Oh, it's come to my attention that I never mentioned what gun Jack carries after leaving Wales! Haha sorry guys. Jack carried a Smith & Wesson M&P Pro Series C.O.R.E. It's got a great polymer grip handle for fast-moving combat IMO (perfect for his agility). I would've gone with a J-framed gun since they're easier to hold but, the models look funny and I think he'd look more badass with an actual platform-ready firearm.
Happy scrolling! Not short, nevermind lol. There are many symptoms of fear...can you spot them all?
"Report."
"Two more have been successfully picked up."
"Heh, and try to guess which one was hiding under her hat."
That's what the Nightmares said as they walked down the hall. They were brisk and silent, except for the occasional beep or hissing noise from their gas masks.
Two floors and twenty feet below their combat boots and impious smirks–
"Arghh...H-Hah!"
"N-N...Wh'...No...N-No!"
*sobbing*
"Tooth...T-Toothie, no...No!"
They were all asleep, but writhing and twisting in pain.
Tatiana, Tia, and Tiana's small beds were on the left. Theena, Tuhina, and Tulia's tinier ones were on the right. Two more were still empty.
But in the middle, between both sides, was a larger table made of cold steel and starch linen.
It was ready, but the princess wasn't there.
At least...not yet.
...
Sub-basements, location unknown, time unknown
Tooth sat on the floor of steel cage, her left hand manacled to one corner. She was cold but she'd stopped shivering an hour ago. Numb and feeling like a bird locked away, the princess curled into herself in one corner and leaned her head back against the bars. They'd put a respirator over her mouth, the same kind the Nightmares wore as the bottom half of their gas masks.
She squeezed Jack's flower tight in her hands.
She had no more screams left in her throat, and everything she'd tried went unnoticed or unacknowledged by the Nightmares guarding her until they were told to leave. She couldn't get out and their time spent down there was pointless when they could be doing more meaningful things. So they all (except for one on guard at the door) abandoned her...forgot about her...left her shrivel up without her coat, her guns, and her boots. And when she'd finished yelling until her throat was raw and she kicked and scratched the steel, Tooth collapsed and remembered why she was there in the first place.
She then cast a glazed look to her right.
There was a cage sitting beside hers and she couldn't tell if it was clean and brand new too. Tooth also noticed that it had a giant black cloth covering it, because other than the cross breeze drifting through the room that lifted its ends, it didn't sound like anything was hiding underneath it.
Suddenly a breeze drifted though.
When it traced the part of Tooth's cheek that wasn't covered by the black respirator, she felt her heart ache painfully in her ribcage.
She tried to be careful to squish the flower in her hands as Jack's face floated through her head.
The respirator made everything harder to breathe, but she'd heard that sand was being ground up and drifting through the room to cause pulmonary damage.
Why? She had no clue, and it frustrated her to no end.
As a flare passed through her nostrils, she saw a corner of the other cage's cover lift slightly again. It made her nervous, everything in the giant room did. The floor was filthy, and all around her were stacks of crates, wooden planks, and iron contraptions. It reminded her of a warehouse, but she knew she was several feet underground. The air had that distinct earthy, wet stone smell.
Or, maybe it was all the debris lying around her...and that made Toothiana more afraid.
She'd seen how 'well looked after' her sisters were been treated through her gene. They were all in sterile rooms with clean beds and people hovering over them every second their eyes opened. But that only sliver of appreciation washed away as quick as it came. For while she wished they'd never be treated the way she was treated, Toothiana also wished that they'd never been treated the way they were at all.
It was Christmas! They were supposed to celebrating.
She inhaled deeply to stop a stray tear from leaking out.
Was it...Was it even Christmas anymore?
Tooth felt like she'd been in that cage for days, never mind hours. She was probably awaiting an audience with Pitch...but when?
'Jack...Don't come,' she mentally begged. 'Don't. Come.'
Because as much as she wanted him to swoop in and kick ass as she liked, she didn't know what would await him if he did. And she didn't want his blood on her hands.
His blood...
'Don't think like that, Tooth,' she berated herself. 'Don't you DARE think like that!'
Jack may have gotten carried away and she could scream bloody murder and beat him senseless for his idiotic clumsiness. But that wasn't her, and she knew that wasn't him. Jack was just overwhelmed. Anyone would have been after the last twenty-four hours he went through. He discovered his true identity, reclaimed his moral compass, found his sister, ate food, regained his body's (and his full gene's) potential and, with her, he'd...
She shut her eyes.
No, she couldn't blame him for being happy. Who could ever be upset with a happy Jack Frost?
She...She just wished he'd handled it a little better.
When her mind was tired of going in circles playing 'It-is-and-isn't-Jack's-fault', she sensed movement.
Tooth peeked through her eyes, feeling her shoulders square up slightly in an aggressive response, in response to her fear. When she looked, the lone Nightmare guarding the only garage-based entrance into the room turned to her. His gas mask was ominous as ever, his yellow-lit goggles and black gas mask hissing and sucking with his inhales and exhales.
She didn't say a word as he fixated his gaze on her until her skin crawled.
When she opened her mouth behind her own respirator, ready to cuss him off in Thai, he moved suddenly, getting an order from Pitch upstairs. Following command, he walked over to the AC controller and dialed down the knob. Almost instantly, the cross-breeze floating through the room stopped.
Pitch didn't want to give her any luxuries.
'Let dear Thia, warm herself up, shall you?...I'm afraid that's enough of a convenience on her part.'
But when the breeze died away and her bangs stopped lifting in the invisible touch, Toothiana's lip quivered.
It suddenly felt like Jack wasn't there anymore.
The Nightmare then returned to his post and did nothing, ignoring the loud smack her gave against the bars and the yell she made behind her mask.
Tooth heaved, her chest rising and falling with desperation.
So what, she was supposed to wait and die? Fuck that.
How dare they keep her down in the filthiest part of the basements. What did they plan on doing with her before slicing her to pieces?
And why was that cover on the other cage lifting again!? It was starting to get on her nerv–
Tooth's blood ran cold.
She turned to it slowly on her right, pink eyes wide with fear.
As she looked...the bottom of the cage rustled again, like it did in the breeze.
But...But that was impossible...
The Nightmare had just shut off the AC on Pitch's orders. There was no wind in the room, she felt it, or the lack of it.
'So how is it moving on it's own?! Th-There's no vent near these cages...unless...'
"No shit," Tooth whimpered. "...It's a ghost."
The rustling abruptly stopped, but Tooth felt like an air of offense float around suddenly.
She shook her head slightly.
How would she even know what she'd offended? Unless she knew it very well...and something told her...
...something told her, that she did.
The hairs on her neck stood on end.
Suddenly with a brave swallow, Tooth uncurled her unchained hand from her chest and lifted it across her cage. When it reached through the bars, she brushed the top of the cover after a moment of hesitance.
She then poked it, and pulled her hand away like spitfire.
Nothing happened.
At least, for a second.
Then Tooth gasped.
The black cover rustled at the bottom again...before something blew in the same spot she had poked, lifting it slightly from the inside.
She bit her lip. She cautiously reached through and touched the cloth again, quick as the first attempt.
This time, she gave two pokes.
A second later, two rustles answered back. But they looked timid and weak...they reminded her of a child. It made the hairs on the back of her neck raise.
Tooth's eyes grew wide.
"T...Tuhina?" she whispered delicately through the respirator. Her voice sounded slightly different and she grimaced. What if the person (she prayed it was person) under the cage really was her sister and couldn't recognize her voice?
She tried again, louder this time.
"T-Tuhina?"
The cover didn't move, and her spirits almost shattered. Until–
Rustle. Rustle. Rustle.
Toothiana's heart raced. "O-Or...or is it Tiana? T...Tia? B–"
Rustle...Rustle...Rustle.
She wasted no time.
Feeling brave, Tooth found a courage in her heart to take on whatever was hiding under that cover. She didn't sense something horrible as her gut was usually great at picking up on...She really felt like she could identify who was under there.
And if she was wrong, and it was something horrible beyond her imagination, well...at least there was a Nightmare 20 feet nearby with a semi-automatic.
Tooth spared him a quick glance before she flit her eyes back to the moving cover. The end of the cloth billowed gently like something was trying to blow it, then the speed changed sporadically like it was trying to send morse code to her.
She furrowed her eyebrows.
Curiosity killed the cat. But curiosity also led to her finding out about her birth, her mother, Project GUARDIAN, North, Aster...and Jack.
So with a brave inhale, she reached through the bars again and with a slight grip of the cover, she clenched her teeth, ready for anything.
'Please...Please be...'
Then, she yanked it down with all her might.
The entire cover snagged at first until she gave another yank again. Then it slipped down before her, and in a heavy fwoomp the material piled between the two cages...
...and Tooth came face-to-face with someone she'd never thought she'd see.
"No..." the Hypunjam princess breathed. She lifted her hand back through the bars desperately. "N-No!"
She stretched as far as she could, her heart racing in her chest, but although her fingers reached far enough to grab the heavy cloth, Tooth wasn't long enough to touch the other cage.
"Pl-Please!" she gasped, scared and agonized. "Reach for me...R-Reach for me!"
Nothing worked.
Tooth hiccuped and felt like her arm was about to pop from her arm socket. When she couldn't stretch anymore, her muscles buckled and she dropped her arm on the ground.
"I...I-I..." she couldn't even finish as she dragged her hand back to her cage. She wanted to cover her mouth but the mask prevented her from doing it. So she clenched her teeth instead, tears brimming in her eyes.
His skin had turned pale and sickly from being under the cover of the dark material. For how long she didn't know. And his body was lying sideways on the floor, his cheek pressed to the cold steel. And he was blowing air gently close to the area where Tooth had seen the cover billow and lift slightly. His expression was tired, but the second he pulled his eyes up, the energy returned...but only a portion of what it had once been.
As he looked through the bars that separated them, Tooth curled her shaky fingers onto her chest again.
"...N-Not you too," she whispered, her lungs shuddered under her dark purple turtleneck.
When she turned her head away slightly, stray tears slipped down her cheeks.
And in the cage a few inches beside her, her caretaker, nanny, and private tutor, Mr. Sanderson, lifted his head slightly.
But he was mute, silent and soundless as he'd always been.
Tooth covered her eyes...and said nothing at all.
...
His entire body was chained to the floor of his cage – feet, neck, back, and wrists. For reasons beyond the princess, it seemed like he was more of a threat somehow to Pitch's assassins.
He and the princess sat like that for close to an hour, with him trying to reach his bars and her silently crying in his presence. And it hurt him to his core, knowing that the little girl he'd basically raised since birth was aware of everything now, even if she didn't anything yet. But it looked like Toothiana didn't want to speak again, and by his shame, she had every right to ignore him.
Because for all his deep-rooted and cherished affections for the beloved princess, he'd lied to her for years.
But being down in the dry and rusty sub-basement of Pitch's facility did not mean Mr. Sandy would lose her, or her hope. He would tell her, he'd tell her everything he could, because even if someone was mad and pretended to ignore him, they always listened. They always listened to stories, because that was a powerful thing...that's what someone once taught him.
Tooth felt more than saw Mr. Sanderson lift his hands and heard the chains from his wrists rattle loudly. She always seemed to sense when he was trying to talk her, even when she was little.
And Mr. Sandy always only wanted to sign unless he wanted her to listen.
Tooth glanced at him with a slight grimace while her bruised cheek and split lip still hurt from proudly fighting the Nightmares twice her size off.
Mr. Sandy's chains clanked loudly as he flexed his fingers gently. He looked so different without his trademark gold night robe that he always seemed to walk around in at the palace.
Then he started.
His tiny, sun-kissed hands (almost the same colour as his golden, spiking, flyaway hair) moved deftly, fingers taking positions of crosses and curls, and the occasional invisible tapping. He held them up firm against the cold, the weakness, and the fear in the large warehouse-like room.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him move his fingers in an inward circle towards each other. They looked like they were trying to link together but always kept missing.
He wanted to tell a story.
But she frowned...because she didn't want to one.
Tooth moved her head sideways.
Quickly, he started to rattle his chains again to get her to stop turning away from him. His round, pious face reflected fear and trouble. Sandy kept trying again, waving his arms and opening his mouth desperately with short breaths of air so she'd hear him. She spared him another glance, easily reading his fingers like he was talking by mouth.
He was apologizing for everything, expressing a hurt and sorry that he would knew would upset him forever. He called her 'Toothie' at the end.
It made her squeeze her eyes shut and leaned her head against the bar.
Whenever Mr. Sandy signed 'tooth' he always lifted his pinkie to emphasize the 'ie' in her nickname. It was his personal touch. But as as much as she wanted to borderline on that feeling of betrayal and anger...she knew she couldn't do it. With Mr. Sandy, it was like hating a rainbow.
And it hurt.
It hurt a lot.
When she shuddered under her breath, he waited noiselessly as his chains hung in suspension. Tooth then opened her pink eyes.
She decided there was only really one to ask.
"...Why?"
When he didn't move like she expected, she took a deep breath.
"W-Why Project GUARDIAN, Mr. Sandy?" she finally admitted. "Why you?"
Sandy didn't react, calm and wistful as ever. But underneath his squat stature, his heart stopped in his stoutly, round chest.
Tooth watched him watch her with his shining honey brown eyes. She was almost comforted by it.
Until, they flickered gold.
Wait...gold.
...Gold?
But weren't his eyes brown just a second ago? They were always brown, a honey brown that calmed her until she fell asleep.
Tooth didn't move yet, but her mind was racing.
She'd always thought his eyes were just special...but maybe they were more than special. Maybe...
Maybe they'd been genetically altered too, just like hers.
When Sandy demanded her attention and demanded it to stay, he didn't say a word a frowned deeply. Eventually she found her lips moving again.
"Y...You were a GUARDIAN."
Sandy did nothing, still breathing deeply through nostrils and his shoulders bristling under his signature gold winter coat and trousers. After a few more minutes to let her completely sink it in, his relaxed his stiff shoulders and lowered his head. There were only two ways to describe what Toothiana felt: bafflement and confusion. She blinked until the pink in her eyes stretched and became a dark magenta near the centre, clouding itself with her emotions.
The man in his late forties blinked back slowly before he lowered his gaze to the front of his coat.
Looking away for a moment to collect her words, she blinked the sting of tears out of her eyes.
'Don't cry,' she told herself. 'You're stronger than this. You're STRONGER than this!'
But suddenly it was like all she could imagine was the CHOSEN protocol, the one that tricked Jack and Aster into thinking they were going in for a routine checkup, only to get their brains defragmented. She could feel her heart threatening to jump out her chest, like a thousand hummingbirds and a hurricane driving through.
Sandy lifted a hand to get her attention.
But just half of the way there, his fingers abruptly stopped signing. Tooth looked up to figure out why.
Mouth open, her caretaker looked down at his small hands, reliving his memories, more than twenty years old, behind his wide eyes.
1 new message
Sent 11/14/XXXX to: AG 129 Codename: SANDMAN
From: The Board
"Bretyam,
We would like to extend our warmest congratulations to you and your successful transition into the program. We expect great things from you whilst helping us achieve the universal goal of global peace and stability. Best of luck to you in your assigned division(s) and upcoming work in the field. As soon as this message has been received, you will no doubt receive your first mission, but until then, prepare yourself and always remember what we are fighting for."
'Greenya undovo aeyt remska det ienoveen ana nuaskvo.'
–The Executive Board Members
1 new message
Sent 11/30/XXXX to: AG 129 Codename: SANDMAN
From: The Board
"Bretyam,
We contact you at your most unfortunate time for which we are deeply saddened. It has come to our attention that the Center gene has rendered you mute. This was not a foreseen affect of the injection but the board wishes to extend out sympathies. Yours is a rare case we must now observe with great attention. As they have most likely assured you in the time this message has reached you, your loss of vocal ability has not been labeled as serious, but rest assured, the SI are doing everything they can to look after and monitor you. Please report to SI and consult with Dr. Lulaby and the other scientists on station for further information unless you have otherwise done so.
We again extend our deepest sympathies to this disability on your otherwise healthy vitals. As well, report to your assigned division for a further follow-up on your change in physiology. Should you be better suited to another class of agents, immediate accommodations will be made."
'Greenya undovo aeyt remska det ienoveen ana nuaskvo.'
–The Executive Board Members
2 new messages
Sent 12/05/XXXX to: AG 129 Codename: SANDMAN
From: DI-M
"Agent Sanderson,
Report to Agent Lycanthrope in Sector T4 at your earliest convenience. And welcome to the Midnight division."
–Ichabod Crane, Senior Coordinator of the Midnight Division, Class DI-M
xxx
Sent 12/09/XXXX to: AG 129 Codename: SANDMAN
From: AG 796 Codename: SANTACLAUS
"Sandy! Volt gret havad? (Луна) Where'd you go?) I recently discover that you switch to the Midnight Division? We will miss you over here in Treasure, my friend. Hope to hear from you soon."
–Nic
Months pass...
1 new message
Sent 06/17/XXXX to: SANDMAN
From: SANTACLAUS
"Friend, how is insomnia? I remember you telling that you used to always fall asleep. But now since Gene has changed you, you never have. Are you taking sleeping pills they prescribe?"
–Nic
Eventually years...
1 new message
Sent 06/17/XXXX to: SANDMAN
From: SANTACLAUS
"You miss all fun, Sandy. But I hear talk of great capture by you! Tell, how you always escape?"
–Nic
xxx
Sent 09/13/XXXX to: SANDMAN
From: SANTACLAUS
"Always good to hear from you, friend! How long have we both been GUARDIAN now? 3 years? It is nice to have at least one friend close!"
–Nic
"PS: Also is good that messages are not tracked and deleted. Your secrets are safe with me. How is female agent you are in love with? Hm?"
SANDMAN and SANTACLAUS (or, FATHER XMAS, when he was acting commanding officer to trainees) remained in contact with each other over the years. The two were stationed in completely different hemispheres, one North, the other South. But since their first meet in the Treasure division twenty-something years prior to the story's beginning, they were friends, closer than most GUARDIANs were
And they were very covert about it.
They had such a friendship that Sandy trusted him with every bit of information he felt was more than necessary to share. He wrote to him (sometimes charading to him when they were both reuniting in person) about his adjustment into his new life as a mute, learning sign language, and the shift into his new division. He told him about new agents, the style of missions they went on, and North shared the same enthusiasm about the adventures he had himself. It was hard at first understanding his old friend but eventually they got past it.
And as Sandy grew more comfortable in his quieter role as a GUARDIAN, it started to work to his advantage as an agent. North started to hear all his great missions from other agents and how he got in and out of terrorists bunkers without a sound, and disrupting interrogations with such destruction even the board was impressed. They eventually classified him as a Rank A GUARDIAN after several months...the only one to ever hit that was the FAIRYQUEEN.
But they were still a fairly new company, only a few years in. And as the size and strength of Project GUARDIAN grew, there'd be more chances for other GUARDIANs to hit that rank.
But the success of the program was short-lived when the FAIRYQUEEN became pregnant two years into her duty and had to resign in secret. And when she died, Sandy was presumed dead by everyone to the company shortly after.
North was devastated...until he got a message some time later.
...
1 new message
Sent 08/05/XXXX to: AG 796 Codename: SANTACLAUS
From: ?
"S."
...
And Sandy secretly clued him in, seeking support in his sorrow and loneliness.
He told North he had been reassigned to protect the baby since it was the first living child under 21 to be born with the Center gene. It was his job to watch over her, and relay her growth and abilities to the company for the next 20 years, until they could decide if the gene was working in her body. So as she and the clone they grew from her stem cells grew up together, he told North that he (alongside with Punjam's Prime Minister, Ty Bangkot) would protect her by pretending to be her private tutor. He had the credentials and smarts to be her teacher when she wasn't in school for four months of the year, but secretly, as the cover was recognised by the company, the portly man and the Russian exchanged secret messages back and forth. He told North everything he could about Toothiana, sending him copies of her baby pictures as she grew each year whilst sending his reports to back to the company.
Then...twelve years came in the blink of an eye.
More and more copies of Toothiana kept arriving at the palace, told that they were going to be the princess' 'handmaidens'. And as he reached his late thirties, the undercover tutor suddenly felt worried. When the last clone, Tiati, finally arrived (at age 6; as they always did), Tooth was already a happy, bubbly seventeen-year old.
But she had eight clones. EIGHT.
He could never for the life of him understand why they'd cloned the princess eight times. Once had been immoral enough.
...
1 new message
Sent 02/26/XXXX to: SANDMAN
From: SANTACLAUS
"You are right to worry, friend. I have had sinking feeling since second clone. We must watch this situation very carefully."
–Nic
(So they did. Right up until she turned twenty...And then everything they feared seemed to just go downhill from there.)
...
"Can you believe such fortune?"
"It's a miracle...all nine are a miracle."
"A gift by the grace of her mother, no doubt."
Sandy listened in on the conference calls of medical CEOs of the company. They were each sworn to secrecy against the rest of the board for their knowledge and involvement with the GUARDIAN program. Beyond his loyalties and discretion, in the months drawing near to Princess Toothiana's twenty-first birthday, he grew more apprehensive of the company's actions.
They had not told Sandy beyond what was otherwise promised – that her biology would just be monitored as a precaution, being the only person ever in history to be born with the gene, rather than injected it. But in the months he traveled back and forth from Punjam Hy Loo to the main Buffalo base to deliver his annual reports, something about the twitches in the scientists' facial muscles and the stark undertones of the involved board members made him wary.
"What is the next step?"
"Isn't it obvious? The theory was wrong...We really can open up a new avenue."
Sandy was so wary, he called Nicolas for extra ears and eyes when he heard the conversation and vanished like a cloud that their sensors could never detect.
And it was on one fateful October night, that North relayed a message to him from his own covert spying (thanks to his authority over oblivious scientists).
...
Sent 10/15/XXXX to: SANDMAN
From: SANTACLAUS
"Sandy. What you know about something titled 'INNOCENCE'?"
–Nic
...
The two eventually learned that the 'new avenue' Project GUARDIAN was opening up, thanks to the perceived success of Toothiana's growth (along with her clones), was the creation of a new program...The INNOCENCE program.
It was designed to bring children into the company, by growing the genes in young bodies to see how well they adapted to change. It also involved the potential for children to be the gatekeepers to a new kind of generation...but Sandy knew he couldn't allow it. Hero syndrome or self-righteousness you might call it, but the man always had a soft spot for children (the last lights of hope for a better world, SANTA always called them), and the spot had grown exceptionally large since raising the nine young girls over the last twenty years.
So he leaked all the information he discovered into ONE folder.
One folder he listed old cases of children dead from experimentation, and protocols...and the possible recruitment of a little girl whose relative was a GUARDIAN. But he included nothing about Tooth or her clones. Nothing about her mother. Sandy then made it accessible at the lowest archive and on next of kin records. It wasn't traceable unless someone traced it or recovered the paper, but it was enough to cause a breach in the board's system.
He hoped it was enough to scare them, to get them to stop before they realised what they were doing.
But it didn't.
And while one agent had already discovered the file, the man related to the girl in the folder, he hadn't exposed them...he'd given himself up to the program. He was a GUARDIAN now for a full year and a half. He was a success.
"We dodged that bullet," he heard one of them say. Then they decided to continue the INNOCENCE program (without the agent's sister) once Toothiana reached twenty-one.
And Sandy knew he had to try again.
So he leaked the file again onto the entire database, the night before the Purge started. He hoped that would be enough, and if it wasn't, well then the other GUARDIANs could start a mutiny once they discovered it. But as he listened in on their emergency meeting, the concealed microphone he slipped under a board member's lapel told him they weren't scared at all.
In fact, they were prepared.
"This company will burn to ashes, you realise?! All our agents are guided by their strong morals, it's why we chose them in the first place!...How do you think they will react when they hear about what has been happening all this time?! How we keep injecting new agents every year when the gene's already kil–"
When he abruptly stopped, no one said a word for a long while.
Sandy thought it was the end of that.
"This act needs to end. We are not gods...W-We must stop."
"...But how?"
But as they came to the end of their three-hour debate on the preventive measures to take against the breach, the majority finally concluded that fixing the solution was,
"...by wiping out the most valuable intel gathering assets we've ever put in the field."
Then the Purge began.
And Sandy carried that weight on his heart for the rest of his days.
...
Sent 10/15/XXXX to: SANDMAN
From: SANTACLAUS
"Sandy. We die tonight before Purge starts. Take everything and I will destroy the remains. Buddy Phil is regular agent from upstairs. He will give escape route."
–Nic
...
When North later vanished and setup the ELF organization (after the complete destruction of their company), he took the information he'd stolen from the company about Tooth and her clones information and created cases for each of them as a precaution, until an emergency called for them to be separated across the world so they would never be hunted down.
And that was the last Sandy ever saw of his friend unless through camera or mail.
But they, and the ELFs North assembled were like the stars at night watching over Tooth and her sisters, and making sure their secret was dead until the last clone's growth into adulthood was recorded. Then they'd help people (like any lost GUARDIANs, if there were any) by using the new knowledge they'd learned about the Center gene to stop or cure future mutations.
That was their wish. A wish that, like all wishes, started out as a dream.
And to Sanderson (who lived by the oath of the GUARDIANs, raised Toothiana and the girls, and heard their hopes for their futures), he knew that dreams were a most sacred thing.
Mr. Sanderson looked up quick but ever-silent.
His mouth and clothes didn't make a sound, but the emotion running through his eyes, across his brown irises was like a storm.
Toothiana frowned and squeezed the flower.
"But what about Mr. Bangkot?" she mumbled sadly. "W-Was he a GUARDIAN? Did he know about the–"
She stopped when Sanderson shook his head. He lifted his hands again to explain.
The Prime Minister had actually been an agent, assigned off duty to watch over her mother when she left the company. But after she died, and he stayed behind to help watch the Tooth with Sandy, the two had formed a friendship based on a protection that stemmed from a loyalty to the girls over the company.
They monitored the girls together in secret...but Ty Bangkot never knew that it had been him who leaked the files.
When Sanderson finished signing the word 'file', his eyebrows knitted together in thought about the dead friend again.
As his years of sorrow started to peel and show, Tooth gulped a large lump in her throat.
"Every GUARDIAN was gone," she spoke sadly while her nanny nodded. "But why didn't you?...W-Why didn't you disappear like the others? Like North?"
Sandy didn't say anything.
After kneeling for so long on his knees, he plopped onto his rear and sat shamefully on the cold steel caged floor. He kept his gaze down for a long time before his forehead creased with deep tension. Tooth knew that was when he put his mind to something and became stubborn about it. She almost missed it, yearning for his kid-like expression in a warmer, much happier place.
Sandy then looked up, cutting off her train of thought. When he lifted his hands to give her his answer she didn't say a word...because it looked like he'd been thinking the same thing.
His fingers then moved, shutting and opening his eyes determinedly as he strung a long string of sign language. But when he was done, Tooth felt her heart overflow with emotion. The symbols were few, but she understood the words beyond normal basic translation.
Princess. Watched over. A baby. Never changing. Love. Protection.
"Princess...I've watched over you since you were a baby, and that will never change, you understand?
We are family as we've always been...and I won't stop protecting you."
Tooth was overwhelmed to the point of gasping for air in such cramped and hellish place.
She wanted to hug him.
Mr. Sanderson she realised was, for all his lies was loving as he'd always been, just like Jack had reminded her...like her uncle(s)...like her father.
No, in retrospect, Sanderson was her father, her second father, who although was not always there, was there when needed for her, for all her sisters, and was the embodiment of comfort.
She really wanted to hug him. Especially now since it seemed like her tears were finally threatening to fall again.
When he sensed her shift in emotion, Sandy looked up.
He frowned and tried to get up again. He hobbled on his stout legs to get to the side of the cage closet to her but the chains and the distance was too far.
Tooth instead had to watch him struggle on himself and her tears dripped down her chin.
"I'm sorry I was ever mad," she whispered in shame. "...You were everything."
She then achingly reached out as far as she could, stretching her body and her arm (away from where she was chained) to push her fingers through the cage. They didn't get far, but knowing her fingertips could pass the barrier gave Tooth that one bit of comfort.
Sanderson nodded encouragingly, always an expert at reading expressions but then she shuddered a breath and collapsed again.
She looked down at the flower in her lap and bit her lip.
"I'm sorry, Jack."
Then Tooth pushed the flower behind her ear. When she looked up again, Sandy was staring at it thoughtfully.
She opened her mouth.
"S-Sir?"
He looked at her again.
"C-Can you...Can you tell me about...m-my mother?"
Sandy's eyes grew wide.
She never, NEVER asked about her mother. It had always been a touchy subject and no one knew how to explain it better than Haroom. But he was long gone now.
Sanderson looked down and Tooth took it as a sign of uncertainty. But she shook her head determinedly, thinking about what she and Jack had discussed in the hotel.
"Mr. Sandy, please," she begged.
She thought about GUARDIANs finding love, and pregnancies, and a father too meek to have a daughter born for experimentation. She had to hold onto that. After twenty-one years, this was her, finally brave enough to open up that part of her heart.
"I'm...I-I'm not afraid or angry...n-not anymore. I promise..."
When Sandy shot her a carefully regarded look, it made her swallow a lump in her dry mouth. She felt so damn tired all of a sudden, but she wasn't going to lose this.
Tooth then lifted her fingers and moved them together in three circles like he had earlier.
"Story time..." she mumbled. "M-Make it story time."
Stories, he told her, were the most influential things in the world. They could open someone's eyes, make people curious, shift their opinions, and give them hope when they couldn't see or believe long after they'd forgotten. Stories were the most powerful things...That's what someone had told him long ago, and now it seemed, Toothiana was trying to remind him of the exact same thing.
Sandy looked at his bounds, inwardly raging at his imprisonment, more so that his beloved tiny princess was trapped along with him...but in what could be his last duty to honor her, her father, and her mother, he could find no such request worth denying.
The portly blonde looked up again, and the chains rattled around as he lifted his hands.
It had been Prime Minster Ty's responsibility to tell her since he knew King Haroom long before he died. But that could no longer be the case.
Tooth watched with nervous eyes.
He moved around his fingers.
Then he started the story of the FAIRYQUEEN.
Your mothe–
"Am I interrupting something?"
Tooth's blood ran cold.
...
A voice whose tenor could wake the dead filled the rusty, poor neglected room.
A foreboding chill crawled up her skin and made her paralyzed, almost afraid to turn around. But she saw (in the reflection of Mr. Sanderson's glassy brown eyes) that Pitch was already walking toward her cage from the door at the end of the high-ceiling room.
His footfalls made no sound under his long coat...his boots couldn't even be seen under the shadow of the material.
Or maybe it was because the shadows that he seemed to cast were always dark.
Tooth turned slowly with a cold fear dripping into her stomach, but her frustrated eyes didn't want to quit. She glared at him while her lips turned down nervously.
At the sight of her red wrist and wet eyes, and the even more imprisoned (and unkempt) man, the terrorist glared without remorse at their conditions.
"Interrupting charades, am I?" he spoke lowly. "You castle folk always think you have time in the world for everything."
When he got within two metres of Toothiana's cage, he stopped. It almost warmed his heart to see the black gas mask on her face, a product of his own creation.
"Well, let me corrupt that manifestation for you, because you don't."
Tooth viciously smacked her manacle against the steel of the bars but she otherwise didn't say a word to the terrorist.
She'd hoped to only ever see on paper or on video.
"Speak when you are spoken to by a royal," she seethed through the respirator with an unknown bravery and a princess coming out.
Pitch snapped his head down at her with pale gold eyes dying to grey at the edges.
"You. A royal," he sneered. "Don't flatter yourself, princess. Your palace sits on nothing but the dirt of a poor man's excuse for an island."
"GO TO HELL!" Tooth screamed, feeling offense and ridicule swim through her like liquid courage. She never wanted to hear someone bad mouth her country without giving them a bash to the face.
A second later though, something sharp was under her chin.
"My dear, like I've told your handsome bodyguard once before, it's not big enough for me."
Then the knife pricked her skin.
Tooth tried to move away as she watched red appear on the blade. When Pitch moved the weapon away, she instantly threw her hand up to the cut and choked back a sob that threatened to jump out.
She gritted her teeth and glared up at him while he was busy inspecting her blood on his blade.
"Y-You son of a–"
"Consider yourself lucky, Toothiana," Pitch said rolling her name smoothly off his tongue, like the blood he was catching in the light, "because while you are not a GUARDIAN, you are the most powerful weapon in the world right now."
Tooth froze. Her eyes grew wide.
"G-GUA...Y-You...You kn..."
Pitch proceeded to ignore her.
"How do you like your room accommodations, your highness?" he leered. "I've taken the benefit of stripping away your luxuries for something more...rustic. Besides, who doesn't love the instrument of good ol' fun, torture? Cages, hm? It's like we're back in the Dark Ages. Everyone frightened. Miserable. "
Tooth's eyes grew wide with fear while his turned nostalgic.
"Such happy times it seemed to me. Imagine, the power I'd wield back then. But then, you'd rule as a monarch and could sooner have my head chopped off. Not unless I married you of cours–"
Sanderson was up on his feet in an instant, cold fury running across his face more than Tooth had ever seen.
Pitch stopped admiring Tooth's DNA on his knife to spare him an infuriated glare. "Sorry, chap, feeling left out?"
SMACK!
Tooth jumped against her cage and froze.
Sandy had just slammed his chains violently against the steel floor of the cage to get her attention. Like thunder in the clouds, the short man with a caring face melted away for one moment to reveal a serious, cold expression much like Jack's, much like Aster's...that commanding, demanding feature traced his jawline and shined in his honey brown eyes.
The strength of the slam he made with his chains made a deep dent in the cage's steel floor.
It terrified her.
But to Pitch, it was pathetic.
He rolled his eyes.
"I'm just going to ignore you," he drawled. "Although, you must be used to that by now."
He turned back to Tooth in a heartbeat.
"But you, love," he pointed the tip of the blade at her face with a perturbed smirk. "You, I bet you've never been ignored in your life. Such a gem you are, what with the eyes and all. And oh look..."
Pushing the knife through the bars, he brought the tip of the blade straight to her bangs.
Toothiana froze in fear, afraid that he'd stab her in the forehead. All he did though was lift a part of her hair.
"...one blonde streak. The attention from people, it must be intoxicating."
When he pulled the weapon away, she involuntarily shivered. A part of her bangs was red from the blood on the knife.
She absolutely hated the way he spoke to her. It was like he was trying to entice, ridicule, and scare her all at once...like a true sociopath.
Tooth bit her lip. He was like the cavity that wouldn't go away.
As he kept looking at her with a blank stare, Pitch's bright eyes flit around ever slightly. His mind was racing, the cogwheels in his head spinning with horsepower.
Slowly, a smile spread to his face again.
Pitch then leaned down and squatted before the cage in a thinking posture. Sandy didn't like how close he was to her cage and opened his mouth, rattling his chains again. Pitch paid no need and tapped the clean side of his knife against his chin.
"You know, princess, DNA is a very illustrious endeavour to trek on. Have you ever ventured down the avenue?"
When she didn't answer and glared at him, Pitch tightened his grip on his knife. She tensed instantly.
"Of course not," he answered for her. "You lot are all the same, focusing all your bloody resources on development and policy. You don't have time to enjoy the pleasures of biology and chemistry like the rest of us...Am I right, Sandy?"
Sanderson shook his chains again and Tooth went to turn her head to him desperately. But when the knife stopped tapping under his sickly paled skin, Pitch fixed his gaze on her.
He spoke cryptically.
"Every agent has a different genetic makeup from the gene. And it's very hard to re-create because it wraps around them, not inside them," he said and started twisting the knife in her face like he was carving a turkey. "The gene...It's like foil, and it enhances them."
Tooth felt her insides curdle. It was like listening to TSAR LUNAR on the video all over again.
"But your gene, princess, I've seen it, I know it. It is in you, a part of you, my dear pet. So with your help...together...let's wreak havoc on the world, shall we?"
His voice had gotten so low and quiet it was almost as if his threat was the whisper of a request, like there was even a possible chance that she'd consider when he said it like that.
But a moment of silence passed...before Tooth kicked the bar right where his face was.
Sandy panicked.
She didn't hit the man, but the intention was enough to make the industrial terrorist stop twisting his knife. He threw it blindly into the wood table adjacent to them where it drove itself into the side with perfect precision.
Pitch's face was blank and his mouth was a tight line.
"Think very carefully about the repercussions of your actions, love," he threatened. "You have a country to run, a country filled with peppermint."
Pitch noticed Sandy's face turn pale and his entire body stiffen for a millisecond, and he smirked, "We can't have your rage being the reason all your precious island's crops burn to the ground and your people lose–"
"YOU LEAVE MY PEOPLE ALONE!" she suddenly screamed and smacked her bonds against the steel bars. Pitch was so thrown off by it that he faltered for a second...and that made him furious.
Sandy saw his expression change from coy to murderous and he could nothing but rush forward...and only get yanked back by his steel chains. He opened his mouth and raised his hands out trying to reach impossibly for Tooth.
She was still screaming and lashing at him through the bars.
"My dear," Pitch threatened with a calm voice but shining eyes. "Will you–"
"NO ONE THREATENS MY ISLAND!" she shouted and fixed him with her own look of murder. "YOU FU–"
"Princess," Pitch hissed and pushed his arms behind him to keep control. "I do not–"
"YOU LEAVE MY COUNTRY, MY SISTERS, MY CARETAKER, AND ME ALONE, OR GOD, SO HELP YOUR–"
"I DO NOT ANSWER TO THREATS, PRINCESS!" he finally roared and Tooth instantly stopped. "ONLY TO FEAR!"
A second later, Pitch's hand reappeared from behind his back and was shooting through the bars to reach for her.
He wasn't wearing his glove.
The moment his grip covered her eyes above the gas mask, and his skin came into contact with hers...she felt something slither under his touch.
Sanderson freaked.
He pushed beyond his chains as far as he could to reach for her, but nothing worked. Then all he could was watch as she cried out under Pitch's grip, and at the mercy...of his gene.
It traveled from his fingers straight into her brain, awakening her cortex where the fear trigger was. And for all five fingers, he violently unlocked the Pandora's Box in her head.
Behind the darkness, Tooth saw and felt every fear she'd had since she was little, paralyzing her and throwing her heart into palpitation.
There was loneliness, walking for miles without being loved or remembered, her island burning to the ground, war, her friends disappearing, and children being taken one-by-one; her sisters were dying, her parents were murdered, and she was ridiculed without success, opportunity, and hope. ELFs and Nightmares falling to their deaths over and over again, and GUARDIANs (each and everyone) were drowning in a pool of their own blood. And when Jack got shot right before her eyes, she felt it hit – hit her right in the chest like an arrow.
And she screamed.
Tooth screamed, loud and from the bottom of her heart as a sadistic smile tugged at Pitch's lips. The Nightmare stationed at the front ignored her, but Tooth's crying, heartbroken and real, echoed outside the large room.
Pitch slowly pulled his hand away from her face, making sure to drag his fingers across her temples until it was completely out of the cage. But by then, Tooth was still seeing it all, and as she backed away into the corner of her cage, her tears were running down her face, uncontrollably fast and large.
He stood up and watched her scream and cry on herself with a near-relaxed calm.
"There now isn't that better?" he said as he looked at Toothiana still trying to curl herself into a ball.
"I'd say sweet dreams...but there aren't any. Isn't that right, my friend?"
Pitch flit his eyes to the gold mute man.
"What's the matter? Still can't remember me?"
His eyes were wide with horror, his breathing silent but rapid under his golden yellow attire.
Then the tall Brit walked away.
"By the way, I hope you're enjoying the sand filtration in the room. In a couple more hours, those lungs of yours won't stay silent forever. Then you won't be able to hide from me ever again."
And as he left, Sanderson could do nothing but watch Tooth helplessly cover her eyes with one hand and cry on herself.
He kept shaking his chains to get her attention, signing her name over and over again, and giving short gasps of breath she might here. But Sandy realised in his fear, that she couldn't hear him.
"I'm s...I-I...s-s..." she sobbed to herself. "I'm sorry...I-I'm sorry..."
And Sandy still couldn't remember who Pitch was.
...
Maces Bay, Nova Scotia, 1:43 p.m.
Jack felt like his entire body was made of lead.
But he couldn't stop, not yet.
He coughed violently and the frigid air in his chest made his lungs shudder, made his throat burn like whiskey without the pleasure.
"H...G-Please no...No!...Ha–"
When he lifted his left foot higher up the slope's steep incline, he almost tripped again on the soggy grass and light brush of snow. Jack's eyebrows were high on his head.
He still had his staff, he still had his belt...but what the point! They hadn't helped at all, and his gun, the one that could've shot them all dead was gone, just like...
Just because he'd gotten so fucking roused by the idea of a winning a fight with his just the skill of his gene, with impressing Tooth and LOOK WHAT HE'D JUST DONE!
Jack felt his scream bubble up into his throat again.
No, he had to get to the top, he had to! He needed to find Tuhina before–
Jack reached the top of the cliff and stood on the safe, high coast again, he fell onto his knees to catch his breath.
But as he clenched fistfuls of snow under his hands, Jack froze.
The violent churns of the ocean sounded far down behind him, like deep-throated sirens trying to coax him back into a watery grave. But Jack didn't hear it, didn't sense it.
Because for all his rapid breathing, his increased pulse rate, and trembling, Jack's attention wasn't on the water.
It was on the fire.
His blue eyes almost lit up green in the orange inferno that was once the church. He forced himself to watch the dark smoke billow from the once beautiful and forgotten structure, high up into the clouded stratosphere. The wood was doomed to ash, the bricks were scorched red hot, and as it crumbled in on itself, it mirrored the self-depreciating implosion going in his heart.
That fire was his fault.
Its destruction was his fault.
And the Nightmares nowhere to be seen (except for their boot prints and the dirt strips from their getaway car's tires)...that was his fault too.
Jack's fingers began to drum violently against his pants on their own. They were shaking and twitching with such a high energy.
The rest of his body suddenly went into conversion disorder.
Stiff. Immobile. Legs like dead weights.
His eyebrows, still high on his head, started to knit together in panic.
"T...T'hna?" he rasped almost afraid to call her name, in case the Nightmares appeared. He knew he'd be dead in a second if–
He stopped.
'No...No, NOT THAT. Don't EVER think that!'
Like liquid courage dripping down his dry throat, he lifted his head slightly higher, inching his boots in the snow.
"T-Tuhina?!"
Jack started to run against his mind's own inhibition. His muscles moved like rigid prosthetic legs. But his voice came back, and his breathing came back more rapid, more shallow.
"TUHINA!"
Jack sprinted around the burning church, using it's orange firelight to see past the parts of the endless white of the cliff that made everything blur together. He pushed his wet bangs up when they tried falling into his eyes again.
Tuhina never answered back.
"WHY DID YOU KILL HIM, TOOTHIE?! WHY DID YOU KILL HIM?!"
But he still heard her crying as Tooth carried her away into the snow.
With a burst of anxiety, he tried to use the wind to support a long leap. He wanted to reach a giant rock laying some feet away near the dirt road, but it didn't help. His racing mind and manic fidgeting made it difficult to catch and control even a piece of the air properly. And the wind, though normally strongest when he was at his most vulnerable, didn't comply this time in his emotional distress.
Maybe because his anger wasn't fixated on something else. Maybe because his destructive nature wasn't objective, wasn't outward.
Maybe because he realised all his negative energy...was targeted on himself.
Jack fell short of the leap and stumbled slightly a few metres of the rock. When he pulled his head up and stared ahead, his blood ran cold.
There was nothing there to the keen eye.
But for Jack and his artic blue eyes, he saw the footprints...the kicked up snow...the struggle that a tiny ten-year-old girl, the same age as he remembered Emma to be, put up with someone four times her size.
And he saw his blue sweatshirt.
Torn at the hood and the zipper open in an attempt to rip out whatever was inside it.
Jack's palms grew sweaty until the cold wind he inadvertently called upon, froze the vapour to his palms.
He instantly reacted and tried wiping it away on his pants.
"N-NO!" he shouted at himself, his teeth clenching. "NO!"
'You're to blame!' he mentally yelled at the wind he enjoyed having too much around him and realised how much destruction they'd both caused. He took several steps back from the rock until his temper wore off. When it finally did after a few more gasps for air, Jack turned back to the burning church.
His heart felt numb again, almost empty...and in the shift of spirit, he started to feel his heart slip into its default of emotions: cold ruthlessness, detachment, and vengeance–
He shook his head violently.
But he didn't want that! He didn't want to shut it off, n...n-not anymore! Not after remembering who he was, not after finding his light again, not after...
Toothiana bubbled up to the surface of his mind, sending a violent flutter across his chest. Her sister sent another one, down deep into his stomach like cold ice.
Jack couldn't handle it.
He pushed a shaky hand into his hair.
He wanted to scream.
Nine months ago...
Jack was in the living room of the apartment he shared with the girl he was on-again-off-again with. She was there too, watching him put on his coat.
"You're leaving again?" she bit out. "AGAIN?"
He pulled the collar up on his jacket before he reached down for his small backpack. It was the only thing he owned. Like her, he didn't carry much. And also like her, he was terrible at goodbyes.
"JACK!"
Jack stopped and turned to look at her before he headed for the door. He had that look on his face again, that muddled, fogged-up, glassy eyed look that told her he was going to wonder around town again aimlessly. She didn't want that.
"You need to STAY!"
"And do what, Rachel? WHAT? I can't keep sitting around and pretending like this is normal!"
She fixed him with a cold look. Her green eyes and long blonde hair framed her beautiful face serenely, but her lethal glare was twisted.
"Don't make me the bad guy," she said, repeating something she thought someone had once said to her – but like the rest of her memories, she couldn't remember who.
He noticed the light freckles on her nose when she scrunched it angrily before she continued.
"You said you were done walking around. So don't you dare leave. Don't leave!"
"Why? So you it'll be YOUR turn to leave after this argument, then I'LL be the one worried sick, wondering where YOU went?"
"What I do isn't the same thing!"
"Don't tell me that crap," he argued hotly. "You pulled the same shit two days ago and you vanished on me for twelve hours! TWELVE HOURS!"
The girl said nothing, her almost-biploar state unnerving to the brunette...even though he knew he was capable of the exact same thing.
"We can't pull off normal, Rachel!" Jack finally admitted as he gritted his teeth. "We tried, okay, but let's face it. You don't know who you are, I don't know who I am, and neither of us is invested in this!"
"We can keep trying," she threatened but the edge wasn't really in her voice. Under the surface of her vigour, she sounded just as tired as he did.
Jack picked up on it instantly.
"No," he argued. "We can't."
"And do you know why, Jack?" she pushed as it looked like he was about to go out the door again. "Why?"
When his hand was on the door, Rachel balled her small fists.
"Because you're poison, Jack. You're poison."
And while she hated to say it, she and Jack never had a pleasant relationship from the start. They were mostly hard and bitter towards each other and keep ditching the other at the slightest chance. They only came together for comfort in the dead of night, then for reasons beyond them, they would both be off wandering around again trying to clear their heads of an amnesia that wouldn't go away.
But neither thought to ask or comfort the other about what was troubling them; they'd both been raised (at least, it seemed like they'd been raised) in a way to not talk about their feelings and they decided to keep it that way.
Jack tightened his hand against the doorknob.
"I'M the one destroying this relationship?"
How could she say that?
He'd been the one who was really trying at first to start a relationship with her, to help her if she was willing. But Rachel left him twice in the middle of the night, mumbling something about the sun and a 'Corona' when she came back until it was gone again. But he knew she wasn't talking about the beer.
Not only that...but something in him told him too that she was always waiting for someone else. Someone she either couldn't remember, or someone who was never coming back. And after the third wander off, he started doing it himself.
And now she was calling HIM the poison in the relationship?
He looked over his shoulder, but Rachel didn't move a muscle, except for the ones in her mouth.
"You're destroying everything. And watch, if you leave me now, you'll destroy someone else's. Because that's what you do. That's what I do...And that's why we need to stay together, so we don't hurt other people."
Jack wretched his hand from the doorknob and turned to the blonde.
"You say that," he started. "But we're both unstable, you know that too. I can't...You...We can't stay like this."
Just three months earlier, he'd woken up alone, killed people and was a internationally wanted fugitive. Every bitter emotion he was holding onto kept wanting to lash out at her, and himself. And he hated himself for it.
Rachel opened her mouth but Jack beat her to it.
"We will never be good for each other and I might lose someone else to my own mistakes but...but..."
Jack then dropped his backpack to the floor.
He sighed angrily. He wanted to get out. He really did.
"But...fine. At least let me BREATHE for a few hours then...I'll come right back, okay?"
And Rachel looked down at his bag where he made it fall to make a statement. After a moment, she pursed her pink lips and looked up at him with hard (but impossibly wide) emerald eyes.
"Jack..." she admitted fretfully, but he knew she was saying it to herself too. "You can't save anyone. You're like me...You'll lose someone if you make a mistake."
Jack then touched her hair and she leaned into the touch. But he still had a hard look of his own. "I can try."
Jack then went out and did what he always did. He wandered around town avoiding the police, searching for any clue of who he was, or just muddling around until his brain hurt. He hoped when he got back to her apartment, he and Rachel could try to work on their imperfect relationship together.
But when he did, the green-eyed blonde had already packed her things. As he looked at her sad expression though, Jack wasn't mad. Neither was she.
"I'm sorry, Jack," she mumbled. But he shook his head.
"We both knew we'd part eventually. So...I'm sorry too. I'm not mad at you."
'I'm mad at myself,' he thought.
She nodded sympathetically. "And I'm not mad at you."
Then with a frown, Rachel left him through the window in her room. Her last month's rent was on the bed and then she did what Jack did best too...and that was vanish.
You'll lose someone if you make a mistake.
Jack looked back out at the ocean, but the Nightmare vessel was no longer there.
As the wedge in his heart grew bigger, he looked down. Then with shaky fingers, he unclipped the compartment that he'd sealed over with duct tape, and when he pulled out what he needed he gulped down a breath of cold air.
It was a good thing Aster had given him an extra complink beyond North's discretion. And it was a good thing too that the duct tape idea worked because it kept the area dry.
Shoving the Bluetooth into his ear, Jack waited.
He waited for what felt like hours, days, months, until...
"Chzzzc!...Shostakovich! J-Jack?"
Jack's fingers continued to shake (from the cold or his emotions, he wasn't sure). But then he looked out onto the coast again with slightly shivering body.
"Jack! Are you alright?! Where is..."
He drew in a frigid breath but it sounded more like a choke on the other end, and North stopped all at once.
"R-Remember when you asked me to join you and the others in the group...and I-I refused?"
"D...D-Da?"
Jack turned backed to the ocean again.
You can't save anyone......I can try.
Because the thing was, he wasn't just anyone. And neither was Tooth.
"I...I think I..."
And he shuddered from the breath leaving his lungs.
"North...I-I need you."
Chapter's soundtrack: "Sign" (FF7: Advent Children) – Nobuo Uematsu (bente36 thank you for suggesting such a chilling track!)
So guys welcome to the Gold arc. This is where it finally clashes with the underlining Black arc that's been trailing the Blue and Pink. And big welcome...to Sandy! Took a thousand years huh? Lol I love Sandy and in tribute to his silent character, I wanted to make any dialogue he had almost non-existent (unless it's Tooth he's talking to). Tough but fun. And you'll notice that as opposed to suffering from sleep, my Sandy actually suffers from insomnia. Why? I have my reasons. *thumbs up* Now go and be free until the next chapter, my monkeys.