AN: I saw 'Rise of the Guardians' on Saturday and during the middle of it I was like, 'Hey! Alice could totally be a guardian!' Seriously, she could! Her story is well-known (or at least the blonde Alice is), she has a kick ass arsenal, and despite McGee's dark undertones Alice would make a great protector of children.

So this idea popped in my head and I decided to write it down to see if anything would come from it. Let me know if you like it!

RECENTLY RE-EDITED (1/1/16)

Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of the Guardians or Alice: Madness Returns.

Jumping up and down the floor, my head is an animal
And once there was an animal, it had a son that mowed the lawn
The son was an ok guy
They had a pet dragonfly
The dragonfly, it ran away
But it came back with a story to say...

Dirty Paws ~ Of Monsters and Men

~O~

Somewhere deep within the freezing desert of the arctic, the bright silver moon shined down on the enormous workshop palace built into the side of a large glacier. The outside was nothing but a picture perfect reflection of the surreal peacefulness of the rest of the beautiful and majestic landscape. Inside the workshop, however, was a completely different story.

Despite Christmas still being months away, North's Workshop (or what was more widely known as Santa's Workshop) was always alive and buzzing with activity, vast toy production on the ever up-swing. North's faithful yetis worked vigorously on the toys while his elves, clumsy but equally as faithful, ran around delivering tools and refreshments to the yetis. A few bold elves even tried to help the yetis with their toy making, but the larger creatures only shooed them away or ignored the tiny annoyances completely. They had a lot of work to do and even more toys to build, the yetis weren't going to let anything get in the way of that.

In the very heart of North's incredible workshop, was a giant globe covered in thousands of small, glowing lights. It was quite an impressive piece of craftsmanship, but it meant so much more than that to the owner of the workshop and his companions. The globe wasn't as bright as it once was when their belief went unquestioned by the children of the world, but it was slowly recovering.

It had been almost two years since the guardians defeated the infamous Nightmare King and restored the children's precious belief in them, but some of the children still refused to believe again after their faith was destroyed by Pitch Black's sabotage. Belief could be a very fickle thing. While the guardians managed to restore most of their belief and gain back their original power, for some children, once the trust was broken, there was no repairing it. It was a very hurtful blow to the guardians and their hearts went out to the children that they unintentionally let down, but they tried not to dwell on something that couldn't be changed. Instead, the guardians chose to focus on keeping faith alive inside the children that still believed while cleaning up the nightmare mess Pitch left behind.

The Big Four - Nicholas St. North, Bunnymund, Toothiana, and the Sandman - have worked almost non-stop those past few years to pick up the slack that Pitch had created for them. Today though, instead of working, the four elder guardians were gathered around the large fireplace in front of the Globe of Belief. It was the same place they always gathered whenever a guardian meeting was called.

Today had the potential to be a very special day.

Each guardian was dealing with their excitement and unease in their own unique ways. Bunny was leaning against the fireplace mantle as he examined one of his boomerangs while impatiently tapping a large, rabbit foot against the stone floor. North was leaning on the other side of the mantle with a block of wood and a carving knife in his hands. Unlike his pooka friend, the Russian seemed completely at ease with their current situation. Tooth was being her usual multi-tasking self as she talked with a small group of her fairies about their next tooth collecting job. Sandy was visibly the most relaxed of them all. The golden spirit was happily munching on a sugar cookie while working on his third cup of eggnog as he floated lazily around the room like a half-deflated balloon.

But despite their attempts to occupy themselves, all the guardians were still anxious about starting the meeting and they were all getting a little tired of waiting. So they all had the same question on their minds.

Where was Jack Frost?

They were expecting a very important announcement from the Man in the Moon, but the mysterious spirit usually only spoke to them if all guardians were present. Their meeting couldn't officially start until Jack showed up.

"Where 'n the world is that kid?" Bunnymund growled impatiently, finally reaching his limit for waiting.

The Sandman, who was just floating past the grey pooka, shrugged his shoulders while a question mark made of dreamsand appeared above his head.

"North, are you sure you told Jack the right day?" Tooth asked, gnawing briefly on her thumb nail. She was feeling just as fidgety as Bunny. She felt tingles along her skin as her feathers kept rolling up in anticipation.

"Of course I'm sure!" North laughed, waving off Tooth's concern. "Did you think that I would forget today? Is guardian tradition!"

"Oh, I'm sure Frost knows exactly where he should be right now," Bunnymund snapped. "I bet he's just takin' his sweet ol' time gettin' here! He's probably out there somewhere causing a freak snowstorm or freezin' swimming pools while we're all up here, sittin' on our hands and waitin' for his scrawny hide!"

"Bunny, calm down," Tooth said. "North calls dozens of meetings a year, and while he would never call us all here if it wasn't completely necessary, not all of them are exactly dire emergencies. We can't expect him to just drop everything he's doing and fly up here. Jack probably just forgot. I doubt he even knows why today is so important."

"Yeah, why is today so important?"

Everyone jumped at the sudden voice of Jack Frost. They all turned around to see the immortal teenager standing perfectly balanced on the wooden railing behind the globe control panel. He pulled down his blue hood to show off his trademark white hair while his ever-present staff rested on his shoulder.

"Sorry I'm late. Traffic," the Winter spirit joked, which of course, no one laughed.

Tooth sighed in relief while Bunnymund grumbled under his breath and Sandy waved. Jack barely had time to wave back and smirk at the grumpy pooka before North bounded up to him.

"I am so glad you made it, Jack!" North said in his usual loud, jolly tone of voice before throwing his arms out in a dramatic fashion. "Today is very important indeed! For today, we get new guardian!"

"Maybe," Bunny pointed out with crossed arms. "We're not completely sure, remember?"

Jack wasn't really paying attention until he heard the part about a new guardian. He tore his icy gaze away from a very interesting, jumbo-sized toy airplane in the distance, and stared wide-eyed at North. A new guardian?

"Bah!" North scoffed loudly. "Manny will choose a new guardian today. I can feel it in my belly!"

"Whoa, wait. We're getting a new guardian?" Jack asked, looking around the room at his friends. Sandy nodded enthusiastically with a large smile and clapped his small hands together.

"Maybe," Bunny stressed again while Tooth flew down to Jack's level.

"Yes, we might be," Tooth said as she placed a hand on Jack's shoulder. "You see, Jack, every four hundred years on this day, the Man in the Moon chooses a new guardian. It's become a bit of a tradition for us, but we're not sure if he will this time since you were chosen only a short while ago. He's never chosen two guardians in the same decade before."

"Or the same century," Bunnymund mumbled from his spot against the fireplace mantle.

"Who's he going to choose?" Jack asked.

Tooth shrugged her shoulders. "We don't know. We didn't know he was going to choose you two years ago. I wouldn't say the selection process is random, but he definitely doesn't consult us before he chooses. He might choose Patty the Leprechaun or Mother Nature or-"

A gentle tug on her tail feathers made Tooth stop talking and look down at Sandy. Above his head were the shapes of a heart-shaped arrow and a jack-o-lantern made of sand.

"Yes, you're right, Sandy!" Tooth gasped, suddenly very excited. "He might even choose Cupid or little Sammy Hein. Oh, wouldn't that be exciting!"

"I don't care who he chooses, just as long as it isn't the bloody groundhog," Bunny grumbled.

Jack chuckled as he watched his friends with a deep, silent fondness. Tooth chatted away happily with Sandy while Bunnymund stood off to the side examining his boomerang again. North had lost his interest in the conversation a while ago and was now scolding two fighting elves.

Since nobody was paying any attention to him, Jack slowly started to make his way over to the toy airplane while whistling nonchalantly.

"Jack Frost," He heard North speak his name slowly in warning. Jack stopped in his tracks and flinched. "Don't even be thinking 'bout it."

"Aww, come on big guy," He said with a smile, trying to charm his way out of trouble. "I was just going to look."

"Oh no, you can't be pulling the wool over these big eyes, young man," North chuckled. "Nice try though."

"Would I ever lie to you, North?" Jack asked while blinking his eyes sweetly in false innocence.

"Well..." North began to say, but a happy shout from Tooth cut him off.

"Look!"

Everyone in the entire workshop stopped what they were doing and looked in the direction the Tooth Fairy was pointing. The yetis quickly abandoned their toys and moved to gather around the guardians while the elves followed close behind. Moonlight streamed down through the giant skylight of North's Workshop. The Russian quickly shooed and shoved away the elves that were standing on the Guardians' symbol carved into the workshop floor. The last elf moved just in time as the moonlight landed on the symbol, making it glow brightly.

"Crikey," Bunnymund whispered in awe. "I can't believe it. He's actually choosing another guardian."

North proudly rubbed his belly and barely stifled the urge to stick his tongue out at Bunny. Hasn't the pooka learned by now that he should never doubt the belly?

Tooth could barely hold still, she was shaking so much, and Sandy's sand started to glow brighter in excitement. Jack tightened his grip on his staff and gnawed on his bottom lip, not really knowing what to make of all this. He was feeling a little apprehensive about the situation, but he tried to keep his cool and pretend he knew what was going on, just like the others. He didn't like it when things changed so unexpectedly before his eyes, so understandably, he was a bit nervous.

From the symbol on the floor came a tall pedestal with a large, blue crystal on top. Everyone simultaneously took a step back as the moonlight reflected off the crystal and started to create an image above it. When the image begun to take a solid shape, Jack stepped a little closer to see, but ended up making a perplexed noise. The image being produced by the crystal confused him and that confusion only increased when a shocked gasp passed through the group. Even the yetis seemed to understand what the symbol meant as they started garbling among themselves in hushed tones.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Bunny mumbled under his breath as he stared wide-eyed at the crystal. There was no way that symbol meant what he thought it meant. It just couldn't be.

"Is that a horseshoe?" Jack asked out loud. He has come across many different spirits in his long lifetime, but he couldn't recall hearing of one that could be associated with a horseshoe, or whatever that symbol was.

North crossed his arms and started stroking his beard in thought. Jack saw Tooth whisper something to Sandy before the short guardian just shrugged his shoulders and mirrored her uneasy expression. The fairy then looked over at Bunny with a very concerned expression while she nervously pressed her fingers to her mouth.

"What is a horseshoe supposed to mean?" Jack asked. Was he missing something here?

"That's not a horseshoe, mate," Bunnymund said while staring straight at the image. He had a deathly serious look on his furry face, but his forest green eyes burned with an unusual fire that Jack had never seen before. "That's an Omega symbol. An Omega pendent."

"Bunny, are you sure?" Tooth asked. She reached over and gently rested her hands on her friend's shoulder. She could feel the tense muscles underneath his fur.

"Positive," Bunnymund said with a curt nod. "And I only know one sheila with a necklace like that."

"But why would Manny chose her?" North murmured, almost to himself. "Not even I was expecting this."

"Hey, time out!" Jack raised his voice, he felt way too out of the loop. "Can someone please translate? Who did the Man in the Moon choose to be the new guardian?"

Bunnymund stepped forward next to Jack and crossed his arms. His eyes never once leaving the blue crystal.

"Alice Liddell."

AN: So here's the prologue/first chapter. Let me know what you think!

If you're a Mcgee's Alice fan who hasn't seen Rise of the Guardians and you were just cruising the crossover section for shits and giggles, I really recommend seeing the movie. It's DreamWorks, they always make amazing movies and ROTG is no exception. And if you're a ROTG fan who hasn't played the American Mcgee's Alice games, I also recommend them. The games are a very interesting and dark adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.

~Scorpiofreak~