Bunny cursed as he followed the nightmare. It had been three days since Jack had been taken, and Pitch had moved the entrance to his lair... Now they had resorted to tracking any nightmares they found in an attempt to find their way in.
But it appeared they were in luck.
The nightmare he was tracking vanished into a small cave, in the side of the mountain, and after it failed to return, after a few minutes, he nodded to the small fairies that were with him.
"Okay, scatter... Get the others. But be careful, eh?"
They chirped in acknowledgement and flew away, leaving Bunny to plan the best way to approach. When North arrived an hour later, Tooth and Sandy a few minutes after that, he was all ready with a plan.
"We just charge the damned place... But maybe a little stealthily at first."
"... Sounds like good plan to me. Tooth? Sandy?"
A nod and a golden swirl of sand turning into a cavalry horse had Bunny smiling.
"Alright then, let's go..."
_

Jack was in a swirl of anguish, fever, fear and torment. His thoughts and memories were being twisted and ripped apart by the achingly close, torturously familiar and yet emotionless voice of the shadowy ghost that haunted him.
The small voice echoed around his head...
"You left me Jack... You left me alone... You forgot about me..."
Over and over, the words echoed... Until he believed nothing but what she said... Until he heard nothing but those words... Those words and Pitch's laughter.
The few times he managed to break free of the nightmares, it was to find those eyes staring at him, cold and lifeless, and to hear Pitch gloat about how the guardians had still not come...
It had been three days... They would come soon... they wouldn't leave him there... would they?
But Pitch's voice kept at it, telling him that they would never find him... that they would never bother... that he had been nothing but a burden... that he should join him and be all that he was meant to be...
Twisted memories, Pitch Black's taunts and laughter and the cold emotionless voice and empty eyes of the shade of his sister took up every waking minute, and the fevered memories and fears took up every unconscious moment until eventually, there was almost nothing else left...
Nothing but a small, slowly dwindling part of his mind that kept repeating one thing...
They would come... They would come... They had to...
_

Bunny slowly inched his way along the wall, Sandy next to him, as North and Tooth did the same on the opposite side.
They stayed lever with each other until Bunny's sensitive ears picked up on a familiar voice... One that had him growling softly under his breath, and he called across to the others.
"Pitch. Must be a cavern or something a few hundred metres ahead."
The other nodded, and, sure enough, it was only a further ten minutes or so before they reached the opening, that overlooked a huge cavern.
Pitch was visible just below them, and there was a small figure beside him, wrapped in shadow. Something about the figure set Bunny's fur bristling, but that was swept aside as he spotted Spri- The shade of his old friend.
He cursed inside his head. He had to stop thinking about him as his friend. He wasn't. He was just an empty shell...
He blinked and turned his attention back to Pitch as the Nightmare King laughed, and spoke.
"Now Jack... This defiance gets you nowhere... Have these past three days taught you nothing? I can see you want to give in... want the pain to stop... want your memories to stop torturing you... So why fight this? Why stay so loyal to the guardians when they have abandoned you..."
North had to hold Bunny back from leaping down as he heard those words, and he barely picked up Jack's faint response, shaking slightly as he realised that the spirit was so close.
"Y-you're... wrong..."

Tooth's heart nearly broke as she heard how shattered the young spirit sounded... how drained, tired, tortured, cold... His usual defiance was nearly untraceable, and he sounded near to breaking point. She wanted nothing more than to just wrap him in her arms and never let go...
Her wings sped up slightly as she inched her way between Bunny and North, leaning further over to try and see what was going on.
Pitch laughed, unaware of what was going on above him.
"But Jack, you can sense it yourself, can't you? How useless you are to them... How unimportant... Join me Jack-"
"No!"
"Oh Jack... You don't understand do you? Just how powerful you are? You could tear this world apart and remake it... Have everyone believe in you..."
"Y-you mean... have every... everyone f-fear me... The ans-answer is still... No... W-will always be... no..."
All four of the guardians felt a huge wave of warmth and pride towards the youngest, and Sandy blinked as he finally found what he was looking for.
He gestured to North, making a small show out of sand, and Tooth translated.
"To destroy the... shades... you have to destroy the black spheres around Pitch's neck?... But it has to be done by the person from who's memories they stem from..."
Sandy nodded, and gave Bunny a sad look.
So, in order to destroy the shade, he had to destroy the orb... But could he-
A sudden movement caught his eye, and he saw Pitch dart forwards, black sand shooting from his hand towards where Jack must be.
The pained cry the younger guardian gave threw all doubt from his mind.
He had to help Jack... Nothing else mattered now.
They all shared a look, and, as one, leapt over the edge into the cavern.

The surprise enabled Tooth to dart forward and snatch the orbs from around Pitch's neck, but she was thrown back by the sudden influx of nightmares, and they were wrenched from her hand and flew to the far corner of the room.
Wait... Two of them?
There eyes all followed the two orbs as they bounced apart, and they looked at each other. Two... That meant...
The significance of the small figure threw them all, and they all looked towards her, Pitch's mocking laughter echoing as he strolled over to her.
"Well, I have to say. I'm impressed you found me... But that's not what matters. I see you're interested to see who else I brought back? Well, now that is an interesting question. My first foray into the area of necromancy yielded rather... unsavoury results, but she has served her purpose well. Now, why don't you all say hello to Emma Frost?"
The atmosphere was so thick it could have been cut with a knife, as they all focused on the small figure, who Pitch had pulled from the shadows.
The resemblance was shocking, as they all recalled the Jack they had seen when he had once shared his memories, and the small face was just as each of them remembered. Save for the cold, dead eyes...
That's when a small part of Bunny told him they had lost.
Jack had loved his sister more than anyone... more than his own life. And this fight could only be won if he destroyed her?
The other guardians must have realised the same thing, and Pitch smiled at the looks of horror on their faces. He gestured for the nightmares to clear a path to Jack, and grimaced in mock pity.
"Such a shame..."
Bunny''s eyes widened, panicked and horrified as he took in Jack. Black tendrils of nightmare sand trailed from him, trapping him in a writhing cage, and he was shivering, curled in on himself. Blood seeped from various scrapes on his arms, clearly from where he had tried to break free from the nightmares, only to have been injured for his troubles, his clothes were torn, bloody, and covered in dirt and flecks of black sand and his breathing was ragged... half gasps, half sobs.
Bunny also noticed his staff, laying shattered into several pieces, several feet from him, and fury melded in with the cacophony of other, indiscernible emotions.
Tooth was frozen, face a mask of horror, and looked like she was going to be sick. North was likewise affected and even Sandy, who had seen enough pain in his time, was completely horrified.
Well, whether they would win or not, he'd be damned if Pitch was getting away with this.

Without warning, he made a lunge at where he had seen one of the orbs fall, and felt, rather than saw, the cavern erupt into movement behind him.
He found himself grabbing the orb, and something told him that he had found the right one.
He flexed his hand, ready to crush it, but something stopped him.
Could he do this?
He caught sight of the Pooka shade, and followed the path he was taking, realising that he was heading towards Jack.
That's when something snapped.
Like hell.
There was no hesitation as he crushed the fragile glass, and a rush of black fog erupted from it, smothering him before exploding around the cavern.
Pitch gave a cry of rage, but Bunny's gaze was caught by a pair of familiar eyes.
Springo gave him a small smile, a ghost of his former self evident on his face, before he faded into the dark mass and it seemed to fizzle. Then it spiralled upwards before circling into a small cocoon and then vanishing.
One problem sorted...
Bunny ignored the pang his heart gave, and he joined the fight, heading towards Jack.
The Tooth and North were heading in the same direction, cutting through the nightmares that got in their path, but Bunny was closer and finally managed to drop down next to him, keeping the nightmares from attacking Sandy, as the golden guardian finally had the chance to get rid of the black sand that was circling Jack.
It took a few minutes, and both Tooth and North keeping Pitch away with Bunny focusing on the nightmares, but he eventually managed it, and Jack jumped upright, before crying out in pain and collapsing in on himself again, breathing ragged and irregular.
Sandy took over from the nightmares, his whips forming and lashing out with a deadly accuracy, and Bunny wasted no time in dropping beside Jack.

"Jack? Hey Frostbite, and you open your eyes for me?"
He was rewarded with a faint, badly concealed sob, and the winter spirit opened his eyes.
"B-Bunny...?"
"Yeah, It's me Frostbite, we're all here..."
"Y-you came..."
"Course we did. Im sorry Jack, but we have to get you out of here-"
"The-the shade... Of y-your... friend..." He was clearly putting a lot of effort into being able to say even those few, simple words, and the gasps became more pronounced as he continued. "Y-you... saw him... h-heading here... didn't you...?"
"Yeah...?" Where was he going with this?
"A-and you... you broke... the orb... Even... even though he-he was... And I... Im s-sorry for... for-"
"Hey, it's okay Frostbite... Come on, let's get ya out of here, then ya can talk when yer feelin betta, eh mate?"
The spirit didn't have a chance to reply as his eyes widened, and he tried to shout a warning
"Look out!"
Bunny was too slow to react, and felt himself thrown backwards, where he landed on top of North.
Before he could do more than roll over, he was cocooned in a black stream of light, and looked over to see the same had happened to North, and that Tooth had also already been trapped. Sandy held out a little longer, but soon even he was covered in black strands.
Pitch laughed.
"Did I not tell you how the first experiment failed? Let me elaborate... It was actually a failure of the best kind. Small Pippa over there not only causes fear, but is literally a power core for it. She exudes so much fear that she holds enough to enable me to overpower you with ease! That, combined with the pain and fear Jack has suffered the last three days will allow me to destroy you without the slightest difficulty... But that is not enough for me. No, I want revenge for the times you've cast me into darkness! For the times you banished me to the shadows, and now I shall have it! By turning all of your wonder and hope and memories and dreams into nightmares and fear... by taking it from you and leaving you to suffer with the knowledge that you failed in your duty as guardians!"
No matter how they fought against the sand holding them, they couldn't break free of it, and they all felt the first pangs of hopelessness settling in.
Pitch gave a smirk.
Finally...

He didn't notice the young winter spirit stumbling across the cavern, half crawling and half collapsing as he tried to ignore the pain and dragged himself towards the corner. To where he had seen a small black orb falling to the floor...

Wow, this fic has gone faster than planned.

This chapter was also quite dark, wasn't it... But hopefully none of the characters were OOC? It's a constant worry of mine, so I would really appreciate you guys letting me know... And I know it's not the best chapter ever, but hopefully it wasn't that bad...?
The next chapter is likely to be the last one, with maybe an epilogue... And will be less dark, but will definitely have a lot of angst and shizzle...

And hmm, I'm debating whether to turn this into my first BunnyFrost/Jackrabbit fic... What do you guys think? If no-one says otherwise, I'll just let my muse takeover and see where it gets me :D
(There will be no hardcore smut though, either way...)
Please review and let me know!

Raven xx

(Oh, And I chose the name Pippa for the same reason that the vast majority of us fans do. Because Jack's sister has the same voice actor as Pippa. I was considering Janie, as she looks a lot like Jamie, but decided against it.)