(no subject)
Jack was poking holes in the jet stream for the polar vortex to break loose when the aurora went off right over his head.
By the time he dug himself out of the snowdrift and found his dropped staff, he was late enough that he buzzed Bunny coming in for a landing, and only barely beat Toothiana inside. Sandy was already there, shining gold in a corner near the aurora signal's console, and North was visibly seething at its foot.
Two steps into the room, Bunny and Tooth a warm and buzzing presence at Jack's shoulders respectively, and North growled, "Naughty List is gone!"
"What?!"
"Ushel!" North snapped. "Ukradennyy! Stolen!" Tooth gasped, and North finished, "And cannot check Naughty List for perpetrator!"
Jack couldn't help it. This was serious, he knew, but, "Catch-22," he said under Bunny's horrified sputtering. North's glower shot to him, and Jack quickly covered with, "So any idea how the guy got in? You've got this place locked up like a sultan's only daughter."
"You'd know," Bunny muttered behind him.
"So would you," Jack shot back, just as quietly. "I know aaaaaaaall about your tries to open the tunnels inside where it's warm, instead of on the ridge."
Bunny made a face at him, which soured when North said, "Will never work, Bunny." Then large hands clapped on Jack's and Bunny's shoulders, pushing lightly. "Come. I show you all vault." And he steered them out of the Workshop.
The living quarters of North's place were much more secure than the Workshop, all long paneled hallways and cozy rooms, many with hearths instead of windows, to help with keeping serviceable sleeping cycles during the endless daylight of arctic summers. Squirreled deeply away in the windowless core of the living quarters, past lab after lab of top-secret developments -- in magic, in toys, and in Santa's gear since things like the sleigh didn't invent themselves -- past North's weapons collection gallery, deep under the furnace, there was a short hallway ending in a round vault door, all polished steel and brass fittings that looked like it had been cut out of a different stage setting and plopped into North's.
"All steel!" North proclaimed, as he spun the door's spoked-wheel latch. "Six inches thick! Cast in one piece, extensive magical process, very hush-hush and all notes gone. And yet!" He pulled the door open to blazing light.
When Jack managed to blink the spots from his eyes, he blinked once again. Bright as a summer's day, spotlights shining at every angle to cut off all shadows, the interior of the vault looked oddly like everything was floating. The wood shelving, the brass fixtures, the glass cases with their golden chains... none of it looked quite real.
Prominently in the center of the room stood a pedestal, its glass-topped case locked, chained, lit up, and half-full. The single scroll remaining in the case, thicker than North's arm, had his tattoo's same ornate NICE inked on its surface, and a gaping space below.
"Gone!" North proclaimed.
As Sandy floated up the image of a large box, darting single grains of sand to bounce off it, Bunny stepped cautiously inside, nose twitching. "Mind if I...?" he asked, not bothering to get an answer before he knelt by the scroll's case. One stubby finger nudged at the padlock. "I'm not seeing so much as a lockpick scratch here," he muttered.
"And no shadows for Pitch to take advantage of," Tooth said, fluttering up high in the corner. "I don't think. "No dirt, either, it's remarkably shiny up here. If only you took such good care of your teeth as you did of this vault, North--!"
Shiny. Jack eyed the glass cases, the gleaming metal, the bright light sparkling from every surface...
Crap.
"Hey, North, how do I get to the bathroom around here?"
North shot a distinctly grumpy, un-Santa-like look over his shoulder, though his eyes gentled a bit on Jack. "Back upstairs, past all labs, make left. Follow smell of pine fresh."
Because making a bathroom smell like candy was probably just gross. "Okay. Be right back." And Jack hurried off.
He didn't use the toilet. Instead, once he found the small room and locked the door behind him, he turned to the mirror over the sink, a carved-and-painted wooden edifice of nutcrackers and ballerinas.
One slim finger traced at the edge of his reflection. "Tell the man in the mirror what you did, what you've done," Jack murmured. "He listens to horror, he listens to fun. When your teddy tells tales and you just need someone, the man in the mirror won't tell anyone." He met his own gaze. One. "I have a secret." Two. "I have a secret." Three. "I have a secret... for you."
His reflection wavered, white and pale and blue, and changed.
Kaito Kid smiled kindly out at him, gloved fingertips a thin layer of glass under Jack's own. "Jyaki Fuyu-san!" he purred. "Presents? For me?"
Jack couldn't match his smile. "I know who stole the Naughty List."
The grin fell away. "And you want to know why," Kid said, somber.
Jack nodded.
"Well, it's not really policy to spill secrets, but..."
-0-0-0
"Ow, Frostbite, watch the sleeting!" Bunny yelped when Jack returned. "'M not exactly in my winter best here!"
Jack's grin felt brittle and forced, as did his joints when he spun his staff and leaned not-so-casually on it, ignoring Bunny. "Sooooo. You want the who, the how, or the why?"
North's eyes went wide. Stomp. Stomp. "WHO. AND. WHERE?"
"Yeah that's a 'why'." He felt the grin fall off his face, saw Tooth and Bunny recoil in the corners of his vision. "Did you know, North. 100% of abused children commit at least one act of sibling abuse every year."
It was almost as if the man had run smack into a wall of frozen fish when he was expecting a Mongol army. Jack watched North sputter, choke, and go several different colors, before settling on a strange pallor accented by bright red cheeks. "Abuse...?" North managed to choke out.
"Did you also know, the Naughty List explains why someone is on it?"
"Da, I make change after '12, but you stay on for pranks and mayhem --" North went completely white. "-- So I never look further."
"I know someone, who knows someone, who travels through reflections." Jack tapped the nearest gleaming bit of metal with the base of his staff. "And he's the only friend of a spirit who's been rescuing abused children for sixty years."
Tooth made a strangled little sound as she sank to the floor.
"He never keeps what he steals," Jack added, the world feeling oddly cool and distant. Who cared that the Guardians wouldn't be able to untangle who Jack was talking about? No, best to keep Kaito and Shin'ichi hidden until people were ready to see sense. "You'll get the Naughty List back when he's done with it."