AN: I really wanted to get this chapter out sooner, but my Composition professor kept throwing essays at me, so I've been pretty busy with that. Even right now I should really be working on an essay due later today, but screw it. I'm tired of writing for education. I want to write for fun.
Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Alice: Madness Returns.
As unbelievably stunning as Trundraful was with its starry sky, magnificent glaciers, and how closely connected to his element Jack felt being within it, the Winter spirit was beyond relieved to be back in the Vale of Tears.
"I don't think I have ever been so happy to be back on dry land in my entire life!"
It might've just been the gratifying comfort he got from knowing that he was now miles away from the Wonderland sea, but Jack felt remarkably at ease. The rest of the ship ride to the Vale had been mercifully uneventful. In fact, he was surprised that their little voyage took so long, especially considering Wonderland seemed to be riddled with nifty, conveniently placed portals. The Mock Turtle was apparently adamant that he sail his beloved ship at a speed slower than a cruising Sandman and Alice didn't seem motivated enough to tell the bovine hybrid to pick up the pace.
Jack was antsy about returning to the North Pole. He didn't like the fact that he had "left" so soon after an attack, but when he tried to bring his concerns up with Alice, the woman would only tell him to sit back down and stop fidgeting. Time moved differently in Wonderland, she said. By the time they returned, the other guardians would've barely started to miss them. Jack doubted that, but he knew there was no sense in arguing. Alice was still being surprisingly civil and Jack found himself not wanting it to end.
When their voyage reached the final hour mark, Jack decided it was as good a time as any to fill Alice in on everything that Bunny may, or may not, have told the woman about what happened two years ago, which turned out to be not that much at all. (What the hell Bunny?)
For reasons Jack couldn't even begin to guess, the only thing Bunny told Alice about Pitch Black's attack on him and the guardians, was a brief mentioning that the pooka ran into a few "road bumps" during Easter that year. There was no elaboration beyond that. Nothing about Sandy's death. Nothing about Tooth's kidnapped fairies and stolen teeth. Nothing about Easter being completely ruined. And definitely not anything about Bunny being stripped of his powers and reduced to a cute, little bunny rabbit. But that wasn't really a surprise to Jack. The pooka always threatened to kick his teeth in every time Jack teasingly mentioned Bunny's adorable, powerless form.
Alice had been quiet ever since Jack finished his story of his deadly encounter with the infamous Boogeyman and his own ascension into guardianship. He couldn't say he was surprised. It took him almost an hour to relay the entire events of Pitch's siege. It was a lot to process at once.
The disturbing fact that Bunny had been uncomfortably close to fading out of existence probably didn't help her process any faster.
The dark-haired woman didn't even speak when they finally made their way back to the Vale of Tears. She just walked briskly with her eyes forward and a pensive look on her face.
At some point, Jack wasn't exactly sure when, Alice pulled a blue parasol seemingly out of thin air and walked with it on her shoulder. The lacey, blue material shaded her from the slivers of sunlight that streamed in through the treetops. When Jack finally noticed the sudden appearance of the parasol, he felt the need to ask where it had come from, but Alice only shrugged his question off as she continued to walk along the path like she was taking a casual Sunday stroll through a sunny park, which also didn't come as a surprise. Since leaving the Mock Turtle's ship, Alice seemed wistfully detached from their current situation.
Jack, on the other hand, found himself unable to keep his feet on the ground.
"This is great! Everything seems so much brighter for some reason!" Jack laughed jovially as he came back down from one of his epic leaps. "Even the wind is more stable! Before, it seemed to have some sort of personal vendetta against me and kept trying to break every bone in my body. Nearly succeeded on several occasions."
Jack fell into step next to Alice. He rested his staff along his shoulders and let his hands hang over it as they walked. After a few minutes of silence, Jack turned his head towards Alice and watched as her eyes trained forward in deep thought. Suddenly curious, he turned his body around so he was walking backwards and dipped his head down to catch Alice's eyes from underneath the rim of her parasol.
"Whatcha thinking about?"
Alice regarded him coolly for a few moments before responding. Outwardly, she was as collected as ever, but inwardly she had to push away the sudden pang of attraction she felt from seeing Frost stare up at her through his silvery-white bangs. He had one of his devil-may-care smiles painted on his pale face. In the privacy of her own head, Alice will admit they were quite handsome and charming, even if they were a bad omen for a burgeoning headache.
"Tell me something, Frost. Why do you keep personifying the wind? Back in your world, you speak of it as one would a companion, or a friend. Why?"
"Because the wind is my friend, silly Alice."
"Oh please don't start channeling the Cat. My world is filled with enough riddles."
"Riddles can be fun," Jack quipped. "I mean, when they don't involve life or death situations. Don't you think riddles are fun?"
"I used to, but that was before my creations started torturing me with them. So if it's all the same to you, I would prefer it if you spoke as plainly as possible."
"Alright, suit yourself then," Jack shrugged his shoulders. "But I was being serious. The wind is my friend."
"How is that possible? The wind isn't a sentient being. You can't make friends with it."
"I didn't expect you to understand," Jack remarked before quickly adding. "And I didn't mean that as an insult to your intelligence, or whatever you were just thinking. I just meant normal spirits like you would probably have a difficult time grasping something like that."
"And you are intentionally implying that you are not a normal spirit?"
"Of course I'm not. I'm an elemental," Jack pointed out. "Bunny might have a better chance of understanding since he's a seasonal spirit. He's pretty connected to the earth because of his powers and holiday, so he could probably get how some spirits find companionship in entities others see as inanimate. Tooth might also understand too since she's a spirit capable of independent flight, but spirits like you and North wouldn't understand."
"But I thought North was a seasonal spirit too."
"He is, but he also usually spends three hundred sixty-four days a year locked away in his workshop fortress located in the middle of the arctic nowhere. He doesn't get out much these days. He tries to, just like the others, but something always comes up last minute. He may only technically work one day a year, but running a domain like Santoff Claussen and governing the yetis and elves while they work, is a pretty time-consuming gig."
"I don't doubt it," Alice muttered thoughtfully as she drummed her fingers against the handle of her parasol. "How very strange though. Clearly I have underestimated the complexities of the inner workings of the spiritual world."
Jack snorted before leaping up into the air once again. He let himself float high above the towering treetops, admiring the surreal view of the endless blue sky surrounding the Vale until he felt the wind around him waver. He swiftly dived back down towards the ground before the spiteful entity had the chance to drop him.
The Wonderland winds weren't nearly as impossible to ride as Jack originally believed. It was all a matter of keeping his guard up against the entity's devious tricks. He couldn't ride the winds for any extended period of time, but he could cover a decent amount of distance by using the wind to make gigantic leaps.
"You really don't know anything about the spirit world, do you?" Jack asked as he soundlessly touched back down a few feet behind Alice. He broke out into a light jog to catch up with her.
"Not really. Bunny only ever told me about the guardians. He never told me anything too palpable about the spiritual world. I suppose it hasn't been very relevant until now."
"Well, don't worry about it, Pleasance," He reassured. "It's understandable. Maybe someday we can take an afternoon and I'll tell you everything there is to know about our kind. Maybe over some tea."
Alice face curled up, not sure whether it was from being called her new pet name, or Frost referring to something as "theirs". It made her feel strangely included to Jack's world and that confused her because it also pleased her. She hadn't belonged to something in a long time. "I thought we already discussed what would happen if you called me that."
"My bad. It slipped out."
"Of course it did."
The conversation lulled after that as the two spirits worked their way through the Vale of Tears. Occasionally, Jack would see something too bizarre to ignore, prompting him to ask Alice what it was and she would answer him, but things were quiet beyond that.
Baby Tooth hovered as close to Jack's head as she could without the Winter spirit waving her away whenever her humming wings became too distracting. She was grateful to be out of the cold and back inside the warm forest, but she still wasn't willing enough to leave Jack's side. She tried to remain alert and diligent since her friend was obviously not paying an ounce of attention to the possible dangers around him. He was too deadset on getting back home, which Baby Tooth completely understood, she really missed Mother Tooth, but this place was dangerous. They couldn't afford to let their guard down for even a second, regardless of the mean girl's guidance.
"So hey," Jack spoke up while once again swatting away Baby Tooth from his ear. "You said we were going to the Red Kingdom, right?"
"Indeed we are."
"Would it be presumptuous of me to ask if the Red Kingdom is the Queen of Hearts' neighborhood? Because if it is, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that because so far, every Wonderlander I've encountered has been creepier, deadlier, and ten times crazier than their storybook counterparts, and if that's the typical case for all the characters, I don't even want to imagine what the infamous Queen of Hearts is truly like."
"Courage, Frost," Alice sighed tiredly as she lightly spun the handle of her parasol in her hands, making the blue top twirl. "The Red Queen shall not be a problem. She no longer rules the Red Kingdom. I claimed it as my own after that malignant mass of bodily tissue abandoned it over a century ago."
Jack's brow knotted at Alice's description of the "Red Queen". Malignant what of bodily what?
That definitely didn't sound promising.
"Why'd she abandon it?"
"Because I stomped on her Executioner and she must've feared I'd do the same to her. He was her last line of defense after all, other than the card guards, but they stand firmly underneath the category of "quantity" and can only dream that someday they can move under "quality". Can't say I fault her for worrying."
"So where is she now?"
"Honestly, I haven't the slightest clue, haven't really bothered to look. The Red Queen is exceptionally loud and obnoxious, but she can be quite elusive when she wants to be," Alice replied with a wistful tone. "Cheshire might know, but he's not talking."
Jack pursed his lips in thought as he processed this new bit of information. Obviously, the "inner workings" of Wonderland were just as complicated as the spiritual community's. Perhaps he would make good on his earlier suggestion about filling Alice in on the rules and guidelines of their birth world. Jack was still strictly on the fence when it came to his opinion of Wonderland, warring between loving it and hating it because of its limitless beauty and deadly inhabitants, but it wouldn't hurt to take a day and compare notes. He still felt the deep desire to explore the mysterious land and find out everything it might have to offer him, even if it only turned out to be a lot of grief and scars.
Their conversation hit another flat point and Jack didn't care much for the silence, so he gathered up another gust of wind around him and quickly launched himself up into the air, leaving Alice back on the ground. The woman didn't acknowledge him, not even when his launch caused almost all of her dark hair to twirl up in the air and fall into her face. She just flicked the strands out of her eyes and continued walking.
Jack hovered effortlessly as he scouted out the path ahead of them. His azure eyes trailed along the bulky treetops straight in front of him until the tree line stopped about a mile ahead, giving way to solid rock.
"Hey!" Jack called down at the blue top of Alice's parasol. "It that the canyon you were talking about?"
Alice looked towards the direction Jack was pointing while the Winter spirit waited anxiously for her response. She squinted her eyes slightly to peer through the gaps in between the trees until she caught the barest hint of the rustic orange rock that made up the Teapot Canyons.
She looked back up at the sky and nodded her head. "Yes, it is, but it would be wise if you came back down now-"
Jack didn't hear anything beyond the woman's affirmation. His excitement skyrocketed and his body moved of its own accord. He used the wind to propel him forward at a neck-breaking speed with Baby Tooth in tow.
"Frost!"
He heard Alice shout out his name, but he didn't slow his pace. Back on the ship, Alice said the Teapot Canyons would lead them to the Red Kingdom and then ultimately back to the real world. Jack was so done with this little misadventure. All he wanted was to get to where they needed to go so he could return home before something got the chance to maul him beyond recognition.
The canyon was empty and eerily quiet when Jack touched back down. The walls around him were high. They did a merciful job of blocking out the sunlight - the canyon path was bathed in cool shade. The dirt underneath Jack's feet no longer burned like it did when he came through the first time on his way past Hatter's Gate.
Jack spared a glance back at the distant entrance of the canyon and the fading treeline. He searched briefly for Alice's blue-cladded form, but moved on quickly when he saw nothing.
"She'll catch up eventually," Jack said flippantly when Baby Tooth gave him an anxious frown. The little fairy wrung her hands nervously despite Jack's reassurance, but he just gave her an optimistic grin before spinning slowly on his heel and walking off down the canyon with one hand stuffed in his hoodie pocket and his staff resting on his shoulder. "Stop worrying so much. If anything happens, I'll just backtrack."
The trek through the Teapot Canyon wasn't nearly as interesting as the Vale of Tears. There wasn't as much to see other than impressive rock formations and the occasional oversized teapot. Jack must've been taking a different route from last time when he was following the Cheshire Cat. That path hadn't been as closed in and barren as the one he was traveling now.
The walk had been just as uneventful as before though. There was nothing for Jack to do other than twirl his staff between his fingers until something suddenly flashed in his peripheral vision. His gaze flickered up towards the top of the high canyon wall on his right, just in time to something move and disappear behind the ledge followed by the distant noise of a dropping rock and trickling dirt.
Jack's brow knotted tightly as he slowly came to a stop just below the spot where he saw the movement. He craned his head back and raised a hand above his eyes to help block the blinding sun, his squinted eyes looking for anything heralding trouble, before calling out.
"Alice?"
There was no response, just the sound of the wind whistling softly as it blew through the canyon. Jack shot a glance at Baby Tooth and shot another quick one behind him before looking back up at the canyon top. There was a brief second where Jack considered just shaking the movement off and continuing on his way, but then a sudden chill ran down his spine when a shadow appeared on the ground behind him, projected from the top of the canyon. It was much too short and misshapen to be Alice.
Then, a loud scrapping noise sounded from above him. Jack flinched at the unpleasant noise and immediately fell into a defensive stance as dirt and pebbles trickled down from the canyon top. For several seconds there was just the scrapping noise, ominously getting louder as Jack scrambled to identify the source until suddenly a huge boulder rolled over the side of the canyon, momentarily eclipsing the sun, and plummeted towards the ground where Jack was standing. The Winter spirit let out a cry of shock as he quickly jumped back just as the boulder hit the ground with an earth-shattering bang.
He stared wide-eyed at the massive rock, noting grimly how close he had just come to getting squashed like a bug. A horrible shiver raked his form. It was tough to decide whether the boulder would've killed him, but the sheer size of it alone was enough to convince Jack that he had just dodged a very painful bullet. He tore his gaze away from the boulder and looked back up towards the canyon top, realizing that the scrapping noise from earlier had been the sound of the boulder being pushed towards the ledge. Someone had just tried to drop a boulder on Jack's head.
He searched the canyon top for the culprit and found a short figure standing above him. It was difficult to see anything distinguishing because of the sunlight shining behind it, but Jack got an eyeful of white and green when the creature suddenly launched itself off the ledge and towards the Winter spirit. Jack jumped back once again just as the creature landed.
It was an ugly little thing. Its sickly green skin was dry and wrinkled while its nose and ears were large and exaggerated like a carnival caricature drawing. It had mean, beady eyes that trained intensely on Jack's, and little rat-like teeth that chattered and clicked as it mumbled gibberish to itself. On top of its head was an overturned teacup and a large gear sticking out of its back, but the main focus was the giant fork it was holding in its hands. The oversized utensil shined brilliantly in the sunlight, accentuating the four deadly tips as the little green man brandished the business end at Jack menacingly while slowly stalking forward.
Jack narrowed his eyes at the ugly creature and raised his glowing staff in warning. The creature regarded the Winter spirit with unfocused eyes as a persistent twitch plagued the right side of its face. It continued to mumble garbled nonsense to itself. There was a brief second of inaction on both ends before the creature let out a grating battle cry and launched itself forward in attack with its giant fork held out in front of it.
Seeing the attack coming, Jack quickly shot off an ice blast and hit the little gremlin square in the chest, sending it flying backwards into the boulder it tried to squash Jack with. There was an unpleasant squishing noise when it impacted, but the creature just picked itself back up seconds later, not at all deterred by the ice blast. Not even when a blotch of blood was left behind on the side boulder where the creature hit. It only shook the stars from its eyes before launching itself at Jack again.
This time, Jack let the creature come at him before swiftly raising his staff to stop the fork and block the attack aimed towards his face. He delivered a brutal kick to the creature's unprotected stomach. It immediately went down again, dropping its weapon in the process and giving Jack the opportunity to shower it with a long stream of ice from the crook of his staff. He poured ice on top of the creature relentlessly until it was completely encased in ice and frozen to the ground.
The creature was no longer able to move, but it continued to shift its black eyes back and forth within its icy prison. Staring down at it, Jack felt a small amount of pity for the creature, but not nearly enough to consider releasing it. The Teapot Canyons were pretty warm, the ice would melt eventually and it would be free again. Assuming it wouldn't suffocate before then, that is.
From somewhere to his right, Jack heard Baby Tooth chirp shrilly, but before he could turn to see what had ruffled the little fairy's feathers, a heavy weight suddenly crashed into his back and knocked him unceremoniously to the ground. It threw him completely off guard and Jack didn't have enough time to use his hands to break his fall. He landed directly on his chest and got the wind harshly knocked out of him.
As he fought to learn how to breathe again, another one of those creatures attached itself to Jack's back and proceeded to jab him repeatedly with the blunt end of a giant spoon while screaming nonsense in his ear. His lungs still burned, but Jack forced himself to roll over on to his back and face the creature that was stupidly trying to impale him with a spoon. His staff had been knocked out of his hands when he was tackled so he had to use his hands to fight off the green creature.
They struggled on the ground for several seconds, battling to gain leverage over the other, before a shadow fell on them. Jack craned his head back and dropped his arms just in time to see a flash of blue. A booted foot suddenly came out of nowhere, sailing inches over his forehead and violently connecting with the underside of the green smurf's chin.
The most sickening cracking sound Jack had ever heard in his entire lifetime rang through the canyon, even worse than the time he slipped on a patch of ice as a human and broke his arm.
The goblin's head whipped backwards, his neck ripping open at the sheer force of the kick. Jack let out a yelp and quickly rolled to the side to avoid getting splattered with the red liquid that now sprayed uncontrollably from the creature's neck like a lawn sprinkler. He narrowly escaped it, but Alice didn't shy away. Blotches of red splattered across the front of her dress and face.
Jack snatched up his staff and scrambled away from the creature as it slumped forward, clawing weakly at the fatal wound across its neck. Breathing heavy, he pulled himself back on to his feet and ran a clumsy hand through his white hair.
"Are you alright?" Alice asked, cool as a cucumber with droplets of dark blood slowly running down her face.
"No," Jack snapped, holding down a gag at Alice's painted face. "Of course I'm not alright! It's too warm out here, I almost got a boulder dropped on my head, and I think that thing just tried to get to second base with me!"
"Oh buck up. They could've done worse," Alice remarked.
"Do you even know what second base means?"
"No, but I assume anything's better than being impaled with a giant eating utensil."
She used the back of her hand to wipe the lines of blood off her cheeks and chin. Not that it did much to help. They only smeared across the side of her face in long streaks, making her look even more battle worthy than before. She didn't seem to care in the slightest though as she continued to work at them. At one point it even looked like she was rubbing the blood into her skin, like some kind of macabre moisturizer, but that could've just been Jack's mind trying to gross him out.
Once she got the blood off her skin, Alice ran a hand through her dark hair and tossed it before walking over to the twitching green body laying on the ground. Miraculously, it was still alive, even with the giant puddle of blood pooling around it. With crazy eyes, it watched as Alice approached with Jack close behind and stared up at them defiantly even as blood continued to drip from its broken neck. Alice only regarded it with a scoff before she kneeled down and sunk her Vorpal blade right into its eye-socket. Jack cringed at the horribly wet sound it made and resisted the urge to gag again.
He would've marveled at how straight-faced Alice managed to remain if it hadn't made him feel so sick.
"Gross," Jack said around a thick swallow. "Nice kick by the way."
Alice muttered a "thank you" as she used the end of her soiled white apron to clean the blood off her blade.
"What are these things?" Jack asked. He tentatively poked the dead creature's big nose with his foot and shuddered at the weird, wrinkled feel of its green skin against his bare toes.
"Madcaps," Alice replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "And you would've known that earlier if you hadn't taken off so suddenly. I was going to warn you about them and have us take an alternate route. They like to lurk around the canyon tops and ambush travelers, namely me, with rocks and silverware for fun."
"Sorry," He mumbled. "Wasn't thinking. Can we still take that route?"
"Not much point in it now," Alice remarked with a sigh as she looked up at the canyon top with a slight scowl. She pointed at the eight little figures of green that now lined along the wall before looking back down at her knife. "We've been made."
Jack looked around the canyon tops to assess what kind of numbers they were up against. His eyes counted ten so far, but he lost count when he caught sight of one of the creatures taking aim at Alice's back with a sharpened butter knife. It lined up its shot and threw the utensil like a spear.
Acting on split-second instinct, Jack quickly hooked the crook of his staff around Alice's ankles before pulling hard, causing the woman to cry out in surprise as her balance suddenly abandoned her and she landed on her bottom with a soft "Oof!". Half a second later, the butter knife spear soared past where Alice had been previously standing, and hit the canyon wall.
For the next few moments, Jack couldn't help but smile triumphantly as he watched Alice's face. At first, she glared up at him with disbelief and agitation, as if she couldn't even begin to guess what the hell was going through Jack's head at that particular moment, but just as she was in mid-glare and rant, she caught sight of the butter knife lodged into the canyon wall, immediately deducing what just happened.
She looked back at Jack's cocky smirk and rolled her eyes.
"Don't let a little dumb luck over-inflate your ego."
Jack only chuckled in response as he reached down and grabbed Alice's wrists to help her back on her feet. He smiled again when she didn't immediately yank away from his grasp and freely allowed him to help her up. Once she was upright again, she brushed off her apron before looking back up at the Madcaps above them.
The dozen conveniently broke up in half. Six off them jumped down into the canyon a few yards behind Jack and Alice while the other six stayed at the top. Madcaps have never been vastly known for effective battle tactics.
Alice didn't acknowledge the Madcaps behind them. She focused solely on the ones above them, her mind automatically determining that they needed to be taken out first. If they weren't, then they would have free rein to keep tossing boulders down over her and Frost's ears while they battled their comrades.
"Be a dear, Frost, and take care of the few down here. I'll be up there," Alice said, deciding to take the "Divide and Conquer" approach.
Jack whipped around just as Alice's form disappeared within a cloud of blue dust and butterflies. "What?"
Alice scaled the rocky canyon wall faster than Jack never imagine she could, making impressive leaps and doing curt twirls in the air that gave her an extra boost to each a high platform, almost manipulating the wind around her like Jack did, albeit on a much smaller scale. She was at the top of the canyon wall within moments, launching herself at the nearest Madcap the second her feet touched the ground.
Jack barely had time to watch Alice lock blades with another butter-knife-totting Madcap before one of the Madcaps on the ground charged the Winter spirit with a fork. He quickly back flipped out of the way just as the fork dug into the ground. As the the Madcap tried to pull the fork free, Jack to his opening and swung the crook of his staff at the creature's head. Disoriented by the blow, the Madcap fell to the ground and didn't get back up. Jack easily jumped over it and moved on to the other five gremlins.
They were quick, Jack had to give them that. Even with the bulky gears and clocks that adorned their shriveled green bodies, they were able to swiftly roll out of the way of Jack's ice blasts. They were quicker and more agile than he originally gave them credit for, but a few impressive moves in battle wasn't enough to favorably tip their odds against a three hundred year old Winter spirit. Where they were quick and crafty with their attacks, Jack was there to match it tenfold. Three centuries of riding the volatile winds, shepherding raging blizzards, and free-running across entire cities wasn't a repertoire they were going to beat.
That didn't stop them from trying though.
They didn't attack one by one, which was a bit of an annoyance, but the Madcaps were barely aware of each other. It was all too easy for Jack to use their attacks against each other by simply jumping into the air whenever more than one Madcap charged him, then send a powerful attack of his own when they collided blindly into each other. The fight wasn't much of problem other than the disadvantage of being one against six. Sometimes, Jack would get turned around by the various moving shapes in his peripheral vision, or narrowly dodge two attacks at once, but he had more than enough skill to correct himself before any fatal attacks could hit their target.
The only thing Jack failed to factor in was their environment and the stability of it, or lack there of. Where the rock formations looked sturdy and unmovable from first glance, there was bound to be a harsh reminder to everybody present that Wonderland itself was malicious in nature and could easily rewrite the laws of physics and general science just for the fun of causing as many inconveniences as possible for the inhabitants; including its creator and guest.
That reminder came in the form of a sudden rock slide.
Alice was facing off against a particularly nasty Madcap, wielding a fork and teapot top shield, when the ground underneath her feet begun to rumble. She knew immediately that the foundation was starting to give way, but to her intense frustration, the Madcap kept trying to attack her. She looked it straight in its unfocused eyes and concluded that the daft idiot was either completely unaware of what was about to happen, or too hellbent on taking down Alice to care about its own well-being. Either way, it didn't bode well for Alice.
The solid ground beneath her feet suddenly crumbled into loose dirt and Alice's boots scrambled for purchase. The Madcap launched itself at her again, but she quickly ducked, narrowly avoiding the sharp tips of the creature's fork. Without a moment of hesitation, Alice threw her precarious balance to the wind and reached out to grab the top of the Madcap's shield. She was standing on the very edge of the rock slide, she was going down no matter what, but since the Madcap was at fault for pointing her in such a situation, it would only be courteous of it to go over the edge first.
She let out a grunt as she dug her heels into the softened ground beneath her and used the leverage to pull as hard as she could on the Madcap's shield, successfully heaving the little green man over the edge. It let out a gurgled scream as it fell all the way towards the ground. The noise echoed throughout the canyon until being effectively cut off when it landed on an erect butter knife left behind by one of its comrades.
Alice only had a few seconds to look down at the impaled Madcap before the dirt below her feet shifted again and she found herself falling backwards over the side of the collapsing canyon wall.
Jack heard the commotion and felt the vibrations through his feet, but a Madcap attempting to lodge a broken spoon handle in his throat kept him from looking up. After blasting the ugly creature several feet away, he looked towards the canyon wall just as a huge chunk of it give way and caved in. His eyes widened in alarm when he caught the barest hint of a blue blur through the falling dirt and rocks.
"Alice!?"
Within seconds, Jack crossed the gaping distance between him and the rock slide with help from the wind, but had to stop short just before the raining curtain of earth, lest he wanted to get stuck under the rainstorm of rocks too. He would admit he felt a little helpless as he waited for the sky to stop falling. All he could do was wait on standby and pray Alice wasn't squashed by a rock. That would be rightly difficult to explain to Bunny.
As soon as the rock slide creased, Jack was up in the air and hovering above the rubble. His eyes quickly searched the jagged debris.
"Alice?"
Thankfully the rock slide happened at an angle and was made up of mainly loose dirt and small rocks. It was more like a dirt avalanche than a rock slide really. It was easy spotting the splash of blue that made up Alice's dress among the rustic orange dirt of the canyon. She lay partially buried underneath a pile of dirt.
Jack immediately dived down towards her prone figure and used a gust of wind to blow away the dirt piled on top of her, excavating her from the rock slide like a fossil. When she was uncovered, he crouched down next to her. She was laying on her side with her arms sprawled out in front of her, completely limp and covered in dust. Jack reached down and snapped his fingers in front of her face, attempting to incite some sort of response from the fallen woman, but exhaled through his nose in frustration when nothing happened. He then gently pushed her on to her back, hissing softly through his teeth when he caught sight of the wound on Alice's leg. There was a large shard of porcelain sticking out of the side of Alice's right thigh, most likely a broken fragment from a Madcap's teapot shield. The laceration had to be a least a few inches long with blood steadily staining the white stripes of her stockings, turning them a sickly red. Jack took a quick moment to think.
The good news, spirits like them usually had to bleed every single drop of blood in their bodies in order to die from blood loss and Alice's wound was nowhere near that fatal. The bad news, Alice must've also received a blow to the head and spirits weren't as durable against head injuries.
Jack reached out a tentative hand to try and shake Alice awake, but stopped mid-way when their luck continued to worsen and noises above them caught his attention.
A ball of dread dropped into the pit of Jack's stomach when another set of tremors erupted underneath him and the telltale sound of another shift in the canyon came from behind him. He quickly glanced over his shoulder and cursed when he saw a few Madcaps standing at the top of ledge. They were using their oversized utensils to pick loose boulders free before letting them barrel down towards the bottom of the collapsed canyon wall where Jack stood crouched next to Alice's fallen form. The entire canyon seemed to rumble and quake around them from the powerful force of the tumbling boulders.
Now that, was a rock slide.
With one hard swipe of his staff, Jack blew back the four remaining Madcaps at the top of the collapsed canyon wall with a strong gust of icy wind. They cringed and yelled as they were pelted with shards of glowing ice. Jack turned up the force and power of the attack and encased them in solid blocks of ice, allowing him the leeway to face the oncoming rocks still rolling downwards. The tip of his staff glowed blindingly with another mounting ice blast as the Winter spirit moved forward. He jumped effortlessly over Alice, putting himself between her and the clusters of large, bouncing boulders that threatened to crush them.
Immediately, Jack knew there was no chance of him stopping the rock slide with any number of ice blasts in the short time he was given. He could construct a wall of ice, but did he really have enough time to do so? One look at the closing distance between them and the approaching boulders told him no before another last second idea fleeted across the surface of his brain.
With no time to really think it over, Jack threw his arms up in air with a bright, blue light pooling around them before sharply bringing them down again in a wide sweeping motion. The effect was almost immediate. The temperature dropped significantly in the small pocket of air around the two spirits and a dark shadow suddenly encased them as thick walls of ice constructed themselves around Jack and Alice in the same motion the Winter spirit made with his arms. There was the high-pitched crackling noise of spreading ice as a small ice dome blossomed above their heads and steadily moved down towards the ground before hardening into a smooth, flawless surface.
The rock slide hit them only seconds later. It jarred the ground below them violently, making it difficult for a kneeling Jack to keep his balance. The unpleasant sound of hard earth smashing together reverberated within the dome and gave Jack the sensation of rattling bones and bursting eardrums. He flinched every time a boulder impacted against the curved top of the dome, violently cracking its flawless surface. His limbs instinctively readied themselves to use his powers if the dome top gave way, but the dome miraculously continued to hold. And fortunately enough, once the rock slide hit, it didn't last for more than a few seconds. Although, to the conscious spirit hunkered down within the dome, it did seemed so much longer.
When the boulders stopped crashing against the dome and silence immediately took over, Jack allowed himself to release the breath he didn't even notice he was holding. He slowly untangled his arms from above his head and moved to sit back on his ankles. Rock and dust covered the dome on all sides, making it even darker and colder inside. It wasn't obvious when looking at Jack, but there were faint clouds of chilled breath that puffed out in front of Alice's face every time she exhaled.
Jack aimed his staff at the top of the dome once he was sure that all movement outside had creased before shooting off a powerful ice blast, shattering the thick ice and breaking the top off the dome. As soon as the dome broke open, Jack moved forward so the top half of his body covered Alice's head as he quickly covered his own with his arms as dirt, rocks, and little slivers of ice poured in from the broken dome top. When the worst of it was over, he uncovered himself again and stood up to climb out of their little rock slide safe zone. He let out an agitated groan as more dirt and dust poured on to his head, but he only turned away and shut his eyes tight before pushing on.
Azure eyes swiftly scanned the ruined canyon for danger as Jack heaved himself on top of one of the boulders laying next to the dome. He let out a sigh of relief when he found no signs of more madcaps and gingerly climbed to his feet. He looked down at himself and let out another sigh; he was a mess.
Covered in dust from head to toe, he shook the blanket of thin earth off his clothes and hair like a rain-soaked dog. He felt a light shift against his abdomen as the little Tooth Fairy in his hoodie pocket finally decided to venture out of her hiding spot. She hovered up towards Jack's head and let out a series of tiny coughs when she accidentally flew face-first into the cloud of dust surrounding the ice spirit. When the dust settled, she looked around the collapsed canyon with awestruck expression before giving her friend an exasperated frown, as if to say: Jack Frost, just look at the mess you made!
Jack only flashed her a smile of saccharine innocence before looking at what remained of his dome, clearly impressed with himself. He had made dozens of ice domes in the past, sometimes to sleep in when he couldn't find a comfortable enough tree and sometimes to protect his penguin buddies from unexpected avalanches, but he's never made one thick enough to withstand an onslaught of boulders. But then again, there has never been much cause to make one before now. Jack didn't make it a habit of frolicking through unstable canyons.
He quickly set his staff aside and bent back down into the dome to fish out Alice. She remained completely unresponsive as he hooked his arms underneath hers and hauled her out of the dome as gently as he could.
"Yep," Jack murmured after he pulled her on to the rock next to him. He picked up one of Alice's hands and lightly waved it back and forth before releasing it and watching it fall limply back on her stomach. "She's out cold."
Baby Tooth fluttered over to the fallen girl and poked her sharply in the cheek with her beak. When she didn't move, the little fairy looked up at Jack and shrugged her shoulders helplessly.
The Winter spirit bit his bottom lip in thought, musing deeply on what he should do next before deciding to examine Alice closer. He reached up and ran his hand through her dark hair, his fingertips gently searching along her scalp for any bleeding cuts. When he found none, he let a huge chunk of his worry go, relieved that her fall hadn't cracked her skull open. Spirits were tougher and much more durable than mortal beings, but severe head injuries could still be devastating and brain damage was a serious issue regardless of one's immortality status.
"Okay, time to think," Jack said to himself as he rubbed his fingers together in thought. He looked around the partially caved-in canyon for inspiration, but found nothing except giant, chipped crockery and piles of boulders. There were no signs of anymore green men lurking the area, probably all crushed and killed by the rock slide. It didn't necessarily insure there weren't any more on the way, but at least there was a good chance of avoiding another fight. "We need to get out of here."
From almost every angle he looked at it, their best bet would be to find the Red Kingdom. Alice said the canyon led straight to the kingdom, so the only thing Jack could really do was keep following the path in front of them.
He looked down at Alice's unconscious form for several moments before pushing back his lingering inhibitions. He set aside his staff and gingerly worked his hands under Alice's body while being mindful of any possible injuries that may lay hidden underneath her skin from her unpleasant tumble. Once he had one arm hooked behind her knees and the other behind her shoulders, he hauled himself up to his feet with a grunt. The sudden momentum paired with Alice's weight caused Jack to clumsily stumble back a step as he fought to gain back his balance.
"Jesus woman, either the gravity in Wonderland is just as whacked up as the wind, or you're smuggling bricks in your stocking because you are definitely heavier than you look."
There was an obvious lack of response from Alice. Her eyes remained closed as her head lulled back into the crook of Jack's elbow and her dark hair spilled over the side of his arm like ink. The arm that was trapped between Alice's side and Jack's chest rested across her stomach while her other arm hung uselessly in the air. More blood stained her striped stockings, but at a slower pace, signifying the cut was starting to clot, which was good news. There was still the chance of infection, albeit very slim, but once they got to the Red Kingdom, Jack could scrounge around for some first aid and patch the wound up.
When he was confident that he wouldn't drop the girl in his arms, Jack looked down at his staff with an apprehensive frown, knowing immediately it was going to be a challenge figuring out how he was going to juggle both his staff and Alice's svelte frame.
"Oh boy, this is going to be more fun than the time I told Tooth her mini fairies technically make her asexual," Jack muttered sarcastically as he hooked his bare foot underneath his staff and tossed the wooden conduit upwards like a hacky-sack.
It took him several tries and some assistance from Baby Tooth before Jack finally caught his staff. It took him another several tries and even more assistance from Baby Tooth before Jack finally manged to find a way to hold both of his carry-ons. It was slightly awkward and silly looking, but it worked.
Partially satisfied, Jack rolled his shoulders the best he could before looking up at Baby Tooth and her giggly little face.
"Shut up, you little feather duster. How would you like to try carrying her?"
The tiny fairy's chirping giggles and teasing smile dropped instantly and she frantically shook her head no.
"Yeah, thought so," Jack smirked at her before letting his eyes trail back down to the limp figure in his arms. He blinked sullenly down at Alice's unconscious face and exhaled softly through his nose, his shoulders visibly sagging.
"You better be wake up though, and soon, or else I'm going to send Wonderland into an irreversible ice age just out of spite."
With Alice laying limb in his arms and Baby Tooth hovering nervously nearby, Jack carefully picked his way over the rock slide debris and jumped back down on the canyon path and continued on their way to the Red Kingdom.
AN: Blegh, I don't really like this chapter. I didn't cover as much plot ground as I wanted it to. Oh well, I hope you guys enjoyed it at least. Next chapter shouldn't take very long. I plan for it to be relatively short in comparison of the others and I've got a huge chunk of it already written. Shouldn't be long.
As always, if you see a mistake in the content, let me know in a review and I'll fix it. Thanks!
~Scorpiofreak~