Alaia Skyhawk: It's the Missing Saturday! Woo!
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 59: Rise of the Guardians ~Part 7~
Jack pulled Tooth through the mirror into the Winter Sanctuary's entrance passage, Baby Tooth following, and paused a moment to raise the temperature as close to zero as he could. Even so the two of them shivered a little, feathers fluffing out sightly in order to help stay warm. It was the first time they'd ever been here, when in truth they'd never expected to, and yet that was before Tooth had learnt Jack was a Guardian.
As Jack led her into the main cavern, and she stopped at the threshold in awe when she saw how beautiful it was, it was like another of the veils of misconception she'd had about him all these years was lifted away. Yes, the Sanctuary was cold, but only in terms of temperature. In everything else it had been shaped with the warmth of friendship and family, and it showed in the way the Winter Sprites ran around playing games with each other.
The three of them soon reached the plaza in front of the Ice Palace, and it was there that Tooth tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.
"You said we had work to do. No offence, but what could we do from here?"
Jack gave her a wry glance before he whistled softly to a nearby sprite. As soon as the little creature snapped to attention, he spoke to it.
"Bring Yuki and Dig here." He raised his voice when the sprite dashed away, this time speaking to them all. "I need all of you to sweep the snow back from as much of the cavern floor as you can, then assemble here. I need you to a lot of drawing for me."
The sprites erupted into a mass of activity, forming into bands as impromptu snow-ploughs while Tooth frowned in confusion.
"Drawing?"
Jack crouched, running a hand over the ice under his feet. Using a finger, he then began to trace an outline upon it.
"I've make frost constructs for a long time, to entertain the kids in Burgess. They're fragile things, only lasting a few minutes. But if I combine frostdust with a core of ice, they become stable enough to last for days if I maintain power to them." He held his hand out over his drawing, the lines too faint to make out by eye alone. "Dawn has already reached Japan, and it'll soon start crossing China. A fifth of the world's population lives there, that means a fifth of the kids, and we can't afford to lose any more believers due to teeth not being collected. We already missed most of North America because of-"
He stopped at that, Tooth's expression changing to one of similar pain before she fluttered closer.
"I know the teeth need to be collected. But without Sandy, and with Bunny concentrating on Easter, we have to protect the Warren for now. I can't collect all those teeth alone, and if I tried then Pitch's Nightmares would come after me."
Jack nodded solemnly in agreement with that, before a small smile started to show.
"And that's why we're here. Because the walls of my Sanctuary are saturated with frostdust; something I did as a precaution to keep Pitch out. That makes them a perfect medium to make a lot of Frost Golems at short notice."
He twitched his hand above the drawing, and in response a thin layer of glimmering ice rose in the shape of the outline and expanded from two dimensions to three. It then came to life, a perfect icy replica of a Tooth Fairy, and it fluttered up to Tooth and stopped in front of her waiting for instructions.
She gasped, staring at it and Jack.
"How? If you could have done this all along, then why didn't you offer before when North suggested we collect the teeth ourselves?"
Jack ran a hand though his hair, embarrassed but still amused.
"Yeah well, he looked so eager and all of us had a real laugh doing it. If we'd been too slow on our own I'd have said something, but we were managing so I thought I'd let North have his fun."
Tooth stared at him.
"You didn't say anything, because you wanted us to have fun?"
There was a hint of annoyance, perhaps anger and accusation, in her words. It made Jack's smile fade, and he sighed as he explained.
"I told North, but I didn't get to tell you or Bunny. My 'centre' is 'fun'. It's what I encourage and protect in children. I know this is all scary, this battle with Pitch and the fact that he really has us on the ropes right now, but that's why fun is so important."
Tooth frowned.
"This isn't a game, Jack!"
Across from her, Jack flinched, and then he started to shake his head. Without warning, he then conjured and hit her in the face with a snowball.
Tooth spluttered, fumbling the icy stuff away, overcome by an unexplainable urge to start laughing even as she shouted at him. "Jack! Stop messing arou-"
"Are you scared anymore?"
She paused in confusion at his interruption, a hand to her chest as she searched her feelings to realise that no... She wasn't scared now.
"I..."
Jack reached out, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"The type of fear that Pitch thrives on, that gives him his power, is the type that makes people miserable with worry and terror. But when people are smiling, when they're laughing and having fun, the can't feel that kind of fear. The type you get when you're on a roller-coaster, that fright at being so high and the possibility of falling, that's Natural Fear. That's why people enjoy roller-coasters, because they can laugh and live and just enjoy the thrill of the experience. Natural fear can mix with fun, but Unnatural Fear can't. They're utter opposites, and can't exist in someone both at the same time... That's why no child in Burgess had been Touched by a Fearling for two-hundred years, because I taught the children to use their laughter to keep them away."
Tooth hovered there, astounded, even as she began to understand what Jack was saying. It was just that the idea that something a simple as fun and laughter could thwart Fearlings entirely, was outlandish to she who had once fought several huge battles against them. But that didn't mean it wasn't possible, it was just unexpected.
She remained silent for several moments, and then glanced at the ice fairy he'd made.
"They'll collect the teeth for me?"
Jack grinned, nodding.
"My golems are an extension of my power. So they know what I know, and they all know what each other knows. Sandy... He taught me all about how you name and number your sectors, because he thought it was important for me to know and understand how all my fellow Guardians did their work. I'll leave that golem with you, and you can tell it how many teeth are in each sector. The rest of them will then search every home in each area until they find that number of teeth, and bring them all back here."
Tooth didn't speak, unable to in the face of the hope that brought a lump to her throat, but Baby Tooth was more openly enthusiastic. She buzzed around the frosty copy of herself, examining it from every angle even as it tilted its head to watch her in turn, and it was then that footsteps sounded behind them.
They turned as Yuki and Dig arrived at the plaza, and it was clear that both knew something was seriously wrong.
Yuki clasped her hands in worry, looking at Jack.
"The Blackout... Pitch has done something, hasn't he? It's affecting everyone, Jack. Every one of the Legends are scrambling around right now trying to figure out what's causing it! Even the Nature Immortals with believers are worried. Achieng was here a few hours ago, to ask if you'd heard anything. I had to tell her that you were out on an important job and I didn't know when you'd be back. Just that I thought you shouldn't be disturbed until you were finished."
Beside her, Dig nodded in confirmation, and Jack glanced at Tooth. There was no getting around this. Yuki and Dig needed to know the truth.
"Pitch stole all of Tooth Fairies, but for the one that's here with us. Children finding that their teeth hadn't been collected, was what started the Blackout. It's gotten worse and is accelerating, because a few hours after he raided the Tooth Palace, Pitch fought us over Burgess." Jack clenched his eyes shut in pain, but forced himself to continue. "He... He destroyed Sandy, he's dead, and without his dreams to hold back the fear the nightmares are running unchecked through the minds of sleeping children."
Yuki gasped, bringing her hands to her mouth in horror, while Dig's eyes went wide in denial as he shook his head.
"Sandy's dead? But... But! No!"
Jack went to him and crouched down, petting him on the head before gesturing to the sprites who had now all gathered.
"That's why we have to keep fighting, because Sandy would want us to." He stood, voice raised in command. "Listen up. I need all of you to draw as many outlines like this golem here, all over the floor in here. Every inch you can reach, draw on it. Tooth needs helpers so she can keep doing her job, and we're going to give them to her. Now get to it!"
The sprites dashed away, spreading out, and immediately began to scratch pictures of fairies everywhere they could. Jack then turned to Dig, smiling in determination.
"I'm going to make some big containers to put all the teeth into, and I'll need you and Yuki to guard them and the mirrors that I'm going to set up in here. But before that, I need you to go to the Selkies and get them to send a couple dozen warriors as extra guards, and for the rest of their fighters to be ready to be called on just in case."
Dig saluted jauntily, his spirit picking up in the face of this adversity.
"Aye aye!"
He bounded away in the direction of the portal to the Selkie village, and Jack now grinned at Tooth. His fellow Guardian smiling back. He then took his staff from his back and thumped it on the floor of the cavern, sending out a wash of power that triggered the golems already drawn to rise up and take shape.
"Let's get this little party started." He whooped, flying up into the air to create four massive Ice Mirrors, setting each one to a location as he boldly declared their purpose. "Hall of Mirrors, inbound and outbound! Tooth Palace, inbound and outbound! The golems can go the palace for coins, then use my network to take short-cuts to the sectors." He dropped back to the floor, shaping ice into a series of huge basins. "And they can drop all the teeth in here as they pass by!"
He pointed at Tooth, and the golem that had remained close to her and Baby Tooth. "They're waiting for your orders."
Another strike of his staff on the floor raised yet more golems to life around them, and Tooth started to laugh before facing the golem.
"We'll dispense with the sector names, and keep this simple... China, through Indonesia, down to Australia. Including all other Eastern Nations in the three associated time-zones. Prioritise on what's left of night-time in Western Australia and Eastern China! There are thirty-seven thousand, two-hundred and eighty-three teeth awaiting pick-up! Head out!"
Jack summoned the next batch of golems, in time for them to join the veritable river of them that lined up and poured through the mirror to the Ice Palace. He then flew over to Tooth.
"Um, aren't you worried that some of those golems will leave the wrong types of coins in some places? With orders that unspecific?"
Tooth turned to him, raising her chin in a playfully haughty manner.
"Just goes to show that Sandy didn't tell you everything about me. I can use my magic at will, to switch the dispensers in my palace to give little trinkets to the fairies instead of coins. I use it whenever there's an especially high volume of teeth to collect. It saves time. We're lucky that the past few days have been low volume on teeth for pick-up. You'd have had to do this last night if it had been high volume."
The first of the golems now came out of the 'inbound' mirror from the Tooth Palace, and streaked through the one that connected to the Hall of Mirrors. Jack watched as the numbers doing that increased, idly summoning more golems every thirty seconds from those that were still being drawn. He was investing a lot of power into conjuring and sustaining so many, but it needed to be done.
"So, question... How many teeth did we manage to collect last night? I think we only covered about half the world with that run."
Tooth winced, at the reminder of how many they'd missed in North America.
"Just under a hundred and sixty-thousand teeth, out of a possible two-hundred and sixteen thousand, seven hundred and four. A peak night, there would have been close to three-hundred thousand teeth to collect."
"Whoa... That's crazy."
Jack looked stunned, and Tooth chuckled.
"It's not that bad to me, I'm used to my work and I enjoy it. But we really owe North for last night. Out of all those we collected, he got two thirds of them. He wasn't kidding about how fast he can get in and out of houses."
Jack conjured one last batch of golems, bringing the number up to about twenty-thousand. Not as many as there were Tooth's fairies, but with the mirrors for short-cuts they could get to and from the sectors much faster and they didn't need to rest. It was to be said that a couple hundred sprites can draw a lot of pictures in the space of ten minutes... Even if a few of those drawings were a little crooked, as evidenced by a few of the icy fairies looking just a bit strange.
He called out to the sprites.
"That's enough drawings! I now need all of you to take up watch at every possible entrance into this sanctuary. If anything tries to get in, that shouldn't get in, you have my permission to freeze them solid!"
The sprites all saluted as Dig had done, giggling and chattering their equivalent of 'aye aye!' before scattering to take up positions. Now there was only Yuki, Tooth, and Jack stood outside the Ice Palace, and it was the Lieutenant who spoke after smiling and making a jaunty salute of her own.
"You go do your job now, Jack. Dig, the Selkies, and I will do our job here."
Jack smiled, grateful for the support.
"I know you will." Jack turned now to Tooth, and gestured for her to follow him into the palace. Baby Tooth and the replica Lead Fairy keeping close as they passed into the entranceway. "You don't need to worry about Pitch's Nightmares attacking the golems. As I said, those things are made of frostdust around a core of ice. The dust protects the ice and stops it from melting, and it will also be a major shock to any Nightmare that tries to swallow one... After all, when ice and frostdust mixed with that black sand over Burgess, it exploded! The dust in the golems isn't as dense at that was, but it should still give a really nasty sting."
They got to the end of the hallway, and Tooth frowned a little in confusion while Jack pushed open the doors that lay there.
"You keep saying 'frostdust'. What is it exactly?"
They stepped into the Hall of Mirrors, Tooth and Baby Tooth gasping in awe at the sphere of mirrors showing the sky in places all across all of the world. Frost golems were streaming out of a larger mirror positioned up near the ceiling, and were departing through a full length of portals close to the 'dawn' line of those available.
After giving her a moment to take the sight in, Jack conjured a little plinth for her to perch on before flying up to the top of the central spire of the room. Once there he thumped his staff onto the top of it, sending a wash of power down the shaft of ice.
"It's something I worked on and perfected with Sandy's help... Something that was meant to combine with his dreamsand once this battle with Pitch had come and been won."
There was regret in Jack's eyes, as below him the spire formed a cage of strands around a suspended globe which then lit up with the lights of believers. "I may not be able to give them good dreams, but I can ward off the children's nightmares. Between you and me, we should be able to slow the progress of the Blackout and buy time for us to last until Easter. That's when the tide will turn, and we'll show Pitch why he shouldn't mess with the Guardians."
Jack set his staff onto his back and rose up a short distance above the top of the spire. He then held his hands out, palm up, in what was a heart-achingly familiar pose.
He closed his eyes and a moment later a cloud of blue-white glowing dust formed. Swirling around him much like Sandy's dreamsand had swirled around the little dream-maker. Streamers identical in form to those that had been used by Sandy then shot out from the sides of that mass, going through the mirrors just ahead of those that the golems were using.
As Tooth watched Jack work a section of the mirrors at a time, in between her giving new numbers and sectors to her temporary helpers, her gaze kept drifting to the globe suspended below him. Over the following two hours, the rate at which the lights were going out slowed down noticeably. Jack's plan to buy time was working.
It was after another hour that North came through the mirror from the Warren, to see what Tooth and Jack were up to. And upon entering the main cavern he was greeted by the sight of uncountable little copies of tooth fairies streaming through more ice mirrors, dropping teeth into the waiting basins which already held a startling number of teeth.
The Russian blinked in astonishment, the nearby Selkies waving to him in greeting over the top of their harpoons and spears. Yuki waved as well, and called out.
"Jack and Toothiana are in the Hall of Mirrors. Dig will show you the way."
The furry Lieutenant in question bounded over to North, running circles around his ankles in eagerness before dashing ahead to the palace entrance.
North followed him, stopping in awe much as Tooth had done once he reached the chamber. He then gasped when he saw Jack, the cloud and streamers of glowing white dust, and the stance that had been used by Sandy. And then there was the globe made of ice below him, glittering with lights. Jack had been ready and waiting to watch over the children of the world, even so far as this. And now, it seemed, he was doing what he'd waited so long to do.
North came to a stop beside Tooth, who had been given a pile of furs by the Selkies for her to wrap up in. He watched as she gave him a small smile, and she spoke a new list of teeth numbers and locations to the fairy of ice beside her. While up above flew so many many more of the constructs, either departing with little trinkets for gifts, or returning holding teeth.
"Jack did all this?"
Tooth nodded, patting a hand on the plinth beside her to invite him to sit down. She kept her voice quiet.
"He hasn't admitted it, but I get the feeling it's taking far more effort on his part than he's willing to say." She indicated him with a tilt of her chin. "He's been at that for three hours, spreading his power of fun and laughter across the world to keep the children's spirits up and the fear away. He tried to cover more of the mirrors at once, about fifteen minutes after he started, but then he cut back again right away. I think it's taking him longer than it should, because he's helping me at the same time."
That moment Jack stopped what he was doing, startling them as he flew down wearing a wry smile.
"You should really reconsider what 'whispering' is when in here... Voices echo really well in this room."
Tooth flushed with embarrassment at being caught talking behind his back.
"Sorry, I was just concerned, that's all."
Jack sighed, shrugging.
"You're right, though. I've done test runs over Antarctica during Polar Day, throwing out as much frostdust over it as I would spread over the world. A full dose of frostdust over the whole world, just strong enough to lift people's moods without making them randomly grin or start laughing, should only take me fifteen minutes." He sat down the other side of Tooth, grimacing. "I've never made or maintained twenty thousand golems before. Even though they're only tiny, they're a real drain on my power output. It's like building up, shaping, and maintaining two Grade Ten blizzards at once."
North raised his eyebrows in query.
"Grade Ten?"
Jack raised his eyebrows in return.
"The Blizzard of '68 was a Grade Ten, although I didn't actually start that one; Mother Nature did. I just had to bust my guts getting it back into line once she'd triggered it... She did it so I would experience a Blackout. So that I wouldn't be crippled if Pitch did as expected and caused one himself. Which he has."
Reminded of the situation they were in. North looked at Jack's globe again and then at the spire where the Spirit of Winter been.
"So how long will that frostdust of yours last?"
Jack tilted his head and shrugged again.
"About thirty-six hours, give or take a couple. It's been my plan for along time, to spread my frostdust onto the world's winds once every twenty-four hours. I found out after experimenting that, when not in close contact with an immortal of compatible power, loose frostdust loses its magic and disappears after about a day and a half."
North started to smile.
"So you finish up this first round, and it will last all through Easter before you need to do it again? It good, very good." He stood up, starting to act considerably more upbeat and jolly with this news. "Well, Bunny has almost finished next batch of eggs, and has one more to do. Any he gets done after that, will be extra... I came to ask if you two would come help guard the Warren, although I understand you need to finish this first, Jack."
When Tooth hesitated, glancing up at the frost golems flying about the room, Jack nudged her to get her up.
"Don't worry, just take the Lead Golem with you. It won't melt, not covered in frostdust like it is. Not even in that hot-house Bunny calls a home."
Tooth glanced at him.
"What about you? Will you come once you're done? Bunny will start dispatching the eggs about an hour before sunrise reaches the first regions."
Jack gestured to his mirrors.
"I'll come just before he does. Until then, I'm going to use the winds to try track down where Pitch has your real fairies. There has to be a way in or out of that place somewhere, and so long as there is then the winds can find it. Once they're free, and we have the teeth too, Pitch will lose his advantage."
North nodded.
"Yes, if we get Tooth's fairies and the teeth back, we stand an even greater chance of tipping balance to our favour. Because fairies will remind children of their happy memories." He clapped Jack on the shoulder. "We will see you just before tunnel exits start opening for eggs. Don't be late, because Pitch isn't going to sit back and let us bring Easter without a fight."
Jack smiled, confident and determined.
"I'll be there to help, you can count on that."
Jack watched the two of them leave, aware of the increasing respect he'd gained from them in the past few hours. He was going to make Sandy proud, and protect the other Guardians just as he'd been chosen to do. All he needed to do now was finish the last time-zone's dose of frostdust, and then he could get down to work.
And start looking for Pitch's lair.
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Alaia Skyhawk: Yep, Jack is helping Tooth collect teeth. I mean seriously, the Guardians went to all that effort collecting teeth to keep up the belief in her, and then they stopped and didn't bother after that despite the huge emphasis on it earlier on in the film. I consider that to be a plothole, so naturally I've fixed it. Plus, it let me bring in Yuki, Dig, the Winter Sprites, and to finally give the Selkies a decent outing with a useful task :)