A/N: As promised, new chapter! I'm really on the roll on writing this fic. I can't bring myself to update my other stories. Somehow, this fic is getting my undivided attention for some un known reason. So, I've decided tthat after chapter 4 (or chapter 5 if the scene I want to finish can't be contained within 4000+ words), I'm going to update my "You'll never be alone" fic. It's a PixEls or frigid darkness or PitchxElsa fic but a wee bit darker. And the fic where I encountered "Stockholm Syndrome" (Did I spell it right?) word.

Anyway, please enjoy! And a "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!"

(Mine and Pitch's favorite holiday! But there aren't any real horror movies airing today. Unfortunately, everyone here just looks forward for Chrismas... DAMN YOU NORTH!)


~~Chapter 3~~

After days of searching the guardians have finally found where the Snow Queen lived. The rumors have been right, she really lived on top of an ice capped mountain. It was hard to locate it with the names and features of the cities constantly changing through the millennia, but they found it. Nærøyfjord in Western Norway, it was the new name of the place that was once called Arendelle. One thing they noticed was how vast the forest here was. Most cities would have smaller forest, although they could see the bald spots it still did not cease them to be amazed, especially when they could feel the lingering resence of ancient beings.

The sun was setting when Tooth found the place or should she say palace. It was huge and made of ice. The blazing red and orange colors the setting sun produced illuminated the whole place, its lights reflected and refracted the colors magnificently. The scene was spectacular, unlike any what the winged guardian had ever seen creating an ambiance of magic, beauty and mystification. The power radiating from inside the castle told her that she should get the others quickly. Once everyone was at the base of the mountain, they all went to the ice castle. Darkness has already settled in, their surroundings lay quiet and still.

"Wow." Jack took in the image of the castle in wonderment. "I mean wow. Look at this." A hand brushed his silvery hair in disbelief. "Oh my god. This is unbelievable. She's got to teach me how to do one of those." In front of them was an ice castle, a huge crevice was under a flight of stairs made of ice. It was cut clean and smooth, there was no chip or anything. It was perfectly sculpted. A huge boulder of snow was beside the beginning of the stairs.

"She's good." North mumbled under his breath, a hand on the youngster's shoulder. "She can be good ally."

Bunnymund shivered against the cold chill of the mountain air. "Why d-do they ha-ave to b-be in so-some p-place c-cold?" he stuttered as he felt his feet numb from the snow he was stepping on. The sandman scolded him that he should have considered a coat or sweater or something. "Yeah. Yeah."

As they went nearer the stairs of the castle, they felt a familiar presence which made them stop as realization sunk in. They looked at each other frantically and nodded to each other as they sprinted for the stairs and those that fly flew for the door or a window. They have been bested by Pitch. He was already there, they needed to get there fast before Pitch can corrupt her any further than he already had.

Jack, Toothiana and Sandman were a few feet away from the stairs above the ground when suddenly, out of nowhere, they were grabbed by a very big and cold hand. With one screech, they were flung in front of North and Bunny which were standing still, petrified of what they saw. In front of them was a huge snow giant, it had holes with blue light for eyes, body made of snow and fingers of ice. It had no teeth and tongue, just a big, wide mouth.

"Go away!" it cried at them.

"Sorry mate." The Easter bunny called out, taking out his boomerangs from behind him, North unsheathed his swords, Tooth readied herself for an attack, Sandy brought out his whip and Jack Frost gripped his staff tighter. "But we have to get in there, like it or not!" he threw two of his boomerang at the giant, hitting it on the head. It did nothing to the giant but infuriate him more. With an inhumane scream, it changed its appearance. The thick ice fingers became sharp, pointed claws and jagged icicle teeth. Everyone charged to meet the monster in battle.


"King's knight to d5." Elsa said as she held her chin with sophistication with her elbows resting on her side of the table where the board made of ice and black sand and watched a knight in white armor riding a white horse move. The clinking of its ice hooves against the ice chess board resonated throughout the room until it arrived to the location she mentioned. The body of the horse made from compressed and hard snow so that it would not give way to its rider's weight. Its weapon of choice was an ice sword and snow shield. The knight himself was made of snow but some parts of his armor were made of ice like his helmet, like all of her chess pieces.

Her pieces were kind of medieval. Her pawns were snow wolves, standing proudly on their four feet with their head held high and chest out full of pride. Its faces and whole body made of snow. They had blue crystal-like eyes but had no pupil. Its claws, teeth bared with their fangs jutting out, made of flawless, sharp ice that seemed to gleam and poise to kill at any moment. Her towers or rooks were towers made of ice with archers on top positioned like a compass' north, south, east, west, also made of both ice and snow. Her two bishops looked more like advisers or ministers than priests, staffs on the right hands and scrolls on the left. Sitting elegantly upon a throne made of ice was an ice and snow statuette of her, obviously the queen. Every piece were very detailed, every piece came alive as she commanded them.

If you paid enough close attention on the detail, you would see that all of the pieces bore a crest on them. The pieces on the queen's side you could see a crests of her snowflake on every pieces: on the pendant of the collar of the wolves, the imprint on the towers' walls, on the knight's shield and most noticeable one was the big one above the queen's throne. While on the pieces on the king's side bore a crest of a crocus at the same places the snowflake crest could be found on the pieces in the queen's side.

It wasn't really all that weird, but the one that bothered him the most, the one thing Pitch found bizarre, was the piece she chose to be her king, the figure sitting on the king's throne… was a figure of a happy snowman with its stick hand up like it was gaily waving his hand on him. Every time he glimpses on this piece, his eyebrow involuntary twitches in unreasonable irritation. Like the figure was mocking him, mocking the position and rank of the king. He wanted to crush that annoying piece and replace it as quickly as possible. What annoyed him further was not the destruction of the piece, but on what it would be replaced with. Although it was a chess piece, he was clearly bothered by her choice of king and bothered even frustratingly more was why he even feels that way for something so little.

After surveying her pieces to come up with a counter attack, he surveyed his own pieces. His pieces were made of black sands and shadows. His pawns were little disfigured, ghostly-looking fearlings. His tower looked like an abandoned, haunted tower with gnarly, dried vines that crept on the wall. On top were archers the same position as her archers only they looked humanoid with frightening monstrous heads. One looked like an ogre with his bald head and huge fangs protruding out of his lips. The second one looked like a human with griffin head, another had snake head and tail, the other had dragon head and whiskers while the last one resembled a gargoyle because of his horns, demonic face and bat wings. His knights were his nightmares with their wild mane blowing against the inexistent wind.

His bishops looked like the armored grim reapers. He kinda felt nostalgic as their armors resembled his-no, resembled Kozmotis armor when he was still a general of the Tzar's army. Sitting with his back leaning against the king's throne was a figure of him with his fingers intertwined and elbows resting on the hand rest, what more fitting role could he play. All of the pieces' eyes blazed an ever fiery yellow except for one. His 'queen' sat with her hands on her lap. Even though the details on it indicated it had eyes, it wasn't yellow like the others but pure black. Its long hair flowed wildly down her shoulders. A piece that had intrigued the snow queen as soon as he made it. And she kept on eyeing it even as they played.

"If you have a question in your mind, dear Elsa," His voice flowed like silk rubbing on silk as he stroked his chin while his eyes were kept on the board. "just say it and you might receive an answer, rather than just staring at my 'queen' all throughout our game." He looked up and sure enough, he caught her eyes which were wide in surprise but then avoided his in what he could guess as embarrassment of being caught red handed. The nightmare weaver just smirked at her action. "I must say, it would rather be boring if we continued playing with your mind elsewhere." A deep chuckle emanated from him. "And that would be quite a disappointment since I fight another royalty that is at the same rank as I." He looked back down to the game and ordered. "Bishop takes Knight on d5."

His piece began to move and the miniature horse began to neigh on the incoming enemy. When the bishop was one foot away from it, the knight swung its sword downwards but the bishop side stepped it and swung its scythe, aiming for the horse's neck but the knight managed to block it with his shield. The sound a metal hitting a glass echoed within the ice room. The tip of the scythe pierced the hard snow shield. The blade of the scythe that went through the shield managed to encase the knight's wrist when the black piece tilted it up. With one swift pull, the wrist of the snow knight detached from its whole arm. The cut off part bounced on the board's floor with the destroyed shield.

The knight raised his sword to strike the bishop's head but the bishop was far much faster and tore off the other arm. Using the sharp butt of the staff that held the blade of the scythe, it stabbed the knight on its stomach, its armor shattered with the impact. The scythe wielding bishop raised the handicapped knight high into the air and threw him on the crystal-ice ground. Stepping on the knight's chest, it wrenched out its weapon. The horse was about to retaliate and was about to kick him on the back, but he turned and with one fluid motion the horse laid on the ground, headless. It turned its attention back to its victim and the blade of the scythe rested on the knight's neck. One swift but powerful downward hack, the knight joined the fate of his trusted steed.

The bishop had won, it stayed at the square where it had killed and where the white knight used to stand, then returned to its calmed state. The remains of the white knight and his horse slowly turned to white dust-like snow. The queen grimaced at what she witnessed. Through all the days Pitch had kept visiting her and kept her company she managed to learn two things about him:

One, he was a great strategist, and no doubt a great warrior because of how he played, unintentionally telling her about himself. The nightmare king, unconscious or not, always made strategies that would involve the king moving, sometimes killing. If he was a plain strategist, he would never have done. It was too risky. But ruler/warriors like the both of them, they would always seek to fight. His reason might be different than hers but one thing was for certain. They would never leave themselves out of the fight, never in a million years.

The second one was that Pitch Black always, ALWAYS, wanted gruesome kills. No wonder he was the 'King of Nightmares', he had one twisted, demented mind. But she didn't mind, it was a part of him anyways. She understood. If he didn't have a demented mind, then she could never believe he was what he says he is. He needed that to do his job, nothing personal about it. So she learned to put up with it. She was even amazed that he still retained some intellectuality in him, some identity, some consciousness. Holding all and different fears, retaining those in his mind, would normally erase all traces of sanity and sense of being. Besides, it was a good change of pace in her long and machine-like life. They would argue their opinions and ideals about a topic, matches of challenging battle of chess and scaring some people from time to time. In short, a worthy adversary that could keep her mind sharp and wit fast.

She could never do those things with her best friend and her father figure. Olaf didn't have a thing for chess, his views, opinions and ideals were too naïve for her that it constantly reminded her of her dead sister which would always cause an unbearable pain in her heart. Grand Pabbie was far too busy to be interrupted with the humans destroying the forest every day and all. He needed all his time to fix the forest. She preferred to stay alone within her castle as much as possible and visiting him required leaving her abode and being poked around by the other trolls of her love life, among other things. She still didn't like being in a crowd and the trolls had the tendencies to be 'in your face'. She didn't hate it, just can't get used to it and would very much love to avoid it unless required.

"Well Elsa." The sound of his voice pulling her back to reality. "Ask. I really want for this game to be a game of wits not by half-baked decisions." Sarcasm intertwined with his voice as he haughtily said it. "It makes victory far sweeter than any wine." His smirk turned into taunting smile.

"Your queen." She said softly like contemplating if it was a trap or not. Eyes trained on the piece in question.

"What of it?"

"It's…. not like the others." The blond queen leaned back in her chair as she wrung her wrist. "Her eyes isn't yellow or glowing. Does this mean you have no control over her?" that surprised him a bit, his eyes widen for a second and then returned to normal as he picked up the piece he made.

"She's my daughter." He said as he affectionately traced a finger on the chess piece's hair.

"Your daughter?"

He nodded lazily as he continued stroking its hair. His features softening as he went on. "She is a grown woman now. She makes her own decisions. Truth be told, I want to consider her decisions as a result of her 'rebellious stage'. That she's still a little girl, but she had already grown so much for me to even entertain the idea."

"And her mother?" He raised his eyes from the piece to his companion. Bitterness started to fill him up, with a frown he placed back the queen on its position and sighed.

"I have no idea of what had become of her." Closing his eyes, he breathed in deeply as he tried to call upon Kozmotis' memory. "I only have fragmented memories. I almost have forgotten that I even had a daughter and what she even looks like until I saw her again." With his head tilted up, he leaned back and welcomed the cold feeling from the Ice chair which seemed to ease something inside him but refused to name any of it. "According to her, her mother fell to her end to stage her death so she could escape."

"Good for her." She said so casually that made him infuriated. "Pawn to b4." The snow wolf started moving to the black square as she instructed.

His brows knitted together in irritation, baring his sharp teeth at her. "And what do you mean by that?" his voice went deeper in anger.

But the queen just shrugged and kept her cool, calm disposition, eyes on the board before her. "She had a beautiful death. Quite dramatic for my taste, but still beautiful. She did not waste her life for nothing, and with her death your daughter's life continued. Now your daughter lives not only for herself, but also for her dead mother. Every decision your daughter would make will be well thought out because its consequences will not only affect her and those around her, but also to those who had sacrificed their lives for her to make her come this far. She would do things in honor of her mother and not do things that she knows would make her mother really disappointed or heartbroken. And in the end, she really, truly, fulfilled her role as a mother by protecting her child with her life. That's why there is no need for me to pity you or her. Because I only pity those weaker than me." She gazed at his eyes with a sincere smile on her face that she had never revealed to him before. "Even though I haven't met her and know only from what you told me earlier, both of you don't seem to be weak to me. So I don't really see any reason to pity or sympathize, I only see pride." Her palm cradling her face as she continued. "Besides, she was able to put up with you didn't she. That alone should say something about how strong she really was."

The gray-skinned man stared at her in awe. She really had a deep and complex understanding of things. His respect for her seemed to have increased, recognizing her as commendable opponent. He never was wrong about her, she would make an excellent ally. One that would-

"Che…" his irritation returned tenfold as he sharply snapped his head to the door, eyes burning with hatred and annoyance, all of which did not go unnoticed by the snow bringer. "What do they want now?" he growled with utmost loathing.

"Is something the matter Pitch?" the snow queen inquired a little worried about his reaction. But her question was answered by her snow golem outside.

"Go away!" it roared loudly.

"Intruders." She stated, she was about to stand up but heard Pitch give out a command.

"Pawn to a4." He spat, which made the pale queen sit back down. For the longest she had known him, she began to comprehend some of his…. quirks. This one meant that she should just ignore the ones outside and keep playing, and so she did.


"Ugh! When does this big lug know when to quit!" Jack Frost screamed at the snow golem they were fighting. It had been a few minutes since they started and North managed to tear off its arm while Sandy managed to sever its right leg. It was lying on its stomach. The winter spirit charged and shot his lightning ice on the giant but it rolled towards his severed arm, dodging the attack. It tried to put its arm back, connecting the sockets back together. But the boy did not give up and shot another one. Unfortunately, his lightning hit the socket and managed to freeze it back together. And with its newly attached arm, it backhanded Tooth. Good thing Tooth's reflexes crossed her arms in front of her face before she was hit. She went to the ground hard, burying her deep in the snow.

"JACK!" Everyone shouted in frustration as they turned on him. He smiled apologetically and shrugged. Their attention snagged back to the monster they were fighting as it roared and tried to smash them with one hand. Everyone managed to get out of the way before they were hit.

"Oi! Careful with the stairs! We need that." Bunnymund jumped high in the air and let his boomerangs fly. One hitting the giant snowman on the joint of the newly attached arm and the other one hit it square in the jaw, dislocating it. It roared in rage and continued its attack. It was kneeling with its remaining leg and leaning its weight on the left arm. Tooth flew on the side of its head and spin drop kick its head so hard, a quarter of its face was gone.

It tried to swat her away but she dodged the humongous hand. The five babytooths buzzed around its head to distract it. It tried to swat them away not spotting that the bearded guardian had position his self on its last attached leg. With one stroke of his sword, the leg was sliced of and the monster let out another roar in pain. And with one flick of the sandman's whip the monster was no more.

Every one of them breathed in labored breaths as they tried to regain their lost strength. But then they remembered that the nightmare king was still inside the ice palace with the snow queen. They pushed forward with their body aching and bruises acting up. They were not wounded, it seemed the giant had no intention of killing them just hurting them and push them away.

They anxiously staggered all the way to the top until they reached the double door with the same snowflake the Man In the Moon had shown them. Thinking the doors would be locked and there would be nightmares to fight, Bunnymund kicked the door open. The loud bang of the door vibrated though out the castle. What they saw was very much unexpected. Each of them had their eyes bulging out in disbelief as they gaped at the two figures in front of them.

"Could all of you be a little bit quieter?" an annoyed voice of a woman spoke out, it sounded like tinkling of little bells.

There in front of them were two beings casually sitting, both facing the crystal-like ice table with what looked like chess pieces on top of a board. The man on the left was very familiar to them, his ash gray skin against his black robe shimmered with the light illuminating the place. The one on the right was a woman with elbows resting at the edge of the table, her back straight in a diagonal way. She looked gorgeous and graceful. The way the lights reflect on her pale white skin and platinum blond hair was breathtaking. Well, that was how Jack Frost would describe her. But one thing seemed very odd.

Both of them were relaxed in their seat and comfortable with each other's presence. This was bad for them, the guardians thought as they continued to stare at the two. She never gave them a sideward glance, seemingly giving more importance to what she and he were doing than them. The guardians felt like they were being ignored. They felt that they weren't even relevant or even a threat for them, that the both of them could take them on no problem because the two of them was still stuck in their game and made no indication to even look at them. The shock, awkwardness and confusion of the situation made them immobile and helpless as they continued to gawk at the pair in front of them.

Minutes passed and a groan of annoyance came from the blond woman's throat. She leaned back on her chair, eyes forcefully closed as she sighed. "I can't concentrate with all these eyes staring at me." She whined. The woman crossed her arms under her chest and huffed some of her irritation out. "I really hate it when people stare at me, it makes me feel like I did something wrong or ridiculous."

"Well, you did something peculiar." Pitch grabbed his remaining bishop and waived it in the air. "You're being awfully welcoming with the most evil being on Earth. The King of Nightmares! And you even went as far as playing a game of chess with him this very instant. Getting all comfy in his presence." He sneered and glanced towards their direction while putting the piece back to where it was supposed to be. He chuckled at them when they suddenly stiffened and went tense, ready to pounce on him with so much as a wrong twitch of his finger.

The woman, whom they presumed by now as the snow queen, turned her head tiredly at them and sighed once more. "Are you coming or going? Because I prefer my doors closed and you're letting the cold out."