So this may start off slightly humorous, but it is NOT. I was really sad writing this chapter. :(

But it WILL get better, I promise.

Jack: You don't know that.

Me: I'm the writer. I actually DO.

Okay, so thanks to Seryyth, Melantha Frost, and Fandomrandom.


"Wait, where's Rudolph?" Starla scanned the eight reindeer hooked up to the sleigh.

North looked at her like she was insane. "Vat?"

Starla sang the reindeer song really quick so maybe North would get it: " 'You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen, but do you recall the most famous reindeer of all?'"

North was blank. "Who is the most famous reindeer?"
"Rudolph!" Starla exclaimed. "Y'know: 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, had a very shiny nose. And if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows'—"

"A red nose?" North was incredulous as Tooth, Bunnymund, Sandy and Jack loaded into the big shiny red sleigh. "Physically impossible for reindeer. Who wrote this song?! Vat else does it say about my reindeer?"
Weakly, Starla continued: " 'All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names; they never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games.'"

"Aww," said Tooth, making a sad face.

"I don't blame them," North grumbled. "After all, he had a red nose."
"So do you," Jack pointed out.

"DOES MY NOSE GLOW, JACK?" North demanded.

"WE HAVE TO GO!" yelled Bunny. "The children are in trouble!"
"Ve are not done vith this conversation," said North, glaring at Starla. "Ve vill finish when we get back."
As the reindeer ran at top speed down the ice tunnels, North looked at Starla. "Vat happens next? In the song?"
Starla sighed. "You supposedly asked Rudolph if he could guide your sleigh because you loved his shiny nose."
North shook his head. "Just what I need. I look like a..."
"Sissy?" Bunny offered.
"SISSY!" North boomed. "I am writing strongly vorded letter to the person who wrote this reindeer song. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."
"Kids all over the world know the song," Jack told North. "Jamie knows it. He sings it every year with his family—it's a tradition."
North pulled out a snowglobe, ignoring Jack and Starla, and whispered into it: "Burgess."
They entered the snowglobe, hurtling through space and time until they spun above the small town known as Burgess, where Jamie Bennett lived.

Starla gasped when she saw the damage already done.

The entire place was black, and Nightmares paced around yards. Pitch Black was nowhere to be seen, but the Nightmares were crawling around like roaches.

"Ve are not too late!" North said, delighted. "But ve must move. NOW!"
The Guardians got out of the sleigh and ran towards the neighborhood, not wasting a second that could cost a child its life.


Bunnymund jumped over roofs, his boomerang in hand. He shot it precisely, aiming perfectly, taking out about 5 side by side Nightmares at once.

"Take that, ya bloody ponies," he laughed, jumping over roofs to catch his boomerang.

Easter. That's your holiday, isn't it, Rabbit?
Bunnymund stopped abruptly, cocking his ears to listen. He whirled around to see Pitch.

He felt a raging pain and saw a Nightmare directly behind him.

The Nightmare was taking Bunny's shadow.

Bunny gasped and tried to get away.

He felt ripping pain surge throughout his entire body, and then the next thing he knew, he felt like a part of him was missing and floating in the Etherium.

He couldn't see correctly, and his boomerangs were gone. He was lying flat on his face on the ground, and he tilted his furry face up to see Pitch smiling.

Pitch pressed Bunny's shadow to his long black robe, and Bunny automatically heard what Pitch was saying.

Your greatest fear, Rabbit. I can read you—every thought, every emotion, every feeling, every desire, every secret, every FEAR. You're most afraid of winter ruining your Easter like that dreadful, dreadful '68 blizzard. Oh my, oh my.

Bunny gritted his teeth. "Pitch, you—" He collapsed again, energy lost.

Pitch smiled. Can you hear me? I'm not speaking to you. These are MY thoughts, Rabbit. Do you want to know how it works?
Bunnymund groaned. "Stop. Please—"

Pitch opened his mouth in a snarl. "It hurts, doesn't it? To be hearing MY voice in your head all the time? See, shadows are still connected, in a way, to its host body even after being..." Pitch made the motion of tearing with his long spindly fingers. "...ripped out of the host's body."
Bunny twitched on the ground, moaning as he realized what was happening. His shadow was gone. Under Pitch's control.

"See, Rabbit," said Pitch. "So when your shadow attaches to me, you can hear my thoughts. Well, just the ones directed to you." He smiled gleefully. "It all seems a bit weird and unbelievable, but believe me, it works." He narrowed his brow-bones. "I've had a few years under dusty beds to think about it, haven't I? And I've stolen many child-shadows over the globe already. And now, I can use my Nightmares to steal them for me! I can just sit back, put my feet up, and hear the distressed screaming." Pitch grinned. "Pure joy for a spirit like me."
Bunny lay still.
Pitch leaned forward. "And just like that, I have taken out one of the Guardians." He snickered.
"One down, four to go."
He heard a gasp behind him, and saw the Tooth Fairy. She shot something at him, something out of a wand, that would've exploded him had he not dodged.

"Hello, little fairy." Pitch sneered as she stared, shocked, at the Easter Bunny's fallen form.

Tooth whirled around. "PITCH!"

Pitch dodged as nimbly as he had before. Suddenly, he felt a golden whip grab his wrist tightly.

Sandman. Oh, no.

As Sandy whipped Pitch around, Tooth knelt next to Bunny. "Oh, no!" she cried. Big tears ran out of her violet shimmery eyes. "North!" she screamed. "Jack! Starla! Somebody!"
It was Starla who saw first.

"Bunny!" she shouted, and realized he was stretched out on the ground, his eyes shut. Was he dead? Starla's heart began to race. She shot for Tooth's kneeling shape.

A Nightmare was directly behind Toothiana.

"Tooth! Tooth, ohmygosh, Tooth, turn around!" shrieked Starla. "Oh, please, please, please, God, let me get there in time—" Starla spotted Jack freezing Nightmares in the middle of the black fray.

"Jack!" yelled Starla. She pointed at Tooth and Bunnymund on the ground, and Jack gasped.

Starla looked for North. She couldn't find him here, but she shot for Tooth and Bunny anyway.

The Nightmare was leaning forward.
"Oh, God!" Starla flew as fast as she could.

It wasn't fast enough.

The Nightmare clamped down on Tooth's shadow and began to yank it out.

Tooth screamed, a shrill bird-like sound that echoed through the entire town of Burgess.

"Get away from her!" Starla reached out, light beams shooting from her palm, but she missed since she was shaking so much.

The Nightmare stopped. Half of Tooth's shadow was twitching like a fish out of water on the ground. The other half was attached to her body.

Tooth's violet eyes were shut as she lay on the ground, moaning.

Starla shot her light beams, tears flowing, and the Nightmare vanished.

"Oh, no!" Starla bent down to try and attach Tooth's shadow again, but there was a yanking sound and she whirled around to see the Boogeyman.

He smiled maliciously. "Hello, Starla."
"Get the hell away from me!" Starla clung to Tooth's shadow, not willing to let go. "What have you done to them?!"
Pitch smiled. "They'll be fine." He chuckled then. "No, they won't. Soon, as the Tooth Fairy doesn't come, and there's no Easter, the children will just stop believing. And one day, the Guardians will wake up and see—" Pitch shrugged in mock sorrow. "There is no Bunny. Or little fairies that come in the night to pick up your teeth."
"NO!" Starla yelled, but Pitch yanked with all his might and pulled the shadow away from her.

Starla whirled around. Tooth's body was unresponsive even as she desperately shook it to try and get the fairy to open her wide purple eyes.

When she looked back, Pitch was vanishing, and he giggled like a child, pointing to something. "You might want to run."

Starla looked up and saw the Nightmares descending like a tidal wave upon them in the starless night. Even Man in Moon had deserted them—there was no moon tonight.

Starla let out a scream and held up her hands. She formed a feeble shield that protected Tooth and Bunny's bodies as well as hers from the incoming Nightmares.

Just then, from within the blackness, Starla saw blue light rising.

Suddenly, the Nightmares had exploded into what seemed like nothing but ash, and all that was left was a fallen North and a grim Jack Frost.

Sandy was up on the rooftop, his golden whips fluttering.

North raised himself by his two gleaming swords and rushed to Starla. "Are you hurt?!" he demanded.

Starla was sobbing, which she hated because it was emotion emotion emotion! She couldn't breathe, just covered her face with her hands and cried. Cried for Tooth and Bunnymund, fierce warriors that had not been able to defend themselves against the powers of darkness.

Jack was kneeling next to her, his arm weakly around her shoulders. Despite herself, Starla cried, not touching him back, merely pressed her face to her knees.

"Starla, Starla—" North's eyes were sad. "Starla, get ahold of yourself."
Sandy had arrived and he touched her shoulder with a warm hand. He made pictures above his head, and North translated: "He vas taking care of Pitch—but Pitch got avay like the sneaky snake he is." North glared at the bodies of Tooth and Bunny.

Starla shook her head. "I w-was so c-close," she whispered. "I could have saved Tooth. I could've. But he was—stronger." Starla closed her eyes, quieting her sobs, but letting tears leak out.

North sucked in air. "Let us get back to the Pole."
Jack looked at him, blue eyes worried. "Can we help Bunny and Tooth?"
North's sad eyes gave Starla the exact answer she couldn't bear to hear:
No.


Hope you guys liked it!

PLEASE REVIEW!

Jack: This was depressing.

Me: I TOLD YOU FROSTY IT WILL GET BETTER. *sobs hysterically*

Jack: TT_TT