AN: Just curious, how many of you out there are readers who've been with me since the very first chapter was posted, or maybe the first five chapters? I was just wondering since Winter Wonderland will soon be coming to a close. Leave me a review, I'd love to hear from you.
Buckle up kiddies. This one is going to be a doozy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Alice: Madness returns.
I had a way then losing it all on my own
I had a heart then but the queen has been overthrown
And I'm not sleeping now, the dark is too hard to beat
And I'm not keeping now the strength I need to push me
Lights ~ Ellie Goulding
He was freezing. Always freezing.
There was no reprieve from the empty coldness of the chamber. It wafted around him in a fine mist, coating the very tips of his grey fur with frost as he laid curled into a ball in the center of the room. Exhaustion licked persistently at his subconscious, but he was unable to close his eyes, feeling as if his eyelids would freeze shut forever if he closed them. And even if that wasn't the case, the hissing shadows that lurked around every corner of his stone prison did an exceptional job of keeping him wide awake. Wallowing in the depths of personified horror and darkness was about as pleasant and relaxing as anyone would imagine.
After the initial torture, inflicted on him out of vengeance and spite, Bunny was left to dwell in the dark chamber of the Dollmaker's little slice of hell, alone. Alone with nothing but an endless circle of thoughts and exposed insidious ooze burns to keep him company.
The coldness was unlike anything he had ever felt before, and that was coming from a creature that unfortunately found himself taking the blunt of many devious pranks from the very embodiment of Winter himself. Even with such a harsh element, Jack always found a way to bring a sliver of warmth into it, into each snowflake, each snowball, each blizzard. He conjured it into something beautiful and welcoming, even in the face of Winter being the season of stagnation and death. The little frostbite knew how to breathe life into it, and even though the pooka didn't particularly enjoy the cold, the utter magic and effort that went into each Winter breeze was not lost on him.
This cold was nothing like that.
It made his wounds sting, his bones ache, and his feet numb. It made the tips of his ears and nose tingle. It made him curl further into himself as his wheezing, shallow breaths came out in white puffs. It also made him trip over his own thoughts, repeatedly. And naturally, those thoughts revolved mainly around Alice. His mind worked against him as he focused on insignificant details and pointless memories when he should've been looking for a way to free himself from the Dollmaker's clutches, or even tending to his own wounds. They littered his body, running all along the length of him. He had deep cuts and burns from being struck with insidious ooze, leaving behind bald patches of missing fur. His ribcage felt like it was on fire and was no doubt broken in several places from being tossed around like a ragdoll, making it very difficult for him to breathe without gasping. His head pounded like nobody's business, doing a great job of keeping his mind groggy and disoriented.
Through the pain though, Bunny had more than enough time to think about the last seventy-two hours and how much things had changed in that short period of time. He thought about the moment the Man in the Moon revealed Alice as the new guardian. He thought about his choice of bringing Alice back to the real world and whether or not it had truly been a mistake. He thought about his friends. He thought about the children. He thought about his impending death at the hands of Alice's greatest enemy and most ruthless creation.
And for some reason, it all drifted back to and centered around something Frostbite had said to him, just after that horrible fight with Alice.
She thought Bunny was trying to replace her.
It was an entirely ridiculous idea that would've made Bunny laugh out loud at the time if he hadn't been so angry with himself, but he now realized why Alice thought he was trying to replace her.
Sophie.
For the record, not once, in all the years that Bunny has known Alice, had he thought about replacing her with someone else. There was no replacing Alice Liddell.
Yes, there were times when Bunny would get frustrated with Alice and leave to visit Sophie, where he would seek a reprieve from the woman's demanding personality, but that was only because he was desperate to feel a child's unconditional love again. Because he was frustrated that he couldn't make Alice laugh and smile like she used to. Because his little Alice was broken beyond repair and Sophie acted as an adequate and willing surrogate, a nostalgic reminder of happier times. There was no going back to how he and Alice were when she was a child, and even though he had grown to accept that, there were times where he still yearned for things to feel like the good old days.
She was in his life, though, and that would never change. Sophie was in his life too, but she was mortal. Just like all children, she would grow old and die. Sophie was happy and wonderful, a little spot of sunshine that she would probably keep inside her well into her adult life. She had a loving mother, a proud father (and though divorced, still equally as loving), and a smart, protective big brother. She had every opportunity in the world to become what Alice would've if Bumby had never tainted her life. And maybe that was why Bunny gravitated to her.
However, he forgot to factor in certain aspects of Alice's character; her possessiveness. She knew how to share, how to be selfless, and how to help people in need, but she could be quite greedy when it came to things she fancied, and more specifically, people she fancied. Bunny always figured that need for attention stemmed from losing her family and growing up alone. She sensed the change in Bunny immediately when the pooka started visiting Sophie on a frequent basis, even though Alice had no idea the little girl even existed. She just knew by looking at him that she wasn't the only ankle-biter in his life anymore.
Alice had always been so perceptive, so in-tune with others and their surroundings. He didn't think it needed to be said. He thought she already knew. He thought she knew, without a single doubt, that he cared about her more than anyone. It shouldn't have needed to be said, but apparently, it did.
If only he had realized that before. If only he had acted like Alice's friend and not her father. If only they had more time to-
Bunny was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of approaching footsteps, finely made shoes tapping distinctively against the stone floor. The darkness seemed to converge around him once again like a lead net as the malicious presence stalked closer to his weakened form.
"Comfortable?" came the condescending, two-toned voice of the Dollmaker.
Bunny fixed the corpse-like creature with his most scathing, Easter Bunny glare. He conveyed all of his pain, hate, and anger into the glare, hoping to burn a hole right through the disgusting creature's skull. No such luck, though. The Dollmaker only stared down at the pooka with milky white eyes and a dull expression. Though his sunken face betrayed little emotion, Bunny knew he got a sick kick out of torturing Alice's most cherished companion, her last piece of family. He didn't doubt the only reason he was still alive was solely to use him against the dark-haired woman when she finally came for him. Bunny didn't want her to come. He knew it could potentially lead to her death, and the death of the other guardians, but he also knew they wouldn't stay away. They were his family after all.
"Alice is coming," He grounded out through clenched teeth despite the red-hot pain in his chest.
"Oh, I'm already well aware of that," The Dollmaker grinned maliciously, showing off his dripping, shark-like teeth. "Would you like to know what I'm going to do to her when she gets here?"
"She's going to kill you," He seethed.
"Now let's not get ahead of ourselves now, silly rabbit," Dollmaker cooed almost gently, prodding the pooka in the side with the tip of his shoe. "When Alice gets here, no doubt she'll be in a rather sour mood, so of course, we're going to hear a great deal of that sailor's mouth of hers. But perhaps, if we're lucky, she'll be so infuriated that she'll just skip the pleasantries and jump straight into things."
"She'll bash your bloody skull in!"
"We'll have a big climatic battle-" The Dollmaker continued without missing a beat. "-which she'll ultimately lose, despite best efforts. I underestimated her once, but I won't do it again. That is one advantage I won't allow her to have a second time."
"Doesn't matter how many disadvantages you throw at her, she ain't goin' to stop 'till you're back in the ground where you belong."
The Dollmaker regarded him with an agitated look as if the pooka was being a repugnant little child, refusing to take his medicine. "I don't think you quite understand yet what is happening here, rodent. This is my game. My playing field. My rules. You are nothing more than a disposable pawn. An insignificant blip on my omnipotent radar. Alice is the endgame here. I am going to use you to draw that little bitch out and then I'm going to dispose of you. Snap your fragile neck in front of her and leave you to bleed on the floor at her feet."
Bunny shook his head against the Dollmaker's words and curled further into himself.
"Nothing is going to stop me. Not Alice. Not her frozen paramour or your other ostentatious companions. They stand in my way and I'll cut them down. I'll drag out their worst nightmares and their most disturbing fantasies and torment them with their own minds before slowly ending their lives. But not Alice, though. Oh no, I'll save her for last. I'll keep her around so she can see it all happen."
"Don't count on it. They're tougher than you give 'em credit for," Bunny mumbled miserably into his patchy fur.
"Don't interrupt!" The Dollmaker snapped, kicking the pooka in the side and inciting a stifled cry of pain from him. "Then, when she has absolutely nothing left, when I've had my fun with her and broken her in every way possible, I'm going to throw her down a well. A deep, dark, cold well, and seal up the top so I can leave her there to fester over her failure and all the deaths she had caused. I'll leave her down there to rot."
"Go to Hell."
The Dollmaker only let out a sigh at Bunny's venomous denials as he turned on his heel and started walking away.
"Enough with the cliche one-liners, Rodent. You're giving me a headache."
He stopped dead in his lopping stride and went visibly rigid when a loud boom resonated from somewhere far in the distance, causing a thundering noise to reverberate off the walls and a thick vibration to shake the ground. Bunny had to hide the rush of emotion that ignited in his stomach when he peeked a bloodshot eye through his limp ears and saw the deep scowl now etched on to the Dollmaker's undead face. His milky, soulless eyes darkened until the pupils popped open with a sickening noise and black ooze started seeping from the empty sockets. His rotten teeth reshaped themselves into jagged points as his corpse appearance decayed even further in his anger.
It was an ugly sight, but it left the pooka feeling more satisfied than sickened.
Was the unholy embodiment of death and sorrow upset now? Good.
Bunny revelled in the Dollmaker's soured mood with silent bitterness as his captor seethed to himself.
Black's betrayal did not come as a surprise to him, or even a disappointment. He knew the rat would weasel his way out of their shaky partnership eventually. The Dollmaker was just hoping he would hold out a little longer.
The Dollmaker let out a frustrated growl, inciting a cocky chuckle from the pooka laying on the floor.
"Buckle up, mate," He smirked through his pain. "You've got company."
~O~
For obvious reasons, only Alice could make the connection between the Dollmaker's Wonderland and the Vale of Doom, but the full effect and indisputable evidence of the monster's twisted nature was not at all lost on the guardians.
Inside Pitch's lair they had found a wall-to-floor, silver mirror. They all gathered around it; North, Tooth, Sandy, Jack, Alice and a couple of North's yetis the Russian had brought as backup. Its frame was ornamented rather exquisitely, certainly distinguishable against the bland, monotonous motif of the Boogeyman's domain. The surface of the looking glass was slick and spotless, but rippled like an oasis pool when Alice reached out and tapped it ever so slightly with her fingertips, revealing a portal to another realm. She didn't give so much as a quick glance back at the spirits accompanying them behind her before she stepped forward and allowed the liquid silver to swallow her whole and then depositing her into the very heart of darkness.
The Dollmaker's Wonderland was a floating, mountainous region.
The dark world was a burned reincarnation of Alice's Wonderland, just like when the Vale of Tears had been demolished and replaced with the Vale of Doom, back during the Dollmaker's first siege. Rivers and puddles of ruin slime were scattered everywhere and the terrain was a barren wasteland. It was all surrounded by a burning sky where debris ran amok, heading towards an endless spiral somewhere far back on the very edge of total oblivion.
Violent winds whipped around the spirits, tossing their hair and clothing wildly in all directions while the air smelled thickly of sulfur and death.
The Cheshire Cat's voice rang through Alice's head once again as she gazed out over the sinister land.
'The sound! The stink! Oh what have you imagined, Alice?'
The dark-haired woman didn't even fathom the idea of looking back at the spirits behind her, already having a decent idea of what their expressions would look like. No doubt this was probably the closest any of them had ever come to being in a literal hell. In fact, if there truly was a Hell somewhere out there on the mortal plane, Alice would imagine it would look a lot like this. She didn't want to see their faces when they realized the full extent of the damage she could do with just her remarkable imagination. She didn't want to see their faces when they remembered she was the Dollmaker's creator. When they realized she was the "mother" of a devil.
She heard North whisper a Russian curse under his breath in total awe and she felt the piercing gaze of Jack's azure eyes on her back, and that had been more than enough for her.
So instead of lingering, she looked towards the largest plateau that hovered in the very heart of the demented realm. The one that floated above the ruin that she and the guardians were standing on and was connected to it only by a long, gravity-defying staircase at the very base. The plateau was mostly made up of a tall, black mountain with the distinguishable shape of the Dollmaker's Workshop floating up near the peak.
The Dollmaker's new workshop resembled his old one rather closely. Not even Alice, who inadvertently constructed the original, couldn't spot many significant differences. It was still a looming, godforsaken structure on the outside, taking the form of a tall tower that was made up of slender houses constructed together with spirals of thick fog circling around it. The bottom half of the wooden tower had several metal strings attached to it to keep it afloat, connected to nearby floating ruins like a puppeteer's marionette.
Alice didn't dwell much on the morbid scenery like the others did, having already traveled this path once before. She only started to ascend the staircase and trusted that the guardians would soon follow her, which they did.
The staircase had slabs of raw meat on the surface of each stair. They squished unpleasantly underneath the spirits' feet. So much so, the spirits with the ability of independent flight, chose to hover above the staircase while the remaining spirits (which were North and Alice, but thankfully they had boots on) climbed the stairs as fast as they could.
The entrance of the workshop was wide open, with the steel gate drawn up. There was nothing but darkness inside and an overwhelming aura of "enter at your own peril".
The guardians relied solely on Alice's navigation as she led them through the dark bowels of the Dollmaker's workshop. They kept up with her brisk pace as best as they could, but the workshop's interior design had them lagging behind on several occasions with the weird medical posters depicting the human brain and displays of dissected insects and animals, like beetles and mice. There were also naked, porcelain dolls clipped on metal strings with slack-jawed mouths and empty gazes that stared down at them vacantly as they ran by.
The elder spirits tried not to wonder how much of the domain was purely the Dollmaker's creation, and how much of it was also Alice's.
They eventually came to a large, wooden balcony that overlooked a courtyard where dozens of oozing Night Ruins and Insidious Ruins were waiting for them. The spirits all skidded to a sudden stop as the beasts below looked up and fixed the trespassers with their piercing, yellow eyes. The Night Ruins started to buck and whinny in sickening, two-toned cries at the prospect of a battle. The collective pollution drifting from their bubbling forms, created a smokey haze throughout the courtyard, making the air spicy and unpleasant to breathe in.
Without a signal from the Russian leader, Alice launched herself off the balcony and hurled down into the waiting battle below.
Tooth was the first to follow, leaving the males to stagger on the balcony while she took back the control the Dollmaker had stolen from her back at Santoff Claussen. She'll show him who's a filthy pigeon! Nobody spoke to the queen of the Tooth Fairies like that and got away with it!
The fairy dive bombed the hovering doll creatures with the spinning limbs, gracefully dodging the scorching, green slime they spat at her. She had her swords hanging from a thin belt around her waist, which she quickly armed herself with as soon as she drew close enough to the dolls. The flash of her blades cut through the already cracked porcelain of the screeching doll, causing its limbs to tumble to the ground and shatter. Her amethyst eyes were fierce as they watched the rest of the doll creature crash into the ground. She then squared her shoulders and tightened her grip on her swords as the angry hum of her wings carried her to her next target.
North followed his feathered friend only seconds later with his own swords brandished, but instead of going high, he barreled all the way down to the ground and landed heavily on his booted feet, making a thin cloud of dirt puff up around him. His yetis immediately chased after their leader with their own weapons ready as they lugged their furry bodies over the balcony railing.
The Christmas spirit stared down the Night Ruins that crowded around him while they regarded him with black sludge dribbling from their slackened jaws and flaring nostrils. They hissed and roared at him menacingly, but the large Russian was not impressed. He threw his own loud roar back at them as he and his accompanying yetis raised their weapons in the air and charged the oozing beasts. One particularly large Night Ruin went to headbutt the charging leader, but North dodged the heavy attack by side-stepping it. He gritted his teeth, letting out a battle cry in Russian as he leaped forward and brought down one of his sabers on the creature's exposed flank, cutting it right in half. He watched with his sword still raised as the Night Ruin gave a dying shriek and melted into a bubbling puddle around his boots. His nose cringed up in disgust and he stuck out his tongue as he quickly tiptoed out of the goo.
While he tried to wipe away the black goo on the bottom of his boots with the tip of his sword like a wad of chewed bubblegum, hopping back and forth on one leg, a tall shadow fell over him from behind. He froze in mid-hop as his eyes widened in awareness.
Slowing turning on his heel, North stared up at the giant baby girl doll towering over him, cringing at its shrill wail as it tried to stab him with its flaming shears. He quickly ducked to avoid the attack before letting out a loud laugh at the complete ridiculousness of it. He regarded the looming toy with an amused smirk as he put his fists on his hips and stuck out his chest in an effort to make himself seem just as large as the doll monster.
"Ha! You not so scary! I've dealt with far worse dolls in my workshop than you!"
The doll screeched at him again and lunged forward with its scissors.
Dodging the clumsy swipe, North moved forward, meeting the demented toy blade for blade.
"Naughty, naughty," He chided mockingly with their blades locked. "I do not tolerate defective toys!"
Using his mountain man strength, the Russian pushed forward with his swords and shoved the doll away as hard as he could, making it stumble back several steps before he charged it again.
As North wrestled with the one of the big creatures, Sandy gave his friends aerial support. He floated above the battle on a dreamsand cloud, shooting off arrows and throwing dreamsand grenades at the Insidious Ruins that drew too close to one of his friends when their back was turned. Tooth zipped around above him, taking out the airborne enemies he missed with skillful speed and grace.
More towards the center of the battle field, Jack nimbly jumped into the air over the one Menacing Ruin of the attacking lot. The slimy creature twisted around with its three doll faces, trying to locate it's flighty target, but the ice spirit avoided it each time, allowing the Ruin only a small glimpse of him before moving again, successfully disorienting it. Its vacant eyes rolled in their sockets as it tried to keep track of him. Jack grimaced at it before quickly shooting off a bolt of ice at the monstrosity from high in the air. He watched as it froze in place before he flew down and landed on top of its head. Flawlessly, he spun his staff between his fingers and slammed the butt of it against the Ruin's cranium, shattering the creature instantly.
He jumped off of it just as it crumbled to the ground in frozen shards before he turned his eyes back to the battle, glancing around the chaos for any sign of Alice.
When he finally spotted her, she was fending off a Colossal Ruin. She ran from the advancing monster, disappearing into a swarm of butterflies when it cocked back its head and used its flamethrowing attack to rain fire down on her.
Jack narrowed his gaze and quickly soared through the air towards the creature, ice crackling through the air from his staff as he froze shut the crooked pipes that spewed the assaulting flames. "Need any help?" He yelled over the sound of the battle around them, landing next to the butterflies as they depleted to reveal Alice.
"Not really. But if you insist, the doll faces are its weakness." She said, before lunging forward, the blue flash of her blade sinking into one of the Colossal Ruin's exposed faces.
The porcelain face shrieked as the young woman ripped it out of the ooze. She flicked her blade to the side, causing the doll, and the ooze that covered it, to splatter across the ground. It rolled uselessly off to the side.
"Um, got it," Jack said, turning back to the creature.
Alice jumped back to avoid the the porcelain hands of the Ruin that tried to reach out and grab her. She rolled to the side and replaced her Vorpal blade with her white Hobby Horse. She ran up to the Ruin with her weapon raised and ready to bring down on one of the Ruin's doll faces, but froze in mid-strike as a large ice blast skimmed over the top of her head and hit the Colossal Ruin dead center. The creature let out a loud roar as glowing ice sunk into the black ooze of its body and started freezing it from the inside out. Alice watched with curious eyes while stumbling back a few steps when she didn't follow through with her attack, the heaviness of her weapon easily throwing off her balance. She lowered her arms with a grunt and let the head of her Hobby Horse slam into the ground.
"Well, well, Frost," Alice hummed almost playfully, looking up at the frozen creature. "It seems they have a bit of a weak spot for the cold. You can actually be useful for once."
Jack gave her an unimpressed frown, but she ignored it and broke away from him before disappearing into another fray of Night Ruins.
"Yeah, you're welcome!" He called after her.
He let out a half-hearted scoff before aiming his staff at the Colossal Ruin again and firing off another ice blast that shattered it to pieces. He then scanned his surroundings again, taking note of where his friends were and how they were doing. They were holding their own, as he knew they would be. Despite the advantage of numbers the enemy had over them, the guardians were cutting their way through rather quickly. So much so, the Winter spirit looked towards the opposite end of the courtyard to see that it was left relatively unguarded.
Seeing his opening, Jack looked back towards the closest guardian to him and let out a loud whistle from between his fingers.
"Sandy!" He called, grabbing the golden spirit's attention. "Come on! Let's go find Bunny!"
Not even waiting to see if the Sandman was following him, Jack zipped across the rest of the courtyard and moved down the long, dark hallway as fast as the meager winds around him would allow as he traveled deeper into the labyrinth of the Dollmaker's Workshop. If he looked back, he could see the faint, golden glow of Sandy trailing behind him a few yards back, but Jack didn't stop to wait for him. He just willed his staff to glow a brilliant blue, creating a makeshift torch for himself, and a beacon for the Sandman.
Jack had almost no sense of direction in the Dollmaker's domain. Much like Santoff Claussen, there was no shortage of hallway networks, chamber tangents, and rooms with unlocked doors. Everything looked exactly the same as the last and there were almost no distinguishing markers anywhere. It must've been by sheer dumb luck that Jack stumbled across the chamber where Bunny was kept. He felt pride and pure elation when he reached the end of a long, dark tunnel and his azure eyes landed on a lump of bluish-grey fur, huddled into a ball in the middle of the chamber.
"Sandy! I found him! Bunny's here!" Jack shouted as loud as he could, unable to suppress the relieved trepidation in his voice. He dashed across the room with a gust of wind and dropped to his knees next to the pooka's side. "Bunny? You awake?"
He reached out and gently laid a cool hand on his friend's matted pelt, but he pulled back when Bunny jolted awake and flinched away from his touch.
It took Bunny a few moments to take in his surroundings and realize the icy hand gripping his shoulder didn't belong to the obsidian undertaker he was expecting. His forest green eyes danced madly across the dull chamber as his muzzle hung open in shock and his chest heaved frantically. Jack grimaced at the poor state his friend was in, feeling his heart clench painfully as the once proud Easter Bunny, withered and whined on the ground like the wounded animal he was. He put his hand on the pooka's shoulder again, squeezing it firmly.
"Bunny, it's me," Jack spoke softly, as if to avoid spooking the frazzled creature further. "It's Jack."
Bunny's glossy eyes flickered towards the familiar voice and saw a blur of white and blue kneeling down next to him. He blinked a few times to focus and push away the fog that clouded his vision. When the blur started to take a recognizable shape, Bunny's body uncurled from the tight ball he was laying in and squinted at the Winter spirit almost suspiciously, unsure whether or not the white-haired teen was real, or just a cruel illusion sent by the devil to lull him into a false sense of security.
"Frostbite?" His voice was like broken shards of glass being scraped against concrete ground. "That you?"
Jack smiled softly at his friend, feeling the back of his eyes sting just a little bit in relief. He reached out and gently took hold of one of Bunny's ears, rubbing soothing circles around the tip with his thumb. "Yeah, it's me, puffball."
"What the hell are you doin' 'ere?"
"Sightseeing," Jack scoffed good-naturedly, shaking his head. "We came to take you home, ya silly wombat."
"We?" He croaked out before squinting his eyes again when light suddenly flooded his mind.
The Sandman came floating into the room then, huffing and puffing, having finally caught up to Jack. The warm, golden glow of his body projected a brilliant presence throughout the dark chamber, filling the broken sanctuary with a new light. His stout figure bounced up and down like a half-deflated balloon as he made his way towards the spirits in the center. His brow was knotted in concern as he got an eyeful of the haggard Easter Bunny laying on the ground.
Bunny looked at him. "Sandy?"
The golden spirit gave off a soft chime as he came to stand near Bunny's head. He looked down at his friend with a sad frown that conveyed every ounce of fear and concern Bunny knew the Sandman had felt for him. It was an expressive frown that only a life-long mute could successfully pull off.
"Is Tooth alright?" Bunny managed to ask. His chest still burned like hellfire and his throat was bone dry and raw from screaming. The Dollmaker hadn't inflicted more damage on to him, but his wounds and aching muscles had more than enough time to sit and fester. They made moving very painful. "She hurt?"
Despite his never-ending thoughts about Alice, the pooka hadn't forgotten that the last thing he saw before falling completely unconscious was Toothiana being violently backhanded into a wall by the Dollmaker. He worried that the monster had seriously hurt the fairy queen, even more so than he had hurt Bunny.
Jack gave him another comforting smile. "She's alright, more or less. That blow to the back gave her wings a slight kink, but she's fine. Fighting like an Amazonian goddess out in the courtyard with the rest of them. She'll be better once we get you out of here and back to the pole."
"Where's Alice?" He asked, as if he couldn't already guess that she was somewhere back where Jack had come from, immersed deeply in battle with the Dollmaker's army.
"Out in the courtyard, holding off the Night Ruins with North and Tooth."
"Is she givin' 'em hell?"
Jack couldn't help but give a more honest smile and laugh at the question. "Of course she is."
Could anyone expect anything different? Jack certainly didn't. Bunny was taken from her. She wasn't going to stop until every last one of those Night Ruins was a slopping puddle of ooze on the ground.
Bunny smirked and let out a low chuckle at that, ignoring the sharp pain that racked his chest. Darkness started to eat away at the corner of his vision again, but he was still aware of the pride that swelled inside his chest along with the pain. Even when the odds were against her, Alice was still fighting. She would always be ready to fight for herself, and for others who couldn't do it themselves. If the Dollmaker honestly believed he was going to stop her this time around, he was going to be sorely disappointed. Nobody could stop Alice Liddell from coming out on top.
"That's my girl."
Jack watched as the pooka's eyes slid shut again. "Bunny?"
Sandy shot Jack a nervous glance before he reached out another tentative hand to rest itself in the pooka's fur, but a movement from the top of his peripheral vision redirected his attention.
The Sandman's chiming blared with sudden alarm and his glowing body flickered as he looked up over Jack's head and saw a figure creeping up behind his friend. Sandy reached out and gripped Jack's sleeve tightly, pointing over the Winter spirit's shoulder with his tiny finger just as a tall shadow fell over the immortal teen.
Jack's eyes widened and he whipped his head around just in time to see the sinister face of the Dollmaker staring down at him with empty eye sockets. The creature reached out one of its floating hands like a striking cobra and sunk his jagged nails into Jack's hoodie. The Winter spirit immediately started thrashing as the Dollmaker hoisted him up in the air by his hood like he weighed nothing.
Jack pulled at the collar of his hoodie to try and give it some slack around his throat. The cloth pressed uncomfortably against his throat, but he ignored the worst of it as he tried to aim his glowing staff behind him. "Put me down!"
"Alice is mine, Ice Boy!" The Dollmaker spat in his pale face with that sloppy, two-toned voice of his. Jack cringed as the heat from the ooze dripping down the Dollmaker's face lapped at his cold skin and the smell of hot tar assaulted his nose. "Not yours!"
The Winter spirit opened his mouth to throw something witty back at the villain, but he spotted Sandy falling into a defensive stance from the corner of his eye.
"No, Sandy! Stay back!" Jack yelled just as two dreamsand whips seeped from between the Sandman's fingers. He didn't want his stout friend anywhere near the Dollmaker. If Pitch's nightmare sand could taint the Sandman's being with just a lethally aimed arrow, Jack didn't even want to imagine what the Dollmaker's insidious ooze would do to him.
However, the Sandman didn't listen as he lashed out with one of his dreamsand whips. His golden gaze was practically murderous towards the heinous beast holding up his young friend.
The whip lashed out and the tip racked down the Dollmaker's back with an audible crack, leaving behind a long, diagonal gash that ripped through the creature's sweater and cut deeply into the gray flesh underneath. The Dollmaker's dripping face curled up into something even more monstrous as he growled and black ooze trickled from the lash. He didn't move though, didn't loosen his grip on Jack's hood. The Sandman's whip was moderately effective, but the attack itself received as much damage as it dished out. As Jack feared it would, as soon as the golden sand made contact with the black ooze, the long whip was coated and infected with pollution, crawling all the way up to its hilt in just a matter of seconds. Luckily, Sandy let go of his whip before the ooze could latch on to his hand, leaving the whip to collapse in a long strip of smoking sludge on the ground.
The Sandman stared at the ooze on the ground with a sickened scowl. He brought up the hand that was holding the whip to press closely against his chest, seeming to now fully understand what Jack was trying to protect him against. The Winter spirit continued to struggle as he shot out quick ice blasts from his glowing staff to try and knock the Dollmaker back, but he seemed to dodge them every time.
That was around the time Alice finally showed up. She came running into the chamber with her Vorpal blade in hand and a determined look on her face, but she stopped short, her boots skidding against the ground, when she spotted Jack and the Sandman. She gasped at the sight of Jack being manhandled by their enemy before she fixed the Dollmaker with a hateful glare that would've made a lesser being shrivel up and die right on the spot. She launched herself across the room with her eyes flashing red again.
"Release him, you wicked beast!"
Alice latched herself on to the Dollmaker's back out of sheer instinct, racking her nails down and pounding her fists on every inch of available skin in a blind fury. The Dollmaker let out an enraged yell as he reached behind his shoulder with his free hand and roughly gripped Alice's dark hair before yanking on it hard. The female spirit screamed at him as pain erupted along her scalp. She then found her world spinning when the creature managed to pull her over his shoulder with his impossible strength and throw her all the way back across the chamber. She hit the ground with a dull thud and slid a few feet, but she brushed it off almost immediately, jumping to her feet as soon as her bearings returned.
With a wisp of blue dust, she pulled out the Jabberwork's eyestaff and aimed it at the Dollmaker, but he only roared viciously at her when his eyeless gaze caught sight of the powerful weapon. He cocked back the arm holding up Jack and hurled the squirming ice spirit at her like a frisbee. Before Alice could dodge, the two collided with twin "Oof"s and fell to the ground in a tangled heap as Jack's back crashed into Alice's front.
By the time the two untangled themselves from each other, the Dollmaker had retreated back into the shadows.
Almost immediately, Alice scrambled to her feet and made a beeline for Bunny's unconscious form, nearly stepping on Jack's fingers in the process. The Winter spirit quickly snatched his hand away with an agitated frown before bringing it up to rub at the tender skin around his neck. He then gingerly pulled himself up on to his feet and picked up his staff.
"You okay, Sandy?" He asked as the golden spirit floated over to him. Sandy nodded his head and returned the concern with a 'How about you?' look. Jack reached up to rub his neck again before shrugging his shoulders. "Yeah, I'm alright. The heat coming off that guy's ugly mug almost singed my eyebrows off, though."
Sandy only nodded again as he gently kicked off the ground and floated up higher to Jack's level so he could brush off some dirt on the boy's shoulder. Jack let the short man fuss over him for a few seconds before he turned his head towards Alice and Bunny. The Sandman followed his gaze.
Bunny was still laying in the same fetal position Jack had left him in, with his big feet curled into himself and his floppy ears laying lifelessly on the ground. Alice was curled up against his back with her torso flung over his side and arm. She had her face buried into the fur of his shoulder, and as Jack and the Sandman came closer, they could hear her whispering into the grey and white fluff.
"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," Alice chanted softly under her breath as one hand rested on his muzzle and the other hand was draped around his middle.
Jack watched the sad scene with a frown as he gnawed on his bottom lip. He and Sandy exchanged glances, but neither dared to step any closer than they already had. They didn't want to draw any attention to Alice's blatant display of vulnerability as she spilled out her misgivings and hushed apologies into his fur. Even if Bunny wasn't awake to acknowledge her, this was still a private moment between the two.
"Jack!"
At the sound of his name, Jack turned to see North and Tooth making their way down the tunnel towards the entrance of the chamber. They stopped just short of Jack and Sandy when they saw Bunny. Tooth's eyes widened in horror as she brought her hands up to her mouth, the feathers of her crest puffing out in obvious distress. North looked in between Jack and Bunny with a similar expression, unsure of what possible tragic scene they had just walked in late on.
"Is he...?" The Russian managed to croak out, fearing for his friend's safety.
"He's still alive," Jack reported, inciting a relieved sigh from North and a small sob from Tooth. "He was talking just a little bit ago, but he's pretty banged up. We should get him back to the pole as soon as possible."
Tooth flew past Jack in a flurry of rattled feathers and practically nosed dive when she reached Bunny. She joined Alice on the floor as they hovered over him like a pair of distraught, mother hens. If the situation wasn't so dire, and if Bunny were actually conscious to hear it, Jack would've cracked an Easter joke about bunnies and chicks, but knowing it wouldn't be appreciated by anyone other than himself, he just stood off to the side quietly with North and Sandy.
"Where's demon?" North asked with his swords raised and his hardened eyes scanning the surrounding shadows.
Jack just shook his head as he stuffed his empty hand into his hoodie pocket. "Away from here, thank MiM. I think we should leave before he decides to throw us another welcoming party. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of looking at this depressing eyesore."
North nodded. "Mmm, agreed. We must go now."
Sheathing both swords, North made his way to his unconscious friend and gently pushed his way past the two female spirits sitting near him. He gave them an apologetic frown, regretful to break up their one-sided reunion, before kneeling down to gently maneuver one of his huge hands underneath the Easter Bunny.
"Sandy!" North called as he hoisted up the limp pooka. He motioned with his bearded chin for the Sandman to take point. "Guide us home."
The Sandman nodded dutifully before floating over to the dark tunnel.
They all hovered closely around Bunny like bumblebees around a hive, fussing over the condition and handling of the unconscious Spring spirit. His weight was being supported mostly by North. He had one of the Pooka's limp arms wrapped around his shoulders with one of his large hands holding on to Bunny's side while Tooth held him a similar way on his other side. And as North requested, the Sandman took point, lighting their dark path with his glowing body as North's yetis flanked their boss and his injured friend. Jack and Alice trailed closely behind with their weapons in hand just in case the Dollmaker tried to keep them from leaving, but the group of spirits met no resistance, which only served to add to their mounting paranoia and unsettle them further.
Alice was no doubt the most apprehensive of them all, knowing first-hand what the Dollmaker was fully capable of if given the chance. She chose to bring up the rear without much forethought other than that she wanted to be the one who lashed out first if the Dollmaker decided to jump from the shadows. Any chance there was for her to sink her Vorpal blade into the monster's oozing eye socket, she would gladly take. They were running along the home stretch of a successful rescue attempt and Alice was determined to see them through to the end.
However, when they finally reached the entrance of the workshop, Alice was overcome with an overwhelming sense of foreboding. The others didn't seem to notice the sudden change in the atmosphere, but as the humid air of the outside hit her as she passed the threshold of the workshop, Alice gradually slowed down from her brisk run until she eventually stopped altogether at the very top of the main staircase leading down the mountain.
Jack looked back and flinched when he saw Alice lingering just outside the open workshop doors. "Alice! Come on, let's go!"
Alice remained silent as her gaze flickered on to him for a split second before slowly trailing back in the direction they just retreated from. Back into the bowels of the Dollmaker's Workshop. Her mind was fleeting, but her feet remained cemented to the ground, torn between following Jack and their friends, and going back to finish what she had started over a century ago.
Practically reading her mind, Jack let out a frustrated noise before quickly running back up the stairs and skidding to a stop in front of Alice.
"You are not going back in there," Jack said sternly, grabbing hold of her wrist and looking her dead in the eyes. "Leave it. We're going back to the Pole. All of us."
Alice shook her head as she gently pried her wrist from his grasp. "I can't. I can't go back, not yet. The Dollmaker's still in there. Someone needs to stop him."
Jack closed his eyes tightly and let out another frustrated groan as one of his hands came up to twist almost painfully in his white hair, tugging sharply on the shaggy strands. He couldn't even believe they were having this conversation right now. They had found Bunny, alive, and now there was nothing left for them to do except get the hell out of dodge.
"We've got Bunny. We can go now, Alice. He's safe."
"Yes, but for how much longer?"
"Nothing is going to touch him. Santoff Claussen is a goddamn fortress, babe. We'll hold up there for as long as it takes to get Bunny back on his feet and then we'll take down the Dollmaker, as a team."
She gave him a stern look of her own, the wind blowing strands of dark hair in her face, making her gaze seem even more piercing. "Use your head, Frost. Bunny's safety isn't the only thing at stake here. He may never reach full health again if the Dollmaker succeeds and the children's minds are corrupted. That monster won't wait for us to re-group. If we wait, then we will lose and you know that."
He did. Of course he did. But how in the hell was Jack just suppose to let Alice charge back into danger like this? He wasn't. He couldn't. Even if she hated him all over again for it, he wasn't going to back down without a fight. Bunny wasn't conscious enough to talk so much needed sense into her, and though Jack would be a half-assed replacement in regards to Bunny's superior nagging skills, he would do it if he needed to.
"What am I supposed to say when he wakes up and you're not there, huh?" He asked. "How do you expect me to explain that to him? How am I suppose to justify letting you go back in there alone?"
She didn't respond, but Jack didn't need her to. He reached out with his free hand and wrapped it gently around her upper arm, turning her so she was fully facing him. He felt a series of goosebumps erupt along the skin of Alice's arm from the coldness of his fingers and palm. She was so warm in comparison to him. He was almost jealous. He rarely got to experience direct skin on skin contact where he could feel the warmth of life in the other person, a warmth he obviously lacked. There was always either clothes, feathers, and fur that got in the way.
"I get why you need to do this, Alice. I really do. But don't force yourself to do it alone. If you have to go back, then at least let me come with you."
"Absolutely not," She replied vehemently. "This is my fight, and my fight alone."
"But-"
"This is all my fault. I allowed all this to happen, so it's only sensible if I am the one to make things right again."
Ignoring his frustrated pout, Alice looked past Jack's shoulder at Bunny's limp figure as the other guardians carried him further and further from the Dollmaker's Workshop. She then looked back towards the grey wasteland around them, her emerald eyes taking in the living hell she had indirectly created. It all reminded her of the time where her Wonderland, and her mind, were on the verge of total ruin. She felt the pain and desperation she felt back when she was trapped in the clutches of Angus Bumby, not even realizing that he was the monster that killed her family until it was practically hanging right in front of her face. Her eyes began to sting at the horrible memory as tears gathered and she shut her eyes tightly against them, unable to stop them from streaming down her cheeks. She tried to shut it all out, pushed herself to take solace in her Wonderland without actually going there like she used to when she was human and Wonderland was only a figment of her imagination.
She was forced back into the present, though, when a cool hand moved along the skin of her face and firmly gripped her chin between long fingers. She blinked at him in surprise at his bold move, touching her face so intimately and with such gentleness that she knew she didn't deserve. Jack didn't seem to care. He held her chin in his hand with a determined, unabashed look in his azure eyes as they bore into hers.
Alice didn't flinch when he leaned in closer, his face inches from hers. She only shut her eyes when she felt him blow his cool breath against the tears staining her cheeks. The drops hardened into crystallized gems against her skin before lifting up and morphing into tiny snowflakes as they floated into the air. Her eyes flickered over to watch the blue specks of light and Winter magic, drift off into the polluted world of the Dollmaker's expanding Wonderland, the only drop of innocence to be found in such a demented hellhole. When she could no longer see the snowflakes, her gaze flickered back to Jack's.
"I can help you, Alice," Jack stressed, still holding her chin in his hand. "You know I can. You just have to let me."
She let his cool fingers linger against her warm skin for a second longer before gently prying them from her face. "If you really want to help me, then help Bunny. If Bunny doesn't pull through, then all of this - all the risks I have taken to find him, would've been for nothing."
Jack narrowed his eyes at the girl. "So there was a chance that you would've never woken up back in Pitch's lair. I knew there was a catch. There's always a catch with you!"
"Of course there was a chance!" Alice let out a bitter laugh, practically throwing her hands in the air. "I was entering the mind of a powerful and malevolent spirit. Quite foolish of you to think otherwise."
This was all just a waste of time. Frost said he wanted to help her, but all he was doing was trying to stop her from what she needed to do. The Dollmaker was her creation, her responsibility. She needed to stop him before he ruined someone else's life like Bumby ruined hers.
Once again determined to go back, the dark-haired spirit turned on her heel and stepped back towards the entrance of the dark workshop.
Jack reached out and snatched Alice's wrist again, forcing her to stop. "You lied to me."
"I did no such thing. I never said that there was a chance of me becoming stuck. I never said anything! But feel free to consider my failure to disclose the risks a compliment, if you're so sore about it," Alice snapped. "I've come to care about what you think of me."
"That's nice to know, but I still can't let you go back."
Alice rolled her eyes as she looked down where Jack was still holding her wrist. She could feel the skin trapped underneath his palm growing colder as veins of glowing frost crawled along her forearm. When she tried to tug her arm way, his long, pale fingers only curled tighter around her wrist. Not enough to hurt, but enough to keep her anchored to him.
"Do you honestly believe I'm a guardian?" She asked suddenly, looking back into his pleading eyes.
He nodded without hesitation.
She reached down and placed her free hand on top of his, without breaking eye contact. "Then let me be one."
A silence fell over them as the wind continued to blow through their clothing and hair, and thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance. She expected Jack to protest further. He was resilient that way, much like herself. It peeved her a little though, if she were to be honest, and not with just how he was stalling the inevitable, but how he was making it sound like she actually wanted to go back. She didn't. She wanted to stay by Bunny's side, like she should've done since the very beginning. She wanted to be there when he woke up so she could apologize for all the nasty things she said to him and for all the trouble she caused. But he wasn't going to be completely safe until the Dollmaker was taken care of and Alice would do anything to protect him. Jack was only fighting a losing battle. She still expected him to protest, to grab her wrist again and again until she was forced to make him stop, to yell at her and tell her how foolish she was being...but instead, he only wrapped his arms around her.
Alice tensed when she found herself enveloped in a tight hug, her body pressed fully against Frost's as he dropped his staff to the ground and wrapped both arms around her waist. It was a last-ditch effort to get her to leave with him, clearly. One that wouldn't work no matter how tightly he squeezed, but she couldn't deny it made the whole thing harder to go through with.
Violets and hazelnut tea mingled with the thick smell of ash as Jack buried his face in her shoulder. Alice radiated warmth, but a different kind of warmth that wasn't entirely unfamiliar and not unlike something he remembered vaguely back during his times as a human. Before, the warmth always made his skin feel itchy and his head foggy because of how harshly it clashed with his cold existence, but right now all he could feel was comfort and stunning clarity. And without trying to be too conspicuous about it, he soaked in the warmth of her and for once, didn't feeling uncomfortable with the close contact.
"Don't do this, Alice," He murmured into her puffy dress sleeve, feeling her relax and sink into their embrace. "Come back with us. Come back with me. We'll figure something out."
Alice's eyes slid shut in acceptance as she felt the sudden urge to lean her forehead against the ice spirit's chest, just like what she sometimes did with Bunny for the comfort of physical contact without worry of an overwhelming amount, but opted to resting her cheek against his shoulder instead since her desired action might conjure up a slight awkwardness due to their similar heights.
"Don't let him be alone."
The 'if I don't come back' part didn't need to be spoken.
"Don't let him dwell over it."
"It" being her death.
'You know that would be asking the impossible from him. From all of us, Pleasance.'
"Okay," Jack murmured breathlessly, still not entirely sure how she expected him to let her go.
She smiled into the cold fabric of his hoodie before slowly wrapping her arms around his neck. He immediately went rigid when he felt her warm breath ghost over his ear. Her long fingers briefly slid up the back of his neck to tangle themselves in the short strands of silvery hair at the base of his head. She savored the soft feel of them and finally allowed herself to indulge in a small fantasy that she would never admit to having.
"Thank you, Jack."
Then she was gone. Pulling away from him and gracefully moving down the long corridor, disappearing from sight before he could utter a word of protest, or tighten his hold around her waist, swiftly leaving his life just as swiftly as she had entered it.
Leaving him to think about how his name had never sounded sweeter, when said in that velvety accented voice.
~O~
When Jack caught up with the others, nothing was said. He only exchanged a vacant stare with North when the Russian looked behind Jack with a nervous look, his sky blue eyes seeking out the dark-haired woman that should've been there. He looked like he wanted to protest when he realized what Jack's stare meant, but the immortal teen just shook his head and looked back down at the ground.
The trek back to the mirror portal was spent in silence, only occasionally broken when a twitch or moan from the Easter Bunny made them stop and readjust their grip on his arms. Jack was both relieved and perturbed when they finally reached the portal back to Pitch's lair. He watched as Tooth went through the swirling mirror first, leaving North to support Bunny's weight so she could catch the pooka on the other side when he was passed through the portal. Once she disappeared, North gently eased Bunny into the portal and let go when he was sure his friend would go all the way through. He then started ushering in the pair of yetis he brought with him for back up. They went through without a fuss, piling in all at once and clearly happy to leave the Dollmaker's Wonderland in favor of their home.
As North managed that, Jack looked back forlornly at the black mountain in the distance. By now, there was a gigantic storm cloud surrounding the very peak, blocking any view of the Dollmaker's castle. The sight didn't bode well with the Winter Spirit as he flinched whenever a bolt of lightening illuminated the red sky and thunder ripped through the air and shook the land.
He couldn't believe they actually left Alice to fight that monster by herself. What kind of team were they? Even if she insisted on doing it alone, they should've stayed. Somewhere deep down Jack knew it was probably for the best. With the poor state Bunny was in and imminent danger of the Dollmaker's Night Ruins and the poisoning of the children's minds, Alice was probably the only one that stood a chance of defeating the Dollmaker. But still...
"Jack."
He looked back and saw that North and Sandy were waiting for him.
"It's time to leave," North spoke gently. "We must return to the workshop and prepare for battle in case the Dollmaker is victorious and Alice doesn't...Come, we must leave."
He couldn't leave, he realized. Not while Alice was still in there.
Seeing this, North looked down at Sandy out of instinct, like he always did whenever he found himself facing a difficult impasse. He knew what Jack was thinking about doing and he had the same inhibitions the boy did when Alice wanted to go back. He couldn't say he approved of the boy's thinking, but he also couldn't tell Jack he was forbidden to go. Yes, North was the leader of the guardians, but his power over his friends was anything but tyrannical. They were free to do anything they pleased when it really came down to it and he couldn't stop them, especially with Jack being the wild card he was. The only thing he could do was throw in his allotted two cents on the matter. However, under the circumstances, he kept his mouth shut, knowing it was no longer his place to do so.
The golden spirit met his gaze with a grim frown and a single nod of his head as an unspoken understanding passed between them. North then looked back at Jack with a solid stare.
"Go," He spoke finally, jerking his chin towards the mountain. "See what you can do for her. Whatever the outcome, good or bad, just bring her home."
With approval given, the Winter spirit smiled softly at his friends. "I will."
He gave one last nod at the two elder guardians before turning away from his friends and the portal back to safety. He gathered up as much wind around him as the smoggy atmosphere would allow and kicked off the ground in an icy burst, leaving behind a patch of frost against the black soil.
"Be careful!" North shouted after him.
AN: Oh noes! Alice went back to battle the Dollmaker! Dun, dun, duunnn! Well, at least Bunny is still alive. I couldn't kill him off, he's too fluffy. Every movie should have an excessively fluffy character. It just makes everything better. Star Wars has the right idea. Also, not sure how many of you took notice, but Alice says Jack's name for the first time! Well, the first time she calls him by just his first name, "Jack", and not "Jack Frost" or "Frost".
Wow though, this chapter was pretty long. Not the longest I've ever written for this story, but still pretty long. This is probably the last really long chapter of the story, so I hope you enjoyed it!
If you find a mistake in the content, let me know in a review and I'll fix it! Thanks!
~Scorpiofreak~