NerdyLittleCray, waaaaaat.
Jack couldn't believe his eyes. Dozens of huge bird cages hung from the ceiling, and in them are the mini tooth fairies. They saw Jack, and immediately perked up, tweeting and flitting like crazy. Jack jumped up onto one of the cages, then quickly leapt and held onto the side of another one.
"Shhhh! keep it down." He whispered. He leapt to another cage. "I'm gonna get you out of here, just as soon as I-"
"Jack..." Jack turned away from the fairies, distracted.
"As I can..." He finished under his breath. Jack looked down and saw the tooth drawers from Tooth's Palace. Mounds of them heaped to the ceiling. And inside the drawers were the missing baby teeth. He dropped down to a mound and began rummaging through the drawers, looking at the names on the boxes. In an instant he forget his duties, and the fairies, and the Guardians, and Seamus, and everything except those teeth, and the chance to finally get his memories back. The cavern suddenly went darker than it already was. Jack finally looked up, as a shadow of Pitch crawls up a nearby column.
"Looking for something?"
Jack swings around with his staff, shooting off a blast of ice, but Pitch isn't there. Jack takes off, following the sound of Pitch's cackle as it echoes throughout the chamber. Jack rounds a corner as he sees Pitch's shadow glided across the walls into a shadowed corridor.
"Don't be afraid, Jack. I'm not going to hurt you." Jack continued along a shadowed corridor.
"Afraid?" He repeated. Jack saw Pitch on a bridge across the cavern and headed after him. "I'm not afraid of you!"
"Maybe not. But you are afraid of something." Pitch said. Jack steadily approached, cautious and alert.
"You think so, huh?"
"I know so. It's the one thing I always know." Pitch finally turns to face Jack. "People's greatest fears. Yours is that no one will ever believe in you."
Panic flashed in Jack's eyes. As he backed away, the chamber filled with shadows, and Jack was spun around. He was disoriented as he thudded into a wall, which flipped to reveal that it was actually the ground. Pitch, unseen now, chuckled. Jack was unsure of where he was. He looked back to see the cavern entrance. He was right back where he started.
"And worst of all, you're afraid you'll never know why. Why you? Why were you chosen... to be like this?" Jack discovered that the entrance has been blocked with bricks as Pitch's shadow encroached on him. Pitch was now directly in front of Jack, holding out a tooth box. "Well fear not, for the answer to that... Is right here."
Jack's eyes widened at the sight. The face of a young boy with brown eyes and hair was etched into the box, and under it was the name 'Jack Frost.'
"Do you want them, Jack? Your memories?" Pitch asked innocently. He held them out to Jack. Jack stared, fighting the impulse to grab them. He closed his eyes, struggling to make a decision, but when he opened them again, Pitch had disappeared. Pitch's shadow moved across the pillars of the cavern. Jack headed down a corridor, shadows casted from the Mini Tooth cages everywhere.
"Everything you wanted to know..." Pitch's face moved in and out of the shadows. "...in this little box."
Every time Jack turned, Pitch disappeared. It was like Jack was trapped in a fun house. Multiple Pitch shadows appeared on the wall around Jack. They closed in on him.
"Why did you end up like this? Unseen. Unable to reach out to anyone. You want the answers so badly. You want to grab them, and fly off with them. But you're afraid of what the Guardians will think." Jack's breath quickened. He was pushed into a corner. "You're afraid of disappointing them. Well let me ease your mind about one thing. They'll never accept you. Not really. And Seamus... He'll leave you and move on to someone greater."
"Stop it! Stop it!" Jack screamed, trying to scramble away from the shadows that had overcome him. Almost reluctantly, the shadows backed away and Pitch appeared before Jack.
"After all, you're not one of them." Jack aimed his staff at Pitch
"You don't know what I am!" Jack yelled.
"Of course I do. You're Jack Frost. You make a mess wherever you go. Why, you're doing it right now." Pitch said. Pitch tossed the box to Jack, who instinctively caught it. Jack looked up. Terror came into Jack's eyes in realization.
"What did you do?" He asked.
"More to the point Jack, what did you do?" Pitch said. He began to back away, becoming one with the darkness, laughing as he disappeared. Jack charged towards him only to be swallowed whole by one of Pitch's black holes. Jack flew out of Pitch's shadow, ready to strike. Suddenly, Jack realized he'd forgotten something.
"Baby Tooth!" He turned to re-enter the hole in the wall only to find himself face to face with one of Bunny's stone emblems.
"Happy Easter, Jack." Pitch chuckled. Jack turned around. Suddenly, his eyes filled with dread as he realized where he was. Thousands of broken egg shells laid strewn about, forming a path toward the light at the end of the tunnel.
"No."
"I checked everywhere! There's nothing!"
"Yes there is! There is! I mean these aren't my best lookin' googies, but they'll do in a pinch! " Bunny held out a broken Easter egg. The kids just stared.
"I can't believe it."
"I know." Bunny said, smiling.
"There's no such thing as the Easter Bunny." The girl said. Bunny's face fell. The girl turned to leave.
"What?" He breathed.
"Easter's over. Forget this." It was only then that he realized he was too late. The spark of childhood had already been extinguished in all of them.
"No! Wrong! Not, not true! I'm right in front of ya, mate!" Bunny pleaded.
"There's no such thing. I know." The kids walked through Bunnymund as if he were a ghost. Bunny was stunned by this, and finally realized... "Now come on. I don't understand. Why wouldn't he come? Let's get out of here. Easter Bunny, where are you? This is the worst Easter ever."
"They don't see me. They don't see me." He whispered, sinking to the ground and holding his head in his hands. Jack watched it all unfold and it was heartbreaking, because he knew, or at least felt, it was his fault. Tooth flew to Bunny's side. Jack heard a rustle in the bushes behind him.
"Jack, where were you?" North asked. Jack saw North, with his scimitars drawn and having just come from battle. He was exhausted, wild-eyed, distraught. "The Nightmares attacked the tunnels. They smashed every egg, crushed every basket. Nothing made it to the surface."
"Jack!" Tooth gasped. Tooth rejoined the group. "W-Where did you get that?"
"I was...it's..." Jack looked down at the tooth box in his hand, then back to Tooth.
"Where's Baby Tooth? Oh Jack, what have you done?" Tooth said, horrified, betrayed.
"That is why you weren't here?" North stepped forward to confront Jack. "You were with Pitch?"
"No, listen, listen...I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen." Jack insisted.
"He has to go." Bunny said. Jack turned to see Bunny, disheartened.
"What?"
"We should never have trusted you!" He yelled. He raised a fist as if to strike Jack, but then turned away, forlorn. "Easter is new beginnings, new life. Easter is about hope... And now it's gone."
Bunny turned away and moved toward the park, looking at the sign that reads, 'Easter Egg Hunt.' It was like a punch in Jack's gut. He looked back to Tooth and North, both of whom looked away, too hurt by Jack. He looked at them with a pained expression. It was exactly what Pitch said would happen. Then he realized something and began to panic.
"Where's Seamus?" He asked. North gave him a sad, but still hurt, look.
"The Nightmares took him. You were with Pitch, you should know." He said, spitting the last sentence. Jack's eyes widened in horror. Jack reached into his pocket, pulled out the tiny Russian nesting doll that North had given him, dropped the doll to the ground, and took off.
"I hate you!" Seamus screamed, slamming a fist into Pitch's chest. Pitch merely rolled his eyes and stepped away from the angered and into the shadows.
"You should thank me. I saved you the trouble of Jack leaving you." Pitch said. Seamus growled.
"What did you do to him?"
"I merely enlightened him on how you would leave him for something greater one day, and how he would have to cut ties before that happened." Pitch said. Seamus's eyes began glowing. Little did he know, so did his side.
"You're horrible."
"Oh, no need to be afraid. And yes, you are afraid. Maybe not of me, but you're afraid I'm telling the truth. He will leave you, like everyone left you. You will be alone, and unloved." Pitch spat.
"You don't know that." Seamus said, shaking. A golden tear slipped past his barriers, and hit the floor. Pitch appeared in front of him, and brushed his cheek with a understanding look.
"How many more times will you need to cry these precious tears?" He cooed. Seamus snarled and lashed out with a dagger, nicking Pitch's cheek before he could completely duck. The dagger grew into a sword and Seamus let out a battle cry that shook the whole lair before leaping at Pitch. Said spirit was forced to duck and twist out of the way. He was actually intimidated by the angry glow of the blade.
"You don't know the hell I've been through! You don't have any right to insult my fears! I can tell you, I'm always afraid! Afraid of losing my friends, and family, f losing Jack! I'm afraid of my past! I'm afraid of my future! I'm afraid of a lot of things! But it just gives me another reason to kick your ass!" Seamus yelled, swinging with every sentence. Pitch dodged them, growing more and more panicked as the glow of Seamus's eyes and wounds began to spread through his entire body.
"How are you doing that?!" He yelped, backing away further. Okay, so kidnapping him into his lair... maybe not a good idea. Pitch called on his Nightmares, ordering them to knock out the furious. Seamus cut them down easily, but one got past his barriers and kicked him in the head. He fell to the ground, a trickle of golden blood leaking from the cut on his head. Pitch grabbed him and frowned at the healing wound on his side. Pitch ripped off Seamus's shirt and bandages and snarled at the almost fully healed wound. Pitch grabbed the sword that had fallen from Seamus's hand, and stabbed it into his side. Seamus cried out as the blade evaporated, and Pitch grabbed him by the throat. "Time for a little visit."