One of you called my imagination crazy...and I like that. Haha and I'm glad you all survived the last chapter. I knew it was hard but it was intentionally confusing to reflect the actual severity of the situation. Thanx for always being kind and patient and not giving up! (: Now here's another chapter – back in original format lol. The next installment will be out but the end of the weekend (haha I hope!)
"I'm not afraid of tomorrow. I'm only scared of myself. Feels like my insides are on fire. And I'm looking through the eyes of someone else."
Empty field, time unknown
Piuuuuuu...
It was just like Wales. That horrible high-pitch ringing hurt their ears and muffled their voices.
"...m...my back!"
"Argh, w...where's..."
"Roll this way...m'over here!"
Tooth, Aster, and Jack all stumbled into a stand and held their breath, waiting for the field to blow. For a while, nobody heard or saw anything but the wind and hoarfrost–
Fwp!
Suddenly, something like an invisible wave washed over the three of them and a violent pulse in the air. It threw their hair up for a second and then the ground began to rumble. It was a tiny sort of earthquake that vibrated under their boots. It shifted the air and when they looked a mile away, back at the field, the sky around it lit up turquoise.
A second a later, the shockwave from the bomb hit them and the sky turned orange. Aster stumbled back and covered his ears – his earplugs didn't seem to work.
Toothiana spun, feeling like a large hose just smacked into her. She yelped and tried to steady herself but when she turned all the way around, her eyebrows shot up. The bomb lit up the field, the snow, and she watched Aster and Jack bend their heads in pain. She rushed forward.
Aster heard boots coming toward him and peeked through his eyelids. He saw the princess' figure race at him and he tried to steady himself, ready to hold her – she flew right past him.
When he turned his head, the hacker watched as Princess Thia slipped her arms around Jack Frost's shoulders as he started to lean forward.
"What's wrong?!" she yelled but he dropped his chin on her shoulder. Jack shook his head, not wanting to scare her and after a second, he took a deep breath – his newly sewn up bullet hole was stinging painfully under all their stress. He pulled his head up.
Jack looked down at her and Tooth's jewel-toned eyes took in his face – the fire behind her lit up his smooth, clammy features. Jack frowned as she stood against him with her dark skin shadowed and irises glistening. He then turned her so the two of them could see the fire. They said nothing and imagined the company, Project GUARDIAN, and everything miles beneath their feet disappear forever.
Aster eyed them for the longest time. His fist tightened in his glove.
Another ten seconds later, the orange light flickered away and a horrible rumbling in the dirt stopped. The three stayed silent until the light from the full moon adjusted their dilated pupils and the ice in the air pierced their lungs.
Tooth was the first to move.
She slipped her arm out Jack's glove and moved away. Her back was aching but she didn't want Jack to know that it was his fault that she'd slammed twice against a concrete wall – but Aster picked up on it. When her boots crunched several steps away in the snow, he glared at Jack.
"Where'd you go?" he mumbled, still short of breath about the whole thing. He also wanted to steer the conversation away from any questions they had about his jumping abilities – like Jack, some touchy subjects for him were better left untouched.
Jack looked up at him with a stony gaze. He opened his mouth to shoot something bitter but his head twitched. He suddenly remembered crescent-shaped rooms...blue lights...screaming...
His face paled and he looked down afraid that he'd see what he thought he saw.
"The..." Jack's eyes grew wide. "I...I was in the Judgement Room."
Aster took a step back.
"The...The Judgement Room? Wh-Why did y–How did–"
"I-I don't know, I–"
Jack thought he heard something and snapped his head to the left. But there was nothing there, just another patch of the dark forest. A puff of air left his lips.
Tooth looked back at them as something akin to dread slipped into her stomach. "Judgement room? What's a..."
Aster looked at her, his face dismal. He almost forgot she was there for a moment.
"It's...It's where GUARDIANs go when they are called by the board, the blokes upstairs."
"Like that Tsar Lunar guy?"
Aster's breath caught in his throat. The second the man's name left her mouth, he saw her face scrunch with emotional pain.
"When we got the gene and finished our training, they sent us up there so our codenames would be assigned. Nine levels to test our skills as elite global spies and faith in the program's tenets. But it's a maze and that's all you ever go there for...unless you get in trouble."
He then snapped his head back at Jack.
"I've only been in there once," he muttered starkly. "You're only supposed to be in there once! How'd you even remember the way?"
Jack looked back at the Australian and took a step back.
"I just...I just sorta remembered."
"No," Aster argued. "No, they make you forget it after you go through the trial once. So unless you were sent all the way up there for another reason, you couldn't have remembered all those signs–"
Tooth's eyebrows shot up. "S-Signs?"
Jack ran a hand through his hair so roughly that the ends shot up higher than they usually were. He let out an angry sigh.
"I saw...and there were these..." Aster and Tooth's eyebrows scrunched together nervously as he continued. "But I didn't even know I was there until Tooth showed up and I–"
He stopped.
Both he and Aster looked at her at the same time – but she was already frowning.
"Princess..." the hacker's deep green eyes bore into hers. He took a cautious step forward but she took several steps back. "Princess, how di–"
"I just read the signs," she said simply. "...I-I followed the words that were bolded out–"
"Bolded out? What words? They're all the same," he tried to reason."You'd have to be crazy to read it all at once you wouldn't be able to–"
A dark laugh left her lips. "Crazy..." she repeated. "Cr-Crazy, crazy, huh?"
They looked at her worriedly but she was done – she was done being afraid, being scared. No, now...now she was just mad.
"Thia..." he urged. "How did you manage to find Jack all the way up there? Those corridors were riddled with expert-level multilingual codes–"
She shocked him when her eyes shot up in an angry glare.
"Really, Edmund? Really? Isn't it obvious by now?"
He and Jack didn't say a word as she walked away from them. She clutched at her hair, careful not to catch her feather earrings.
"The video...the th-child, that...Argh, you don't get it?!"
When memory flashed in her head, she shut her eyes.
Twelve years ago.
Her father's big smile grew wider as he hefted her on his lap. He and Tooth never sat on the throne unless he had to for formal meetings so they were sitting on the steps close to a large window.
Haroom's wide smile showcased his chipped front tooth and she laughed and poked the corner of it again.
"Is this where I come from, baba?" she always joked.
"Yes!" he laughed. "And see what you did? A piece of my tooth is gone!"
"No, I'm not!" she giggled. "I'm right here!"
"My tooth turned into a little girl?! How strange!"
And when she poked him on the nose, he tickled her sides until her face turned purple. Who needed a mother when your father was the best dad in the world? She was never sad for herself because of him. But she did always worry that maybe he was lonely. But then he'd put his hand on her head and sigh wholeheartedly.
"You are so special, Toothie," And she'd looked up at him with wide, pink eyes and tilt her head. His voice could get so soft and...serious. He then rubbed her hair. "And you do not even know it yet."
She'd always thought he was just talking about her future role as a queen.
Nine years ago.
Little Toothiana was padding through the palace library in her satin slippers. She was holding a tiny hummingbird gently in her hands.
Her plan was to sneak it through the library and shortcut to the royal garden. It was because she'd overheard the palace maids say the hibiscus had finally bloomed and she knew hummingbirds loved their nectar – so after tricking one into her hand with some syrup, she decided to carry it there. Hopefully it'd want to stay with her...she'd didn't have any siblings (at least, not yet) or friends her age in the castle.
She scurried through the tall stacks and shelves until she stopped – something was rustling very loudly. When she peeked around a corner, she saw Mr. Sandy writing vigorously on some reports and drawing an image on a piece of paper. When he lifted it up for a moment...she saw pink eyes. He sensed something and turned. Tooth hid behind a pile of books. She realised after that day, every Thursday, Mr. Sandy would vanish off into the library around the same time. When she asked about the drawing, he told her to never ask again – he was 'embarrassed with his art' and with Tooth oh-so compassionate for her young age, she didn't ask again thinking one day, he'd show her when he was ready.
Five years ago.
Tooth and BT were making sure their new sisters were tagging behind as they walked through the Grand Bazaar with their bodyguards. They were on their vacation in Turkey and looking at jewelry. When they passed a fruit stand, another man thought it was also the right time to run by and try to steal an orange. As he brushed the unknown princess' arm, she reacted and tried to grab the fruit from his hand. Everyone panicked but Tooth's fierce bravery kicked in.
"You can't take that!" the sixteen-year-old cried and the man turned around to hit her. But he froze. He didn't freeze because of the bodyguards or the growing crowds, but because of her eyes, so pink and bright under her hat.
He shoved her away, completely perturbed by her appearance. (Turkish) "Freak!" And he shoved the orange onto her and dashed away. Tooth was instantly hurt, but her handmaidens didn't try to comfort her. They tried to usher her away, brushing her robes and fixing her hair. Everyone around the market started mumbling and bending down slightly to catch Tooth's face under the brim of her summer hat.
"Don't listen to him, Tooth," the twelve-year-old BT muttered bitterly under her own hat while ten-year-old Tia and eight-year-old Tiana grabbed both her arms. Their purple eyes looked cold and serious. Maybe they'd just felt offended too, with her being a princess and their sister – they had no reason to feel hurt either...didn't they?
Tooth narrowed her eyes and clenched her teeth angrily.
"The anomaly...it's me."
"Princess, you don't–"
"No, Edmund! It's true! I-It's..." she stumbled on her words as she looked around for some kind of anchor. The fear though about the whole truth started to creep in.
"It is! It makes sense now because I...I..."
When she looked up and realised how worried their faces looked, Tooth dropped her hands from her head like limp fish. She took a deep breath, more like a gasp for air, and her fists tightened.
"I can...I-I can understand every language!" she finally confessed and even Jack, in his less composed state, stopped to look at her. Her face twisted with a deep frown.
"...What?"
"It's true!" she cried. "Every and any, I...I always have, since I was little...but I never told anyone. Because...B-Because I didn't want anyone to be weird around me!"
Jack's eyebrows furrowed bitterly.
"Including me?"
"Especially you!"
He froze.
"A-And...and I never had mom, okay? Th-They said she died giving birth to me!"
Aster shook his head. He remembered the reports on her but refused to accept it now that he might be seeing it face value.
"Sheila, ya...you don't know if they're connected. Your mother and the FAIRYQUEEN could be two differe–"
"But weren't you listening?! About the clones? I-I have eight identical handmaidens. The eyes? The blonde streak?!" And Tooth forcefully yanked at a piece of her dark bangs. "It's here! I have it but I'm hiding it! And no one could ever explain why!"
She then looked at Aster heatedly.
"You can't tell me that silver streak you have was something you did, was it?"
Aster didn't answer.
"Well, is it?"
"No, Thia," he sighed. "It wasn't. It came after the gene."
'Just like Jack's hair. Just like BT.'
Tooth continued to grow scared as she continued confessing her heart's pain.
"And other than knowing that my mother was from India, I...I didn't know anything about her, nothing! So you can't tell me that this...all of this–" Tooth motioned back to the field faraway "–hasn't been connected to me this entire time!"
Jack saw her hands flex at her sides and his eyes widened. She'd never done that before.
Tooth's heart beat so loud and so hard that all the cardio she lost searching for Jack threatened to creep up and tear her apart.
Lub-dub. Lub-dub.
"It's me...It's me..."
"To–"
"No, Jack." Lub-dub. "NO."
And he stopped. Her teeth were clenched and her gaze was feral. It reminded him too much of the penthouse from the other night when she ripped all her jewelry off before she–
"There's nothing you can say to make this better, alright!?" she pleaded and he blinked painfully. "My entire life is...is...it's just... "
She suddenly stopped.
Tooth looked at them and at the field. She thought of home, she thought of the corridors...she thought of the mother she never knew.
"I'm born with it," she murmured. Her lips were lethargic and her heart was numb. "I'm the only ever...e-ever born with a Center Gene." Then her gaze flew up to Jack and Aster. "That's why I was cloned..."
The two ex-spies didn't say a word, let alone move. They could barely stomach themselves how the company they'd once fought so proudly for, had been doing this to one person, to one, tiny woman in secret. For twenty years, while they were kids themselves, she was being used like a...like a–
"FREAK SHOW!" Tooth suddenly snapped and she kicked the snow. "That's all I ever was to those men–" Another kick. "–to this company–" Another strike. "And to my own mother!"
Aster's eyebrows shot up and pedaled forward. "Thia, d–"
"NO! I...Sh-She made me a...She probably had me for the sake of...Why didn't he–Why didn't my father tell me...Did he know?!" Tooth covered her face. "Did he know that my entire life has been a freak show...my face, my clones, my ability...it was just an experim–"
Tooth's hands pushed up into her hair again and stumbled onto the snow thanks to her aching back. Her knees instantly shot with cold pain from frigid dirt but she didn't care. Although she hated her mother more than ever now for creating her to become this, ultimately, she was responsible for her mom's mutation and death, for the deaths of other GUARDIANs mutated and killed off, the INNOCENCE program, and the CHOSEN protocol that came because of it.
"I thought I could save people but I...I-I'm not even a ruler yet and I've already had hundreds of people killed because I...I...I can't believe I caused all this!" she whispered horrifically and she bent her head down so close to the snow that her hair curtained around her face. "I'm sorry...I-I'm so sorry!"
Before they knew it, Tooth started to choke and Jack feared that she'd throw up again.
"Princess!" Aster cried.
"I d-don't...I-I don't deserve this! I do-des'rv t'be a...a–"
When he saw her clutch handfuls of snow, he tried to move forward.
"Tooth, you–"
But another memory flashed before his head – he gasped.
Tooth spun around. Her hair whipped her face and her mouth almost didn't close again. She didn't realise how hard her heart was pounding in her chest but she looked at Jack.
Somehow, hearing his voice was the thing that seemed to get through to her.
'M-Maybe because I'm so used to him already...' she lamented – that was all she could really guess at the moment.
"J-Jack?" She watched as the brunette threw a hand to the front of his leather jacket.
He started to pant, looking around the three of them with a cautious daze. Tooth didn't understand. Aster eyed him funny.
"You had to go all the way up to the Judgement Room to remember?" he asked, also wary of Jack's turn in behaviour. Jack twisted his head at him but his eyes were slightly out of focus.
"Remember what?"
"Remember wh–Your memories!"
Jack blinked and took a deep breath as he looked behind Aster again. The hacker scrunched his eyebrows. "Y'mean...they didn't come back yet?"
"No, I...a-aah!" Jack clutched his head and turned around. He started walking away on his own accord and the two panicked.
"Oy! Jack!"
"Jack, what's wrong?!" Tooth cried and got up, speeding in the snow after him with Edmund. All her distress over herself melted away as the fear for Jack, created an eerie chill in her spine. It slowly started spreading to the rest of her body. He was acting weird – the cool and controlled Jack she knew and admired so well was suddenly losing it – and she didn't want him disappearing again.
One heartache had been enough.
"Jack!" she tried again. What she didn't know was at the same she yelled, Jack heard her shout from four different directions.
"Jack!"
"Jack!"
"Jack!"
"Jack!"
He snapped his head up and stopped.
Jack looked around. He was suddenly alone in the field, all by himself – at least, he thought he was.
But when he turned behind him...he saw himself, another Jack, a few feet away spinning to face him too. Jack's mouth fell open – so did the other's. It was the most disturbing mirror effect he'd ever experienced, and he'd been to a magic show once or twice in his life to know how it felt...didn't he?
"Haha, come on, Jack! Let's get a seat up front!...Heh, alright, alright! Slow your rol–Bretyam shad 5016 FROST."
Jack rubbed his eye. The other Jack did the same, and when both dropped their hands, he realised that the other Jack...his skin wasn't white and his lips weren't pale. He looked almost healthy in comparison – rosy cheeks, peach skin and brown hair that seemed to shine with natural colour. But then–
"Gunner division, move into sector 4!"he heard someone scream directly into his left ear. "Speed count doctor is 124 npm, 132 npm, 143–WHERE'RE YOU HIDING HIM?!"
Jack gasped.
Toothiana finally caught up to him grasped his arm.
"J–"
He reacted. Reaching down, he untwisted from Tooth's grip and pulled her arm high above her head. She squealed.
"Aah, Jack! No, don't–"
When he blinked, the other Jack was gone and the princess and Aster were standing in front of him. Jack dropped her wrist instantly, eyes wide.
"I'm sorry, Tooth! I–" But Aster wouldn't have it.
The taller brunette gripped him by the shoulders and pulled him a few steps away from the princess.
"What're you seeing?" he growled and Jack's mouth fell open
"W-What?"
"I gotta know!" the Aussie shouted desperately. "What're ya seein'! Is it the flashes–"
"No, I–" Jack's habit of shutting people out wanted to slip in. He wanted to tell Cottontail to mind his own business and get the hell off him...but the part of him that was desperate to know everything was starting to grow. It overtook his introverted state, and the words spewed from his mouth.
"I keep...I'm seeing people!"
"Seeing w...what?!"
Tooth took a step forward, not bothering to cradle her arm in case it scared him again. "Jack, what are you–"
"Bloody–D-Did this happen back in the room? Up in the halls? In the Core?"
"It actually started when we walked on the field. They're everywhere but...I..."
Jack faded out when he saw two female scientists appear behind Tooth.
He knew they were hallucinations now that he'd been so exposed, but they didn't look like ghosts anymore. The two women looked real, like they were physically there – he frowned. Were they from the GUARDIAN program?
"Dammit, Jack!" Aster griped when it looked like he wasn't paying attention to him.
Jack watched them walk. They were mumbling, he could hear it.
"Where will they go?" one murmured worriedly – they were saying things he'd heard too many times in his head.
The other shook her head.
"I don't know...hopefully he doesn't get a B.E. like the others," she answered.
"That K.O.S. though will take care of that...poor boy." Jack froze. He'd never heard the continuation of that conversation. When he blinked, Jack didn't have time to recover.
Suddenly, he saw another flash go off in his head and he closed his eyes.
An older memory. He was him, the him-'before-he-had-white-hair'-Him. And he was standing barefoot in next to another agent.
"Bend that back leg more, Clint!" an older male yelled. "Look at Jack's stance...Good, NOW AGAIN! TAEKEUK 3 JANG!"
Jack and the entire team clapped their hands once, then with a yell, they all did twenty movements of poomsae, moving effortlessly across the large mat – they weren't in practice, but they were demonstrating their knowledge of their skills and what they understood from the motions.
Jack opened his eyes. He saw the scientists still there and still walking toward them in the snow.
A second later, they walked around Tooth. Jack thought they'd notice he was there too, but when the women regrouped and kept mumbling to themselves, they walked right through Jack. He gasped when they fazed with a cold, blue light through his body and he tore himself away from the hacker.
"See?! It happened again!"
"See what?!" Tooth scrunched her eyebrows and shook her head. "We don't–"
"They saw you, the two scientists, but they didn't see me and they just...everyone just keeps walking through me–" Jack whirled on Aster with a dark look. "I returned here, I came back to the Core, but I... Is this supposed to happen?!"
Aster shook his head a little before he balled his fists.
"Bugger that, mate! You should be having memories! Flashes not seein'..." the Aussie couldn't even think straight anymore and ran a hand through his hair.
"Bullocks," he finally sighed. "We...L-Lemme call in the Santa, hang on."
Tooth blinked up at him.
"The who?"
"North, sheila. Nicholas. I've never been in this sorta situation before!"
He quickly stepped away from them, walking a few feet in the snow to make the emergency call on his complink. With him gone, Tooth narrowed her eyes and stepped up to Jack. He caught the look and frowned.
"Don't you go giving me that face either," he grumbled but she smacked him upside the head. He bristled instantly.
"Hey, what was th–"
"Why the heck didn't you say anything the minute we got here?!" she exclaimed and threw her hand back at the other field. "I thought you were getting better! Look, now you've got Edmund all worried!"
Jack rubbed his blue, contact-free eye.
"I thought I was getting better!" he argued. "I thought seeing illusions was a part of putting together my memories."
"Well, clearly it's not!" she hissed. "Something's wrong and I just can't see you...I mean, I..."
Jack frowned as he watched her suddenly stumble over what she had wanted to say. Tooth widened her eyes for a brief second and he sorta panicked.
"What?" he mumbled. "Tooth!"
"I-It's nothing, I..." but she faded out and looked over his shoulder to avoid seeing his face. She sighed.
"Just tell me next time...okay?"
He didn't answer.
"Jack, seriously. I need you to promise that you'll tell me next time something's wrong so I don't have to kick you in the balls to get it out of you. Heh, you promise?"
But her awkward, little laugh stopped when she peeked up at him.
Jack was looking ahead again, his blue eyes darting this way and that. His mouth kept opening and closing like he wanted to say something to someone she couldn't see.
Another memory came back.
His hair was white. It was from after he joined the GUARDIAN program. He was sitting between two other agents on a helicopter. They and the other six from the Winter division were getting one final briefing from their team leader.
"I am in charge of the drop off for you agents today!" he cried over the harsh winds. Jack could've pushed them away but he was too focused on the task at hand. "Now get ready, we're entering the No Fly Z–"
"Jack, no! Ignore them!" she cried and she moved forward, trying to wave her glove in front of his face. She was afraid that touching him would set off his kill-mode again – her method worked and he blinked again.
When Jack looked down at her, the dark-skinned princess sighed gratefully. The moonlight behind him lit up her face and he used the iridescent shine from her pink eyes as something to focus on so he wouldn't get pulled away again.
"Tha...Sorry," he murmured angrily and his fists tightened. Tooth bit her lip.
"Oy, you two!"
Jack and Toothiana turned as Aster raced over. When they caught his face in the moonlight, it was paled beyond belief and his mouth hung open fearfully.
Jack was the first to react.
"What did he say?" he urged but Aster was still trying to collect himself. He was shaking his head a little, inflicting self-shame on himself.
"Bloody, I...I didn't know," he mumbled despondently. "I'm smarter than this and I almost–"
"Edmund?" Tooth tried to urge caringly. "What did he say?"
At her soft tone, he looked up from his babbling and gave them both a wide-eyed look. Then his thick eyebrows furrowed together.
"I erred."
Tooth's own eyebrows knitted together as she started to wring her wrists together. "W-What?"
"I made a mistake!" he exclaimed and pressed his forehead to his gloved fist. "No bugger that, we made a mistake!"
"Why? What did Nor–" but Aster had already whipped his head at Jack. His face was so severe, he reminded Tooth of that nasty principle she had back in grade school. He spit words, and always wanted bad kids to be sent to his office for a good yelling, but while she was lucky to avoid ever being in there since she was always quiet and a good girl, the stories the other kids told her had scarred her for imagination. Now she thought she was living it.
"We should have never come here," Aster spat and Tooth frowned.
"B-But we thought it was okay...You said the memory would come back if we came, if we stood in the company–"
"That was my mistake," Aster sighed and looked away. "How could I've been so stupid! We shoulda never stopped, we shoulda kept going for that ditch, the one you said you woke up in."
Jack bit the inside of his cheek when the green-eyed brunette looked down at him.
"But I don't even know where it is, idiot! You just wanted us to drive for miles checking out ev–"
"Well, you better hope you get a clue, mate!" Aster argued. "Because we've gotta get you to the place where you first woke up! North says it's a bleeding effect."
For a moment, Jack and Tooth didn't react – the word was so severe it messed up their cognitive thinking. Until Jack's eyebrows slowly knit together.
"What the hell is a bleeding effect?" he muttered darkly.
Aster ran a hand through his hair.
"In the video, remember when that bloke mentioned the...the CHOSEN protocol? Were you even there for that part?" He refused to address the man as TSAR LUNAR or as 'their boss'. He had too many mixed feelings now about everything.
Jack nodded his head slowly.
"Yeah," He ran a hand through his hair. "The GUARDIANs whose memories were erased successfully were sent home and the ones who weren't were killed straight away. Right here."
Jack then pointed at the ground to mean the company and Aster nodded.
"Yeah well, North says that the agents who weren't defragged properly, like you, well, that's what some of 'em went through, and how they were picked off. They saw things after the mind wipe...things that weren't there."
Jack tightened his glove, an unnatural chill passing over him. He didn't mean to make the wind pick up as Aster continued.
"North couldn't really elaborate but what I gather from a name like that...i-it means your reality is warping because the memories are coming back to you out of sync."
"Out of sync?" Tooth repeated.
"Remember how North always kept emphasizing that ya 'go back to where it all started'?"
And Jack nodded, remembering how firm the Cossack's tone had been and how serious his face was. Aster nodded too.
"We jumped that train when we went down to the Core, mate," Aster mumbled with a deep frown. "Going down there, especially to the Judgement Room, that was too much. We threw you straight into the deep end when you needed to be eased into the water."
"So my memories..." Jack's eyes widened. "They're falling purposely out of order...b-because I didn't go back to the right site?"
Aster nodded and Tooth felt sick. It didn't make sense – how could such a tiny difference create the biggest backlash? How did memories even react to physical slipups like that?
"It...It must be the gene," Aster finished. His eyes were dark and his eyebrows were scrunched so tightly. "The gene's probably connected somehow to us wakin' up and rememberin' things we should, and seein' things we shouldn't."
And Jack blinked.
He suddenly remembered the dream he had before he woke up after getting shot. Chasing that little girl, Pitch's shadow, Tooth and the gun...and falling...falling into a deep pool of water and floating aimlessly on some current as he–
A memory flickered like a broken video behind his eyes. It was so fast, he almost didn't–but he did, he caught it.
He was inside one of those giant, horizontal test tubes he'd seen back in the Core. Facing the ceiling, he floated in the blue water, catching his brown hair float above him before it slowly started to turn wh–
Jack clutched his head. The two panicked.
"Jack?" Aster called and leaned down. "Ya need to tell us, right now! Where'd you wake up?"
"I...I-I..."
What happened in the tube? Why was he there? Was that...Was that what had turned him? What changed him? He–
Another flash. Jack saw someone open a steel door and all the light from outside pooled in. He watched the air from the freezer drift outside as the scientists returned with their thick coats. He lifted his head higher as they approached.
"How do you feel?" one man chattered. Jack looked down at his bare arms. He'd been sitting against the icy wall for two hours with his arms crossed over his bent-up knees. But when he exhaled and they watched his shirtless chest breathe in and out without constriction, Jack looked up and smirked.
"Is that all you got?" as a small puff of air escaped his non-quivering lips.
"Please, Jack! Come on," Tooth urged. "You were gone for so long! You didn't get any new memories of your past?"
He shut his eyes. Someone was suddenly yelling in his ear.
"Wake up, agent! Wake up!" And the scientist with the beard and glasses hauled him up from the steel bed.
"My past...my p–trying t–"
"Jack!"Aster gripped his arm. "JACK!"
But Jack started having trouble distinguishing whose voice was calling his name. It sounded Australian, then it sounded female...then it was old, it was faraway, then suddenly it was–
"Jack! JAAACK!" He spun around in someone's kitchen and saw someone tiny disappear into the living room.
Again. It was...
"E...Emma?" he murmured and took a step back subconsciously – but then his boot hit a rock hiding under the snow and Jack fell forward to avoid it. Tooth and Aster reacted as he squatted over the snow with his hands on both sides of his head.
Tooth rushed down to touch his shoulders. "What's wrong?! Tell us what you see! W-Where do we need to go?"
He remembered sitting in that hotel room with his hands pushing up into his hair. "Where did you go, Jack? Where did you go?" he'd imagine her saying. He bent his head down over his knees.
"I'm sorry, Em...I'm..." Jack started mumbling as his eyebrows furrowed together. Aster's ears perked up in alert.
"Oy, whose she? Whose he talkin' about?!" he asked but Tooth shook her head. She looked up at him.
"I-I don't know! He never mentioned her until I found him in the Judgement Room," she replied. When Tooth looked back at Jack, she frowned.
Who was Emma? And why'd he have such a calling for her? Was she family? A friend? Another spy? His...his girlfriend?
'She could be...' Tooth lamented softly to herself. 'He seems pretty...and on just one memory too.'
It was crucial, so necessary for him (for all of them) to know, but Tooth felt guilty for not wanting to swallow the possibilities. Still, she was his friend, he still needed her.
"Jack..." she asked cautiously. "...w-where is she? Where's Emma?" But he abruptly shook his head.
"I can't, they...They can't!" He gripped his head. Aster and Tooth didn't know it, couldn't see it, but he could feel it. Jack felt that nightmarish chill the first night he woke up alone. It wrapped around his skin like a whip and licked at the parts not covered by his clothes.
"...ull him out!" they whispered urgently. "Pull him–" He gasped out when they lowered him onto the ground quickly.
"They...a-and I..."
Tires then screeched away and for felt like hours, he laid there, drifting in and out of sleep. His entire body was shivering, his were lips struggling.
"Don't let 'em leak out!" Aster urged. "What do ya see?!"
He remembered being dressed decently enough as he got up from the rock-solid dirt and frosted covered grass. And when he looked up, there was a sign.
"..opulation: 9,346..." Jack murmured and Tooth froze.
"All I know...is that there was a sign next to me when I woke up so that's why–"
She shook him gently, her teeth chattering. They all really needed to get out of the cold – but he couldn't stop yet.
"Come on, Jack...c-come on."
"9,346," Jack repeated and his scowl deepened as his eyes shut tighter. He couldn't get the chill out of his lungs that night. He kept gasping for air as the moon stared up at him. And the sign beside his body was lit so bright it was all he could do to just keep reading it as he tried to regain his motor skills.
"9,346...n...next 4.7 miles to Lehighton..."
Aster froze.
"Lehighton?" he breathed. The Australian immediately tried to recall where in the hell that city was, what state...Or no wait, wasn't Lehighton was a county in–
Another flash! Again! He saw that ball of glitter he'd envisioned back down in the Core. It was beautiful and shiny. The water inside made the sparkles drift up that it'd definitely make–"Oh, pretty–"
"...come to..." he suddenly clenched his teeth as the sign in his head suddenly grew large. Jack almost couldn't see it the more he kept reading. And the moonlight was too bright, but he...
"...'elcome t..."
"Jack," Toothiana murmured at her softest pitch. "...Where are you? Welcome to where?"
"Welcome to...Welcome..."
He gritted his teeth.
"Welcome to Burgess."
And the sign in his head vanished and Jack opened his eyes wide – he stared up at Tooth.
"That's it..." Tooth mumbled and pulled away, realizing just then how close she'd been to his face. She blushed and stood up on shaky knees though she kept her hand on his shoulder to let him know she was still there.
"That's it!" she said again looking up at Aster who was also kind of shellshocked at what just happened. "That's where he first woke up! B-But..."
She then looked around the field as if the place would magically appear. She bit her lip.
"Where can we even start to look for–"
"I know it," Aster immediately breathed and a drop of hope fell into both their hearts. "It's a small town 237 miles southeast of here in Pennsylvania."
"Really?!"
And when the brunette nodded vigorously, it was all Tooth could do not to jump on the balls of her feet like a weirdo.
"Oh my gosh...we're...w-we're so close!"
'And he's from Pennsylvania?' she couldn't help but mind-comment. 'I thought he'd be from somewhere crazy like California.' But then again, his subtle nature and conscientious personality did seem to reflect the keystone state more. She smiled a little before Aster snuffed it out again.
"But we'd better hurry before ya get worse, mate," Aster said and moved down to nudge Jack's shoulder. "We're near the town of Belfast so it'll take us at least five hours to drive all the way down there and we already lost alot a time–"
The tech analyst suddenly paused, and when Tooth looked back down to Jack, she understood why.
Jack was frozen.
"Jack?"
His hands were still on either side of his head and his eyes were still locked on the spot where Tooth had been when she'd knelt in front of him. He looked hypnotized.
Welcome to Burgess...
Welcome to Burgess...
Welcome to–
"WHO ARE YOU?!" "WHAT?!" Jack saw knives. "You were wanted!" the father yelled and tossed the paper onto the table. Jack didn't understand and shook his head. He saw the mountains in the window–"You endanger this family! This village! Get out!" "But I–""GET OUT!"
"No, no not again! You...You have to..." Tooth dropped in the snow again in front of him – even Aster knelt on one knee to stare at the brunette.
"Snap out of it!" she cried and shook his shoulders. Tooth snapped her fingers as her pink eyes darted all around his barely-noticeable-freckled face. "Please, wake up. Wake up!"
Tooth's mind went to...well, it went everywhere...
"Jack!"
...The first night they walked through the streets, the hotel, the subway, the dance, the penthouse, the Warren...
SLAP!
She smacked him across the cheek.
Aster pulled back slightly.
"Oy! Don't..." but when Jack didn't react, he faded out.
The two didn't say anything, so stunned by what had happened. And they couldn't stop shivering in the cold wind and snow.
Jack sat unmoving, unaffected by it.
"Bloke," Aster mumbled in a deep tone, hoping to coax him out of his trance. "Can you even hear us?"
But Jack was still slightly hunched over, looking ahead as, what they guessed was, the bleeding effect taking over – and it scared Tooth to the core. She was sitting straight in front of him again, trying to match his line of vision with hers.
His mouth fell slightly open and he shook his head a little – but it wasn't for her, it was for...whoever he was seeing.
Toothiana tried waving her hand again but when it didn't work, the princess frowned desperately.
"...Jack..."
She tucked a hair behind her ear and sighed shakily. Reaching up, she then gently grasped both Jack's hands and pulled them from his head. When they were in his lap, she gently released him.
"Don't worry sheila," Aster said with a sad look before he moved forward and tried to help Jack stand on his own. "Let's get 'im home."
And the two then guided him back to the field and hoped that the forest wasn't destroyed.
They trudged away in the snow quickly but every time Jack spotted a faraway tree, he sometimes saw someone following them – sometimes it was another him, another doppelganger but brown hair, white, and even black...and then they vanished. He blinked sometimes when Aster morphed into Pitch or when Tooth would become that old lady he nearly ran over back in Ho Chi Minh City. But he didn't react – he was still partially aware that they really were there, and they still needed Aster's car to get away.
So after piggybacking Jack and Tooth awkwardly on his tall form, Aster made a quick and powerful run before he jumped in the high air again. His gene left a small crater in the snow and dirt – and without Jack to brush it away with the wind, it was noticeable to anyone.
...
Company's field, 1:13 am
The tech analyst's muscles still burned with high energy from the jump he pulled and the princess' body was still crumpled slightly from all the pressure she'd just gone through. But Aster's car was still intact, tucked away in the crevice by a fallen tree so he and Toothiana were grateful. The same could not be said about the frontline of the forest. About ten metres in, all the pine trees had been scorched and it looked like some invisible fire had incinerated them. It left a bad feeling in the princess and the hacker's stomach.
Not only were the trees torched...but so was the field. Aster's face darkened.
"L-Looks like the bomb was designed to set off a thermo-nuclear wave," he muttered, his voice gruff and tough as always but his teeth were starting to jitter. "Whatever's burnt up here–" he then pointed at the dirt "–is probably vaporized down there. There'll...There'll be nothin' left down there if the Core sent that wave across all the sectors."
Tooth's lips smacked together as she joined Aster in the snow again.
She'd just finished helping Jack into the back car a second ago. His trancelike state wasn't going away and for all her own heartaches, she wasn't giving up on him. So after she made sure he was at least sitting (and she'd pulled away his gun and his staff and tossed them in the passenger seat), she went to survey the field one last time with the tall brunette.
"A..." she started. "A-Are you mad? 'C-Cause everything you are, everything thing they-ey made you...the company you worked for, i-it's gone now."
But Aster shook his head.
"No Thia," he mumbled. "This place was already a ghost zone...e-everything I knew about it and stood for died and vanished the day they wiped us out."
Toothiana said nothing after looking at him for the longest time. She thought he could really use a hug but she instead settled for touching his arm as a pillar of comfort – she was still too numb and empty about finding out she was cause of its downfall, of all their downfalls.
When she exhaled a shaky breath, Aster looked down forlornly. He saw a tear leak out from her face as she watched the smoke rise from the burning field and the ashes tickle her nostrils.
He frowned and reached down to clutch her hand on his arm gently. Tooth smiled in gratitude and wiped away her tear. The two said nothing for a while before time started to catch up with them.
"Is there anything w-we can do about this?" she wondered about the torched field. "I mean...even though it's Christmas, so-s-someone could come and wonder how it managed to ca-catch fire like this."
"Take a few steps back," Aster mumbled and he let go of her hand. She did what he asked and walked five steps away from him. The green-eyed Australian then went down on one knee. He and Tooth were standing at the very last edge of the snow before it melted away in the thermal heat from below – surely anything that lived in the trees and in the burrows underground were dead.
It made him think about the stuffed rabbits back at the Warren – his little cousin's collected them hoping one day they'd run their own shelter. With a grim frown, Aster looked farther down the field.
He pulled off his glove.
Tooth watched miserably as he moved his bare hand to the hot soil. After touching it a few times to test how hot it was, Aster lowered his fingers into the dirt. Instantly, several cracks in the dirt splintered under his fingertips.
Then with a sigh, Aster shut his eyes...and he pressed his palm flat against the earth. His center awoke immediately.
Like a deep, rolling thunder, the tech analyst and the Hypunjam princess watched all the earth upturn and crumble loudly away from their general area. It spread all the way around the scorched line of the forest in violent fissures, throwing up ash and dry dirt to the sky. Then in a swift wave, Aster forced the cracks toward the centre of the field, controlling their strength and depth. He reached down as far as he could with his gene, trying to imagine the sinkhole he was making drive so deep that it would hit the core of the earth.
Tooth bit her lip as the earth beneath crumbled away and a giant hole was created. In its demolition, it revealed just how far down they'd gone and how large this one sector of the company had been built. The sound of steel crashing against steel – elevators, platforms, the glass and metal deep within – echoed up high until the dirt swallowed it up. It was ready to cave in at Aster's command but before he let the earth shift upwards again, he pulled out his boomerang and with a sharp eye, he flung his most prized gadget into the hole.
"Why'd you do that?!" Tooth gasped. She actually loved that piece of tech, having seen it action – but she knew it wasn't coming back.
"That thing can create a seismic pulse like my gene big enough to destroy whatever else is down there. Hopefully it'll send the eggs to other areas that need caving in...b-but I'm bettin' they're all the same now."
The two then said nothing as Aster finished his work. He also made sure to catch the burnt trees into the hole so no one would suspect arson. When it was over, the entire field was a giant hole refilled with the upturned dirt from below and all signs of a scorched field and forest were gone. If anyone looked, they'd guess an earthquake or an early start to farm plotting had been done.
But that was the end of the company and Project GUARDIAN for good...What a small victory.
Aster sighed shakily and stumbled getting up.
"You did it," she cheered and helped him up gently. She tried to offer a smile but it came out tight and exhausted. "Y-You okay?"
"Yeah, sheila, I'm fine," he coughed slightly and shot her a trying smile back. "That kind of work takes a lot out of my gene but don't worry."
She nodded and looked at the field again. It looked so different – wider and more alive...and even the snow start to fall again (probably to help cover up their mess, thank god).
Tooth then frowned a little.
"I'll n-never understand how they did it," she mumbled wistfully. "To cr-create a gene that lets you have control over the Earth's elements...and s-superpowers for yourself and against other people. Why didn't they make it for...for themselves?"
"Because they were smart," Aster commented. "They knew the consequences of that and l-look, they got out alive. We didn't."
"But you did," Tooth pointed out. "Y-You're right here." And when Aster blinked at her, she nodded firmly. He glared out onto the field again.
"You're right...and I'm gonna keep holdin' onto this gene because I know it's g-gonna save people."
She nodded back as Aster then motioned for the two of them to head back to the car.
"I'll never understand h-how it works either, princess," he grumbled. "But I've got it, North's got it, Jack's got it and...a-and you've got it."
She looked down bitterly as she helped escort him through the thick snow on unsteady feet. He continued.
"But as long we do right by it, th-then ya gotta hope what we're doing with it is for the right reasons...Okay?"
And Tooth nodded. That's when she realised how inspiring Edmund could be. He was so optimistic despite how cynical he usually sounded, and it made her feel better, more comforted.
"A hero h-hidden within," she murmured, "when y-your gifts awaken, and hearts akin."
Aster paused and looked at her wide-eyed. He hadn't heard that been said in so long.
And when she looked up at him, she smiled a genuine smile and he nodded.
"Good on ya."
...
NY-19 interstate, 2:57 a.m.
The car drove smooth and quiet across the dark, empty road until Aster turned off the NY-19 and headed east on the US-15 intending to find the I-80. He really didn't want to take that route since it was so public, but with Jack's mental state deteriorating, and it being Christmas day, hopefully lesser cars would be on the road – it would cut their travel time by one hour at the most and okay sure, four hours was still a long time, but it counted for something.
Aster and Tooth talked half-heartedly back and forth about anything and everything on their mind to fill the silence – neither wanted to turn on the radio since they didn't feel in the Christmas spirit. Then they hit a large body of water and Aster instantly recognised it. It was Cowanesque Lake and he was suddenly reminded of the reconnaissance mission he once did back as a GUARDIAN. It had been his division's spot to regroup.
"We hit the border so we got less than three hours to go," he called back and Tooth leaned back to the window. The heater was on full blast and it rustled her feathered earrings from overhead. She was still in awe by all the snow and silence of Christmas morning. Aster gave Jack a look through the mirror.
"Jack," he tried again. "We're in Pennsylvania."
Jack sat there, still wide-eyed and seeing a thousand things.
"North. Nicholas St. N–You promise?–You gotta listen to me, I didn't kil–Foot pursuit in progress, team! Fo–"
His memories were getting progressively worse and the more he tried to make sense of it, the more jumbled they became.
First he'd see a beauty mark on under someone's eye, and then he saw himself running on a treadmill with a heart monitor attached to his chest. Next he'd see Pitch Black's photo in an envelope, Toothiana jumping through a window, then the dead ELF from Belarus–
He didn't even sense or hear Aster when the guy called his name. He didn't even know they'd hit his home state, with the wish that his memories would realign themselves in a healthy fashion. He couldn't even feel Toothiana's hand on his arm as she sat beside him in the back seat.
And being sweet wasn't working. So Tooth tried bugging him to get him to wake up. She sighed loudly and turned left to face him.
"You know," she tried to grumble. "None of this would've happened if you'd just been nice with Edmund and didn't open that window! Then his paper wouldn't have flown out, I wouldn't have gone to chase it and we could've avoided this whole thing!" Aster looked at them through the mirror. Jack's face was blank and wide-eyed looking out the front windshield and Tooth looked crazy but she kept babbling. "And you didn't have to be so cavalier and d-disappear on us like that! You know what that kind of scare does to people, especially on a freaking countdown?!"
Jack clenched his jaw and her heart fluttered for a second. Did he actually hear her?
He was chasing people again. Criminals, Pitch, other agents and ELFs for clues. Then it was Tooth, then it was–"Jack!" And he saw her run into the sunlight and vanish again. He remembered trying so many times running further into the forest after her...
He shut his eyes and shook his head – no, he hadn't heard Tooth.
So she frowned deeply. Her tone was so tired and upset.
"But we'll get you out this, th-then you can go back to kicking Pitch's ass like you want to a-and finding Emma, okay?"
"..."
"Okay?"
Jack didn't reply.
When Tooth leaned back into the seat, she cringed. Her back was still pretty sore from the impact of the blast Jack had created in the Judgement Room. At least she'd saved him then...she couldn't be sure if she'd be able to save him now.
Aster sighed. Hearing his breath, she looked up and saw him lean over to the glove compartment and pull out two chocolate bars. He handed one to her but she paused to give him a glare – didn't she give him a lecture about candy and teeth earlier?
"Princess," he said almost tiredly, "take it." And his expression made her stop.
Tooth mumbled a thank you and gratefully reached for it as her stomach started churning. After she broke a piece for herself, she waved the rest of it under Jack's nose. But the brunette still didn't react, so she dropped the bar in her lap and chewed sadly. She then timidly reached over and grasped his ungloved hand.
Tooth didn't want to make it awkward and hoped Aster wouldn't see in the dark but he was perceptive. And here he thought that she'd been afraid of Jack the whole time...
But she didn't let go despite limp and ice cold he was. Several times, she rubbed her thumb over his knuckles thinking he needed warmth or a physical signal that he was still there with them. All it did though was remind her of their dance in Rome...of when he took her hand, so steady and self-assured, and when he'd guided her effortlessly across the party in the Wales hotel.
It tore at her insides and made her feel like her heart was at war.
"Just hang on for three hours, Jack. Three hours..." she whispered staring up at his brown hair. She bit her lip – she didn't realise how quick the hair dye was wearing out. But when she looked closer she realised it was because...for the first time since they'd met, he was sweating.
Jack was actually sweating.
Somehow he couldn't feel it or control it, but the nape of his neck shimmered as they past under a lonely lamplight outside. Tooth frowned sadly and tried to ignore the light sheen also appearing around his temples. She hoped he'd feel or do something to notice her, to notice anything...but for the next hour, he didn't move.
He was having a war himself.
For the first time in months, since his wanderlust, since his track down of Pitch, since meeting Princess Toothiana...Jack was slowly starting to see and hear bits and pieces of his old life. Places he'd never been before, but they still left him with that nostalgic feeling...voices of people he couldn't put a face to, but the conversations were like recordings he couldn't let go...and events that took place he never thought he'd or would be a part of, but they left some physical sensations across his body that matched the particular thing going on. Jack imagined himself in his own shoes, and then someone else's... he could barely distinguish the two realities.
His mind was deteriorating. Jack never felt so cold, but so alive at the same time...He was still reliving his chase after the little girl...
But then the memories twisted again.
"North calls it a bleeding effect."
And twisted.
"Just hang on for four hours, Jack. Four hours..."
Until suddenly...what Jack was seeing behind his eyelids wasn't just a vision. He knew it...he knew it felt real...
...When Jack turned his head, he was hallucinating that he was standing in a large forest. It was warm and dark and when he looked up, the moon was twinkling high up in the sky. He spun in a circle, trying to assess his surroundings and the soft grass bent under his boots...
'Why am I here?' he thought to himself. 'Where's the car and–'
Jack rubbed his eye. When he looked around the forest again, he saw glimpses of giant objects hiding behind the trees and bushes...A blurred out photograph with four people...a couple medals hanging on some branches...a giant walkie-talkie leaning up against a rock...an avocado...and a pile of guns next to a maple tree...
"I DON'T WORK FOR PITCH!...BULLCRAP, JACK FROST! YOU'RE A MONSTER!"
The voices kept echoing around the wooded area, and he still kept seeing flashes even though he was walking through this...this...
He rubbed his head. Was he dreaming? Was this some kind of...of broken Wonderland? He didn't get any of it. Jack took a few steps forward, desperately wanting answers and wondering where the heck everybody went – but then his toe hit something. When he looked down, it was the staff North gave him. Jack frowned and picked it up...
"ID code AG-5019...State area code...Level: Proj...Heey! Look, whose back!"
He gripped the staff tight and breathed softly. It suddenly extended into its full length into a Sheppard's crook and he twirled it easily, trying to relieve his nerves – it didn't work...
"Mine?...You like, huh?...What's with the–the hook facilitates recovery of fallen–and can ensnare their necks or legs...'s a symbol for care, really–Okay, team! Punch it!"
When he looked up again, he frowned. The moon flickered and in the circle, he saw the recording of TSAR LUNAR. "This...coded, genetic sequence is unique to every individual it bonds with. We tried many attempts to make this DNA compound universal...But they all failed." A second later, the founder of Project GUARDIAN faded away and Jack widened his eyes. "Wait!" he cried, but the moon was just an empty face. He needed to understand what was going on! Why couldn't he remember anything yet? Why did the illusions see through him?
"If there's something I'm doing wrong, can...c-can you, can you just tell me what it is?!" he growled. Jack was too busy staring at the moon to realise that the forest behind him was starting to wilt slightly. "Because I've tried everything, and the visions, they...no one ever sees me!" And in response, an Elf dashed away in the corner of his eye. Jack whirled around to get his attention, but the ELF ignored him so he faced the moon again and clutched his head. "You made me GUARDIAN. Then put me here and you left me...left us like this. The least you can do is tell me, tell me why!"
But it didn't say a word and ran both his hands through his hair. "Argh!"
Then...he heard something.
Jack spun to this left. He heard a laugh – a dark, throaty laugh..and Pitch was suddenly there. He was sitting on a throne, high up on some stone staircase. The field at his feet was devoid of life and filled with destruction. It was warfare at its best, and Jack panicked. Pitch's lips twisted up into a perturbed smile. "This is my world, Jack," he commanded coyly and Jack's heart actually raced as he took a step back. What was wrong with him?! Normally he wasn't afraid of a challenge, of criminals, and he'd already fought Pitch face-to-face, so he wasn't actually scared of the terrorist...except for now. "No...No, get away from me..."
Jack's feet backpedaled off the grass path and into the forest, but the farther into the bushel he disappeared, the wider Pitch's smile grew. Several times he saw other Jacks, different appearances, different ages, running with him through the thicket. He was actually scared, so scared until–"This way!" a new voice yelled. Jack spun. The voice was young and high, but before he could catch her face, the little girl was already running away deeper into the forest. Her familiar long, brown hair billowed behind her and Jack's heart almost gave out. "Don't leave this time! Please!" he cried but she didn't say another word and kept running...
"Wh-Who is...no how did he –You know how long we've been looking for you?!...But wa...GET DOWN!"
Jack sprinted. He parkoured over trunks, vines, and rocks but no matter how fast and skilled he was, the girl was always faster! He felt like he'd followed her for hours, like the White Rabbit trekking farther into the forest; but she wasn't a rabbit, or Aster at the very most. Eventually, his lungs protested and he couldn't keep up. He stopped to lean on his knees and gasped for air. "W'T!" He tried to yell but she suddenly disappeared, and he was utterly lost. Jack ran a hand through his hair stressfully and tried to recount his steps. But something stopped him...
"A-Are you sure this new procedure is safe?...Don't worry, Jack, it's just a follow–Devi sorgere!...Put your arms around me."
Jack rushed forward. There was a small clearing in the forest. Flowers covered the area and hummingbirds were busy taking nectar from the open night blossoms. His heart caught in his chest. Toothiana and her eight sisters were all scattered around the grass but looked otherwise calm and silent. He sprinted to Tooth since she was the closest, "Tooth!" but frowned when he approached her shorter form. She stood there in a white, summer dress with her arms at her sides, but her eyes were closed like she was asleep. That's when Jack realised, all the other sisters were sleeping-standing-up too...
"Not her...You can hurt anyone but–I can't even–INNOCENCE!...Emotional compromise–do you understand now?"
Jack moved in closer to Tooth. Her scent hit him like a wave of spice and flowers. He felt his skin flush as he raised a hand nervously. Would...Would she shoot him again? No...No, that was a nightmare and this was...This was..."Toothiana," he called urgently and didn't even spare a glance back around the forest as he gazed at her in the moonlight – not even at Pitch who was still watching from afar. The forest continued to slowly decay around Jack and the clearing...
He raised the back of his hand and brushed his knuckles against her cheek. She was soft and smooth under his touch, and he was desperate for her to wake up. Then her eyes fluttered open slightly. Jack started before he leaned in again. "Tooth!" But he pulled back when something caught his eye. He looked over her head. All her sisters were waking up too. They each opened their eyes gently before they all popped – and each transformed into a ball of light.
Light. Balls of light. Jack didn't understand...until they all scattered and flew away in fear...
"Everything about her you are protecting...Is a light. People like her. She represents little piece of everything worth fighting for.Especially from danger...from threats like Pitch."
Jack reacted instantly. He snapped his head down at Tooth and watched as her entire body lit up and she turned into a ball of light too. Before she could fly away, Jack rushed forward and closed his hands gently around her. "I've got you, Tooth, don't worry!" he mumbled urgently. "You're s–" But then Pitch appeared and like some horrid show, he somehow managed to find the other sisters. And with a large foot, he stomped on them. Jack's mouth fell open. "No...NO!"
One by one, Pitch danced around the clearing, crushing one light under his shoe after the other. "Only six left! Six precious sisters who still believe you can save them." Then he crushed another light. "Make that five!" Another. "Ooh, four!" His giddiness kept building. "Three...two..."Jack panicked and sped away, clutching Tooth's light desperately. He gritted his teeth as the forest grew more decayed. "This way!" the little girl came back and Jack didn't say a word. He followed her deeper into the decay. But Tooth's light tried to protest...
"Jack, no! Ignore them–Wait you don't underr–Who ARE you? JA–Who am I?"
Tooth's light flashed brightly in his large palms, trying to warn Jack of what would happen if he followed the illusion deeper into the Wonderland, but he wasn't looking down. Jack kept panting, jumping over dead trees and crunching through dry leaves. The air grew thinner and a smell like anaesthesia filled the air. He grew dizzy until again, the little girl vanished. Then he was alone with Tooth's blinking light. He started to think he was hurting her...But then the shadows came. One by one, figures melted out from the forest around him shaped like spies, criminals, and at their worst...Pitch's Nightmares. They wanted the light in his hands–
"Ow, Jack! Stop it, you crazy–St-Stop! STOP!"
...
Aster hit the brakes. He spun in his chair as Toothiana's struggling grew louder.
"W-What's wrong?!"
"H-He–"
She tried to yank her hand from his but the harder she pulled, the tighter he gripped her – and with his strength, Tooth was very well afraid that he'd break her fingers unless he stopped. "H-He won't let go of me!"
She'd been falling asleep for the last twenty minutes with his hand limp in hers. Yet just as she was about to slip into slumber, Jack tightened his fist suddenly and clutched her in an iron grip. Aster touched a button on his touchscreen to stop the car from temporary rolling without having to put the whole vehicle in PARK. He unbuckled his seatbelt immediately and climbed between the two seats to help her.
Jack spun and when he looked, a Nightmare out of nowhere tried to swoop in from the front. His subconscious fighting skills were ready to kick in though. With a worried frown, he released the ball of light in his hands and pushed it away. "Go, Tooth! GO! I-I'll hold it off!" And he watched as Tooth's little ball of light flew ahead of him. He turned back to the Nightmare coming at him–
"J-Jack!...Haha, Em's such a–HEY, LET HER GO!"
"Jack, ya bloody–LET HER G–"
Aster choked as Jack's other hand caught his throat again for the third time that night.
Tooth cried out and tried to shake him sideways. She couldn't very well use a gun in the car, and she couldn't kick him in the balls either!
"Jack, let us go!" Tooth spat and shut her eyes angrily.
"J–Sh-sh–" Aster coughed out and shot the brunette a violent look but it went away instantly when he saw the murderous glare on Jack's face.
He was out for blood and with two Nightmares in his grip, he could very well have his pick.
Jack started to lift his left arm back, trying to drag Aster forward.
"J'k!" Aster choked. "St'p't!"
Tooth opened her eyes.
"J'k!"
She took a deep breath. "...JACK!"
He froze. His grip was still tight around Aster's throat but he turned his head in the direction of Toothiana's voice. She gasped again, her eyes pleading.
"Y-You're hurting me! Y-You're hurting both of us!"
Her heart ran a mile a minute.
Jack said nothing, his eyes still a stormy blue and muddled with lethality. But his grip loosened the longer he stared at her face. Tooth gulped – was he trying to remember who she was?
"E-Edmund?" she whispered not taking her eyes off Jack's in case he got distracted again. "W-We need to get him to Burgess! Like now."
"I know, princ–" Aster stopped when he was able to move out of Jack's hand. He moved slow and fluid so Jack wouldn't sense who he was holding. As he did, Tooth felt Jack loosen his grip on her fingers and she slipped them away from his touch, nice and slow. She blinked once to push down her unshed tears – his behaviour reminded her yet again of her part in all this defragmentation in the first place.
"Drive," she whispered and Aster looked at her worriedly, wanting to help her still. She sensed his hesitance though and waved her good hand out of Jack's line of vision. "I-I'm okay..." she mumbled. "I'll be okay..."
Aster really didn't want to leave her alone in the back but he knew the problem was much more severe than it could be remedied – Jack seemed to respond to Toothiana so that was only kind of solace they could afford. Plus, if he made Tooth come in the front with him there was no telling what Jack would do to them from behind.
As he settled into the driver's seat again and tightened his grip on the wheel, he looked up at Toothiana through the window mirror.
"I'm right here," he reassured her. "But he tries anythin' again and I'll nerve pinch his pressure point, okay?"
Tooth still couldn't take her eyes off Jack's until he looked away so she licked her dry lips.
"O-Okay," she answered. She had no clue what kind of nerve pitch or pressure point he was talking about but if it was anything like what they did in ninja movies, then Jack might be paralysed by the end of the ride. When Aster had the car moving again, she shivered under Jack's heavy gaze.
His eyes were like cold, blue steel and they didn't give anything away. They reminded her of the first time they'd met and how such a stranger he was to her...now she couldn't let him go.
"Jack, you're my friend so I'm not quitting on you," she mumbled desperately. "But don't you quit too...Don't lose yourself."
But the farther Jack stumbled into his broken Wonderland, the more worried she became with that last statement.
Jack finally turned his gaze from hers and looked ahead. A painful spasm shot through him suddenly and he clutched at his chest. Tooth looked positively lost for words and finally looked at Aster.
"H-How much time do we have left until we get there?!" Tooth mumbled desperately looking at all of Aster's onboard computers.
"Two more hours at the most," Aster said as he drove a little more carelessly. "So the sun'll be coming up by the time we get there."
"Do...D-Do you think that'll be enough?" she worried and he shook his head.
"Don't know. But just focus on making sure he keeps trying to remember both lives."
"Both lives?" Tooth repeated in confusion.
"Yeah," he urged. "The bleeding effect's leaking into his reality and twistin' his memories, so unless you keep doing what you're doing, he could forget–"
BOOM!
Aster didn't get to finish as a loud gunshot shot through the back windshield and Tooth screamed. A dark car was following close behind and when the Aussie looked in the mirror, he realised only one kind of hitman wore black and a yellow visor.
His heart dropped into his stomach.
"GIVE UP THE TOOTH! I KNOW YOU'VE GOT THE CASE!" the hitman bellowed over the wind and car engines. And Aster looked down at Tooth in the rearview mirror. She shot her hand into her coat pocket – sure enough, she'd forgotten to take it out and leave it at the Warren.
And Tooth nearly cried.
"I-I...I-I'm so sorry!"
Chapter's soundtrack, take your pick: "Tomorrow" – SR-71 (for Jack) and "Sally's Song"– Amy Lee (for Tooth)
*FYI there isn't a Burgess in Pennsylvania. In real life, there's actually three in the Missouri, South Carolina, and Virginia but for the sake of this story, Aster can't drive that far haha. So here, I'm using an actual a place called 'Jim Thorpe' in Pennsylvania (it's known as the 'Switzerland of America'). I've transformed it into Burgess because Jack's hometown (according some unconfirmed RotG source which I like) was known as a river town helping pioneers dock ferries and ship mining coal – which is what Jim Thorpe is also known for. Plus, it kinda looks like the town in the film where Jamie and kids are from. Check out the pics, it was voted the fourth most beautiful small town in the USA Today Road Rally last year. And haha don't judge, I had fun finding this stuff out :3
Oh and terms also disclaimed to the Assassin's Creed series. If you're a fan, then you know what term I'm talking about. (: