"How did this happen?! That horse, as you say, was so close to us, you sensed it and no one else did?! Half of my myths are practically hanging from the crystals on the ceiling and none of them noticed it?!" The crystal creatures recoiled in the shadows in fear, watching warily their mistress throwing a tantrum.
And with good reason. A giant cavern full of mythical beings shouldn't be easy to spy on and yet, she was now being informed that another spiritual deity had learned everything that had taken place in her cave the moment she had stepped inside it. She felt the tiny pieces of black crystal swirling around her fingers, her feelings seeping into her magic and threatening to act on impulse.
A few screeches were heard as her creations tried to find a place to hide, the hellhound in front of her laying on the floor with its tail between its legs and ears dropped down, not daring to try and leave, no matter how much it wanted to. She stared at its fearful position for moments that felt like centuries before she inhaled deeply through her nostrils to calm herself. The crystals disappeared from her hands.
"What can you tell me about that spirit?" she asked in a much calmer voice than before. The hellhound visibly relaxed, the tiniest of bits, slowly standing back up and twitching its ears the slightest bit. The tail, though, remained fearfully between its hind legs.
It was a very dark spirit, mistress. It lives in a hole, deep underground. His lair is too dark, maybe even more than yours. From what I could see, he wears black clothes and his skin is...grey.
She frowned, confused. "Grey skin...So, we have the opposite of the Guardians, in a way. That might not be as a big problem as I had thought..."
If only I knew who he is...
"Anything else?" she crossed her arms over her chest, raising a criticizing eyebrow at the close to trembling creature before her.
The hellhound looked to the ground for a moment, replaying its brief moments in the dark spirit's lair, before looking back up at her.
One more thing, mistress. That black horse, his servant, was made of black sand...but it had golden eyes.
Angel's eyebrows shot up into her hairline. The description was mildly familiar to her. In fact, she had seen something similar to what the hellhound was saying just a few hours ago. A similar horse, in a smaller size, galloping above a child's head in the place of a pleasant dream.
Both creatures were made of black sand, one of them was giving that child a nightmare... Except if...if those horses were nightmares. It would explain the golden eyes if nightmare sand conjures dream sand...
The hellish dog shifted on its paws, looking nervously around, but not daring to move away yet. Realizing that she had been lost in her thoughts, she reached out and placed a gentle hand upon its head, stroking it. The creature winced at first, thinking that it was in danger, before it leaned against her touch, its tail wagging behind it. She motioned with her head further inside the cave, where the other creatures were residing. "You did well. Go to your pack."
With a small lick to her fingertips, it dashed towards the darkness to meet its friends. Angel walked slowly over to her throne and seated herself on its arm, her feet resting on the seat. She rubbed her temple in an attempt to ease the rushing, irrelevant thoughts running through her head.
If those nightmares were originally golden sand...then it is very possible that the new addition to the group isn't very likable from the Guardians' perceptive... But, it's too soon to assume anything of the sort...
She glanced up to meet the ever sneaking Reaper standing in front of her with a curious expression on his face. She studied his face and gave him her command. "You must be on the lookout for any other spies of that man. Now that he knows where I reside and what I am being occupied with, I expect from him to attempt something very soon."
Though, I don't know what.
Reaper nodded stiffly, comprehending the severity of the situation. She turned her eyes to the dark parts of the ceiling and spoke to the cave and the rest of the residents. "This goes for all of you too. Don't let anyone spy on me again. We don't want anyone to ruin the surprise now, do we?"
Cries and screeches of enthusiasm echoed around the cave walls, creating a havoc that hardly bothered the woman in the center of it all. Her servants were rejoicing over the upcoming action that was to happen soon and their mistress could only smile evilly at their eagerness, her amethyst orbs shining brighter than all the others in the inky darkness of the cave.
The sun was high in the sky, shining brightly upon the earth and warming up the parts of the ground that were still cold, thanks to Jack Frost's constant visits in Burgess. The green of the woods was more vivid than any other time, a few colorful flowers here and there adding to the beauty of nature.
Around the recently placed tables were gathered numerous children, some with their parents, some without. Some knew each other, some others didn't. The one thing they had in common, though, was the purpose of their arrival in the middle of the woods. After all, the Easter Egg Hunt was an event that few kids didn't care to miss.
As more and more kids were arriving at the start, a good few feet away from the preparations, a stallion huffed impatiently behind the trees as it eyed the place around it suspiciously. The Horseman bent forward and patted his horse gently on the neck to calm it down. He could understand the stallion's behavior.
Two days. It had been two days since his mistress had sent him to find the Warren, but he had found nothing valuable, let alone the Warren itself. He couldn't and wouldn't return emptyhanded, but he was running out of time and he knew it very well. Even though his mistress had never mentioned a time limit, he knew that she had postponed her visit to the Tooth palace those past two days until his return and he knew that there was only so much she could accept.
Sensing the slightest bit of change in the forest's aura around him, the Horseman scanned the woods with his non-existent gaze, searching for the oversized bunny. As the egg hunt started and the first eggs were discovered, the stallion huffed once more and stomped the ground with its front right hoof. The Horseman turned to the direction the horse had shown him and spotted a bluish patch of what appeared to be fur between the many leaves of a bush.
If he had his head, anyone around would have seen him smile. Pushing the stallion forward, he trotted behind the retreating form of Bunnymund, which included entering a secret tunnel behind him. The Horseman knew that it wasn't a wise decision to take so long for him to find the Easter Bunny, but he knew that the sure place to find him would be the egg hunt.
A few moments of following Bunnymund around brought the Headless man inside the Warren, somehow without getting the attention of Bunny. At the end of the tunnel, he stood in the shadows to remain hidden and examined the colorful nature of the Warren. A branch breaking under the stallion's hoof was enough to alert Bunny. Before the Guardian of Hope was ready to turn around, the Horseman turned his horse and shot through the tunnel, out of the woods and into the sky, galloping to inform Angel about his success.
It wasn't hard to find her. She was leaning against a tree at the end of the woods, gazing lazily at the playground a few feet away from her. Since her last failed attempt to make children believe in her, the number 739 on the list of failed attempts, she had simply settled for her plan to be complete, so she had no reason to try anything with those kids today.
The Headless Horseman brought his stallion to land beside her and bent down to whisper in her ear. Angel's unmoving lips slowly curled upward as the Horseman finished his report. She kept looking at the kids ahead of her. "You had me worried with all this wait. But, as always, you've met my expectations."
She pushed herself off of the tree she had been leaning against and turned to face him. "Well, better not let our little fairy wait anymore. Go and tell the others to not be late."
The smirk still present on her face, she brought two fingers of her right hand to the ends of her skirts and slowly dragged them up to her collarbone, her touch leaving a trail of her black crystal that spread all over her body before breaking into tiny pieces that shot up in the air as a small wave of shining black. The Horseman stared at the wave before he turned his stallion and galloped towards the cave to fulfill his task.
"Jack, are you sure about this? You don't even know her name." Tooth flew around Jack nervously, her wings flapping a bit faster than usual.
"I had told her about my center being Fun before I asked her name. I think she refused to tell me so she could amuse me. Really Tooth, there's nothing to be worried about. From the little that I know her, she doesn't look like a threat." he smiled an easy smile, leaning against his staff. Tooth glanced around at her busy fairies, not less uneasy.
"Still, it's been two days since you said she would visit. Doesn't that look a little suspicious to you?" she asked, bright magenta orbs turning to meet his icy blue ones.
"Yes, Jack. Doesn't that look a little suspicious to you?"
Both Guardians turned with a gasp to one of the higher platforms of the Tooth Palace, where there weren't any fairies, to see none other than the woman herself standing on it and gazing down at them with what appeared to be an easy smirk. The winter spirit smiled at the sight of her, chuckling at how easily she had sneaked up on them. The woman beside him, as well as all the other fairies, was anything but happy to see the new spirit.
"So, you finally decided to come?" he asked, flying up to her level. Angel spared Toothiana a last glance, hiding the satisfaction of seeing the fairy so nervous, and turned her attention to Jack. "I apologize for my lateness. I was trying to gain a few believers and lost track of time. Yes, Jack, for two days. Being a spirit makes the time seem less and less important."
He passed a hand through his hair, a knowing look on his face. "Tell me about it."
The dark woman turned to the other Guardian, noticing that the mini fairies were eyeing her warily, just like their mistress. She offered Tooth one of her best, fake smiles. "I also apologize for entering without knocking, Toothiana. I couldn't really find the door."
Sensing no strange auras around the new woman, Tooth allowed herself to relax and smiled sheepishly, rubbing her arm with one hand. "Don't worry about it, there is no door anyway... I am so happy to not be the only girl around here anymore! You can call me Tooth."
Angel chuckled as the fairy flew up to her level beside Jack. "I guess we will become good friends then, Tooth. So, this is where all the teeth go? I could never imagine..."
Tooth's eyes brightened. "Yes, here we keep everything. You can't imagine how much work we do every night."
Angel nodded. "I have a small idea. Jack made sure to inform me of a few things about teeth, though he did so quite poorly."
"Hey!" Jack complained, getting between the two. "I am not an expert on teeth, but I explained how they work pretty clear to you."
"That's what you think-Oh, hello." She gave a polite smile at the three mini fairies that decided to examine her face from a shorter distance. The three little fairies welcomed her with squeals and flew around her head, some of them even touching her raven hair. Angel forced a laugh out of her throat. "Curious creatures, I see. They act like you, Tooth, if not a bit more... openly."
Tooth bounced in the air. "You could say that they are a part of me."
"That's the best way to describe them." she commented, a flash of black just out of her peripheral view making her eyes widened the slightest bit. "I don't believe I have introduced myself to you still, have I?"
The two spirits were caught off guard, seeing that they had forgotten about that little detail. "Uh, yeah...you haven't."
"How silly I am..." She smiled and looked up at the fairies around the palace, raising her voice and catching their attention. "Everyone, I am Angel Myth. Nice to meet you all!"
The fairies and the Guardians present returned the smile and greeted her the best way they knew of, too distracted to see the two-headed crystal lion sneaking inside the palace, along with other peculiar creatures, and hiding between the rocks.
"Myth, you say?" Angel turned at the sound of Tooth's voice, seeing that the two spirits had frowns on their faces, the previous smiles now gone for good.
You're getting close, aren't you?
She smiled innocently. "Yeah, that's my name."
Jack took a small step forward. "What's your power, Angel?"
She couldn't help it. Maybe it wasn't even needed anymore. Either way, the excitement to see all their previous friendliness falling apart was too much for her to keep up her act. Her smile twisted so much that she looked like something right out of hell. "Why, my name answers your question, Jack. I bring myths and legends, all the stories people read to each other, in life."
Every creature inside the palace drew back in shock at the sudden change in attitude. The gears in the two Guardians' minds started turning at last, eyes slowly widening in realization. It made Angel all the more excited. She turned to the side and placed a single finger on the golden surface of a pillar, slowly dragging it down to reveal the trail of black crystal slowly spreading over the gold. "Does this look familiar?"
Now the two were a few good feet away from her, in fighting positions. The fairies around the palace were flying frantically around, trying to find refuge. Jack spoke first. "What do you want?"
Angel smiled widely at his unfriendly tone. "That's a very easy question, with an even easier answer to guess, Jack. Why don't you find out by using your mind, for a change?"
Jack narrowed his eyes into a glare, his grip on his staff tightening. "Believers."
"Bingo!" she chuckled, snapping her fingers for emphasis. "I have to thank you, Jack. Without your help, I wouldn't have had the chance to come here so easily, let alone have so much fun by messing around with you."
Jack's glare slipped to a look of regret as her words reminded him of Tooth's uneasiness about the new spirit. How he had brushed it off, assuring her that there was nothing to be worried about. How stupid he was.
Tooth flew a couple of feet forward, looking bravely Angel in the eyes. "What did you do to North's workshop?"
The dark woman laughed, tilting her head to the side in an almost playful manner. "Why, the same thing that I'm going to do to this palace, dear Tooth. Change of management."
At the last sentence, a massive crowd of black crystal creatures jumped out from behind rocks on every side of the palace and ran around the place, snarling and growling at anything that stood in their way, scaring away the mini fairies and creating a havoc. The two Guardians were caught off guard and knocked to one of the lowest platforms, away from Angel. Until they managed to stand back up, the mythical beings had already started covering the palace in black crystal.
Tooth flew up to stop them but was blocked by a wave of other beings, clearly there to make sure that their companions did their job without interruptions, who attacked her. It wasn't something she couldn't handle, smashing a lot of them into tiny pieces that faded away, but the amount was too big for her to reach the others who were ruining her home.
Jack was shooting beams of ice all around him, hitting most of the creatures. To his surprise, though, it was taking him more than a single hit to actually destroy them. They weren't like black sand, like Pitch's nightmares. Those things were something stronger than that.
Glancing up to find the source of those beings, he saw Angel on the back of a Pegasus smirking down at him. He glared up at her in return.
"Have fun, Guardians! This is only the beginning!" she laughed chillingly before the Pegasus dived in the void and flew away, leaving the two spirits to the mercy of the other monstrosities.
In all that havoc, no one noticed the two-headed lion sneaking away with three tooth boxes.
Chimaira ran in the air, her body bending and stretching with her legs as she made her way over cities and countries, heading for the Burgess' secret cave. Her lion body was leaping easily over rooftops, carrying her at a fast pace towards her destination. Her two mouths were holding two tooth boxes, a third one being held in her tail.
Chimaira visibly relaxed at the sight of the familiar town of Burgess and further away, the woods. She was close. In a matter of minutes, her mission would be complete. She ran on a roof and leaped off of the edge, going for the road.
A flash of black crashed to her side, sending Chimaira on her back to the pavement below. She growled in discomfort, clutching the boxes tighter than before. Rolling back up to her feet, she looked around, her senses on high alert.
"Such a peculiar creature you are."
Chimaera's two sets of ears perked up at the bodyless voice, the lion head looking right and the goat head looking left. Sensing the hungry for fear darkness rising, she bared her claws and made for the woods. Before she was more than a couple of feet away from the street, the snake that was her tail hissed warningly. The beast turned abruptly and brought her paw down on the head of a black horse, the hit destroying it to sand.
"Smart beast..." The voice echoed around Chimaera as her heads spotted half a dozen horses made of black sand closing in on her from all sides. They glared at her with bright golden eyes, huffing, and snorting. "... Are you afraid?"
A tall man clad in shadows stepped out of the dark and came to stand behind the horses, smirking smugly at Chimaera. She kept backing away, looking around for any small opening she could find to escape. But, as the nightmares kept coming closer and her back hit a solid wall, she had nothing else to do than lean away from them, hind legs bending and ears dropping down in fear. The man chuckled. "That's what I thought."
One by one, the nightmares ran at her, crashing against her heads and body, making her stumble right and left. Chimaera whimpered in her throats, the snake replacing a tail coiling fearfully to itself. Another nightmare came at her, bumped its head against her goat head so hard that the tooth box fell from her mouth and rolled to the street with clinking noises.
Chimaera froze when she realized what had happened. Before she was able to launch at it, a nightmare snatched it with its mouth and swallowed it. Chimaera's heads looked around at the other nightmares, her three sets of eyes settling on the man in charge of them. He still had the smug grin on his face, only now he looked more pleased than before, the nightmare with the tooth box in its belly standing beside him.
Realizing what the man was after, Chimaera crouched down and adjusted her legs at a better position. She looked at her opponents with newfound determination, refusing to fail her mistress. With a simple tip of her lion head and snake, she swallowed the other two tooth boxes, keeping them safe in her stomach. Then she growled at the nightmares, daring them to try anything with her.
The nightmares were taken aback by the sudden actions of the beast, looking at each other in confusion. Pitch himself was surprised as well. But, he wasn't someone who would give up so easily.
"Take the rest."
It was only a murmur, but it was enough to settle the nightmares in action. They neighed loudly and charged at her, all at the same time. Chimaira herself roared loudly and attacked, landing on the back of a nightmare, while her heads grabbed two others by the neck and her snake bit another one on the nose. The nightmares screeched as they turned to sand.
Chimaira had regained her courage. She was lashing out at the horses, biting, scratching and hitting them, clawing her way towards the one nightmare with the tooth box in its stomach. The nightmare turned to flee when she knocked another horse out of her way and leaped in the air, landing in front of the nightmare. The horse screeched loudly and backed away, its comrades coming to its rescue and blocking Chimaira from reaching out to it.
Seeing that she was outnumbered by far and that she was taking too long, Chimaira roared threateningly at them one last time and shot out towards the woods, disappearing between the trees. Pitch glared at the spot where the beast had disappeared, his hands balled into fists. "You let it escape."
His nightmare approached him hesitantly and dropped the tooth box from its mouth to his hand. Pitch glanced at the face that was drawn on it and allowed his frown to morph into a crooked smile. "But maybe, you took the most valuable of the three."
Where is she anyway?
Angel kicked a rock with her foot, sending it into the small river. Chimaira should have returned by now, and yet she wasn't here. The spirit sat on a big rock by the riverside, her chin resting on her hand. This delay was unnerving her more than she would like to admit. Thankfully she had thought to meet up with her servant somewhere away from her residence, so as to avoid having the Guardians find out.
If she isn't back in five minutes, I will send someone to look for her.
She glanced down at her reflection on the river's surface, examining absent mindedly her looks. Ten years after the end of her mortal life, she still couldn't help but compare her current self to what she originally was.
Is it really a good change? Or is it just a facade of something darker?
Her hands reached out to the fresh water, fingers lingering a moment longer inside the cool embrance of the liquid before cupping a small amount and splashing it to her face. She tipped her head towards the sky, keeping her eyes closed and feeling every single cold droplet that ran down her throat to the lines of her collarbone and the curves of her breasts.
Her eyelids opened tentatively, her orbs glancing at her reflection. It was the same as before. Nothing had changed, not even the makeup on her eyes and lips, which was a part of her from the moment of her spiritual birth. She almost felt disappointed at the result.
Why did I expect something different? It's not like I knew what I expected.
A low growl had her looking up at the trees surrounding her. The surprise on her face turned to relief when she spotted the familiar two headed beast approaching her. She stood up swiftly and stroke its heads, her signature smirk returning. "What took you so long, Chimaira?"
The beast looked into its mistress' eyes and explained with telepathy what happened. Angel's smirk turned to a frown as Chimaira's story came to a conclusion, taking the two tooth boxes in her hands. "Only two...I see."
Chimaira bent her heads in embarrassment, then the snake reached up to Angel's ear and hissed softly. The spirit's eyes widened a small fraction at what she heard and gave the beast a silent command. Chimaira nodded and left as fast as she had arrived.
Angel's eyes turned to look behind her at the darkness of the forest, her crystals wrapping around the boxes in her hands and consuming them, teleporting them to her cave. She stayed at the same place, unmoving and silent, waiting for something to happen. When she didn't notice anything unusual, she slowly started walking away, her mind drifting momentary to the boxes.
My tooth box is missing. But at least I have the two most important...
But will I be able to handle what the teeth will show me?
She felt a squeeze at the pit of her stomach at the thought.
"Your fear has such a unique taste, my dear. Pity, I have tasted so little of it."
She froze in place, a small devilish smile overtaking her features. She turned around and spoke to the darkness of the woods. "Fear? You say I am afraid, yet you are the one who is hiding."
A moment later, she was forced to back up against a tree at the close proximity of a pair of eclipse golden eyes that appeared out of nowhere in front of her.
"Is this better?"
