So, this chapter didn't want to get written... I won't even go into it, there were quite a few issues I had with this one. But at least it's finally done... I have nothing else to say, for once, so I'll let you read now...


The Guardians' tiny cavern was much more animated than it was the day before, as a heated discussion about what to do with Pitch haunting the village was occurring. Tooth suggested that they should watch him for a few nights and see exactly what he's planning to do. Bunny and Jack immediately disagreed with her and claimed that Pitch needed to be stopped before anymore nightmares are had, teenagers or not. As far as Jack knew, North and sandy remained neutral to this point. But maybe they were just stunned that he and the Easter Kangaroo were actually teaming up for once, instead of going at each other's throats after differing opinions came up.

"We've waited long enough!" The Guardian of Fun slammed a fist into the rock wall "And the longer we put off stopping him, the more powerful Pitch'll be when we finally do try it!"

"We can't just wait and do nothin'." Bunny added "Frostbite only saw the teenagers talkin' about this. What if he's goin' after the kids too?"

"All I'm saying is that we should at least figure out Pitch's angle." Tooth assured "If we know exactly what he wants, we can try to weaken him or even trap him before her gets too strong for us."

North finally spoke up "I believe that Tooth has a point." The Tooth Fairy smirked at the comment "But so do you two." He gave Jack and Bunny a nod "We are here for the children, but we are also here for Chronos. If time is messed up, we have no idea what it will do to our present. We must stop Pitch before we allow that to happen."

Sandy made an hourglass above his head with sand falling from the top to the bottom at a rapid speed. When the sand was fully taken by gravity, it all dispersed into particles again.

"We are runnin' out of time…" Bunny sighed "We can't just stand here!" he proclaimed.

"And we won't." The Guardian of Wonder assured. "We will go to village and look for Pitch. Jack, you will keep watch of the teenagers, yes?"

"Count on it." Jack replied with a smile.

"Then let's go!" North declared.

All Guardians but Jack quickly followed him to the exit. The eternal youth's mind trailed to the adolescent Vikings he'd encountered the previous day. What was he going to do? If Pitch was going after his friends for some reason, it was only a matter of time until he was touched by the nightmares too.

North glanced back at Jack and stopped "Jack, is there a problem?"

Jack pulled himself out of his daze "Oh, uh… yeah…" He glanced from North to the ground and back at North "What if one of them can see me? Should I warn them?"

The older man was silent for a moment, bringing his hand up to run his plump fingers through his salt and pepper beard "Can one of them see you, Jack?" He mused.

"I don't know." The frost spirit answered "When I was listening in on them yesterday… it looked like one of them was… looking at me. But I couldn't tell."

"What I say is," North began "if they can see you, yes, warn them. But be as vague as possible. Any major change to timeline and Chronos will be breathing down our necks forever." His advice accepted with a nod from Jack, he proceeded to the world outside the cave with Jack close behind him.


After that encounter with the ghost boy the day before, it was nothing but headache for Hiccup. Turns out, his friends all fled because his "weird behavior" was starting to freak them out. Snotlout even went as far as telling Stoick what was going on with his son. Why was still a mystery, but that only made things worse for the Viking boy. From the moment he walked in the front door, his father was interrogating him about the strange kid that he saw in the ring when no one else did. And his father did the same thing his friends did; asked him questions about what he ate or drank at the party the night before and if he'd gotten enough sleep lately. His answers stayed the same, of course. He didn't know why he could see the guy either, but Hiccup knew that he was really there. Toothless had seen him too, or sensed him. Dragons don't snarl at things that a human's imagination has put there, only things that had a sense of presence. That was the deal breaker for Hiccup; that boy really was there. But there was no sense in trying to prove it. If the auburn-haired teen was the only one who could see him, what would he even argue? The whole village would think he'd lost his mind and they would ship him off to the wrath of the sea gods if he made an effort to discuss what he'd seen in the ring.

Hiccup wandered through the village and felt a strange aura around him. The atmosphere felt only more suffocating when he discovered why there was a more sullen mood about them. He spotted Snotlout talking to Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Astrid about something. Boy, did he seem shaken up. When Hiccup really thought about it, he didn't think he'd ever seen Snotlout's expression the way it was right then. He was constantly looking over his shoulder and he seemed to draw his limbs into himself, as if he was putting on an ever-lasting defensive stance. Astrid and the twins all shared his look of fear, but wore less submissive body language. Their onlooker raised a suspicious eyebrow before advancing towards them, Toothless close behind.

"What's going on?" Hiccup asked.

Almost instantly, Hiccup voice made Snotlout put up a prouder stance and an obviously fake smirk "Astrid just got her revenge on me." He scoffed.

Hiccup paused before continuing "Did you have a nightmare, Snotlout?"

"Yeah…" Some of the cocky teen's façade fell "What of it?"

"Did you see the eyes, like everyone else?" The smaller boy wondered. All his cousin did to respond was nod.

"Is this weird to anyone else, or is it just me?" Ruffnut inquired.

"No, I think you have the right to be worried." Astrid confirmed.

"Worried about bad dreams?" Tuffnut rolled his eyes in unamusement "Yeah, they were freaky, but what else can they really do? It's not like they come to life or anything." He shrugged.

"Maybe you all just miss our dragons." Hiccup suggested.

The other teens looked from one to another blankly, sadness eventually covering their once neutral features.

"Maybe…" Astrid sighed.

"I thought I'd be used to them being gone but…" Ruffnut trailed off.

Snotlout groaned "I'll admit I miss Hookfang being around too." His stare was diverted from his boots to Hiccup "And that explains why you haven't had a nightmare yet!"

"Wh-what?" Hiccup stuttered.

"You're the only person on Berk who has a dragon." His cousin carried on "A Night Fury at that. The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. I bet the bad dreams are even scared of Toothless."

"Snotlout, that's ridiculous." Hiccup retorted "There's no way Toothless would-" Snotlout and Hiccup's banter was suddenly cancelled out by Toothless giving a low growl and hunching his back, to make himself look bigger. "Toothless, what's wrong?"

All of the teens turned their attention to where the dragon was aiming his fierce body language and all but Hiccup seemed to be utterly confused as the black beast pounced and darted after a blur of blue and white.

He heard his friends starting to exchange comment about how his dragon was chasing after nothing, but nothing specific caught Hiccup's attention enough to care. He had a feeling he knew exactly what Toothless was chasing after and he honestly couldn't have been happier that his best friend had seen it again. Without much other thought, Hiccup followed suit; ignoring the calls that came from his peers as they faded into incoherent hums with distance. He did his best to chase down Toothless as he followed the winged blob of black through the village and into the forest. But his plan on keeping up with the massive reptile quickly became nothing more than a black speck in Hiccup's sights before disappearing entirely. After that, the only things the Viking boy could go off of for direction were the paths of trampled snow and branches and the dragon's roars resonating through the array of bared trees; an occasional scream being thrown into the mix of sound. Until, just when Hiccup thought he was closing in… they stopped.

Hiccup picked up speed after that silence fell. One of two things must have happened. Either Toothless had cornered his target or it somehow got away. The latter would normally have been out of the picture but, if Hiccup was correct, the thing being chased by Toothless was the kid that looked like he flew out of the arena the day before. It seemed possible, since the kid moved so fast to begin with. One more snarl from his dragon lead Hiccup to him, finding him standing at the base of a tree, teeth bared and back arched. Another angry rumble echoed from the dragon's throat as Hiccup approached.


This was definitely not how Jack planned on this meeting going. He was just going to follow the group of Vikings around until that kid, what was his name… Hiccup, was alone and then he would see once and for all if this kid could really see him or not. But, alas, Jack seemed to be having a bad luck streak going for him ever since he set foot in this time period. The freckled Viking's stupid dragon was with him again (seriously, Jack began to think they were joined at the hip) and as soon as Jack got close enough to hear them talking, it went berserk and attacked him. Like his immortal life depended on it, Jack sped through the small village and, with the wind's assistance, managed to stay ahead of the bloodthirsty beast for quite some time; enough to get into a deeper part of the forest the surrounded the area. But, of course, Jack's luck turned sour again just as fast as it seemed to be sweet. One bit of messy footing allowed the monster chasing him to reach out a powerful claw and snatch his staff from his trembling hand. Once the staff was removed from his possession, the wind stopped and the winter spirit had no choice but to continue the fight for his hide on foot.

By some miracle, he kept his distance from the dragon long enough to find a tree with lower branches and start a frantic climb to the higher branches. Jack expected there to be even more of a problem from here, since dragons can fly anyway, but he was reacting purely on instinct here. All of those times his mother yelled at him to "get down from there" and he didn't listen were finally paying off. He gripped the last branch strong enough to support his weight like it was his escaping soul. His breathing hitched at random and was otherwise as quick as Bunny's feet during a race.

Then a voice sounded "What was that, bud?" Jack's frenzied heart began to slow as he looked down at the ground and saw that Hiccup boy calming the dragon. The spirit noticed him hold out a hand and the dragon bring its nose up to meet it. And, at that, the creature was almost completely subdued; like nothing ever happened. And it was almost because the moment the teen's green eyes shot up the tree trunk and met Jack, the growling started again. "Toothless." He groaned "It's alright, bud." He smirked up at Jack "Okay, come on down." Jack gave him a quizzical look "He won't hurt 'ya, I swear."

Taking that answer as good enough, Jack began his cautious descent to the snow-ridden forest floor. In retrospect, it should have been easy for the boy who flys through the sky on a daily basis to make his way down from a tree. And that thought would be correct if said boy wasn't still weak in the knees from the dragon attack he'd just endured. He made it down, of course. But he nearly fell on his face a few times and somehow managed to get the back of his hoodie caught on a branch before he finally touched solid ground again. He smiled at the touch of the flakes of winter that were resting under his bare feet and getting in-between his toes.

Jack turned his head back up to meet the boy before him and noticed that he was being given a rather blank look, almost like he was trying to figure something out and making an effort to keep it hidden. "Something wrong?" the Guardian piped up.

"I've seen you before…" The Viking hollowly replied "in the arena…"

"Oh, yeah…" Jack kicked the powdery flakes of snow "That was me."

"And Toothless scared you off yesterday too." The freckled boy continued. Jack nodded "Who are you?" he inquired.

"I'm Jack." The boy with white hair answered, biting his bottom lip afterwards.

"My name's Hiccup." The other answered.

Of course, Jack already knew that, but he couldn't let that go said without some kind of problem or stalker vibe starting. So he simply smiled in response. "Good name." he commented with a chuckle. He held out a hand and Hiccup hesitantly took it to shake. It was strange because the Viking almost seemed shocked that his and Jack's had met. Why, he wasn't sure. But the second the boy noticed Jack studying his face, he neutralized it and seemed to finally register the other's voice.

"Laugh it up." Hiccup drawled, putting his hand back at his side "Frankly, I don't know why anyone would name their kid Jack but I'm not judging."

"You've never met someone with the name Jack before?" The spirit asked.

"Nope." Hiccup plainly responded.

Jack opened his mouth to toss out another remark but then he remembered that he wasn't in his own time. His name had probably not been thought of yet. And, judging by the few names he learned while travelling through the village, they had a long way to go to get there. He sighed "Right. Well, I have something to tell you."

"What?" Hiccup questioned "That you're not going to stop haunting me now?"

Haunting him? Where was all of this coming from, anyway? "No, but someone else is probably going to." He replied, deciding to play along for the time being.

"What do you mean?" The freckled Viking asked.

"Those nightmares your friends have been having," Jack started "They'll come after you sooner or later. Be prepared for them." Hiccup put on a confused look "I'll be around the village for awhile; come and find me if you have one." At that, he ran past the boy and his dragon and into the cover of the trees. Now for the task of re-tracing his steps and finding his staff…


Hiccup wasn't sure he had properly registered what had just happened. First he sees that ghost kid that seems to have been following him for the past few days and now he was warning him about the nightmares? How did he even know about those to begin with? Did spirits just know stuff like that or something? It would make sense he would know, the more Hiccup thought about it. If Jack had really been following him for some time, he would have definitely heard the freckled teen and the others discussing the bad dreams; especially since he saw the strange boy in the ring right after they finished that talk.

He was forced from his thoughts by Toothless nudging at his side. He decided to disregard what had just happened and climbed onto his dragon's back. They took off into the sky seconds later and started their way back to the village. Or, he tried to disregard it. That warning that he was given kept gnawing at the back of his mind for some odd reason, along with Jack's plea to track him down if Hiccup did wind up having a nightmare. It was all so strange and random to the young Viking and yet he sensed the urgency that dusted Jack's voice. But should he really take the advice of something that he was sure was slowly making the town think that he was going crazy? Well, at the very least, he would give this Jack guy the benefit of the doubt and expect him to be right about the dreams. Because, really, what could you do to stop a nightmare from coming?


Pitch waited until the moon was at its highest point in the night sky before he slipped inside the largest house in the village, perched on the top of a hill. This was the home of the last of his teenage sample dish and, he had to say, he was becoming impressed with the nightmares that these very young adults had in their minds. Of course there were a few weak frights in the bunch, but the past two have been a joy to experience. It seems the ones with the strong shells have the most pliable and juicy centers imaginable, just like the candies he had seen in many dreams before he poisoned them with his darkness. He had to remember those two, just in case he needed a little kick of energy or something.

This entry was a trifle more of a challenge due to the fact that this was the only house in the village that had a dragon sleeping under it as well. The last thing that Pitch wanted to do was wake the sleeping monster and awaken his next sample. Whenever humans wake up from a dream and fall back to sleep, the dreams that result are weak and not very interesting at all. Deep sleep is the best condition to pick at their relaxed minds and corrupt their thoughts to his liking.

But even so, this next teenager… he couldn't say he was looking forward to scaring. He was just so… pathetic looking, especially now that the Nightmare King was looming over him as he slept soundly. He was a scrawny little thing, to say the least. He sure didn't look like he held any real surprising fears or nightmares. But Pitch had learned very quickly that the scaring business was very tricky. Sometimes, he'd hope for a jolt of power to come from the biggest, toughest child he could find and be utterly disappointed when he discovered that they were afraid of spiders and still slept with a nightlight flickering in the corner of the room. But there were also cases where the least likely of the bunch held the best treasures inside their tortured souls. This was why Pitch had saved this sample for last; in hopes that he would get even a tiny surprise out of him before moving on to the adults of the village who, judging by their lack of limbs, had fantastic stories locked away in their subconscious'.

And he found not long after corrupting the skinny Viking boy's dream that his hopes were going to be met perfectly. The dark purple sand began to tell a tale that its wielder hadn't exactly expected from this next victim. The boy was standing before a much larger man, almost pleading for his attention, and the man had none of it. He waved the boy off and stepped back into the barriers of the sand, leaving the figure of the boy alone.

"Dad…" He heard the kid mumble in his sleep "no…" He took in a sharp breath as the sand changed form and showed what looked like a ceremony of some kind. Pitch paid close attention to the stage, where he noted the same man was standing next to the burlier boy he'd terrified the previous night. This time, the kid was standing proudly rather than being the unfortunate joke that Pitch had made him in his own nightmare. The man held up his arm proudly and the rest of the crowd cheered. All… except for the victim of the nightmare, who was standing a distance away from the massive group of people and holding a tied bag in one hand.

The scene changed once more, much to Pitch's delight, to see the two teen boys standing before one another. Last night's victim was wearing a smug smirk as he spoke. Pitch read his lips to say "You know the deal; now get out of here… Useless." A laugh followed the last word and he walked away with a skip in his gait. His form vanished into the walls of sand and left the host of the nightmare alone once again. He fell to his knees in the nightmare as the giver witnessed a tear roll down the boy's cheek in reality. He also noticed that the kid was curled up into himself and shaking ever so slightly. Some serious fear was just seeping from the boy as, to Pitch's surprise again, the scenery changed to the child alone on a very badly built boat, floating aimlessly through the waves of the ocean.

The boy muttered "No…" once more and another tear fell down his face before the sand depleted and vanished into Pitch's hand.

His golden eyes light up light searchlights while the power taken from the horribly delightful story he had created settled within him. He took a deep breath in and sighed with the utmost satisfaction. He glared down at his latest victim and relished in the slight twitches and jerks he made unconsciously, in a desperate effort to thwart off the scare he had just been given. A devious laugh emitted from Pitch's lips as he sauntered back through the window on weightless feet and disappeared into the night with a laugh.

Oh, what a fantastic surge of power that fishbone of a boy held within him! That was by far better than even his best hopes for that encounter to go. He knew, for sure, that the child would become a regular host for the Nightmare King, should he not find any more amazingly twisted minds to wring for suffering. He felt energized, warmed up and ready to take on his prime targets and start building his army of nightmares once again. He was confident that if he kept gaining power like this, the next time he met the Guardians, they would be the ones sent into the hole in the ground!

The only thing he didn't know was that a set of blue eyes were following his retreating form. They narrowed in the darkness, ready to strike, until sense overcame them and their owner dashed from the branch he was resting on and retreated into the shadows.