Alaia Skyhawk: Warning, spoilers for Book 4 of the Guardians of Childhood are contained in this chapter :)
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 83: Present and Past
The Man in the Moon watched, as he always did. Waiting, as he always had for one thing or another. But one of the things he waited for now, was to see something he remembered seeing. And even as the thought of it crossed his mind, he saw it at last... A signal that two ends fated to meet, had at last lined up as he remembered they would.
Tsar Lunar smiled, and even chuckled at that which he saw, for it was certainly memorable. There was no mistaking it, and his assessment was confirmed by the figure and presence that appeared at his shoulder. An old, kindly yet stern voice, like the sound of ages, murmuring for only him to hear.
"I will deliver the message. How he reacts, before and after, will remain to be seen."
Tsar Lunar nodded, his smile widening just a little.
"Indeed, it will be interesting to see how all of them react. Once he returns, and they themselves remember."
~(-)~
"Jack, there you are! You're late for annual meeting!"
At North's booming remark, Jack pulled the hood of his hoodie down further over his face. Over behind North, Bunny was trying and failing to hide laughter. Something that got him a snowball the size of a yeti's head, thrown at him with unavoidable accuracy.
North, Sandy, and Tooth all stared, between the hooded Jack and the spluttering Bunny. It was the Russian who found his voice first.
"What was that about?"
Jack sighed as he landed, glad that now, at a little over a year since his 'Glacial Anomaly' stunt, meetings with mortals had petered out for the time being. Because he had no idea how long this was going to take to fix.
He glared at Bunny.
"Someone thought it would be funny, to rope my niece into helping him with a prank. She waited until I'd dozed off on the couch waiting for the Lights, after asking her mother to invite me to breakfast this morning... Lucky for you, Bunny, she only got a little bit done before her giggling woke me up."
Jack pushed back his hood, Tooth immediately bursting into laughter which she then hastily tried to cover up, while North and Sandy both raised their eyebrows. Because the front part of Jack's hair, just a few finger-widths worth, had been dyed bright blue.
As even North and Sandy now began to succumb to chuckles, Bunny got back to his feet and brushed off the last few bits of snow.
"Aww, come on, Jack. It was just a bit of fun."
Jack's eyes narrowed.
"Blue wasn't the only colour of dye she had. If she'd used the pink first, you'd be an ice-cube right now." He tugged at the lock of blue hair. "How long does this take to wear off or wash out?"
Bunny cleared his throat, averting his eyes.
"About two months."
"What?! Now that is IT!"
Jack made a dive at Bunny, who frantically bounded out of the path of the annoyed Spirit of Winter. The two of them catapulting themselves around the room, knocking several pieces of furniture over in the process.
North edged over to where Tooth and Sandy were, giving the latter a nudge.
"And usually it's me and Bunny who start the meeting with argument."
The three of them watched for a few minutes more, unable or simply unwilling to step in when that much ice was being thrown about. Yet it was just when it seemed that Jack got Bunny cornered, that Bunnydisappeared in a flare of light and appeared on the other side of the room... But he wasn't alone.
And elderly looking man stood beside him, cloaked in white but otherwise plain robes.
Jack let himself drop to the floor, landing neatly while the three near the fireplace stared. It was Bunny who identified the visitor, when he leapt to the side in shock and exclaimed.
"Father Time?"
Father Time, ignoring the startled gasps of the others, smiled at the Pooka.
"It has been a very long time, Aster. Have you been well?"
Bunny, now composed, frowned a little.
"As well as can be expected, after how you let me think I was the last of my kind. What brings you here now?"
Father Time inclined his head, accepting the reproval, but otherwise unfazed. He conjured an odd golden staff, and threw it to the Pooka.
"Firstly, you have a message to deliver and some matters to explain. When you're done, I have a person to send on a trip, then bring home when he's done."
Bunny was staring at the staff, which he recognised all too well. They were made by his people, to do one very specific thing.
"Aww crud, don't tell me... It's a Permitted Paradox, ain't it?"
There was a flutter of movement, as Tooth came over and held up a hand.
"Excuse me, but what's that?"
As Bunny continued to look bemused, Father Time answered her.
"It is an occurrence, where someone from the future is sent to the past to perform a role there, because I and my chosen witness can remember them arriving in the past and doing so. We remember them because they were sent back, yet I would not have sent them back if we didn't remember them. That is why it is a paradox. Permitted ones are exceptionally rare, of course. This will only be the fourth one I have ever overseen in all my years."
North raised his hand now.
"So who is going back?"
Father Time smiled, his gaze moving over to a certain Guardian of Fun.
"I remember that rather charming streak of blue hair quite well, as does Tsar Lunar. Don't worry, Jack. We remember that you handle the situation most admirably."
Jack pointed to himself, gaping.
"Me?"
Ignoring that, Father Time faced Bunny and nodded.
"Deliver the message to yourself, as to what is about to occur. The time is at the moment you are stood outside this workshop, just after a certain important piece of transport has been stolen. Do you understand?"
Bunny deadpanned for a moment, before bringing a paw to his face and shaking his head.
"Shoulda known it was then. There's more than a few things in my memories after that, where the events don't quite fit or make sense." He held up the staff, which was none other than a Pooka Brotherhood Timetraveller Staff. "I'll be right back."
He vanished in a flash, then almost immediately re-appeared again shaking off bits of snow. He then muttered. "Sheesh, was I always that much of a stiff?"
Jack pointed to him.
"Did you just go to the past and back?"
Bunny nodded, tossing the staff back to Father Time.
"Yep, but I'm not gonna bother explaining anything else. Because I left myself starting to explain it to North and Co, and they'll remember everything as soon as you get back... Which from our end of things will be in about thirty seconds."
Father Time suddenly appeared behind Jack, who didn't manage to get out a single word before he was firmly grabbed by the shoulder.
"And now, to drop you off."
The two of them disappeared, and Bunny began to count to thirty...
~ (-) ~
...They stared at the outline of the workshop, which was now devoid of the 'pole' that had so defined it. The pole that had in fact been the ship that should have carried them to the moon. The ship that Pitch had now stolen and taken away somewhere, freeing him to amass his army and to go after the Man in the Moon. While the Guardians remained stuck and unable to follow.
Nicholas St North rubbed a hand over his black beard, cursing in Russian while beside him Katherine was being comforted by Nightlight. She blamed herself for this, for being an unwitting part of the deceit that had enabled it. But how were any of them to know, that the rock she'd been bound to by nightmares, that they had carried here in the name of freeing her, had concealed within it the Nightmare King himself.
Pitch had slunk through the shadows, slithered his way through the workshop while they had been distracted with celebrating her safe return, and stolen the ship before any of them had the chance to realise something was wrong.
They should have all known better, and realised they'd gotten Katherine back far too easily. It was everyone else's fault, but never hers.
He sighed.
"What do we do now? Search for the ship, before he can gather his Fearling Army and use it to take them to the moon?"
Bunnymund, bespectacled and garbed in long a green robe with egg-shaped buttons, tapped his egg-tipped staff on the floor to get their attention.
"I have a ship, although I cannot be sure we would all fit on it. It is rather small... Quite tiny really. If we do all fit, we would not be able to take anything with us. We would carry only our weapons and the clothes on our backs."
Ombric frowned at that, musing in concern.
"That would be a problem. Fearlings take up little space, when they wish to, and Pitch will be able to fit most of them onto our stolen ship. He will have a fierce army with him on the moon, and we will have just us few. We will be terribly outnumbered."
North jabbed a thumb at his chest.
"Outnumbered? Bah! I once defeated whole regiment of cavalry, with nothing but a bent steak knife!"
The Sandman, who floated mostly unnoticed among them, frowned and waved a finger at North. To this Ombric nodded, when he noticed it.
"Sanderson is quite right. We cannot underestimate the threat the Fearlings represent. We would be fools to do so."
"Wow, I'd forgotten how quaint this place looks, compared to what I'm used to now."
All of them blinked, for the voice that had said that was none other than that of Bunnymund. Perhaps the accent was a bit more pronounced, and the wording was far less formal in the overall drawl in which it was said, but it was definitely the Pooka's.
And it was, just not the one stood with them. For several feet away stood another Bunnymund, who didn't wear spectacles, a robe, and who instead wore a bandoleer of sorts and arm-guards. He also held a golden staff, which was eminently different from the egg-tipped one theirs held.
The robed Bunnymund's ears stood straight up, and he bounded over to the newcomer.
"I say, this is most unexpected. I have not had an instance to meet myself, since that quite unfortunate mistake I made as a youngster where I literally ran into myself." He reached out and shook the other Bunnymund's hand in greeting. "Are you a future me? Then again, why am I asking? I certainly cannot recall any time I have ever wandered about in such informal attire as yours."
Behind him, his companions all looked rather bemused, and if possible the other Bunnymund looked more so.
He sighed.
"Look, I'm just here to give you a heads up from Father Time. It's a Permitted Paradox. A colleague of mine from my time, is being sent back to help you out with fighting Pitch. And trust me, he is someone that Pitch should not mess with. He'll hand Pitch his ass on a silver platter." He raised his staff. "Anyway, message delivered. I should go now."
Ombric called out.
"Wait, just how can a paradox exist? I almost caused one and was stopped."
Their Bunnymund turned to face him, his other rolling their eyes and shaking their head as he began to explain. Even as they then vanished in a flare of light.
"Permitted Paradoxes are the exemption, and there have only been three... Well, now that will be four. They only occur when Father Time and his chosen witness remember something happening, but which was done by someone from the future. It's always something very important that they were sent back to do, which in this case it is. They are being sent to help us defeat Pitch!"
Ombric was frowning.
"I still fail to see why I was prevented from stopping Kosmotis letting the Fearlings out of their prison, but this event will not be."
Bunnymund's nose twitched, his tone stating it should be obvious.
"Ah, but if you had stopped him, you would never have had reason to go back in time at all. A Negative Paradox! It would have cancelled out the universe! But this is a positive one. It will happen because it has already happened. Do you understand now?"
From the blank looks directed at him, the answer to that was probably no. But before he could say more, there was a resounding clunk as something fell from the sky and landed on North's head.
Nightlight picked it up, showing them what seemed to be a shepherd's crook made from gnarled wood. North rubbed at the spot where it had hit him, even as he inspected the object.
"It's a stick. Where did it come fr-"
He stopped mid-sentence, all of them becoming aware of the sound of someone yelling in surprise. It got closer and closer, all of them looking around for the source until it occurred to them to look up.
The startled shouting was cut off, as something rather larger than the stick slammed into the snow just up the slope from them. Something, or rather someone, who then tumbled down it towards them before slowing to a stop in a pile of white powder. A hand then emerged from the pile, seeking purchase on its surface in order to haul its owner up as well. A head of white hair, with a blue streak at the front, coming into view a moment later.
The white hair did not belong to an old man, as might be expected, but rather to a young man no older than late teens. And he was cursing.
"Damn you, Father Time. When you said you'd 'drop me off', that didn't mean you had to literally DROP me!" He looked around at the snow-bank above him, his back to the group. "Now where did my staff land?"
Ombric cleared his throat.
"Is this it?"
The young man turned sharply, his silver-edged, silvery-blue cloak swirling with the motion, and he stared at them before breaking into a fresh batch of muttered curses.
"Great, just great. As if this wasn't embarrassing enough already."
Right as North was about to start asking who their guest was, Katherine bustled past him along with Nightlight. The latter handing the staff to it's owner, before former began to push their guest up the slope towards the workshop door.
"Let's go back inside, into the warm, before we talk any more. He must be cold after landing in the snow like that. His feet are bare!"
Jack tried to protest that he was fine, but gave up the moment North caught up and literally picked him up. The Russian didn't have the same bulk as he did in the future, but he was still more than strong enough to sling him over his shoulder. And so Jack resigned himself to being stuck there, inwardly promising several pranks to be headed future North's way as soon as he got home.
They ended up on the top floor of what Jack recognised would one day be the main workshop. Although right now there was no Globe of Belief, and no sign of a toy anywhere. The yetis that moved about were either carrying supplies or weapons. It was then, when he was set down and bodily pushed in the direction of the huge fire crackling away in the big hearth, that Jack tried to dig his heels in.
"Really, I'm fine! You don't want to push me too close to-"
North got him to a chair, which was five feet from the hearth and literally steaming on one side from the heat, when the entire fire was instantly snuffed out. Jack then sighed in resignation. "Too hot, too close... I tried to warn you."
Sandy was peering closely at the smouldering wood left behind, which had a light coat of melting frost on it, and Katherine faced Jack with wide eyes.
"Did you do that?"
Jack stared back, his gaze wandering over all these people he knew so well but who, in this time, didn't know him at all. He then took a deep breath.
"Ok, I think I should start with introducing myself. I'm Jack Frost. The Spirit of Winter, and the Guardian of Fun."
~(-)~
Alaia Skyhawk: Heeheeheeheehee! Bet none of you saw THIS coming! Admittedly, Book 4 ends with Pitch revealing he was in the rock, but my bet for Book 5 is that he probably plans to sneak onto their ship and let them take him to the moon themselves. In this story though, for wonderful plotty-ness, I've had him steal it :)