A familiar tone of voice and the soft flutter of wings could subtly be heard riding the wind.

"Jack!" the voice of Tooth called from afar. Her shadowed silhouette passed over the brightness of the moon's surface like a wisp, and dove down toward him. Why had she come looking for him?

Despite the darkness, the moon shined down upon her beautiful feathers, making them dance with soft colour. The closer she came, the more Jack wanted her to stay away. Tooth held the very apparent expression that something was wrong and Jack had no intention of finding out what it was.

"Please…" she began in her soft tone of voice as she hovered to him, heavy-hearted, "please, tell me what you're doing isn't what we think."

Jack sighed, "Tooth, listen—" But before he could get out another word, suddenly, Bunny sprung up from a newly formed rabbit hole only a meter or two away. He leapt up onto his large hind legs, stomping on the ground in a furious manner.

Through his teeth, he exclaimed, "Explain yo'rself, Frost!"

"Guys, please! It's not what it looks like!—Why did you come find me, anyway?"

"We were tipped off by a few o' Tooth's lit'le helper's," said Bunny, holding his boomerang tightly in a fist. "Tellin' us you were visitin' Pitch's lair. 'It's not what it looks like,' ay? Sounds awfully fishy to us, Mate."

"Bunny…" Jack's heart fluttered. He hadn't realized the severity of not explaining himself first before disappearing into the night. But frankly, he didn't expect anyone to actively come looking for him. "…it's not what you think. I had to help Pitch. Manny—"

"Help?! Pitch?! Mate, what'a'you tryin' to pull here?" Bunny, and even Tooth Fairy at this point, had become agitated.

"Nothing! Man in the Moon told me to. He told me—"

Bunny's look of ire made Jack pause. Tooth only stared with sorrow in her rouge-coloured eyes.

"Aye don' believe this…" Bunny stepped away and rubbed his temple. Turning back, he continued, "You actually expect us to believe that Moon Man spoke to you when you kept goin' on and on about how he hadn' done that exact thing for over three-hund'ed-years? But now, of all times, he spoke to you, and he's tellin' you to help th' man we work'd so hard to defeat?!"

Jack's mind went blank having nothing to say to that. Honestly, he had a point. There was no going back and fixing what he had wronged. "…I don't expect you to believe me. I understand if there's no convincing you…"

It was this moment that Pitch decided to chime in. As he stepped forward, he proclaimed, "Maybe, I can."

Both Bunny and Tooth backed away in shock as Pitch Black stepped closer revealing himself from the shadows.

"O-oh, yeah?" Bunny's voice was shaky, possibly from surprise, or maybe panic seeing as The Bogeyman was now feeling better. "W-well tell us, then!"

Pitch didn't waste a moment.

"I would believe him, if I were you. I'm sure your little Jack Frost wouldn't lie to you after all you'd been through." He stepped even closer. The Guardians stood their ground. "What makes you think he'd come all the way here out of his own will? For me? And after all I'd done to him?"

"W-Why should we believe you, ay?"

"Tell me, Bunnymund—Would you really turn on Jack that quickly? If so, you're not a very good friend, now are you? Much less a 'Guardian'." Bunny's eyes widened at his words. "Aren't you supposed to be the Guardian of Hope? From your attitude, it seems to me you don't have much hope at all."

His expression filled itself with wrath as he provoked, "Ay, you take that back, you cun—"

"Bunny!" Thankfully, Tooth cut him off before finishing. She took in a deep sigh. What Pitch had said just then made sense to her. Softly, she told him, "As crazy as it may sound, Pitch is right…We shouldn't turn on Jack so easily." There was no objecting to Tooth's true words, and he lowered his head.

Jack was thinking hard to himself as he watched the crossfire between good and evil. Pitch, The Bogeyman, was helping him keep the trust between himself and the Guardians. And the burning question on his mind was…why? He was the lord of nightmares and deceit. He had nothing to gain from this. So, why do it?

Tooth drifted over to Frost, wearily. Her disillusioned eyes, pools of pink tears, stared into his. The way she looked was heart-breaking, until a trustworthy grin spread across her soft face.

"Yo're right, Tooth." Bunny stepped forward. "It's you, isn' it? Pitch…You're tryin' to turn us agains' Frost again? What for?"

Pitch straightened his posture and placed his arms behind his back elegantly.

"I have nothing to prove. If that is what you think, then so be it."

"Why else would he be here tryin' to defend you? Don' you have better thin's to do than bother us?"

"What is this nonsense? A game of blame?!" Pitch drew out a fatigued sigh. His eyes looked around inquisitively and he alleged in a poetic manner, "Try as we might is the sword that we write the wrongs that need righting…Drivel."

Bunny held back the urge to curse at the man. However, holding himself back from doing so, he pointed out something peculiar.

"You hadn' been tryin' to attack us like usual," he noted, suspicious. "We know you—You never pass up a chance to throw a punch. Wher' are yo'r precious lit'le ankle-biters, anyway?"

The images of the nightmares crept back into Pitch's thoughts, and with a curl of the wind, Pitch's expression transformed from kingly intimidation to indigent fear.

The ground shuttered.

As if on command, a black eruption disgorged from the pit the dark entities, flooding nightmares into the night sky. The sounds of hell emitted around them in a brutal ring of demonic cacophony.

Pitch Black's jaw slowly dropped open as he gazed into the peppered skies. Bunny and Tooth began shouting, but their voices were muffled by the nickering of the black stallions. He could have sworn he heard Moon Man's voice as well, only adding to the chorus of screams…

Jack did the only thing he could think of at that moment; knowing Pitch Black was earthbound without his black sand—the same as Jack without his staff—he grabbed Pitch by the arm, forcing him to hug his back, and with a boom of Wind, rocketed off to the east before the nightmares had the chance to swallow him into their sudden tidal wave of devastation.

As they flew, the murky snake-formation wasn't far behind.

"Pitch!" Jack shouted, hoping he could hear him through the blasting wind, or would even listen to what he had to say. "You have to stop being afraid! It's the only way!" He remained silent. "What is it?! What are you so afraid of?" Outright refusing to speak, he buried his face into the back of Jack's hoodie.

Like a game of cat and mouse, the young Jack Frost and the powerless Pitch Black flew from the nightmare storm through clouds, trees, and buildings alike in an attempt to cut them off, giving the two of them a little more leeway. But the creatures trudged on, and weren't going to rest until they had their prey.

"Please…" Jack begged. He didn't expect to get much of a reply when he heard Pitch mutter something under his breath.

"I'm afraid…" he whimpered. It was terrifying hearing the dismal cry of the mighty Nightmare King.

"Tell me, Pitch. Of what?"

Jack bent the wind away from their faces to lighten the noisy air just enough so that Pitch's voice could be heard.

"To lose…"

Jack opened his mouth to criticize his remark as an egotistical thing to be afraid of, although it made sense why he was dragged down below in the first place. But before he could get out a single word, Pitch continued, his deadened words flowed away into the wind, "…my family."