Chapter 11 – Decisions

Warning: slight abuse, injury descriptions.

Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians or any of the characters, or the robin rhythm.

This is set before the Rise of the Guardians film and will contain spoilers if you haven't already seen the film.

Jack Frost took large uneven breaths as he stared at the dark figure in front of him. His bandaged hands trembled slightly on the countertop behind and he tried to step back only to find the counters halting his movement. The flame lit lanterns throughout the room flickered slightly as the two figures stared at each other but neither to any notice of it.

"Who are you? How did you get in here?"

The shadowed figure standing in front of the youth smirked and he took a long stride into the light where Jack could fully see him. The person was unusually tall and had grey dark skin which seemed to mould into the shadows. He also had jet black hair that was greased back and beady yellow eyes that bore directly into the teen's soul. The figure also wore a long black and cloak which dragged along the floor with the persons every step. The man looked down at Jack with an un-wavering smirk which made the teen want to tremble beneath the look but instead he took a large gulp and stood up straight to show he was not as intimidated as he felt by the person's presence.

"Hello Jack. My name is Pitch Black" the figure, now known as Pitch, gave a final eerie smile to Jack before walking over to the sofas on Jack's right hand side and helped himself to a seat. Using one skeletal, grey hand the man beckoned Jack over to the sofa in front of him. Jack was unsure what to do. This was not his home after all and this was a stranger, however the teen plucked up his courage and slowly and cautiously walked over to the sofas keeping as far away from the mysterious man as possible. The white haired teen slowly placed himself in the seat directly opposite Pitch making sure his eyes never left the figure. Pitch just watched in silence and began brushing imaginary dirt off his lap as though he was disgusted at being in this home. Once satisfied all the dirt had been removed pitch once again looked up at the boys seated in front of him and his yellow eyes narrowed.

"You know it's customary to ask guest whether or not they would like a drink" Pitch raised his chin in a superior notion and Jack's dark eyebrows narrowed in anger.

"That may be true but this is not my home, and you are not an invited guest. Now, what you want?" Pitch's blackened lips stretched over his faintly yellow teeth in a smirk and his eyes showed his amusement at the teen's statement.

"That's true" Pitch spoke quietly and the two people sat staring at each other on either sides of the coffee table waiting for the other to make a move or to speak. Jack's eyebrows narrowed even further at the smugness that the stranger had taken and several moments past where neither spoke or moved. After a few minutes the white haired teen shuffled uneasily but refused to give up the staring match between his frosted blue eyes and the strangers equally frosted yellow eyes which began to dance amusement at the teen's unease.

"You can't kill fear Jack. I know you're afraid" Jack's eyes widened slightly. It was not hard to tell who was afraid of the stranger but somebody to point out was unusual.

"And how would you know?" Pitch lent back and let out a large booming laugh which seemed to echo through the small, darkened room which seemed to get darker and smaller with each passing moment.

"Well Jack I am the Boogie Man after all. It is my job to know your deepest darkest fears and to make you relive them every second of the day" Jack sat up straight on the sofa. His bandaged hands twisted uneasily in his lap and he suddenly realised how much danger he was in. He was unarmed and on his own with a neither immortal who seemed intent on hurting him. Pitch saw the teen's unease and he allowed himself to lean back on the sofa to give a less intimidating look.

"Do not be afraid Jack Frost. I do not intend to harm you I just have a.…" Pitch trailed off and looked around the room as if searching for a word. Jack allowed himself a single glance at the darkened bedroom where his staff was located and he began weighing up his chances of reaching it before the stranger would attack. After his incident with North he was not going to take any chances. Pitch then continued stirring the teen away from his train of thought.

"I have a proposition for you Jack Frost. I know your greatest fear used to be the children would never believe in you, that you would never have a purpose in life and never no way you came from. However I can see that has changed due to the little incident with North" Pitch lent forward towards the teen and his yellow eyes narrowed making Jack sit back further as if to escape the shadow man's glare.

"I want you to join me Jack. Together we can make everyone believe in us. To fear in us. Even North wouldn't dare cross our path. After all, what goes to better than fear and ice"

Meanwhile Bunnymund and Sandy had ventured into Pitch's layer deep below the ground. Upon entering all they could see was pitch black but the Sandman created a yellow, sand, Olympic flame style torch that lit their surroundings slightly. The two established that they were standing in a corridor and they began venturing down the numerous stairs. After several moments they realise the stairs seemed to go one that ever and after many twists and turns they found themselves in the same place that they started off. Both the guardians had confused looks on their faces and they realised Pitch's home was full of twists and mazes to confused and disoriented them. The two immortals looked round the narrow corridor. Bunnymund's keen eyesight then noticed the light wasn't hitting part of the wall correctly to the guardians left hand side and after gesturing to Sandy to shine the light in that direction they discovered a separate thinner corridor.

"Right mate. Let's go down there this time" Sandy nodded and the two guardians found themselves walking through a thin corridor with Sandy leading and lighting the way. After a while the two found themselves the large chamber which had large birdlike cages hanging from the ceiling and a large world globe was placed in the middle of the space with hundreds of glittering lights representing the children of the world. It was very similar to the one at the North Pole only it was black.

"Right, now we're getting somewhere" the two stepped further into the room and they began to look around at their surroundings when a hushed voice came from the furthest end of the room which was shrouded in darkness.

"Bunny? Is that you?" Bunnymund and Sandy looked at each other with uneasy expressions before they began venturing side-by-side to the place where the voice originated from.

"Who's there?" The large bunny's voice echoed through the chamber and the Sandman raised his sand torch so they could get a better view at the dark corner. The light showed a large, black metal bird-like cage that was placed upon the floor similar to those hanging from the ceiling. Inside the cage a large figure could be seen slumped against the bars on the other side of the cage. The slumped figure seemed to sit up at the sight of the two guardians and he raised an arm to block the light coming from the sand torch. A raspy voice then sounded from the slumped, dark figure.

"Bunny? Sandy? What are you doing here?" The two guardians stepped closer to the cage and the light reveal the mysterious person.

"North?" Bunnymund's expression was joyous at the thought of finding the missing Guardian.

"We're here to rescue you, you big dummy" the light showed an awful looking North. It was obvious he had lost some weight from his time spent in the cage and his looked to be covered in dirt and grime. His pure white beard had thinned somewhat and was faintly grey from all the dirt. His grey eyes seemed to sparkle and excitement at the prospect of being rescued from the cage. The Sandman beside the Easter bunny also had a large grin upon his face and he began projecting a sand image of a cage being opened above his head. The large rabbit nodded and smiled at the small man's image.

"That's right mate. Let's find a way to open this"

PLEASE READ! Don't skip the authors note at the end like I usually do!

I apologise for the bad grammar. I'm quite badly dyslexic and struggle with my grammar and spelling despite my love for writing. So please no nasty reviews.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I felt mean leaving you all with a cliff-hanger last time. I will try my best to update as soon as possible. Not sure what's going to happen next, if anyone has any ideas please tell me.

Also just to let you all know this fanfiction is almost 45 Microsoft word pages long and is almost 20,000 words. Never written so much in my life!

Thank you to everyone who reviewed for the last chapter. Thanks to you guys I have reached 300 reviews. You don't know how happy that makes me.

However I did notice for the last chapter I only got 14 reviews and the chapter before received 33? If you didn't know authors can check the number of reviews for each. Authors can also see how many views your story has had. Mine currently is 21,149 views which in itself is amazing!

Please try and review, even if it's just a " : ) " I will be happy.

GeorgieGirl999 x