Alaia Skyhawk: So, for those who are wondering, my idea with the Belief Blackouts is that, when they happen, they spread subconsciously up to and including adults as well as children, depending on how severe the Blackout is. As you can guess, the Blizzard of '68 has caused a real doozy of a Blackout, hence we are about to have one VERY unhappy Bunny on our hands...
Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians, the Guardians of Childhood, or any related characters etc. This story is written purely for entertainment purposes.
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Chapter 45: To Be Forged
For a meeting to be called on Easter, was unheard of... Never before, in all the years the four of them had worked together after their battles with Pitch, had they met up under such circumstances.
Tooth, Sandy, and North were already gathered at the Workshop, by the time an enraged Easter Bunny arrived having spent hours hoping that the blizzard would ease and the children affected by it would come out of their homes. But even the minority that had come outside, hadn't stayed outside for long. None of the eggs in that area had been found. They were all buried under a minimum of a foot of snow, and in some places it was as deep as eight feet.
Bunny was, quite understandably, extremely upset.
He stormed up to where the others waited for his arrival, and pointed emphatically at the nearby globe. Every light representing a believing child, in the eastern states of the USA, had gone out.
"You can't tell me he's not responsible for this one! That Spirit of Winter, he's wiped out Easter for hundreds of thousand of kids! We haven't had a Belief Blackout this bad since our war with Pitch!"
Tooth fluttered over, still holding onto the hexagon of ice that the winds had delivered to her.
"But Jack Frost sent a weather warning to me, like he always does, and I relayed it to you so you'd know. He wouldn't have caused the storm if it wasn't necessary."
Bunny jabbed a paw at her, in no mood to listen to her attempts to soothe his anger.
"He could have bloody well waited until after Easter! How hard would it have been to wait one more day?!"
When Sandy tapped North on the leg, trying to get him to intervene, the Russian obliged. He knew that Tooth was right.
"Jack only does big storms when Mother Nature tells him to. It is his job, Bunny, and he has to do it. Even if it causes problem for other immortals."
Bunny stared at him, pointing at the globe again.
"You call a Blackout of that size, which has blanked out belief in every immortal in that zone including us, to be a 'problem'? It's a bloody disaster!"
Sandy was making 'calm down' gestures now, as North tried again to talk sense into the Pooka.
"And Sandy and Tooth will fix that, soon as storm is over. A dose of good dreams, some happy reminders of memories, and everything will be back to normal. Is nothing to get worked up about."
There was a moment of utter silence, the tension almost unbearable, before Bunny asked flatly.
"Hey, North, do you have any snow-globes on you?"
North pulled one out of a pocket, shrugging.
"Yes, I always carry couple. Why you ask?"
Bunny dashed over, snatched it, and then bounded back out of reach before he could be divested of it again.
"Because as much as I hate these portals of yours, I don't know where the storm-starter's home base is." He shook the snow-globe. "Winter Sanctuary!"
He threw it, opening a portal to Jack's most private domain, and Tooth gasped.
"Bunny! Don't! The Spirits of the Seasons have guards in their sanctuaries! You could be attacked!"
Bunny didn't listen, and dove through the portal with Sandy at his heels. It closed, leaving Tooth and North behind. The two of them glancing at one another.
"I'd suggest we follow, but I think we'd make it worse. Sandy will handle this."
Tooth, her fluttering now touched with anxious movements, still couldn't help but worry.
"I hope so. There's no telling what the Lieutenants of Winter may do, if he hurts Jack. Or even what Jack himself might do, when confronted."
North placed a hand on her shoulder in reassurance.
"I think there no need to worry. Jack would never hurt a Guardian, and I am sure he will have instructed his Lieutenants not to harm us either."
Tooth frowned, unconvinced.
"North, how can you be so sure?"
The Russian smiled.
"Because is Jack's dream to one day be a Guardian, and Sandy believes that one day, he will be... I believe too, now that I know Jack better. He is willing to wait, no matter how long it takes, for Manny to choose him. Is why I know he would never harm any of us."
Tooth stared at him, wide-eyed.
"You... Jack wants to be a Guardian, and you think that he should be? Like Sandy said, all those years ago?"
North nodded.
"Don't tell Bunny I said this, but if you had talked to Jack like I have, and if you had seen the joy and feeling of achievement he got from using his power of laughter to add extra kick to gifts for children during World Wars, you would not question it." He tapped his chest. "He is already Guardian, in here, even if he has not yet been chosen. I do not think Manny would let someone like him, fall by wayside. After all, he chose a former bandit like me, didn't he?"
North laughed, and Tooth couldn't help but smile a little, even if she remained unsure.
"Maybe you are right, but still. He's not a Guardian, he's a Spirit of the Seasons, and Bunny has just gone to pick a fight with him."
At that point North did have to wince. Not even Jack would hold off fighting back in self-defence, if Bunny chose to vent his anger carelessly.
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Two women, a white tiger, and a white stag tore across the skies through the ragged remains of the blizzard, their expressions one of concern as their searched for their youngest member.
Yuki was the most upset, her blue eyes wide with worry. It didn't help that all four of them could sense the severe distress that Jack was in. But it wasn't him they were looking for, for he wasn't the only one whose distress they could feel.
"Where did Dig say he was going to go?"
Marzanna drifted to her side, in support.
"You know, Dig, he never says where he's going. He dashes off to amuse himself, and shows up again when he feels like it."
Behind them, Zuě Hu called out.
"And that is a bad habit we should have gotten him out of, long ago. If we had, we would not be searching for him right now. He would be safe, in the Winter Sanctuary, and be able to recover from his first Belief Blackout in that safety."
Yuki bit her lip anxiously.
"Should one of us have stayed with Jack? We didn't even check on him after he flew into the Ice Palace. He looked so hurt."
"As he would, given this is his first Blackout as well." Cernunnos snorted, as agitated as the rest of them. "To have been immortal for over two centuries, and never experience one, is a testament to how well he has fortified his position in the beliefs of the people of Burgess... And we never warned him what the effects of his first one would be."
All four of them glanced at one another, wincing, and Marzanna nodded.
"The trauma of losing so many believers, so fast, and the plunge in power that results. A shock so profound that, the first time it is experienced, that it leaves you in agony." She sighed. "But Jack is tough, he can handle this on his own. It's Dig we need to worry about right now. Just like Jack, his entire Range of Belief has been affected by this blizzard. He's going to have no idea why it hurts so much."
Zuě Hu urged the winds to go faster, speeding up their pace.
"Then we had best hurry and find him."
They surged onwards with the winds, to continue their search, unawares that the Winter Sanctuary was about to be rather less 'safe'.
~(-)~
The snow-globe portal opened up at the Sanctuary Plaza, right in the centre of the snowflake symbol on the floor, and it was a very angry Pooka that emerged from it into the sub-zero chill within the cavern.
Bunny couldn't help but pause when he arrived, with a flicker of awe at the size of the place and the ornate palace of ice that stood before him. He barely noticed Sandy had followed him, before he then stalked towards the palace entrance.
Sandy tried to get his attention, although he remained moderately thankful that the Lieutenants didn't seem to be here and that the Selkies weren't in sight. This situation was messy enough, without adding them to the list of complications.
Jack was in the entrance chamber, sprawled unconscious on the floor, and he looked very ill. His usually pale skin, had a sickly grey tinge, and all around him were scattered what could only be frozen tears.
Sandy couldn't help but halt in shock at the state he was in, a moment of horror despite knowing all too well the effects of one's first ever Blackout. It gave Bunny the time to cross the distance to where Jack was, and it was only when the Pooka made a move to roughly grab and drag Jack to his feet, that Sandy broke from his thoughts.
The little golden man reacted in an instant, a whip of dreamsand lashing out to latch round Bunny's wrist and pull him away. Bunny then glared at him.
"Keep out of this, Sandy! It's nothing to do with you."
Sandy frowned, not needing to draw symbols to express his disapproval. The warning was there, in his eyes for all to see... and Bunny ignored it.
The Pooka again made a move towards Jack, believing that there was no way his fellow Guardian would stoop to violence. A pity for him that, while Sandy did have a general rule of non-violence towards his peers, he also had no intention of allowing the defenceless Spirit of Winter to be harmed.
After all, whatever he might choose to do, would be far less than what the Lieutenants of Winter would do if he didn't step in.
Bunny found himself pulled up short by the dreamsand whip wrapping around his waist, before he was flung up into the air, slammed against two walls, and then dropped on the floor well away from Jack. The Spirit of Winter had remained oblivious to it all, even as Sandy placed himself between him and Bunny. And to say the Pooka was shocked, was an understatement.
He stared at Sandy, utterly stunned that his fellow Guardian would throw him around like that.
"What the heck are you doing?!"
Sandy didn't move, instead glaring at him with his whip still at the ready. But he didn't need to answer, because a female voice did it for him.
"Saving you from your own foolishness, Bunnymund. Or have you forgotten who Jack is, and how defensive his Lieutenants are of him?" Mother Nature appeared at Sandy's side, wearing an expression of matching disapproval. "And surely you remember what it was like, the first time you experienced a Belief Blackout... Burgess, the only town where Jack is believed in, is right in the middle of the area affected by that storm. He might be the Spirit of Winter, and keep his base power even when he isn't believed in, but he still suffers. You still have most of a world of believers bolstering you... Jack has just had all of his cease to believe in him."
Bunny quietened a little, but still felt he had to protest.
"But he wiped out Easter this year for all those kids!"
"Because I commanded it." Mother Nature's frown deepened. "Save your anger for me, Guardian. Jack Frost attempted to delay the storm until Easter had passed, to the point he almost threw the world's weather out of balance. I had no choice but to intervene and set the storm in motion myself, to which Jack responded by gallantly taking control of it to lessen the impact as much as he could. He didn't stop, not even when the Blackout started. He didn't stop, no matter the pain he was in, until he knew the storm would end safely and without causing an ounce more harm than necessary. He tried to spare Easter. He was willing to risk forces he knew had to be kept in balance, all for the sake of protecting your precious holiday."
Bunny flinched backwards, his gaze now settling on Jack.
"He tried to stall the storm?"
Mother Nature nodded.
"Yes. I recommend you think on that, before you make any further assumptions about Jack... And I warn you." She narrowed her eyes, her voice cold. "Stay away from my Spirit of Winter. If I hear of you trying to harm him again, or blame him for things he is not responsible for, or which are beyond his control... You will be getting a 'lesson' from me. And don't you date to think that the Man in the Moon would prevent me from doing so, because he will not. Now get out of here."
Bunny didn't need telling twice, as he thumped his foot on the floor and hastily vanished down a burrow. The flower that remained behind to mark where it had been, quickly wilted in the freezing temperatures of the sanctuary, but it went unnoticed by Mother Nature and Sandy. They who had now focused their attention on Jack.
Sandy sighed, and reached out a hand to stroke Jack's hair. Mother Nature then spoke to him, quietly.
"I must admit some guilt on my part, for the weather did not truly stall... I made it so the storm had to happen. It was necessary."
Sandy looks at her sharply, with question and exclamation marks over his head, and she answered.
"I ask you this... What would have happened when Pitch makes his move, and causes a Belief Blackout to weaken the Guardians, if Jack had not already experienced one and become inured to future symptoms?"
Sandy's eyes widen in understanding, and she continued.
"That's right. Jack would have been rendered helpless, as he is right now, and he would not have been able to turn the tide in the Guardians' favour. But now, as is has been with all Immortals who have had believers, he will be guarded against future backlash from Blackouts. They will still diminish his power, to a point, but they will not cripple him or send his body into shock... I have put him through the fires of forging this day. He entered as a rod of iron, and will emerge as tempered blade of steel."
She began to fade away, departing.
"Keep watch over him until he wakes, Sandman, and make sure that Bunnymund does not attempt to confront him about this again."
She disappeared, leaving Sandy to settle down beside Jack and trail dreamsand over him to give him good dreams while he recuperated. He then also sent out dreams to the area under the now dwindling blizzard, where night had fallen, rekindling the belief in the children there even as he knew Tooth would have her fairies awakening the memories stored in the North American Spire of the Tooth Palace.
Once Burgess was given a thorough dose of dreams about Jack Frost, and memories of him were revived in the hearts of the children there, the Spirit of Winter visibly lost the sickly grey from his skin.
Jack woke up three days after the Blackout, to find Sandy waiting beside him wearing a kind smile. And still weak as he was, he still spotted the cracks in the nearby walls that needed to be fixed, and knew what had caused them.
"Let me guess, Bunny flipped out and came storming in here, but you stopped him."
Sandy smiled and nodded, but then drew his symbols for 'Mother Nature'. He then showed a sword being pounded on an anvil, and pointed at Jack, who frowned.
After a long, disgruntled pause, he spoke as he sat up angrily.
"She set me up... She set that whole thing up on purpose!"
Sandy winced, and for the sake of complete clarity, he wrote out his words.
'The first Belief Blackout an immortal with believers experiences, is always devastating. If it had happened for you when Pitch makes his move, it would mean you would be unable to help fight him. But now that you've experienced one, they will only make you uncomfortable in the future.'
Jack's anger visibly lessened, and his expression became bleak.
"My believers... My... My family, the Bennetts, they stopped believing in me. How could even my family lose their belief? They're my strongest believers of all!"
Sandy sighed, and resumed his writing.
'Belief Blackouts are caused by echoes of disbelief, carrying from one person to another when one of them stops believing. Normally they don't come to anything, but if there are enough of them, it starts a Blackout. If it's bad enough, the echoes can wear down the belief of anyone.'
Jack bowed his head.
"So the Blackout can catch affect anyone, even the strongest believers." He placed a hand over his heart, where he could feel the rekindled threads of power from his believers. "But after it happens, you can make them all believe again by giving them dreams to remind them about us? That's what you did, right?"
Sandy nodded, his expression saying clearing 'that's part of my job', and Jack got to his feet.
"I need to get back to Burgess. If my family are aware they stopped believing in me, even for so short a time, they're going to want to talk to me. I need to go tell them they don't need to apologise." He paused, looking at Sandy. "And thanks, for being here when I woke up. I appreciate it."
Sandy patted him on the shoulder, and then waved as Jack left, the Spirit of Winter returning to Burgess as fast as he was capable of. Which was that he arrived in three minutes and looked as though he'd been dragged through a hedge once he'd landed. He didn't even bother to knock on the door of the Bennett's house, or use the backdoor for that matter. He just strode in and called out.
"Andrew! Claire! Anyone?"
When he got no answer, he started to search the house. No one was upstairs, sleeping in their beds, and it was after returning downstairs that he noticed the door to the basement was open.
He descended, and spots light coming through the edge of the door of the room where all the paintings and things about him were now kept. It was in there that he found the family sat together against the wall, asleep in a huddle. The boys were each clutching a little carving of Jack, Claire has her arms around Andrew, and Andrew had the Bennett Family Tree on his lap. Held there in such as way that he was almost clinging to it.
Jack regarded them from the doorway, able to tell from the relative mess in the kitchen upstairs, that for the past three days the family had spent every moment except for meals and other needs, here in his room. Probably since the moment they'd woken up after dreams about him, from Sandy.
He sighed and set aside his staff, and then he gently took the book to put it back in its protective box. He then located the blanket which had slipped off the sleeping family, and draped it over them. He then settled himself down to wait, until the alarm clock Claire had brought down here with them, went off at seven o'clock the next morning.
The family started to stir, and it was David who opened his eyes and spotted Jack first.
"Uncle Jack!"
That jolted everyone else to awareness, as the boy rushed to Jack to hug him, followed by his brother. Over their shoulders, Jack then looked and Andrew and shook his head before the man could speak.
"You don't need to say anything. That I raced off without icing my statue as a weather warning, would have only contributed to the Belief Blackout which swept the area under the blizzard on Sunday... Don't worry, the Sandman explained to me that they do happen now and then, and can even affect the strongest believers. But even when they forget, he can send his dreams to remind them of their belief." He smiled and hugs the boys tighter. "No apology is needed. That you see me now, and that I can still be a part of this family, is enough. That you faltered for a moment, doesn't matter. There's nothing wrong with doubt, it can happen to anyone."
Andrew stared at him a moment more, before wordlessly both he and Claire joined the group-hug. Jack had to leave not long after that, to do the clean-up after the storm and make sure no trailing ends from it caused mischief.
Jack also makes a point of kicking up just enough wind, giving it very specific instructions, to move the snow on the ground enough to uncover most of Bunny's eggs. It may be three days late, but children started finding them. That spike in belief got Bunny's attention, causing him to come up in Burgess where the spike had started. There he saw children either running around in the snow filling baskets with coloured eggs, or taking part in snowball fights among themselves. The air was filled with laughter and joy, before a curl of wind circled around Bunny and, as he watched, moved the snow near his foot to uncover yet another egg.
It was then that he noticed Jack watching him from a nearby rooftop, before the Spirit of Winter wordlessly leapt into the air and soared into the sky, out of sight... While down at ground level, his winds were still helping the children find the rest of Bunny's eggs.
But what neither they nor Mother Nature knew, was that in the heart of the blizzard, in Burgess, an unforeseen consequence had been set in motion. For beneath the remains of a broken bed, abandoned in the woods near a certain pond, had opened a gateway to darkest shadows.
Pitch peered out from those shadows, a sinister smile on his face. For centuries, the weakness he'd suffered as a result of his last defeat at the hands of the Guardians, had kept him locked in his lair. Forced to scrape together, piece-by-piece, the tiny dregs of power the Fearlings had been able to gather for him during that time.
A dark laugh echoed from beneath the broken bed, as Pitch sank back through the portal to his lair.
"To think so simple a thing as a blizzard, could cause such harm... To think that wrecking just one of the Guardian's precious holidays, could cause a Blackout that complete." He laughed again. "I must thank you, Spirit of Winter, for giving me that information... And I must also thank you for restoring some of my lost strength." Golden eyes glittered in the darkness, above a gleeful smile of malice. "Your greatest fear, of being forgotten by your family, made reality by your own hand. How delightful."
He disappeared into the darkness, to begin making his plans. For while iron may have been tempered into steel, the fire of the forging had opened a doorway to deepest nightmare. And even with belief now restored, that gateway would remain open and waiting.
The countdown to conflict, had begun.
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Alaia Skyhawk: Dun dun dun! There you go, I hope you enjoyed it! :D