I do trust my own personal judgment, and my own eyes. Anybody can clearly see that you mean more to Bunny than anything."
"You're analogy was disturbing and I find your logic ridiculous."
"I think I got a fortune cookie that said that once."
Alice glared back at him tenfold as she resisted the urge to pull at her own hair. "You are the most deplorable little cockroach I've ever had the misfortune of meeting. I do hope you're aware of that."
"Come on!" Jack whined. "I really wanna know!"
Alice let out a frustrated huff and crossed her arms tightly under her chest. "I'm not blind, nor stupid. For the past few years, Bunny's been visiting less and less. He claims to be busy but I find that rather difficult to comprehend when he only works one month a year. His temper has been shorter than it usually is, which I assume is because he's getting use to being around a happy-go-lucky child that never gives him attitude, and he's even called me "Sophie" by accident on more than one occasion!"
"That's it?" Jack would've laughed if he didn't already know Alice would have no qualms about punching him in the face if she felt he was trying to disparage her doubts in any way. "Come on, Alice. Those are hardly good reasons to believe he's trying to replace you. So he's being even crankier than normal, who cares?"
Alice barely resisted the urge to say "I do" as she subconsciously wrapped her arms around herself, but she somehow managed to let Jack ramble on.
"And okay, he's accidentally called you by the wrong name a couple of times. It happens to the best of us," His tone was light and nonchalant as he hoped some of his words were getting through. "And I hate to mention this, but things haven't exactly been a blissful walk in the park for the other guardians since Pitch's, not-so permanent defeat two years ago. He did a lot of damage after all. Did you ever stop to think that maybe Bunny really is busy?"
"Oh how I wish I can be as blindly optimistic as you, Frost," Alice sighed wistfully as her arms dropped to her sides. "You don't understand. This behavior has been going on for years, decades even, and it's only worsened as of recently. I saw the signs immediately and knew it was only a matter of time before he stopped visiting altogether...and I don't believe I have a clear enough conscience to be able to blame him if he did."
Jack frowned deeply as he listened to the girl. That last part was said in a soft tone that he didn't even know Alice was capable of using and Jack knew right away that he must've stumbled across one of Alice's deeply hidden insecurities, unexpectedly proving to the Winter spirit that little Alice Liddell wasn't nearly as rock-solid as she liked everyone to believe.
Jack regarded the girl more closely as they continued on their way down the workshop hallways again in silence after stopping for what seemed like the twentieth time. "Why do you always do that?"
"Do what?"
"Immediately think the worse of everyone and everything?"
"It's common sense that if one has no expectations, they are rarely met with disappointments." Her tone was cold and indifferent.
"You think that of everybody? Even Bunny?"
Alice looked away from Jack's azure gaze and focused on the carpeted path straight ahead of her. "Like I said, it's common sense. You can only push someone so far before they decide they've had enough and never come back."
"That's a pretty jaded outlook on life."
"It's called being realistic."
Jack scoffed loudly. "More like pessimistic."
"Oh be quiet," Alice demanded bitterly as her expression turned sour and she crossed her arms again.
"Well, I don't know about you," Jack said over a loud yawn while stretching out his arms and groaning happily when he got out the kinks in his shoulders left over from their fight in the forest. "But I had a fantastic night."
"Did you now?"
"Yep," Jack quipped cheerfully, not at all affected by Alice's dry, and somewhat sarcastic response. "We took a nice stroll through the town, got to see all the lights and new technology you missed-"
"It didn't live up to its boastful hype."
"Got to play with a nice bunch of kids-"
"The two little dark-skinned ones attempted to look up my dress, several times."
"You got to try a slushie and then later barfed up the slushie-"
"Must you bring that up again?"
"And I totally saved your life when that car almost hit you-"
Alice let out a derisive scoff at that. "Oh don't over exaggerate. Granted, you did prevent me from receiving a few nasty injuries, but I've been hit by far heavier objects than that metal monstrosity before. Death would've hardly been the case. I'm not nearly that lucky."
"Yep," Jack repeated just as cheerfully as before, completely ignoring Alice and all her negative comments. "Fantastic night. We should really do it again sometime, but without the nightmares and fighting...Although, we make a pretty good team, don't ya think? We cleared that forest of nightmares faster than-"
Alice stopped short again after only half listening to Jack yammer on despite her clear lack of interest. He didn't even seem to notice that she had stopped.
"Shhh!" Alice hushed sharply when the Winter spirit's chatter became too distracting. Her green eyes trailed swiftly around the hallway as she put all her focus on her sense of hearing.
Jack stopped and turned around with a mildly annoyed expression on his pale face. "Okay geez, I'll stop. If you didn't want to listen, you could've just said so-"
"Stop talking!" Alice nearly shouted, effectively shutting him up with the unusually high pitch he heard her voice hit.
Jack stood cemented to his spot as he watched Alice slowly walked towards him, her eyes shifting everywhere around the room except on him. Her brow was knotted in serious concentration and she was frowning deeply.
"What's your problem?" Jack asked, his voice just above a whisper. After seeing Alice's bizarre display, he took a quick look around the hallway himself, but her behavior only came off as even stranger when he didn't hear anything.
She was silent for a few moments as she swept her black hair behind her ear in a shoddy attempt to better hear whatever it was she thought she heard. "Didn't you say North and his employees tended to work nights around this time of year?"
"Uh, yeah. They do," Jack answered shortly, still confused. "What's your point?"
"Why is it so quiet then?"
Jack froze and listened for a second, realizing almost immediately that she was right. It was dead silent in the hallway.
He shook his head numbly as he looked down the long hallway at the closed doors at the very end. He and Alice were standing in the hallway that led directly into North's workshop. There should've been the rumbling sounds of running machines and pounding tools, yetis grumbling at each other in their unique language, and a whole symphony of noises coming from the toys they manufactured. The main lights of the hallway were still on, a clear signal that the workshop was still open, but the silence was unsettling.
"This isn't right..."
Alice nodded in agreement before she moved swiftly around him and down the hallway at a faster pace. Jack snapped out of his trance when he felt the girl brush past him and he quickly moved to follow.
"What do you think is going on?" Jack asked, falling in step next to Alice.
"I'm not certain," She replied grimly. "Could it possibly be an attack of some sorts? Similar to what happened to us?"
Jack shook his head again. "No way. Pitch wouldn't be stupid enough to try a head-on attack with North's domain. Maybe the Tooth Palace or Bunny's Warren since they don't exactly have gung-ho security systems, but not the Pole. This place is a freakin' fortress. And even if it wasn't, North would've activated the Aurora Borealis if something was going- belgh!"
Both immortal teens stopped abruptly once again when they came within a few feet of the workshop doors and a sudden wall of foul-smelling air hit them.
It was a thick, suffocating smell that nearly knocked them back a couple steps and made them gag and cough violently. Jack's face twisted up into a disgusted scowl as the scent of hot tar and burning hair assaulted his senses. He quickly pulled up the collar of his blue hoodie over his nose in a lousy attempt to block out the nasty odor. "Ugh! What is that smell!?"
Alice only coughed in response as the horrible stench burned her throat and made her eyes sting. She quickly covered her mouth and nose with the back of her hand before pushing forward until she finally reached the workshop doors, fighting valiantly to ignore the invisible wall of filth floating in front of them.
The double doors were massive and the handles were almost as big as her head, but the stubborn spirit proceeded to pulled down on one of them anyways. When it wouldn't budge, she threw her body against the door as hard as she could. She only ended up crying out though when a sharp pain ripped through her shoulder and she rebounded off the wooden surface. "Ah!"
Jack watched vacantly with his hoodie still covering the bottom of his face as Alice tried again.
"Sod it!" She shouted when she was met with the same result as before. "Open up you bloody piece of driftwood!"
When she moved to ram against the door again, Jack quickly reached out and snagged her arm. "Hey, would you stop that? The door is obviously not listening. You're just gunna end up dislocating your shoulder or something."
Alice roughly yanked her arm out of his cold grasp and fixed the doors with a bloodcurdling glare, but to Jack's relief, she didn't try it again.
"Here," Jack gently pushed past her and approached the door. "Let me have a look at it."
He winced when his hoodie fell away from his face, leaving him unprotected from the horrible scent, but he forced himself to ignore it. He put his ear against the door and waited until he could just barely make out a series of sounds on the other side. He then tested the doors' durability by pushing on them a couple times with both hands.
"I don't think they're locked, but there might be something on the other side blocking them. If we both push on the crease between the doors, we can probably get them open."
"Alright," Alice grimaced softly as she slowly rolled her aching shoulder. "Let's give it a go then."
Jack smiled brightly when he realized she was actually listening to his idea and wasn't going to argue with him for once. "Okay, you kneel down and push from the bottom while I push from up here." Alice didn't say anything as she lowered herself to the floor and rested her palms against the warm wood of the door before Jack moved to stand over her and did the same thing with his hands. "Alright...now!"
Simultaneously, the two spirits braced themselves and pushed as hard as they could against the doors. For a few moments, nothing seemed to happen, but then the wood started to creek loudly under the combined pressure and they could feel the doors begin to give way underneath their hands.
Then, without warning, the double doors flew open and Jack found himself falling face first on to the stone floor. Alice, who had seen the sudden momentum coming as soon as the doors popped open, swiftly barrel-rolled out of the way before Jack had the chance to fall on top of her.
Jack laid uselessly on the stone floor with his face against the ground and his hind-end sticking up in the air.
Alice pulled herself up on to her feet and brushed off the front of her dress. "Well, I must admit, that was quite the idea of yours, Frost. Perhaps we do make a rather decent team."
"Yay teamwork," Jack mumbled against the floor miserably before raising a hand. "Help me?"
Alice promptly ignored his request and hopped effortlessly over his body before moving further into the workshop. Jack continued to lay on the ground for several more seconds until a loud gasp from Alice jump-started his will to move and he was by her side again within moments, his blue eyes widening profusely as he saw what she saw.
The workshop was in ruins.
It was like a raging twister blew through the area and completely turned the place upside down, tossing around the hard work each yeti put into their toy-making careers and uprooting heavy equipment into all kinds of different positions. There were also chunks of stone messing from the floors and still smoldering, charred scorch marks stripped against the woodwork of the workshop like twisted zebra print.
On the ground floor, millions of broken toy pieces, shredded wrapping paper, crushed ice sculptures, and destroyed presents were sprawled out all over the stone floor while paint from the decoration stations was splattered all over the walls and floors.
Many of the intricately embroidered banners that North had hanging from the high banisters of the workshop were either laying on the floor, completely ripped to shreds, or scorched beyond repair. The silver confetti that always rained down on the workshop, for whatever reason, was nowhere in sight. Floor rugs were ripped into strips of useless fabric. A lot of the workshop tables and stations were overturned while several others were reduced to piles of splintered wood and missing legs. In fact, anything that wasn't originally nailed to the floor was laying in ruin somewhere, yards from where it was supposed to be.
"Holy crap," Jack nearly cursed as his eyes trailed over the destruction laid out in front of them while Alice quickly moved towards a nearby staircase. "It looks like someone set off a bomb in here!"
The second floor didn't look any better than the first, but at least it had yetis on it. The ground floor had been a complete ghost town.
The yetis moved around the floor frantically, yelling at each other angrily as they desperately tried to straighten up their assigned stations and salvage what was left of the toys they spent weeks building. They didn't even give Jack and Alice a second glance as the two spirits slowly walked through the mess and towards the only remaining staircase that led up to the third floor. The others looked as if they had been blown to pieces.
Jack tried to speak to one of the more calmer yetis, who looked to be taking inventory or employee attendance with the clipboard and pencil in his hands, but when Jack rested a hand on the creature's furry arm, he roughly shrugged the ice spirit off and stomped away somewhere in a frustrated huff.
The third floor had a fire and because of that, there were more yetis on the floor. They moved around each other swiftly and efficiently with buckets of water and emergency fire blankets, trying to smother the roaring flames as quick as possible before they could spread their burning misfortune to the other levels. Although, from the looks of the thick cloud of smoke drifting up from somewhere above them, there was another fire on the fourth floor.
"Well," Alice breathed before placing her hands on her hips, watching the yetis battle the medium-sized fire. "I suppose North's domain isn't as much of a fortress as you originally assumed, Frost."
Jack turned to her with an unimpressed glare and a witty retort in mind but it immediately died on his lips when he spotted the kicking legs of a yeti trapped under a wooden shelf. "Phil!"
The poor creature called out in clear distress to his brothers, but they were obviously too focused on the fire. He grumbled miserably to himself as he continued to lay trapped on his back like an overturned turtle.
Jack ran over to the trapped yeti. "Hang on buddy! I got you!"
When he caught sight of the white-haired spirit, Phil's green eyes widened in horror and he began to struggle even harder while growling out something in his yeti language that sounded like a long string of frantic "No's", but Jack ignored him and started assessing the situation for an idea of how to free the yeti. Phil let out another series of garbled words as he continued to kick his legs as Jack used his staff to hoist up the shelf. Once he was sure the aged wood was firmly holding up the shelf, he crouched down to help the yeti up.
While Jack did that, Alice watched the nearby flames somewhat warily as the yetis brought in more buckets of water, but she did absolutely nothing to shy away from them. She had long-since conquered her fear of fire
"What the hell, Phil?" Jack threw his arms up once the creature was on his feet again. "I'm gone a few hours and I come back to all this?"
The gray yeti grumbled indignantly while gesticulating madly with his arms as he tried to act what happened to the workshop as if he were playing a game of charades.
"Yeah..." Jack drawled slowly when the yeti finished. "I didn't understand any of that."
"Arbglbalg!" Phil barked angrily before pointing sharply at nearby puddle of black gunk that covered a ruined pile of brightly wrapped Christmas presents.
Jack cocked one of his dark-colored eyebrows as he looked in between Phil and the black gunk for several seconds before a prompting gesture from Phil made the Winter spirit cautiously make his way over to the mysterious substance.
Now that it had been pointed out to him, Jack begun to notice that there were dozens of black goo puddles all over the workshop; covering walls, floor, tables, and machinery alike. It didn't seem to be doing anything other than just laying there, but the goop did have a bit of a menacing aura surrounding it and Jack was willing to bet that the horrible smell that hit him and Alice back in the hallway, had originated from the tar-like material.
When Jack drew closer to it, he could feel the heat coming off the black ooze and could see the faint wisps of smoke that floated from the puddle as it dissolved the colorful wrapping paper like acid. He ignored Phil's garbled warning as he crouched down inches from the puddle and watched the ink black ooze bubble and hiss. Phil shouted out in alarm when Jack slowly reached out a pale hand towards the puddle. The yeti charged forward and tried to grab the ice spirit's arm. Jack dodged him as best as he could while making sure to keep the balance in his crouched position.
The last thing he wanted to do was accidentally fall on top of the nasty stuff.
"Phil! Knock it off!" Jack snapped. He yanked his hoodie sleeve out of Phil's paw and turned back to the puddle. "Don't worry, I just wanna...touch it- just real quick. I'll be careful...I promise."
Jack spoke almost as if he was in a trance as he reached out to the puddle once more. He could feel Phil twitching nervously behind him, but again, he ignored the creature.
Under the overhead lights of the workshop, the black ooze gave off a brilliant sheen that left Jack wondering if it felt as smooth as it looked, but just when his fingertips were about to touch it, a violent shutter ripped through the puddle and it actually moved several inches away from Jack's hand.
"Whoa," Jack said breathlessly to himself before reaching out to the black substance again, only to witness it move away like the first time. "What is this stuff?"
He glanced up at Phil questioningly but the yeti just shrugged his shoulders.
"I think we should go find North now," Jack announced once he realized his furry companion wasn't going to be any help. "Where's Alice?"
Phil pointed over to another ooze puddle where Alice stood with her back turned towards them. "Belgargb."
"Alice c'mon. Phil's going to take us to North," Jack said as he came up behind Alice, but she ignored him.
She just continued to stare vacantly at the obsidian colored ooze at her feet, not even blinking when Jack waved a hand right in front of her expressionless face. Jack looked at his fellow spirit with concerned confusion before looking back at Phil with a clueless shrug which the yeti mirrored perfectly in response.
Alice felt her heart pound painfully within her chest and her insides harden like stone as her eyes focused intensely on the slowly boiling puddle.
That couldn't possibly be what she thought it was...could it?
It certainly looked hauntingly similar to the destructive slime she was thinking of, but it just couldn't be insidious ooze.
It wasn't insidious ooze.
It wasn't the same ooze that polluted places in Alice's Wonderland like the uninhabitable Wonderland Graveyard. She was in the real world now. That unholy substance only resided in her Wonderland which has been sealed up unbelievably tight since her departure two days ago.
She didn't know what that ooze was in North's workshop, but she adamantly repeated to herself in her head that it wasn't her ooze. This ooze had to be of someone else's creation because it was just too impossible for it to be of the insidious kind. Alice would've been able to tell if it was. It was just inconceivable.
It was someone else's ooze. It had to be.
"Alice?"
She vaguely heard her name being called from somewhere behind her, but it sounded too faint for her to fully register who had spoken. It wasn't until she felt something cool wrap itself around her wrist, that Alice finally blinked out of her half-conscious state. She looked over her shoulder to see Frost standing behind her with his yeti companion.
"Is something wrong?" He asked slowly with his hand still holding her limp wrist. He was surprised she hadn't yanked it away yet.
"No," Alice replied softly after a few moments of gathering her bearings.
"Alright," Jack smiled brightly, trying to disparage some of the gloom that settled over them since returning to the workshop. He turned away from her and gently tugged the girl along by her wrist. "Let's go find North then."
~O~
They found North almost immediately when they finally managed to climb their way up the busted stairs that led ultimately to the floor that housed the biggest fire in the workshop, and as it should've been anticipated, the Russian stood in the very center of the firefighting commotion.
"Toropit'sya! More water!" North shouted at the rushing yetis as they carried buckets of water back and forth from the roaring fire, dangerously near the control system for the Globe of Belief.
North was looking a little worse for wear. He had his dual swords held tightly in his hands while his clothing appeared haggard-looking with several, black scorch marks staining the red fabric of his tunic and long rips along his back like claw marks. He looked nearly beaten and exhausted, but other than a strip of white gauze, tied sloppily around his forearm and stained red with a bit of blood, the large spirit seemed to be in good health. Although, he had a fierce glower on his bearded face as he directed his yetis with sharp gestures from his swords like a conductor leading an orchestra. "This is no Christmas party my comrades! I want fire out now before more damage is done!"
Tooth was also in the area, hovering above North with a large fire extinguisher in her small hands. She looked uninjured also, but looking just as frazzled as North with the way her feathers kept puffing up anxiously as she tried to focus on her task and ignore the chaos buzzing around her like a hive of angry bees. One would think the fairy queen would be accustomed to such a frantic atmosphere, but the threat of fire was enough to make anyone on edge, especially if it was barely three feet in front of them.
The only ones who seemed to be missing were Sandy and Bunny.
That immediately concerned the newcomers, but since nobody else in the room appeared to be besides themselves with worry and grief, Jack and Alice were willing to go out on a limb and assume the dreamsand spirit and the pooka were helping elsewhere.
Tooth and North hadn't noticed the immortal teens' return yet -obviously a little too preoccupied with putting out the fire and once again establishing some kind of order to North's workshop, but when a tiny flash of teal and yellow flew at them with unremarkable speed, it was made apparent that at least somebody had finally discovered their reappearance.
Jack threw up an arm to protect his face when he suddenly found himself being assaulted by Baby Tooth. She was chirping up a frenzy as she nuzzled her tiny cheek affectionately in joyful relief against Jack's cold forehead, and any other parts of his face she could get her tiny hands on.
"Ah! Baby Tooth stop!" Jack nearly whined as he halfheartedly swatted the colorful mini fairy away like a fly. She ignored him and proceeded to roll around in his silvery white hair like a little girl in a flower patch.
Her mother had paused briefly in her fire extinguishing and threw a fleeting glance over her shoulder when she noticed her fairy gone, but ended up doing a wide-eyed double take when she spotted Jack and Alice standing a few yards behind her and North. She let out a loud gasp and involuntarily dropped the fire extinguisher, nearly hitting North with it.
"Tooth!" North called up at her indignantly with a bit of a pout to his thick, accented voice. The heavy red canister had landed right next to him with a loud bang that startled the Russian and made him jump. "Careful! It's not good idea to be spooking me when I'm in defense mode!"
She didn't even give North an apologetic glance as she took off like a rocket towards the young spirits. "Jack! Alice!"
North's annoyed expression dropped off when he heard Tooth's cries and watched as the iridescent fairy practically tackled Jack in a flying hug. His sky blue eyes immediately roamed over the two spirits as checked for damage. He grinned softly and happily noted no signs of injury on either of them.
As much as he would've loved to welcome his friends back though, North didn't leave his post. He chose to let Tooth smother them until he was certain the fire was under control.
"Oh thank God!" Tooth spoke breathlessly as she proceeded to squeeze the life out of Jack. "You're back!"
"Tooth- air! Need air!" Jack choked out, dropping his staff and desperately trying to pry Tooth's small arms off his neck and shoulders. She ignored his strangled pleas and started placing relieved kisses all over his face like a mother would if they briefly lost their child in a shopping mall while Alice stood off to the side, feeling a tad awkward.
Jack's face burned almost maroon and his struggles steadily increased until she finally let go. He wiped his face on his hoodie sleeve and took several, large steps back from the hovering fairy like she was contaminated with some horrible disease. He would be lying if he said he wasn't expecting a superfluous reaction from his hyperactive friend, but that had just been way over the top, even by Tooth's standards.
Alice received a less extreme welcome back - for obvious reasons - consisting of only a very hesitant hug on Tooth's part, and a gentle pat on the back. Both of which, Alice didn't return.
When Tooth finally had enough and collected herself, she smiled sheepishly at a glaring Winter spirit and smoothed back the frazzled feathers of her crest. "I'm sorry. That was a little excessive of me."
Jack scoffed loudly as he picked up his staff and rub his neck. "Yeah, just a little."
"Now don't you dare be like that with me, Jack Frost," Tooth remarked hotly while putting her hands on her hips. Baby Tooth flew over to her and copied her queen's stance. "You nearly worried us to death! Both of you! Sneaking off like that without telling anybody. What were you thinking?"
"Well, so-rry," Jack threw back sarcastically. "If I had known this was going to happen then we would've stayed."
Tooth shook her head in disappointment before fixing Jack with stern eyes. "You still should've said something to someone."
"My bad, I wasn't aware I had to check in with you guys and ask permission before I did something."
The unexpected bitterness in his tone surprised Alice and made her look at him curiously.
Tooth only let out an exasperated sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers when she realized they were treading along a rough road they've already been down several times before. "How many times do we need to go over this Jack? You don't have to do anything for us. We don't expect you to report your whereabouts every second of everyday! We would just appreciate it if you let us in on the important stuff. We know you're not a child and we respect that, but we just worry sometimes because you're just..."
Jack narrowed his eyes and gestured irritably with his hand for the fairy to finish. "What? I'm just what, Tooth? Go ahead and say it."
"I'm sorry, am I missing something here?" Alice cut in. She was obviously caught in the middle of some sort of sore subject between Jack and other guardians, and as much as she would prefer to stay out of it, Alice didn't feel that now would be a good time to dig up past conflicts when there was too much going on around them already.
"Flighty," Tooth finally said after picking her brain for the right word. "And I mean that in the nicest way possible. You're not like the rest of us Jack. You're constantly moving around from place to place and that makes it difficult for us to stay in contact with you."
"No, it makes it difficult for you to keep tabs on me," Jack barely refrained from snapping at her. "I don't see why that matters now though. You're just overreacting."
"Overreacting!?" Tooth practically screeched. "I'm not overreacting! If anything, I'm under-reacting! We thought something terrible had happened to you, Jack! When we discovered you were missing and those monsters attacked us, we didn't know what to think! You could've been dead for all we knew! Do you have any idea what kind of grief you put us through when we should've been focusing all our attention on defending the workshop!?"
"Yeah well, we're here now and obviously alive so just drop it already!"
Before Tooth could start yanking out pin feathers in absolute fury at Jack's infuriating attitude, Alice stepped closer to the seething fairy with a dark expression. "What monsters?"
"The ones that broke into my workshop and did all this," North spoke grimly as he came up behind Tooth. He motioned with his hand towards to the scorched control system for the Globe of Belief, destroyed toys, and the thick layer of broken glass all over the floor from the nearby busted windows. "All this destruction to my home and comrades."
The Russian's dark eyebrows were knotted tightly in anger and frustration, along with a deep frown to match. He sunk his swords back into the leather sheath around his wide waist a little harder than necessary before crossing his arms.
Noting his distress, Tooth hovered over to him and placed a comforting hand just above his bandaged arm.
"Is anybody hurt?" Jack asked, all his previous bitterness gone from his voice.
North's anger seemed to lessen at the question as he remembered the important things he should be grateful about. "Thank the moon, no. My yeti inform me of only minimal injuries. Just cuts and bruises - few burn marks at very worse, but nothing too serious. We've encounter far worse damage in the past."
"And the rest of the workshop? The toy supply?"
"Again, nothing serious," North repeated. "The monsters wiped out entire week's worth of toy production, but we have certain precautions we take in situations like this. Setback shouldn't be too crippling. As for workshop in general...as long as structure still stands, I suppose we can repair everything in no time."
North slowly took in the damage around them with a visible flinch. Without a doubt, his pre-Christmas workload just got infinitely larger.
The only thing in the workshop that seemed relatively intact was the globe, and even then, it wasn't rotating like usual and all the tiny, yellow lights had creased to shine. It was a bone-chilling sight, to see the globe so still and barren, but that was more of a simple mechanical malfunction from fire damage than anything else.
"What attacked you?" Alice stepped up and asked. "What did these monsters look like?"
Something ominous seemed to pass through the group as North and Tooth looked at each other with utter uncertainty before turning back.
"We don't really know," North admitted. "They looked to be Pitch's nightmares at first but..."
"They're different now," Tooth finished when North trailed off. "Pitch has done something to them, made them more dangerous somehow. They're shaped like nightmares but they're made of some kind of black ick instead of nightmare sand. We don't know what it is."
"Is that what all this gross gunk is?" Jack asked, pointing the crook of his staff towards the main, ooze-covered fireplace. "I tried to touch it but it kept-"
"What!" Tooth exclaimed in shock. "No, don't touch it! Do you not see these burn marks everywhere? It'll burn your skin as soon as you do!"
"Not to mention ruin your clothing," North mumbled irritably to himself as he wiped at a large, black mark on the front of his red shirt.
"This stuff sticks like glue and burns like fire. We need to get it cleaned up, immediately."
"Don't worry, Toothie. I have my best yetis on the job," North smiled proudly as he pointed to a nearby grouping of yetis who were standing around a puddle of black ooze.
The so-called, rag-tag team of North's "best" yetis proceeded to do their leader proud as they poked at the puddle cautiously with a stick and jumped back in fear when the dark substance hissed at them.
"Where's Bunny?" Alice asked.
"And Sandy?" Jack added.
"When we finally managed to get creatures on the retreat, they fled towards the sleigh launching area," North replied. "Bunny and Sandy followed with my yetis to make sure none of them lingered inside my domain. They should be back soon."
"I think maybe you two should go help clean up on another floor before they do," Tooth suggested lightly as she twisted her fingers together nervously. She looked at Alice with worried eyes. "At least that way, North and I can break the news to Bunny easier. He uh...didn't exactly take your absence very well. He won't be happy if he comes back and sees you here. You know how he gets sometimes..."
Jack seemed all too willing to agree with the Tooth Fairy. He wanted to get as far away from his current spot as possible before the Easter Bunny made his dreaded appearance - because surely, the pooka would blame Jack for something.
Alice didn't share the Winter spirit's enthusiasm.
She effortlessly ignored the looks she received from the others as she walked over to a nearby yeti holding cleaning supplies in his arms. She then turned to Tooth with a deadpan expression. "You're right. I do know how Bunny can get, which is why I'm not going anywhere."
"But-"
"And neither should Frost," Alice added flippantly and turned away from the fairy.
Tooth blinked owlishly at Alice's back for several seconds before turning to Jack with a slight pleading look in her fuchsia eyes. She didn't want there to be another fight. Things were stressful enough already...
"Um, Alice?" Jack spoke up while the girl pulled a broom from the yeti's arms. "I think we should listen to Tooth on this is one."
"Why?" She asked without missing a beat as she turned her back towards him again and begun to sweep the broken glass around her feet. "Leaving will only gratify Bunny's ridiculous notion that we are at fault for whatever happened here tonight. I won't allow myself to get blamed for something that I did not do, even if Bunny is the one pointing fingers."
Jack knew Alice was right, and he agreed with her on several points, but he wasn't in the mood to get screamed at by her fluffy nanny. Some fights just didn't need to be fought and Jack was more than willing to take the less confrontational road for once if it meant no more fighting.
"Yeah, I know, but Bunny's not going to see it that way."
Alice tightened her grip on the broomstick handle until her knuckles turned white. She warred against herself to just ignore the ice spirit, but it was turning out to be surprisingly difficult. "Do what you want, Frost. You are your own person after all. Don't let my choices influence yours if you think it'll help your chances against Bunny's misplaced anger and blame. I'm not leaving because I have done nothing wrong."
"Not from where I'm standin',"
Everybody in the room, except Alice, jumped when a familiar, accented voice sounded out from behind them.
They all turned simultaneously to see Bunny and Sandy standing near the top of the staircase with Bunny looking positively livid, and Sandy slowly inching away from the pooka with a funny expression on his round face that clearly said "Yikes".
Bunny's intense, forest-green gaze only flickered on Alice's back for a second as she continued to carelessly sweep before it snapped on to Jack and hardened like arctic ice. He lifted a grey paw and pointed it at the Winter spirit. Jack felt himself grow paler at the sight of the furious pooka stalking towards him like a ticked off Bengal tiger with his big rabbit teeth bared and everything.
"I've got a bone to pick with you, Frost."
Quickly deciding that he wanted to live another few centuries, Jack wasted no time moving behind North, who was conveniently built like a brick wall. It was what he normally did when Bunny was out for the Winter spirit's blood because of some stupid thing he said, or a hilarious prank that went wrong. The Russian would always step in on Jack's behalf and protect him from being mangled by the scary pooka.
North stepped forward and raised his hands in a gentle manner. "Now Bunny, calm down. It's been long, confusing day for everybody and last thing we need is another fight. So I think you should just-"
North might've had size and strength on his side, but Bunny had speed and agility, and because of that, the pooka was able to swiftly maneuver around the mountain-sized man with little effort and get within grabbing distance of Frost before the older spirit even had a chance to finish his sentence.
Jack let out a loud yelp when Bunny reached out with surprising speed and snatched a pawful of his blue hoodie.
Usually, Jack was pretty crafty when it came to escaping Bunny's wrath whenever his Santa defense tactic failed, but for once, Bunny had been too fast for him. To preserve his ego though, he decided to chalk Bunny's accomplishment up to luck since the pooka had the helpful advantage of anger over him.
"Hey! Let me go!" Jack immediately began to struggle to get out of the Easter Bunny's hold.
Bunny ignored his demand and hoisted the squirming spirit into the air by his hood. "I don't think so. I've got half a mind to skin your scrawny hide with a bloody butter knife for all the trouble you caused here tonight!"
Jack kicked his long legs and pulled hard at the paw that had itself twisted tightly into the fabric of his hoodie. Bunny wasn't exactly doing anything except holding him up in the air like a ragdoll, but Jack still wanted the pooka to put him down. He didn't enjoy being manhandled. It only served to remind him how embarrassingly small he was.
"I didn't do anything!"
"Oh no, of course you didn't," Bunny replied, tone bleeding with sarcasm. "You never do anything wrong, do ya mate? You just blink your pretty blue eyes and smile like a fool who doesn't know any better and the others just melt in your hands. All is forgiven. Not with me though, Frostbite! You've really stepped in it this time and I ain't going to just let you charm your way off of thin ice!"
"Put me down now, Bunny! Or I'm going to freeze you!"
As proof, Jack held up his staff threateningly as the aged wood glowed blue in clear warning.
Somewhere in his rage laced mind, Bunny knew he needed to calm down.
He liked to take pride in himself for his steely resolve in grim situations because Bunny wasn't always just grumpy scowls and indignant huffs. Despite his crabby attitude, he could be just as upbeat and positive as any of the other guardians. He was the Guardian of Hope after all.
Unfortunately though, Bunny was generally a very emotional individual, and one of the worst kinds too. He tended to lean quite passionately to the bad-tempered side of the spectrum.
The workshop was a bloody mess, toy production had completely stopped, the creatures had gotten away, and their handler remained a frustrating mystery. North was right, now was not the time for them to be fighting each other. Bunny knew that. But he just couldn't help himself. His emotions were downright uncontrollable sometimes. Once he got worked up over something, there was no stopping what came next. There was only so much his furry body could hold before he exploded and said something he would later regret when he finally calmed down.
Bunny's anger was a double-edge sword, and most of the time, it ended up hurting him more than the person he was angry at. He had a low tolerance for goofing off and messing up, which were two things Jack was an expert at.
The "thin ice" expression he used had been a little uncalled for. He would definitely regret saying that later. And of course, Bunny didn't mean to use the figure of speech in that context. He would never dream of doing that. It just slipped out.
All the guardians knew about Jack's past. He had confided in them about his watery death only a few months after Pitch's defeat when they eventually noticed his (seemingly) irrational fear of large bodies of water. It was a subject that was rarely ever brought up unless Jack was the one to do it, which he never did. They respected that the Winter spirit only told them because it was his way of coming to terms with the devastating revelation, and not because he wanted their help or counsel. He just needed to say it out loud to someone in order for him to accept it as the truth.
It was a taboo topic and Bunny never had a problem not discussing it, just like he never had a problem not discussing Alice's time in Rutledge Asylum. If people didn't want to talk about their problems and past hurts, than Bunny was going to be the last person to make them.
"I bloody dare you," Bunny growled, matching Jack's furious glare with one of his own. "See what happens, you little-"
Bunny was abruptly cut off when something smacked against his back and a hollow, clattering sound of wood knocking against stone echoed throughout the dead silent workshop as the broom that was previously in Alice's hand, fell to the floor.
Jack immediately stopped struggling and went completely limp in Bunny's grasp. His azure eyes flickered anxiously between the silent, emotionless pooka, and the dark-haired girl who threw the cleaning utensil. Bunny had his head bowed low with his ears flattened against the back of his head. Jack couldn't see Bunny's expression from the angle he was being held, but he was willing to bet it was nothing short of murderous.
After several long, bated moments, Bunny finally drew in a deep breath. When he let it out, his shoulders slowly lowered from their tense position and his ears straightened out again.
Jack let out another emasculating yelp when Bunny suddenly dropped his pale body unceremoniously to the stone ground, and twisted on his big rabbit feet to face his new opponent.
"Enough, Bunny," Alice commanded firmly with her hands on her hips and sharp eyes like a reigning queen demanding order in her court.
In Jack's mind -despite his best efforts to not let it get weird on him, the workshop suddenly turned into a setting for an old western movie. The two conflicting cowboys were getting ready to have their final showdown against each other in the center of a shanty town in the middle of a windy desert while the townsfolk hid inside the nearby saloon and waited in dreaded anticipation for the bloodshed. All that was missing was the cliché tumbleweed.
Jack slowly crawled away from the motionless Easter Bunny and made his way over to the guardians who stood off to the sides with wide eyes as they watched the event unfold with no idea of what they should say or do to intervene.
Alice glared back at Bunny for a little while longer before letting out a tired sigh. She then brought her hands up to rub her temples and ward off her impending headache. Tonight had been far too emotionally draining for her to deal with any sort of new drama right now.
"This night has just been one disaster after another," She spoke more to herself than anyone else in the room.
Bunny didn't move from his side of the workshop, but Alice didn't seem to mind being the one to take the first step forward. In fact, her emerald eyes lightened considerably and the frustrated lines on her face gradually smoothed out as she apparently decided to take a more calming approach to the situation. Just like any of the others would've done if they had the ability to speak.
Bunny only watched though as Alice moved towards him.
"I think perhaps a short break would be a good idea," Alice suggested gently with a small smile. "Perhaps some tea will help-"
It was the smile that finally broke Bunny. That small, disparaging smile that threatened to curb his anger and downplay everything. Bunny couldn't even believe Alice had the audacity to smile at him after what she did. He finally snapped.
"What were you thinking!?" Bunny bellowed loudly, cutting of the startled girl and making her stop dead in her tracks.
The smile was wiped clean off her face and her eyes finally portrayed the alarm that Bunny believed should've been there in the first place. It gave him little satisfaction though. Strangely enough, it only seemed to fuel his anger more.
"I-"
Alice tried to speak in her defense, or maybe just try and convey her thoughts out loud about what just happened, but Bunny wasn't having any of it. He was afraid if he let her speak, even for just a second, he would lose his nerve and he wouldn't have the heart to let out the words that had been festering and boiling in his head all night.
"How could you do that!? How could you just leave without a word!"
Bunny moved closer to her with each scolding word as his body nearly shook with rage, actually forcing Alice to take several steps back in something that closely resembled panic as he continued to move forward. The shocked girl even stumbled over her words as she scrambled for the purchase and control that had been ripped so suddenly from her hands.
Bunny had never taken a tone like that with her before. It was too upsetting for words and Alice had no clue how to respond to the unexpected attack she found herself under.
"I didn't think-"
"No," Bunny cut her off gratingly. "Clearly you didn't. Otherwise, you would've been here to help us instead of frolicking around town with your new little boyfriend!"
Alice put out her arms with her palms forward as he still continued to advance on her. "Bunny-"
"And as I'm sure you can plainly see-" Bunny threw his arms up and wildly gestured to the destruction around them. "While you were gone, something broke in here and handed our bloody asses to us!"
The infuriated pooka nearly had the smaller spirit back up against the still smoldering chunk of what use to be the control system for the globe. It wasn't necessarily a very constricting corner to be backed into, but from the way Alice was feeling uncharacteristically frightened of her life-long friend, Bunny might as well have been herding her into a padded room with steel bars.
Alice didn't recognize the spirits standing in front of her anymore, and she wasn't the only one. Jack couldn't even believe how angry Bunny was, and nobody angered the Easter Bunny more than Jack Frost. He didn't recognize the pooka either. In fact, he didn't recognize either of the two spirits in front of him. The wide-eyed little girl on the defensive with her hands held out in front of her as she slowly backed away with a staggering sense of trepidation in her step certainly wasn't the Alice Liddell that Jack knew.
This girl was flinching for Christ's sake!
Bunny wasn't letting up on anything though. Through the fog in his mind, he could see what he was mercilessly reducing Alice too. Breaking down her defenses in a way that only he knew how to, and right in front of an audience no less! It was low of him to do that to her, he would admit it, but on the flip side, it was low of Alice to so carelessly put his mind and heart through hell just because Frost had managed to convince her to act like a regular teenager for once and sneak out of her room.
At first Bunny hadn't really been that upset. Yes, he had been a little ticked off and trigger-happy with Jack Frost name-calling when he discovered that Alice had pulled a fast one on him, but when those mutated nightmares attacked, and those bloody fires broke out, Bunny suddenly feared the worse, just like North and the others. Alice's sudden bout of spirit world hookie turned into a possible kidnapping scenario with no traces to follow and no assailants to track down.
For a long period of soul-crushing distress that Alice made Bunny suffer through as he tried to avoid getting bucked and burned by ooze-dripping monsters, he had thought that Alice was gone. His paranoia even went so far as to whisper in his ear during his battle that Alice was laying in an arctic trench somewhere, dead and soon to be forever buried underneath pounds of ice and snow, leaving him to wallow in grief and failure like he did during the winter of 1863 and two decades afterwards.
So pardon him if he couldn't help but completely blow his top and lose his mind when Alice tried to play off his suffering and near anguish with something as insulting as a smile.
Throughout his harsh chastising though, not once did he explicitly insult her. He dropped a few names in Jack's direction, but never did he speak ill of Alice, and maybe that's why it took her so long to push back. He even had her successfully back into the globe control system now as he continued to throw word after word in her face and she still didn't doing anything to stop him.
"This isn't Wonderland anymore, Alice! This is the real world and you need to wake up! Things can be just as dangerous out here! You can't just go runnin' off whenever you feel like it! I forbid it!"
That was when Alice finally snapped out of her bewildered state.
She was her old, cynically cutthroat self again in a matter of seconds as she stepped forward and shoved against Bunny's furry chest as hard as she could. The startled pooka stumbled back several paces, but ultimately managed to keep his balance.
Nobody treats Alice Liddell like a child.
"How dare you speak to me that way!" Alice screamed at him with a high pitch in her voice that would've shattered the workshop windows if they hadn't already been broken. "What makes you think you can treat me so badly!? You have absolutely no influence over my actions, whatsoever!"
"Oh, I don't!?" Bunny threw back just as hard. "The person who's been your only friend since you were five has absolutely no right to tell you when you're being an irresponsible brat? And why's that, Alice!?"
Alice shoved him hard against the chest again with as much energy and rage as her small body could channel out in a single movement.
For a split second, her dress flashed completely white and her eyes flickered between clover green and blood-red.
"Because you are not my father!"
A thick, oppressive silence dropped like a bomb over the already silent spirits as Alice's words echoed throughout the broken workshop.
Alice stood trembling with resentment as her breath came out in short pants and her knuckles turned ghostly white from clenching her fists too tight.
'Holy crap,' Jack thought with wide eyes and a slacked jaw as he and the rest of the guardians stood grouped together tightly as they practically cowered at the back-draft of the explosive display that just occurred less than twenty feet in front of them.
It was the most intense thing that any of them have witnessed in centuries, but miraculously enough, Alice wasn't finished yet.
Despite her taut, rage-laden limbs and muscles, Alice floated up to a deeply scowling Easter Bunny with surprising grace before she looked him dead in the eye and said the worst thing she could think of to hurt and punish him for what he just did to her.
"I am no longer a child and I don't need you anymore."
Somewhere in the distance, Bunny heard a yeti drop something heavy and Tooth gasp quietly, but he didn't move as he watched Alice turn on her heel and practically run out of the room.
He didn't even move when she eventually disappeared completely from sight. He only frowned after her as his ears dipped with immediate regret over their worst fight ever.
"No...I suppose you don't."
AN: Oh my God guys, drama bomb! Wow! SUPER nervous about this chapter. I hope the fight between Bunny and Alice didn't seem too much. I nearly punched a wall at one point trying to get this out.
Also, sorry for any mistakes! This is the longest chapter in the story up to this point so sorry if I missed a few errors. Words begin to blend together rather annoyingly when you stare at them too long, especially if it's your own writing! If you see a mistake, let me know in a review and I'll fix it!
~Scorpiofreak~