Chapter 1 The Meeting
Athena sat on her broom looking up at the moon and talking to it. Talking to the Man in the Moon to be exact. Asking him to gather all five Guardians together because Pitch was gaining power again. This time using her time of the year, the time of Halloween where it was fun to experience fear. Every year humans would come up with more horror movies that had a wider range of scare tactics so that at least one movie would be scary for those harder to scare and give children nightmares without Pitch being involved.
Pitch had gained power this way as well as come to learn how to use the fear of everyone, not only children, and he was always present around Halloween but now was figuring out the best ways to make the most of it and storing the energy and power as the years went by.
"I need you to call the Guardian's together. Halloween is coming up and I need help in keeping the children safe. Especially because the children can see the Guardians, they can talk to the kids." She said to him. Moony acknowledged the request and did not question her but did ask, Will you be meeting them?
"Yes." She replied before disappearing. She had hoped that she would never have to involve herself in matters between Pitch Black and the five Guardians but it seemed that she would have to stop running from the past and face it to protect the children of the world.
Wherever the five Guardians were, when it was nighttime they all received a message from Man in the Moon to meet in Transylvania, Romania, showing a castle that they all knew as the famous (infamous?) castle of Count Dracula.
"Transylvania? Why?" Jack questioned but received no answer. He sighed and jumped from the roof he had been hanging out on and flew off to Europe.
"Transylvania? Really mate? Alright then." Bynnymund said stepping on the ground as a hole opened up and he jumped in.
Sandy, Tooth and North didn't question it and made their way to the castle, all appearing at about the same time.
"Everyone being asked to come here. Does anyone know what is going on?" Jack asked when he landed.
"No." They replied. Sandy shrugged.
"I believe I can answer that question." A female voice with a mild Greek accent said from the shadows of the large hall. There was a light swoosh and torches lit to reveal a room that was exactly how one would see a perfect Halloween party. A girl who looked like she was around seventeen or eighteen stood there with a broom and wand in hand. She had short blonde hair, pale skin, big blue eyes and a cute black and orange witch costume with black boots.
"Ah! Athena how are you doing?" North asked with a smile.
"Hello North. I have had better days. And yourself?" She replied.
"Been busy." He replied.
"Why are we all here?" Bunnymund asked.
"I need your help in protecting the children this Halloween." She replied.
"The Man in the Moon sent us to help you? Why?" Tooth asked.
"Because I need the help and I asked him to summon you all. He is the only one you listen to. Pitch has been gaining power from my holiday for a long time now and has recently been finding new ways to gain power faster, most likely from learning himself what fear is like to experience. This is very different from last time. this time you won't be able to defeat him the way you did before." She answered. A lump formed in her throat as she spoke but hid her feelings and swallowed it down.
"What do you mean? He loses power when there is no fear." North replied.
"But this is Halloween. Fear and being scared is one of the first things you think of on Halloween. You can't stop that at this time of the year. We have to do it by force and overpower him." She explained.
"If what you say is true then we should handle it as the Guardians, you continue with your little holiday of candy and costumes, we'll handle it." Bunny replied.
"Oh please." She muttered with a roll of her eyes.
"You don't think much of us do you? Do you want to be a Guardian?" Tooth asked.
"I am, just a different kind than you." She replied.
Athena noticed Sandy making symbols above his head of an arrow at Athena, then hands creating a small man that looked a lot like Man in the Moon, however the other's didn't notice.
"How did you know that Sandy?" Athena asked him. He pointed to his head and mimed sleep.
"You know this from my dreams?" She asked. He nodded with a smile.
"You are something Sandman." She replied.
He smiled. Still the other Guardians seemed very distracted by the place. Athena rolled her eyes and said, "So will you help me? If we can't stop Pitch before this Halloween I'm afraid he'll been virtually unstoppable and September is almost over, we're on a deadline."
"If you know all this then why didn't Man in the Moon call us sooner? Or why didn't you deal with Pitch sooner?" Jack asked.
She was silent for a long time, thinking back on the time that she did indeed try. "I tried, but we know each other too well and it was only recently that I discovered just how strong he really was getting and would be after this Halloween." She explained.
"You know each other too well?" Jack asked skeptically and asked, "How often do you see Pitch?"
"Not very often since you all started coming around and keeping him at bay but I am much older than I seem. I'm even older than Man in the Moon and a little younger than Pitch." She responded.
Sandy started making the symbols again since they noticed him now. She would rather they didn't know but she decided that it was only fair.
"What? Slow down Sandy." North said. He sighed and tried again. Athena sat on a chair and observed while sending the broom and dustpan to go sweep the entrance hall and other things came to her for more instructions. The castle would be opening for tours soon so the place needed to be ready for the humans.
"Athena...Uh holds?" North asked. They continued their guessing game until Jack got it.
"Athena created Man in the Moon?" He asked. Sandy smiled and nodded.
"What? That's absurd." Bunnymund replied.
"What makes it absurd? The simple thought that the person you seek advice and guidance from, the one you take orders from was actually created by some girl who is forever a young adult ruling over Halloween and uses magic? Do you forget that I am the Guardian of Imagination and Creation? I was made the first Guardian to help the humans but found that they needed more than imagination and the means to create. They need help to remember their childhood and important things. They need their memories protected. They needed dreams, wonder, hope and fun. But I'm not the best one to judge who is worthy of such responsibility so I created someone to help me.
I thought of a being, a person who could make such judgments and give them the powers and responsibilities that fit them best and gave such power to Man in the Moon and soon he created other spirits who were worthy but not necessarily ready or fit to be guardians but can always been there to help when needed and so on and so forth. The rest is, as you say, history." She explained.
"If you created the Man in the Moon then how did you come about? Vhat do you know about Pitch?" North asked.
"I was granted my gifts by a higher power as was Pitch when he was first given the responsibility to keep the darkness and nightmares in line. The darkness tricked him and consumed him. Anything else I know about him is not important to stopping him now." Athena replied.
"Wait he was consumed by the darkness?" Jack asked.
Yes. He was given the responsibility to guard the darkness and keep the creatures of darkness at bay. But then they tricked him into letting them out, they consumed him making him what he is today." She replied, sounding bothered by this and summoned some cleaning supplies and sent them off to clean the windows.
"You knew him before he was Pitch." Tooth stated.
"That isn't important. Can we please get back to the topic at hand? Keeping him from gaining more power before Halloween?" Athena said in a dismissive tone, clearly not wanting to discuss it.
Wonder what Pitch was like before and what kind of history the two have had. All of them thought. Even Man in the Moon had wondered this before but he never asked Athena about it after the first time. He had quickly learned that Pitch was a touchy subject when it came to Athena. Surprisingly it was the same for Pitch when MiM had mentioned Athena.
"Once this is over, if we succeed, I will be continuing a plan, hopefully if I succeed then you'll know what Pitch is like without being corrupted. It's a long shot but if it doesn't work and you're still curious-oh don't give me surprised looks I know you're all curious all of you are trying to imagine it-then I'll consider telling you." She answered, noticing their surprised expressions when she guessed correctly, well it wasn't actually guessing because she knew that they were imagining it and found their interpretations rather amusing.
"So what do you need us to do Sheila?" Bunny asked.
"Until we can find Pitch or until he comes out of hiding all I ask is that you keep a look, or ear, out for trouble. Especially these parts of the world." She indicated her own large globe with lights on it. She pointed her wand and certain parts of the world turned orange. About half of Europe, all of the United States and Canada and a lot of South and Central America and then a few various places around.
"I know Tooth and Sandy are busy all the time so just keep a look out as you work if you can and call me if you need help, that goes for anyone, if you need help call me. Everyone else just move around whenever you can to either find Pitch or protect the kids and young adults." Athena explained while drawing out paths.
"How are we supposed to call you?" Bunny questioned.
She thought about it and imagined five pumpkin charms that they could use for communication to each other or her and sent them out.
"They can transmit audio, video and varying signals if you can't call anyone. All signals alert everyone. Red for emergency, black for alerting of sighting Pitch, green is in need of back-up and yellow is children in danger. If someone uses red I strongly recommend everyone going to help if you can. On the other side is a button to represent other guardians, press any and all that apply to which guardian you are going to if more than one are in need of help." She explained.
"Brilliant. Do they have to be pumpkins though? Not that I have anything against pumpkins or anything." Jack asked.
"If you want the design to change then just imagine a new design for it, but only I can change the functions." She replied rolling her eyes.
They did just that, Tooth's changing into a pearly white tooth, of course. Bunny's a colorful egg; North's one of those Russian dolls that have a smaller version of itself on the inside but it looked like it was made of ice. Sandy didn't change his much, just put a chain on it to carry easier while Jack's changed into a snowball.
"If you accidentally throw that at someone I will make you do the most boring task that Bunnymund can think of." Athena said to him.
"Guess it does look too much like an actual snowball." He said so he changed it again to a snowflake and clipped it to his staff.
"Happy?" He asked.
"Yes thank you." She replied satisfied.
"Well I have places to be and things to do thank you for the help, we're done for now I think." She replied
My corner: This is actually my first Rise of the Guardians story but about halfway through the second chapter I looked at it and was appalled by the nonsensical crap I had written so I started over with other ideas and am now generally happy with it and the way that it is going. I'm not sure the rate at-which I will be updating but...yeah hopefully it'll be pretty stead. Sooo yeah here is the first story that I had started for RotG but the second one posted :)