𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐈𝐂𝐄 》 JACK FROST

XXII. ALLIES

ALLIES

2007 AD
9th March, 09:07 PM
Burgess, Pennsylvania

Agatha hadn't let go of their hands. No one spoke about it, but Sophie and Jamie made sure to hold on extra tight. Jack trailed behind them, warmth flooding his system as he registered the scene in front of him.

To be honest, Agatha wasn't entirely sure on why this was there plan. They now had a herd of kids following behind them - apparently childhood friends. Agatha could feel their gazes on her back. Sophie squeezed her hand. She looked down at the little girl who wasn't as little as Jack described her, smiling softly as she squeezed back.

She looked over her shoulder. Jack was already staring at her.

He smiled. She raised an eyebrow. ''You gonna tell us all phase two of the brilliant and most fantastic plan ever.'' Sarcasm laced her every sylabll.

He winked. ''Maybe.''

She opened her mouth, more than prepared to reply, when the ground began to shake. 

''Holy-'' Agatha pulled Jamie and Sophie closer, curling them to her chest to protect them. As teenagers who refused to be treated like kids - ... yeah, no, they were totally accepting this comfort. Jamie might be sixteen years old, but that didn't mean he never felt fear. His hand found Sophie's behind Agatha's back as they held onto her and each other.

''Holy?'' A voice said. Female. ''Now, I don't think that word's meant to be in your vocabulary, Miss Grimm Reaper.''

She turned. A woman with red hair and a green dress, made of what appeared to be leaves and vines, rose out of the ground. She was older than Jack and Agatha, looking to be in her early twenties, maybe even still nineteen. But the bags under her eyes and the wrinkles on her skin told them that she had been alive much longer than that. The concrete road cracked and chipped away, the dirt beneath it breaking free to create a mould of earth, where the woman stood on top, looking down at them as she held her nose up, smirking.

Jack flew down, landing in front of Agatha and the rest of the kids - who also flocked to Agatha's form - staff pointing at her. ''Who are you?''

''Who am I?'' She repeated, head tilting back in a maddened laugh. ''Why, I'm the very ground you're stood on, Frost!''

Agatha let one hand leave Jamie's back, reaching forwards to touch Jack's shoulder, getting his attention. ''Mother Nature,'' she said, hesitant, and she brought her hand back to rest on the crowd of children - Claudia, one of Sophie's friends.

''Ack! So I'm remembered, how nice of you,'' Mother Earth called down. ''Though I go by Ivy now, as you, I too have learnt to accept my name. Except...'' She paused, smirking as she liked her lips attentively. She leaned forward as though a child whispering a secret, ''I know what mine actually is.''

''She's with Pitch!'' Jack cried, making the connection faster than it had actually been revealed, moving forwards in a large bound, landing on top of the mound, ice skidding down it. It was seconds too late, Ivy already having moved to evade.

''Well, of course I am!'' She smiled from a second mound she had created. ''Who do you think kept you trapped in that forest for so long, huh? Although, I must admit it, finding that library was impressive. After all, I had tried so hard to prevent it.''

Jack flew back down, landing alongside Agatha as he lowered his voice to a whisper. ''She said you remember her, where from?''

Agatha's grip on a kid tightened, fist balling in their jumper before she released it, smoothing it back over comfortingly as she calmed herself down. This was the reason she had spent so long suffering, walking through what seemed to be an endless woodland - she had made her walk in circles, kept her captured for so long she began to hallucinate. It was her fault that she had ever doubted Jack. ''Twice. She dated Cupid for a while, I saw her once or twice then.'' Her voice was stiff, void of every emotion as she focused too much on keeping anger out, that everything else was pushed away too.