Hello again you amazing people!

I´m back from vacation and brought a new chapter with me. But first of all a great applause for the amazing KorrieChan and her awesome CoverImage! Thank you so, so much!

So now, reviews!

KorrieChan: Again, thank you (gives you a big hug), and this one is longer, hope you enjoy it!

TyanataDraven: Thanks for your advise, and yes, I did enjoy easter!

WinterCrystal: Wow, such a long review! I´m amazed! About the grammar, I´m sorry. I don´t have a Beta-Reader and English isn´t my real language, so sorry...But thank you for your lovely words! I´m so happy you like it!

Guest: If you keep reading, you´ll know...

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AM I THE: You´re 79 if I´ve counted right.

PinkCherryblosom: As always, so sorry, I still don´t have a Beta-Reader!

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RamdomGuy: Oh no, no, no! Don´t you even dare to die on my story! Here´s the update but stay alive!

SexySmurf: AS I already said...I have none and no idea how to get one...

So now enjoy the next chapter like always(I still don´t own Rise of the Guardians by the way) and review!

Chapter 10: Pitchs Lair

When they reached the sleigh, Jack looked not really pleased, especially because the same reindeer stared at him again, but this time a little bit more tensed, because Jack had took the Baseball-Bat with him. "Do they do that all the time?" he asked North who chuckeled as an answer and shook his head. He lead the boy to one of the backseats where soon the other Guardians -except Bunny- took a seat, too. Said Easter Bunny looked not really happy: "North, nothing against ya, but I´ll take my tunnels. They might be faster...and safer." North rolled his eyes and put the protesting Pooka without former discussion next to Jack. He smiled and gave the reindeers the signal to start, while advising: "Buckle up!"

Aster gripped hart to his seat: "There are still no bloody seatbelts!" "And this is still just an expression!" answered North and the sleigh started to move. Jack got pale and held tight to his side of the sleigh. Aster, not really happy with his situation, but gla to see the boy a little scared like was, teased him: "Scared, Jack?" The teenager forced a smile on his face and turned his face to Aster, still holding bat and sleigh tight: "Nope, just a little uncomfortable, after all I would surely not survive falling out of this. And don´t call me Jack! It´s just for my friends!" Aster blinked suprised to this answer, but before he could say anything else the sleigh started to fly.

Baby Tooth saw the distressed face Jack made when the sleigh started to fly and flew to his face taking his thoughts on her. He blinked when she winked. "Umm...hello..." he tried and she snuggels against his left cheek as an answer, always looking in the ice-blue of his left eye. She was, when she saw him, instantly sure who he really was. He was her rescuer and best friend who she had missed for so long. Jack, not really knowing what to do with the little fairy looks searching for help at Tooth and Sandy. Both Guardians smile warmly at the boy and Toothiana explains: "Jack, this is Baby Tooth. I think she likes you." Jack noded, surprised of this revealment and –instead of correcting her- he looked at the little fairy. "Hello, Baby Tooth" he tried and the little fairy smiled and sat down in his hoodie. Jack smiled, too, and asked Tooth: "Does she do that with everyone who wears a Hoodie, Mrs. Hummingbird-Lady?" Tooth laughs and shook her head: "No, until now just with Jack Frost. And just call me Tooth." "Okay" nodded Jack.

Sandy took that as an opportunity to pull a little on Jacks hoodie. When the boy turned a little confused around to him, he showed his sand. Jack blinked and asked: "You can´t speak?" Sandy nodded showing his sand and an arrow. "You communicate with your sand" guessed Jack. Sandy nodded again, gesturing "Go on". The teenager nodded and guessed: "Sand...is you?" The Sandmann rolled his eyes and gestured to continue, again. Jacks eyes widened with realisation: "You´re the Sandman...or?" Sandy smiled and clapped and wrote then over his head: "Sandy" Jack nodded: "So you want me to call you Sandy...right?" Sandy nodded and clapped again and then North announed: "We´re there, hold tight." And the sleigh landed.

A little shaken Jack climbed heavily out of the sleigh while Aster instantly jumped out. "Never again!" he announced. North only smiled mildly: "That´s what you´ve said last time, too, old friend." And Jack couldn´t help himself but laughed. The other Guardians smiled sadly at the familiar sound.

After Tooth and Sandy got out of the sleigh, too, the groupwas leaded to a darker part of the woods where over black hole a really old, broken bedframe stood. Jack looked not really happy, while holding to his Baseball-Bat tight: "This is the lair of the Boogeyman? That thing really need an upgrade. Who of you found it?" Baby Tooth in his hood tweeted something meaning "You did" but Jack didn´t understand her. Instead North answered: "It was Jack Frost. He told me where it was after the Easter-Fiasco almost fifteen years ago." Jack nodded and asked: "And how do we get inside?" "We jump, what did ya think?" answered Aster. Jack shook his head: "Down there?! Do I look crazy?! I would break me every bone in my body!" Aster grinned: "If ya want ya can stay out. It´s yar choice." Jack only growled, not really pleased: "There´s still no way to keep me out." Aster smiled sweetly: "Na, then ya can jump. If ya want, ya can even go first." Jacks missmatched eyes narrowed dangerously.

***Jackson Benett***

"I´ll kill him, if ya let me! Let me go!" yelled Aster. North only held his fellow Guardian tighter. After Asters teasing Jack had used his whole weigh to push the Pooka into the black hole he was standing next to, ending the two falling down and Jack landing on the Easter Bunny. Luckily the other Guardians came fast enough down to stop Aster from doing worse things than yelling things at the teenager you better not know and chasing him around. Said boy only grinned like a maniac and started, Baseball-bat in his hands, to explore things himself, a worried Baby Tooth next to him. At first she was a little angry at him for his sudden reaction, but after that she only wanted to know if he hurt himself. "I´m fine" Jack shrugged, more instinctly than everything else. Baby Tooth still looked not really convinced.

After Aster had calmed enough down to not want to do anything to the teenager, the Guardians followed the boy to a huge room. It was dark, almost pitchblack and from the cailing of the room hung bird cages made out of black sand, because of them Tooth looked ready to kill. And in the mid of the room was a giant, black globe where millions of lights were flackering. "What´s that?" asked Jack pointing on the globe. The Guardians instantly recognized it. Tooth flew up to explain: "Those lights are all the children who believe..." North added: "...and sometimes teenager and even adults, too." Jack rose an eyebrow, but Tooth kept looking at the Globe: "Let me see, if I can find your light, too..." "This is senseless, stop searching" advised Jack. The other Guardians turned to him, looking confused. A questionmark floated over Sandys head. Jack laughed sad: "Why you ask? I´m not a believer, or how you might call it. I guess this is all my imagination and these crazy things I see are just because of some sort of drug some jokemaker put in my sandwich. This all is just crazy and surreal!" The Guardians looked shocked, but decided not to do anything else.

The troup continued silently. But after what felt like hours they had admit noone was here. When they wanted to turn and go, the pitchblack lair darkened if that was even possible even more. And a voice that chased Jack shivers down his back started to speak: "Oh well hello, Guardians. It´s such a pleasure seeing you all here. How came I to this honour?" And the owner of the voice suddenly materialized himself in front of the teen and the spirits.

Jacks eyes widened with recognizement, he knew that face, he...

Darkness...

"Jamie, who is that?" "It´s the boogeyman"

Jack hadn´t heard what the Guardians had said, he only reacted when Pitch spoke again: "And who might your little friend be? Another guardian as a replacement for the Spirit of Winter? Pathetic how easy you are to be replaced..." Jack drifted out again.

An arrow...

"Hello Jamie"

Jack blinked, trying to get back to the conversation. Pitch looked at him curiously: "Your little friend looks a little lost right now. He doesn´t seem to be the cleverest around here..."

Sacrifice...

"Is Jamie okay?" "I´m fine, I´m fine"

Finally Jack caught himself. "I´m fine, thanks, Mr. Black" he answered sarcastic. Pitch rose an eyebrow at his comment while the Guardians looked at him worrying. Jack stepped forward, swinging his Baseball-bat like a sword: "But now tell me, where..." "Are you just trying to threat me with that stick?" Pitch interrupted. "W...what?" Jack blinked surprised.

Pain...

"...hurts..." "I know, I know. But don´t worry you´re gonna be fine again, in no time."

"Well, you´re swinging it around like you´re trying to impress me. I promise you, I´m not" Pitch explained dryly. Jack growled angrily: This creepy person really had a nerve to make him look like a fool after kidnapping his family! "That´s not funny!" he yelled. "And this is certainly not a stick, it´s a Baseball-Bat and I can promise you, it hurts if you get this one smacked in your face!" Aster rubbed his nose by this comment and muttered something about "ya bet it does" while Pitch started to grin evily.

Fear...

"...we´ll play again? Have fun?" "Sure, sure. But why did you do that?"

"So you do threat my with that stick of yours, boy?" Pitch was gone in one of his shadows only to appear right in front of Jack again. Jack forced himself not to do a step back, ignoring the voices in the back of his mind. Pitch smiled cruely: "You´re brave for your circumstances. I´m going to enjoy making you fear me." "Fear you?" Jack rolled his eyes. "Who the hell do you think you are that I should fear you?!"

Gone...

"...couldn´t let Jamie be hurt...No, I couldn´t...wouldn´t be fun..."

"I´m Pitch Black, the Boogeyman and you are going to fear me!" Pitch announced. "Applaus for you" Jack announced sarcastic. "Yeah, right. That´s the same story those nuts over there tried to make me believe. After all what the hell should the Boogey-..."

Jack interrupted himself when suddenly something inside of him changed, it was small but fatal. It was the barrier that was build around his believe years ago. It opened little, just enough to let something slip through. "The Boogeyman..." he repeated and now remembered fully the incient years ago. Tooth looked at him worrying when she felt that he remembered something important.

Darkness...

Jack eyes narrowed dangerously. "So what if! You can be anyone you like to be if you find it funny, I don´t care!" He attacked out of nowhere and Pitch only slipped away in the last minute, now looking at the angry teen interested. "I just know you´ve done it now twice! You attacked my family, no not only years ago, but now, too! Now you´ve done it, creep!" Jack set after the black men, the Guardians following him, shocked about he change of events.

"Come back here! If I´m ready with you, there won´t be enough left of you to fill a cup! No, not only you shoot around with your arrows trying to hurt people, now you also kidnap them! Give me my family back!" Jack yelled, while chasing Pitchs shadow around in the lair. The Boogeyman laughed meanly when he finally recieved the smell of Jacks panic carefully hidden under the anger. "Afraid to loose your family completly, little Jackie?" Pitch mocked the teen hidden in a shadow of a corner. When the boy ran in the direction of the voice, the owner was long gone again. "Stop hiding like a fraidy cat!" Jack yelled but Pitch only laughed. "Scared, me? No, you are afraid" grinned Pitch.

When the Guardians reached Pitch and Jack, the Boogeyman turned around to them. "And there´s the rest of the party. Nice to finally join us again" Pitch mocked. "And right on time to say Goodbye again, for you´ve failed again, time to collect the last Benett!" Before any of the Guardians could react, Pitch sent a nightmare to Jack.

For a part of a second Jacks eyes widened with panic, but then he closed his eyes in defeat...

***Jackson Benett***

"Jack, you have to concentrate more" said the sportteacher. Jack glared at him while AK grinned winning in a way that said: I told you so! "Then tell me what should I do" he suggested annoyed. The teacher smiled: "Get a good grip on the ground and on your bat. Concentrate on the ball flying to you. And even if everything seems lost, tell yourself you can do it. And you will do it."

***Jackson Benett***

Jacks eyes flew open. "I can do it" he barely whispered, got a good grip and concentrated at the nightmare flying to him. Time seemed to slow down when Jack concentrated on it getting ready to dodge it. "I will do it." And then came the impact. Everything seemed to stop for a second when bat and nightmare fastly met eachother and then everything continued as fast as it normally was. "Oh no, you don´t...!" Jack yelled and sent the nightmare flying back to his creator making both, boogeyman and nightmare, disappearing in the next shadow.

Everything was silent for a minute but then the Guardians stormed to the grinning teen. "You did it!" Tooth screamed with joy and hugged him in a motherly act. "Are you okay, Jack?" "I´m fine...but you don´t mind to let me go...can´t breath..." "Sorry", muttered Tooth flying back to the other Guardians while Baby Tooth came out of her hiding base in Jacks hood, hugging his left cheek. "I guess" Jack smiled looking at the other Guardians. Sandy gave him a thumps up and North a bright smile, but Aster shook his head: "Sorry ta interrupt yar happiness, but we ain´t got the other Benetts safe and we haven´t got an idea where they are."

Jack nodded and stared sad at the ground, before remembering something important: "Run and get your family back, but be careful, little Jack." He turned with a smile to the other Guardians: "I know exactly who can help us."

***Jackson Benett***

Pitch was not happy to say it simpel. He was in one of his own cages on the top of the Himalaya, but still he grinned. "This is going to be interesting...a Not-Beliver and the Guardians trying to safe his family. Let´s see how they face this..." And he sent his nightmares to play his plan but not before crushing his cage and the poor thing that unwillingly caged him.

Oy, I guess Mema is going to hear an ear full...

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