Secret of Frost and Moon

by Alaia Skyhawk

When death turns out not to be the end, you can't help but ask for what purpose you were brought back... What differences would it make, to remember your past right from the begining? To learn your purpose, piece by piece, right from the start? How would that change the life, future, and secrets of the Spirit of Winter; Jack Frost?

78. Simple Proof is the Best

Alaia Skyhawk:

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.

~(-)~

Chapter 78: Simple Proof is the Best

"I want to come to conference too."

"No!"

"Why not?"

"Because it's bad enough having 'Jack Frost' and the 'Easter Bunny' at it, without 'Santa Claus' tagging along for the ride."

Jack stood waiting, in just his hoodie and not his cloak as well, by the mirror he'd created to the street outside the building where the conference was about to take place. The Spirit of Winter watching with amusement, the little argument taking place between North and Bunny.

The Guardians were assembled at North's Workshop, so that they could hold their own meeting immediately after the conference was finished for today. There was an emphasis on 'today', because it had been set up to run for three. Director Branspeth had been adamant that something like this would take at least three to talk through fully, to any reasonable degree. There could be no short-cuts.

As Bunny and North continued their 'debate', Jack rolled his eyes and glanced over at Sandy. The little golden man grinning as he read the symbols Jack wrote with frostdust.

'I'm gonna go get Marcia to let me in, and set the mirror to inside the building instead of out in the street.'

'Go ahead. I don't think those two will stop any time soon.'

At Sandy's reply, Jack grinned and went through his mirror, while in the meantime Sandy became the new main spectator for North and Bunny. In fact the debate continued for the next five minutes, and was still going at full pace when the image on Jack's mirror changed to show a hallway, and he came through it.

He took one resigned look at the still-arguing pair, before he iced the floor between the mirror and Bunny's feet, and then grabbed the startled Pooka by the ears and sent him skidding along that ice and through the portal.

North was left stood there, silenced in mid-sentence, as Jack followed Bunny and the mirror vanished. The Russian couldn't follow, seeing as he didn't know where the conference was taking place, and thus Jack ended the debate in the most simple way possible.

Inside the building where the conference was taking place, Bunny lay sprawled on the floor in front of a giggling Marcia. The Pooka scrambling to his feet to glare at Jack, until he noticed what was 'blessed silence' by comparison to where he'd been moments before.

He then coughed into a paw, pointedly not looking at his fellow Guardian.

"Uh, thanks."

"Don't mention it."

While Jack smirked, and Bunny remained embarrassed, Marcia rescued the Pooka by tapping him on the arm to get his attention.

"Everything has been set up as you suggested. You two can take your seats in the main hall. The invitees will be ready shortly."

Bunny nodded, quickly straightening up his fur before he gestured for her to lead the way.

"Let's go then."

Jack fell into step behind them, for the short walk to the spacious auditorium that had been prepared. Tiered seating had been marked up to show where various research groups would be sitting, and two tables had been set up on the stage. A larger one, with place-settings for Director Branspeth, Marcia, and Marcus. And a smaller one, which was utterly surrounded by a huge array of equipment, all of which was intended to prove what was sitting at it.

Jack noted the name-cards, which simply read 'Jack' and 'Aster', as he took his seat.

"No full names?"

Marcia pointed to a smaller table that had been hidden under the larger one. Two other name-cards were sat there.

"There's a second set under there, for once it's been established that you're really here and really exist. The Director thought it was best to keep just who the main guests were, under wraps until the right moment."

Jack grinned.

"I see... Sneaky. I like it."

Bunny snorted as he too sat down.

"I'm not surprised."

Marcia left the room, and the two immortals who were continuing to banter with each other. Once in the hallway, along the side of which trailed a veritable jungle of cables leading from the auditorium, she followed them to the second-biggest hall in the building.

Inside it was crammed with people, arrayed around tables chattering as to what the conference could possibly be about, while above the main table a series of large screens were ready to display the readouts etc from the equipment in the other room.

Director Branspeth glanced at Marcia when she entered, and no sooner than she nodded that he rang the buzzer that brought the room to subsequent silence.

As soon as every one of the hundred or so people was looking his way, he cleared his throat and began to speak.

"Welcome to you all, and thank you for agreeing to attend. I am Director Branspeth, of the Antarctic Analysis and Conservation Organisation, and I have invited you here to learn of a rather momentous discovery. Something that will have bearings on science and many other things."

He gestured to the screens, the central one of which showed the apparently empty chairs with 'Jack' and 'Aster' name-cards in front of them. "Now I'm sure that those of you who were asked to bring equipment, and the rest of you, are wondering why it was requested. To put it simply, your equipment will answer that. Would the group with the universal facial recognition software, apply their filter to the video feed from the camera you also set up?"

At one of the rear tables, a man tapped away on a laptop before the screen above the Director suddenly showed a pair of squares that moved about slightly as though tracking faces. The one on the right blinked out now and then, as if struggling a bit with whatever 'face' was there, but otherwise they were clear indications.

There were a few puzzled murmurs among the scientists, researchers, and programmers present. The Director then called out again.

"Could the group who brought the thermal imaging camera, please turn it on and direct the visual feed to their assigned auxiliary screen?"

It was an individual on a table to the near right that responded this time, and one of the side screens brought up an image that made the entire room break out into chatter... Two figures sat at the table, one that was warm with two rather large and upright ears, and another more human outline that was considerably colder than the ambient temperature of the auditorium. The two seemed to be talking to each other.

Director Branspeth smiled slightly, and spoke again.

"Could the group with the heartbeat detector, please turn their equipment on? Also, could the group who set up the two microphones for voice recognition, please screen the transcript the software will produce at this time?"

The heartbeat detector flagged up two heartbeats, from what was by the CCTV stream on another screen, a supposedly empty auditorium. And when the voice recognition software started displaying the outputs for the two microphones, it began to scroll up on one of the other auxiliary screens.

'-s taking a while, isn't it?'

'Yeah, well there's a lot of people to get together and send in here.'

'I got the impression they would be here right after we sat down.'

'Chill out, Jack. It's probably just a minor delay.'

'But, Bunny... I'm bored.'

In time with the dialogue being typed up by the computer, the two figures in the thermal image could be seen moving correspondingly. Without prompting from the Director, the remaining groups with equipment set up round the table in the auditorium all turned it on. Every remaining auxiliary screen showing the resulting information... and every display confirmed the presence of two 'people' at the table. People who none of the invitees could see.

One of the researchers at the nearby tables, looked over to the Director and frowned.

"Is this some sort of elaborate hoax?"

The Director shook his head.

"None of the equipment in that room was provided by my organisation. Each individual detection method used, was each brought and set up by those of you invited here for this conference. And that brings me to the point where I inform you just who is it that sits at that table. The two individuals that your equipment all confirms the presence of, and yet who have been considered an impossible existence until they came to the attention of myself and a handful of my colleagues three weeks ago."

Another researcher jerked their chin to indicate the displays.

"Who, and what?"

Beside the director, Marcus rose to his feet.

"Jackson Overland Frost, and E. Aster Bunnymund; two individuals otherwise known as stories and legends... Jack Frost and the Easter Bunny."

The explosion of shouts, denials, etc was expected and anticipated, with Director Branspeth allowing it to continue for precisely the count of ten before he sounded the buzzer to silence the gathering once more.

While a few continued to protest, enough quietened down for him to be heard.

"So you would tell me that all of your equipment is faulty? That all of it has failed utterly? That the very things you have worked on to improve and perfect for years upon years, are to put it bluntly, useless?" Complete silence fell now. "Let's get to a specific point. How many of you believed in the Easter Bunny when you were children? Or the Tooth Fairy, as another example."

Every hand in the room was raised, and the director nodded.

"How many of you are parents, and have discovered a coin under your child's pillow, or a present from 'Santa' under the Christmas Tree, and assumed your spouse was the one who put it there, or that you'd done it yourself and forgotten?"

The hand of every parent in the room remained tentatively raised, and Marcia took up the talk now as she pointed to the screens.

"Three weeks ago, I was at the Antarctic research sub-station far west and south of Rothera, and Marcus here was with the rest of his team sent to investigate the Glacial Anomaly noted on satellite pictures a few months ago. What they were confronted with when they got there, was not what was expected. Because after being pinned down by a storm, they were rescued by the individual who had created that anomaly for the express purpose of luring scientists to him to make contact."

Marcus nodded at that, smiling.

"It was Jack Frost, the Spirit of Winter. The very man who is sitting in the auditorium right now. And he proved to me that he existed, in several ways that I really couldn't argue with. It was a case of believe in him, or believe I had gone insane." He too pointed at the screens. "But computers and other technology can't be fooled, even if we adults have lost the will to believe in legends and stories. Your technology is quite clearly telling you that we're speaking the truth, and that there is someone sat in those chairs even if you can't see them."

Branspeth stepped forward again now.

"We three can see them and hear them, because we believe they are truly there. That is the key. There is the saying that 'seeing is believing', but in the case of this it is the reverse. Believing is seeing. Let go of doubt, of the adult logic that says such stories can't be real, and just have faith in what you once trusted was true."

Mutters broke out among the invitees, more than a few of them close enough to hear remarks about 'crazy' or similar. But then the cold figure on the thermal image twitched and went still, the computer-generated transcript from the microphone set near them revealing sudden silence.

And then, a single line of text popped up.

'We're being watched from another room, aren't we?'

One of the researchers spotted it, pointing it out. That was when an answer popped up, registered as coming from the second mic.

'My idea. I figured it would go smoother this way. How could you tell?'

The first mic again.

'You really need to get your senses checked, if you can't feel belief kicking in at this close a range. Someone in that other room can now see and hear me, maybe even both of us.'

Director Branspeth raised his eyebrows a little, before gazing out at the gathering of people.

"Who is it? Who can see Jack?"

Everyone was glancing at those around them, uncertain, until a young man near the back raised his hand.

"I- I can see him."

All eyes turned to face the man, one the group who set up the facial recognition software. Marcia called out to him.

"Describe what you see."

The young man gulped nervously.

"A young man of late teens, maybe early twenties, with white hair and some sort of staff slung across his back. He's wearing a light-blue hoodie."

Marcia pulled a sheet of paper from a folder on her table, and held it up.

"Like this?"

The picture was a painting, rather than a photograph which only believers would see. But considering that Bunny had painted it, it was close enough to the real thing that it might as well have been a photo, because the young man gasped in recognition.

"Yes! That's him!"

Another line of transcript popped up for Jack's microphone.

'Hey, there's another four. You know, Bunny, this is kinda fun. Want to make a bet how many start believing with the next blip?'

Director Branspeth's smile widened. For a man who had struggled with this three weeks ago, it was now rather amusing to see others go through the process.

"Who is it this time?"

Three women and an elderly man raised their hands now, all four of them wide-eyed. Around about that time, a loud exclamation came from among the thermal imaging team.

A woman among them stood up, her face lit with joy and remembrance as she stared at the screens.

"Jack!" She let out a laugh and looked towards the stage. "I remember him! I grew up in Burgess, in Pennsylvania. Jack Frost is the patron of the town, and they hold a festival to welcome him home with the first snows each year. He's been an active part of the area's history for over three-hundred years!" She sank back into her chair, wistful. "But when I was ten, my parents moved us to another state. I guess I forgot him."

Director Branspeth pointed at her.

"Would you join us up here? If you already know Jack well, then that would be of great assistance for this." He faced the crowd. "And I think it's time we moved to the auditorium. If some of those who are manning the detection equipment stay here, and transfer the readings through to the screens in the other room, the rest of us will proceed."

He, Marcus, Marcia, and the woman headed for the doors, the majority of the invitees following them wearing mixed expressions. Yet no sooner than the front four entered the auditorium, than Jack spotted the woman and immediately recognised her.

He jumped up from his seat, grinning.

"Is that Beth? Beth Grayson?"

Beth returned the grin, and dashed down the walkway to the stage where Jack was. Behind her, the rest of the invitees were filing into the room.

"Jack! It's been so long! I can't believe I forgot you!"

On the screens behind the table, the cold outline was absent from the table. But the gathered men and women, whether they could see Jack or not, could not deny that something briefly picked up the thirty-year-old Beth and swung her round in mid-air.

Jack saw their reaction, and felt several more sets of Belief kick in, as he chuckled.

"I'd better go back to my seat." He glanced at Beth. "And I'm glad to see an old believer here. You were one of the best snowball-throwers of your generation; a real crackshot."

Jack jumped up and back, gliding back to his seat, at which point the thermal camera showed him descending from above and onto his chair. And then the two name-cards on the table were picked up, tossed off the side of the stage, and two new ones pulled from under the table to replace them.

Bunny now glanced at Jack, the two of them intermediatly watching the invitees moving hesitantly to their assigned areas. The Pooka's expression was wry.

"And now that the Director has 'broken the ice' and introduced us, we get to spend the rest of today convincing as many of these guys as possible, to see us."

~(-)~

When the mirror appeared near the globe, and the two Guardians came through it, Jack looked half-asleep from boredom and Bunny looked moderately satisfied.

Tooth fluttered over to them, even as North signalled to a yeti to go bring food and refreshments, her manner anxious.

"How did it go?"

Jack let out an exaggerated sigh, but he did wear a small smile.

"First couple of hours, great. We got about half of the adults in the room to see us, and most of those off in the other room monitoring the detection stuff."

Bunny continued for him.

"But the rest of the day we might as well have spent beating our heads against the wall, trying to convince the other half. They can't deny the fact so many in the room can see us, as can the tech gear, but they're being stubborn about believing in the Easter Bunny. That's hampering them in believing in Jack, too." He looked past Tooth, to North and Sandy. "Oi! Think you can manage a few out-of-season special deliveries? And giving all of the sceptics an identical dream about us?

North started to grin.

"You mean 'break and enter' into their hotel rooms, and leave a calling card? But that would be Naughty."

Bunny rolled his eyes.

"I won't tell no one, if you don't. Besides, I doubt you could appear on your own Naughty List if you tried."

Tooth whipped past Bunny, waving to get their attention.

"Hey, you guys forgetting something? I have the baby teeth of every living person on Earth, stored for easy access. I could leave their tooth containers in their rooms where they'll find them. As soon as they touch them, the teeth would make them remember their childhood belief."

North chortled, his grin widening.

"And I keep all the letters for 'Santa', that children write. We could leave their old letters with those with tooth boxes as well."

Jack smirked, and glanced at Sandy.

"Think you could rustle up a dream about the more prominent people among the Immortals, along with a dream about waking up to find those letters and teeth?"

Sandy nodded with a silent chuckle, giving them a double 'thumbs up'. At that point Bunny laughed as he looked around at his fellow Guardians.

"I think that tomorrow, the conference is going to make a lot more progress. And hey, if this works, we can consider this a test run for possibly using it later on a larger scale. When the general public starts to learn about us."

~(-)~

If any children had been watching in the early hours of that night, in the area of Washington DC where the conference attendees were staying, they'd have seen something beyond their imaginings. Santa in his sleigh, whooping and laughing as he crossed the springtime sky, only for him to jump from it onto the rooftops from where he began poofing in and out of view in clouds of sooty smoke.

Sandy also flew over the city on his cloud of dreamsand, sending out streamers of it far outside the normal hours for such. Each strand seeking out one of the attendees, and also acting as a guide for the veritable horde of excited tooth-box toting tooth fairies also darting about.

Tooth was out there too, buzzing around with the same excitement as she had that night during the Easter Fiasco. Bunny laughed to himself as he watched her from the conference building roof, Jack beside him wearing a similar expression. Off to the east, the first hints of false dawn were starting to show.

Jack grinned.

"I wish I could see their faces when they wake up in an hour. They're gonna be priceless."

Bunny glanced at him, eyebrow raised.

"You should feel it though, if this works. You never know, if I'm watching for it I might even feel it too."

Jack snorted.

"Yeah right, Mr Numb to New Believers. If you do, I'll officially be surprised."

The two of them chuckled again, and settled down for the wait. Tooth, North, and Sandy all retreated back to the Workshop as soon as they'd done their tasks, but they too would be waiting and carefully alert to the sense of new belief. The minutes ticking by even as the sky continued to brighten, and true dawn arrived to streak the sky with gold.

Distant clocks chimed the six o'clock hour, with smaller chimes marking the quarter past and then half past as time continued on. And then Jack twitched and started to smirk.

"There's number one." A couple more minutes passed, and he grinned again. "Numbers two and three- oof!"

Jack shook his head, looking rather dazed, and even Bunny had twitched that time.

The Pooka blinked.

"That I felt... How many was that? Because I have no clue. The Belief feels a bit different from kids', too."

Jack, still getting his bearings a bit, answered.

"About thirty... Adult Belief is like that. It's not as intense as Childish Belief, and certain forms of it are a bit 'itchy' if you're pulling a 'disguised' stunt to be seen. But it also tends to wham you one, when you get new Adult Belief in bursts. I had that happen to me a couple of Festival of First Snows, back. A lot of adults in Burgess can see me now, even if I not disguised. I suppose it's just something we'll get used to, once we've experienced it a few more times."

Jack moved backwards and sat down on the edge of an air conditioning unit, as if to steady himself. Yet over the following thirty minutes, as the rest of the conference attendees would have woken up and found their letters and teeth, there weren't any more massive surges. Rather it was like the Belief dribbled in like a dripping tap, not that Jack was complaining. Being as 'numb' to smaller changes as Bunny was, was probably a blessing in this instance. He'd not felt like he'd been kicked in the gut, not like Jack.

The sun now risen, the two of them went to the Warren to fetch some boxes of stuff Bunny needed for 'demonstrations' today. Exactly what those would be about, the Pooka didn't say. Just that it would be 'interesting'.

Jack and Bunny had the auditorium to themselves when they arrived through a mirror, the two of them moving all the detection equipment away from their table, considering they had the strong feeling they weren't going to need it today.

It was nine o'clock when the invitees began arriving, with Director Branspeth, Marcia, and Marcus among the first to enter. They'd not been included in the letters/teeth delivery, but that every other person who entered was carrying an odd golden container, and a small wedge of creased papers, they guessed something was up.

When they arrived on the stage, Marcus gave the two immortals a long look. Not surprising really, since the people who were taking their positions among the tiered seating, were one and all furtively staring in Jack and Bunny's direction.

"Looks like you two had some fun last night."

Jack smirked and chuckled.

"Not us, though it was partly our idea. That lot got a visit from Santa and the Tooth Fairy last night. They woke up to find the containers with their baby teeth, which hold their most precious childhood memories, and also every letter they ever sent to 'Santa'. Add a particular dream from the Sandman, and they got the mother of all nostalgia trips when they woke up."

Bunny was smiling too.

"Because that's what nostalgia is, the wistful dream of regaining what you once had, or reliving it. Cept Adult Logic won't generally let them do that, because of the fear of being seen as childish or foolish. We got around that, by proverbially rubbing their noses in what they once believed. Their own hidden wish to gain that faith back, did the rest. I don't think we'll get many arguments today, about whether or not Jack and I are really here. Just goes to show, what the Guardians can do when we team up."

Bunny stepped away, to pick up one of the microphones from his and Jack's table, before he faced the tiered seating and spoke into it.

"I see you all got the gifts from some of my colleagues. If you'd like to settle down quickly, we can get started."

From the way everyone looked in his direction, it was clear all of them had heard him. It was one final confirmation, before he got down to business.

He and Jack took their places, the latter passing the next few minutes of waiting by freezing and unfreezing the water in the plastic bottle by his mic. Just as well it wasn't in a glass, or chances were the repeated freeze-thaw would have made it shatter.

Once everyone was settled, Bunny glanced at Director Branspeth and got the nod to take over chairing the conference. Branspeth's job was now done, and now he Marcia, and Marcus would sit back and listen along with the rest.

Bunny looked out across the auditorium, feeling again the sense of how the introductions he'd seen so far in the past, were never as awkward as this. But then he gathered himself, and began speaking.

"Thank you all for coming back here today, for being willing to risk being called crazy in order to get the answers to questions I know are going through all your heads. I know the biggest one right now, will be to wonder just what I am. To wonder just how many other 'legends' and 'stories' you've heard that are actually about real people that you've not been able to see."

He smiled at them slightly. "To answer the second of those questions, there are about three thousand of us 'Immortals' as we call ourselves. Some of us only have one story associated with us, others among our number have many stories. Some have changed their names, reinvented themselves, when their old stories died out and those who told those stories stopped believing in them. Some of us have no stories at all. But one thing we all have in common, is that at some point in the past we were all once mortal, like you. That we were then chosen, while alive or at the point of death, to take up a new task."

Jack tapped his mic, to interrupt, and looked out at the gathering.

"I was born on the fourteenth of March, in the year 1693. I lived in a small settlement known as The Village, near Kirk Town in colonial Pennsylvania. On the sixteenth of December in the year 1711, at the age of eighteen, I fell through the ice on the local pond and drowned... That night I was pulled up out of the water by the will of the Man in the Moon, and woke up as Jack Frost, the Spirit of Winter. I've been that, and watched over the Village which later became part of Burgess, ever since."

Out among the crowd, Beth stood up.

"That's why you protected The Village, and became believed in there? That's why you consider Burgess to be your home? Because you lived in the valley, before you became what you are now?"

Jack sighed, nodding.

"Yeah." He sighed again. "Immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be. Those who wish for it, are fools, because no life can be lonelier than that of an Immortal. To be invisible to almost everyone, and unheard. To watch those who could see you, who believed in you, grow up and forget about you. To watch them grow old and die, while you remain the same. It's a hard life, but those of us chosen for it are picked because we have potential to handle it. Those that don't, fade away and die like any other mortal. The rest of us keep going, doing our jobs and fulfilling the roles we were given."

As Beth sat back down, someone else near the back stood up.

"So what are your 'roles'? What were you two picked to do?"

Jack glanced at Bunny, letting the Pooka answer that one.

"I was chosen a long time ago, to serve as an overall watcher for this planet. But about two thousand years ago, the Man in the Moon offered me an additional job as the Guardian of Hope. One of his Guardians of Childhood. I work to inspire and protect Hope in children, which is why I hide chocolate-filled eggs every year for them to find. Easter being about new life, new beginnings, and hope." He shrugged. "I admit I may have hijacked the holiday a bit, after Christianity started it up. But with a name so like my own, I took it as an omen. I am E. Aster Bunnymund. Stick the initial and my middle name together, and you get Easter. Easter Bunnymund... Easter Bunny."

There were a few smiles and chuckles at that, and Jack took over the speaking.

"Like Bunny, I started with one job and got another one along the way. I was just the Spirit of Winter at first, but in 1825 I was asked by the Man in the Moon to become the Guardian of Fun. I inspire and protect the sense of Fun and Laughter in children, as well as being Winter's Shepherd."

Bunny got up out of his seat, picking up one of the boxes he and Jack had fetched from the Warren. He set up the projector inside it, so that it shone a diagram onto the screen above the stage.

"Now just a bit of basics about the Immortals, and I'm explaining this now so we don't get interruptions asking about it later. That, and it leads into what I want to talk about next. We're defined as being one of two classes when we're created, and that class determines the ways in which we get our power. We're either Legends or Naturals. Legends get their power purely from the belief of Mortals, either directly from true believers, or as an ambient boost from partial ones. Nature Immortals are the same in that respect, but in addition to belief they also get power from the specific Forces of Nature they're assigned to, in turn being able to use those forces to some degree."

He pointed to the chart, which showed two pyramids separated into tiers labelled 'Legend' and 'Natural'. The largest tier on both being split into four wedges.

"Legends can be associated with a specific Season, or no season at all, depending on the stories they represent. Nature Immortals are always assigned a Season, but don't necessarily work for the Spirit of the Season which presides over the one they belong to. Those that do work for them, are called the Lieutenants of the Seasons.

"Both the Legend and Natural hierarchies have a small collection of Immortals in their top tier. For Legends, that top tier are the Guardians of Childhood. For the Naturals, the top tier are the four Spirits of the Seasons. Each hierarchy is answerable to one overall 'boss'. The Man in the Moon is in charge of all the Legends, and Mother Nature is in charge of all the Naturals. In turn, she answers to the Man in the Moon as well, making him the overall authority. Any Immortals that break the rules, are dealt with at their instruction by either the Guardians or the Spirits of the Seasons. In most cases it's just a verbal warning, but serious violators are stripped down to base power and left to fade out. That's never happened, but the prospect of it means the rules are followed strictly."

Bunny now faced the audience.

"We Immortals are powerful, I won't lie about that. But we also have probably the strictest working code of conduct in existence. The oldest of us here on Earth, have been here doing our jobs for over fifteen thousand years. So I think I can be clear on this point, that none of you guys need to worry about us 'taking over' or some other stupid assumption. We went to the effort of setting up this conference, because adults all across the world are starting to see us, to spot us now and then. It won't be long before people realise it's not conspiracy or ghost stories, but that we're real. That's why it's important that the Scientific Community learns about us and, yes, gets the chance to study us for a couple of years first. We're gonna be discovered eventually, whether you do anything or not. But you have the chance to help prevent a mass panic when it does, because we Immortals have so much we can offer this world once it knows about us. As guides and teachers, and examples of how to work together in peace. That's why we're here, talking to you, today."

He returned to his seat, allowing his speech to sink in among the audience. Each research group was quietly and urgently taking among themselves, but from the small smile on Jack's face, he was sensing more than a little eagerness and excitement among the crowd.

This was truly the discovery of a lifetime for them, and it was firing up the imaginations of these men and women who made their livings by thinking and imagining ways to build or make things work. Or by seeking to understand things that had never been seen before. Yeah sure, most had had to have their noses rubbed in their childhood memories to make them see, but that was besides the point. They were now starting to embrace that childhood enthusiasm, for the unknown or the seemingly impossible.

Both Jack and Bunny glanced over to Marcia and co, the trio at the other table nodding their approval of the speech. The two immortals let the audience talk among themselves a few minutes longer, before once more the Pooka got up and went to his projector. His voice carrying out over the auditorium even without the assistance of his mic on the table.

"I think you're all starting to see the importance of this now, on the matter of preventing panic. For that reason now, I'm going to tell you guys exactly where our power comes from, and what that can also do for you and this world." He smiled, even as he noted Jack's sudden interest as well. The Spirit of Winter didn't know this either, and the Pooka had promised to explain how the Starlit Tide worked. "It's time for me to tell you all about the Manifestational Ether."

~(-)~

Alaia Skyhawk: I was going to put his next bit into this chapter, but then I noticed how long this chapter already was, hehe. Don't worry, I won't keep you guys waiting long, not with Nano urging me onwards! :D