Jack Frost x Guardian!Reader

Chapter Twelve

Jack tries to lay a sleeping Sophie down in her bed, but she won't let go of his neck. Finally, she releases her grasp only to roll over and fall out of bed. Baby Tooth gives Jack a scornful look.

"Sophie? Is that you?" Jack and Baby Tooth's eyes widen. Sophie, asleep on the floor, is quickly covered with a blanket and given a squeaky stuffed animal.

Jack closes the window and looks to Baby Tooth with a sign of relief.

"We should get back."

Baby Tooth nods, when...

There was a voice from a memory laughing. "Jack..." Jack stops, confused. Where is that voice coming from? He looks out across the town, toward the woods, and the sound of the echoed voice.

"That voice, I know that voice..." Baby Tooth looks to him, worried.

"Jack..." The voice said again and with that, Jack leaps off the window ledge.

Jack, carried by the wind, flies across town toward the sound of the eerie voice. Baby Tooth follows, trying to keep up. Jack takes a moment to orient himself and lands, settling on a rotating vent; as the momentum slowly spins him around, the voice calls out to him again.

"Jack..." The voice keeps talking. Jack turns, looks to the woods, and takes off. Jack and Baby Tooth land in the middle of a thickly wooded area. It's spooky. Jack scans the forest when again he hears...

"Jack..." Jack gives chase. He sprints through the thickets and enters a clearing only to find the decrepit remains of a rotting frame from a child's bed. Very creepy. What would that be doing in the woods, and how long has it been here? "Don't worry, there's still time." Baby Tooth desperately tries to get Jack's attention by tugging at his tunic, and tweeting desperately. Jack takes his staff, and breaks through the damaged frame, revealing a hole leading deep underground. "Jack..." What to do? Jack jumps down the hole, reluctantly followed by Baby Tooth.

Meanwhile

As (Y/n) lays in the cage Pitch put her in she hears her name. She sits up to look around. "H-Hello?" She was scared and losing hope.

Pitch laughed as he walked out of the shadows holding the container that held her memories. "Do you want these?" Pitch laughed the girl he locked up seeing the hope leaving her eyes.

Jack continues along a long dark tunnel with Baby Tooth close behind. Eventually the labyrinth opens up to reveal a huge underground cavern. Baby Tooth continues to tug at Jack's tunic. Jack waved Baby Tooth off. "Baby Tooth, Baby...come on! I have to find out what that is."

Jack can't believe his eyes. Dozens of huge bird cages hanging from the ceiling, and in them are the mini tooth fairies. One held (Y/n) Frost. They see Jack, and immediately perk up, tweeting and flitting like crazy. (Y/n) sat up and saw Jack.

(Y/n) "Jack?" Jack jumps up onto one of the cages, then quickly leaps and holds onto the side of another one. "Shhhh! keep it down." He said as he leaps to another cage. "I'm gonna get you out of here, just as soon as I-" The voice started again. "Jack..." Jack turns away from the fairies, distracted.

"Jack..."

"As I can-" Jack looks down and sees the tooth drawers from Tooth's Palace. Mounds of them heaped to the ceiling. And inside the drawers are the missing baby teeth. He drops down to a mound and begins rummaging through the drawers, looking at the names on the boxes. In an instant he forgets his duties, and the fairies, and the Guardians and everything except those teeth, and the chance to finally get his memory back. The cavern suddenly goes darker than it already was. Jack finally looks up, as a shadow of Pitch crawls up a nearby column.

"Jack!" (Y/n) hissed.

"Looking for something?" Jack swings around with his staff, shooting off a blast of ice, but Pitch isn't there. Jack takes off, following the sound of Pitch's cackle as it echoes throughout the chamber. Jack rounds a corner as he sees Pitch's shadow glide across the walls into a shadowed corridor. "Don't be afraid, Jack. I'm not going to hurt you." Jack continues along a shadowed corridor.

"Afraid?" Jack sees Pitch on a bridge across the cavern and heads after him. "I'm not afraid of you!"

"Maybe not. But you are afraid of something." Jack steadily approaches, cautious and alert.

"You think so, huh?"

"I know so. It's the one thing I always know." Pitch finally turns to face Jack. "People's greatest fears. Yours is that no one will ever believe in you." Panic flashes in Jack's eyes. As he backs away, the chamber fills with shadows, and Jack is spun around. He's disoriented as he thuds into a wall, which flips to reveal that it's actually the ground. Pitch, unseen now, chuckles. Jack's unsure of where he is. He looks back to see the cavern entrance -- he's right back where he started.

"And worst of all, you're afraid you'll never know why. Why you? Why were you chosen...to be like this?" Jack discovers that the entrance has been blocked with bricks as Pitch's shadow encroaches on him. "Well fear not, for the answer to that..." Pitch is now directly in front of Jack, holding out a tooth box. "Is right here." Jack's eyes widen at the sight - the face of a young boy etched into the box, and under it is the name "Jack Frost."

"Do you want them, Jack? Your memories?" He holds them out to Jack. Jack stares, fighting the impulse to grab them.

"Don't do it, Jack!" He closes his eyes, struggling to make a decision, but when he opens them again, Pitch has disappeared. Pitch's shadow moves across the pillars of the cavern. Jack heads down a corridor, casting shadows from the Mini Tooth cages everywhere. "Everything you wanted to know..." Pitch's face moves in and out of the shadows over the following. "...in this little box." Every time Jack turns, Pitch disappears. It's like Jack's trapped in a fun house. Multiple Pitch shadows have appeared on the wall around Jack. They're closing in on him.

"Why did you end up like this? Unseen. Unable to reach out to anyone. You want the answers so badly. You want to grab them, and fly off with them. But you're afraid of what the Guardians will think." Jack's breath quickens. He's been pushed into a corner. "You're afraid of disappointing them. Well, let me ease your mind about one thing. They'll never accept you. Not really." The shadows have overcome Jack. Jack was trying to scramble away. "Stop it! Stop it!" Almost reluctantly, the shadows back away, and Pitch appears before Jack. "After all, you're not one of them." Jack aims his staff at Pitch.

"You don't know what I am!"

"Of course I do. You're Jack Frost. You make a mess wherever you go. Why, you're doing it right now." Pitch tosses the box to Jack, who instinctively catches it. Jack looks up, as (Y/n) appears next to him with her box and staff as well. Terror comes into Jack and (Y/n)'s eyes, as they realize...

"What did you do?"

"More to the point Jack (Y/n), what did you do?" Pitch begins to back away, becoming one with the darkness, laughing as he disappears. Jack and (Y/n) charge toward him only to be swallowed whole by one of Pitch's black holes.

Jack and (Y/n) fly out of Pitch's shadow, ready to strike. Suddenly, Jack realizes he's forgotten something. "Baby Tooth!" Jack yelled as he turns to re-enter the hole in the wall only to find himself face to face with one of Bunny's stone emblems.

"Happy Easter, Jack, (Y/n)." The two winter spirits turn around. Suddenly, their eyes fill with dread as they realize where they are. Thousands of broken eggshells lay strewn about, forming a path toward the light at the end of the tunnel.

"No." Jack and (Y/n) whisper in fear.