New Chapter!
Yay!
Enjoy!
North cursed as he swiped his swords at another Nightmare. Sure, they were easy to defeat, but there were thousands of them, and Pitch kept on creating more and more. Bunnymund, Jack, and North were all inside the workshop, surrounded by the creatures. Sandy was zooming around outside, shooting sand at anything that moved.
But North was still confused.
Sure, there were thousands of enemies that Pitch was creating for them to fight, but they weren't difficult to defeat, or specifically dangerous in any way. They were like busy work. North had seen the other enemies, each of them looking formidable in their own right, but none of them were attacking.
North had already mentioned this to the other Guardians, and to the Valentine's Day girl, Val. North had also seen a girl with long, black hair fly past one of the windows, carrying a staff with a sparking, zig-zag shaped blade. She had vanished in a literal flash of lightning.
"What do you think their plan is?" Bunnymund asked, taking North out of his thoughts and back to the battle at hand.
"I'm not sure," North said. "They don't have any motive that we know of, except Pitch, who hates us for defeating him. It is as if they are trying to keep us right here."
"And why didn't they catch Tooth?" Jack asked. "I mean, I know that Sandy is good, but any of our enemies could have caught her. That Grim guy can even teleport."
"I don't know," North said as he sliced another Nightmare in half. He turned to attack another, only to discover that there were no more. They had all retreated to the outside.
"Now what are they doing?" Jack asked as the trio ran to the window. They heard a whistling noise and, upon staring at the horizon, they discovered the source. Four shapes were coming in fast, at nearly super-sonic speed. One was riding a broomstick. As she approached a Nightmare, she spun off of it, holding it like a baseball bat, and slammed it into the shadowy creature before swinging back onto the broom.
"Nice one, Eve!" Another girl shouted. This one was riding a rainbow mop, and was holding what appeared to be a book. "Take this, you shady bastards!" she shouted, swinging the book down on the creatures heads. A girl with rainbow hair, who was riding a didgeridoo, went through the same motion as the girl on the broom had, except she put the instrument to her mouth and began to play some sort of song. The sound vibrations made visible waves and destroyed the Nighmares in its path. The last girl was trailing a rainbow of colors.
"Oh great. They brought Nyan Cat," Bunnymund muttered. Upon squinting at the rainbow, he could see that a girl was actually trailing the rainbow, and firing different colors at the Nightmares. Red light became fire balls that launched at the Nightmares. Yellow blinded them and incinerated those that were too close. Purple poisoned them, the black horses dropping as the cloud of violet smoke engulfed them. The girl who had teleported in earlier, Val, was crouching on the rainbow, shooting arrows. An arrow shattered through one of the windows and landed next the Jack's face.
"Argh!" He shouted, jumping back. A playing card was taped to it, with a note that said "Please step back from the card, as four people are going to teleport through it".
"What an odd message," North said, staring at it closely. Then, as the note said, the card began to glow. Surely enough, four people materialized next to it. The first was a girl with platinum blonde hair. She picked up the card and threw it, immediately teleporting next to it. She repeated the motion over and over, teleporting dozens of times in only a few seconds. She was out the window quickly, teleporting along with the card. She went incredibly high and began to throw exploding cards as she fell.
The second person that came through the card was a stocky Asian man with a short pony tail and goatee. He pulled a magnificent bow off his shoulders and began to fire arrows that appeared to be made of light with extreme accuracy, scattering the Nightmares. He took to the sky after the teleporting girl.
The third person had an eyepatch and blonde hair with red in it. She and the fourth girl, who had short, curly hair, did not go out the window.
"We're Neoelle and Cimag," the blonde girl introduced.
"We came here to ask you what else you know," Cimag said, eyeing North's blades uneasily. "And to see if you know where Aurora and Stella are."
"I don't know where your friends are, but I will try to help you find them," Bunnymund grunted. North remained silent, unhappy that the holidays were in his workshop.
"OKay," Cimag said, sharing a look with Neoelle. "Do you know anything else about the enemy's plans?"
"We are beginning to think that all of this is a trick," Jack explained. "That the enemy has some sort of ulterior motive."
"What makes you say that?" Neoelle asked.
"Well, these Nightmares are too easy to defeat. It's like they're just being used as a distraction," Bunnymund said.
Neoelle and Cimag muttered to each other. With a nod, Neoelle unslung her small bow and grabbed an arrow. Cimag scribbled a note down and tied it to the arrow.
"What are you two doing?" North asked.
"Telling my sister what's going on," Neoelle said as she took aim. "I just hope she hears it coming this time." She loosed the arrow, which vanished into the sky.
"What do you mean?" Jack asked.
"I've accidentally shot her out of the sky doing this," Neoelle explained. She scrutinized the sky, looking at the battle.
"Hmm," Cimag hummed.
"That's what I was thinking," Neoelle agreed.
"What were you thinking?" Bunnymund asked.
"Well, this battle seems to be going fairly well for us so far," Neoelle said, still observing. Jess was twisting through Nightmares as Val shot them down. Eve had summoned a mob of Jack O'Lanterns, who used their triangular teeth to bite at Nightmares as their little bat wings kept their massive pumpkin bodies up. Shay seemed content bashing Nightmares with her rainbow mop. Melodia was going crazy with her didgeridoo tune, massacring the Nightmares. Juliet teleported at lightning speeds, cards flying through the air. Sandy was still there, defending a third of the workshop with his golden sand. Ling was downing the minions like it was nothing, which it actually was.
"These are only from Pitch," Cimag pointed out. "Where are the eight remaining enemies that we were told of?"
"That's what we were wondering," North said. He pointed at a mountain, about a mile away from the workshop. "That's where about three or four of them are. The rest are at the base of the workshop."
"Why are they down there?" Neoelle asked.
"That, we are unsure of. They are tapping into the generator for the workshop, using the energy to power something. We don't know what," Jack said.
"And we cannot turn it off," North said.
"Fun," Neoelle said. "And here comes some more of our back up." She pointed up, and the three Guardians watched as two figures emerged from the fluffy white clouds. Both had bird-like wings, which folded in, almost to their backs as they fell silently. The boy with white wings was carrying a glowing blue sword, which was used to cut a Nightmare in half. The girl with black wings fell slower than boy. The girl began to spiral, icy flames appearing on the tips of her wings, forming a tornado around her.
"Looks like you have some competition, Jack," Bunnymund said with a grin. Jack let out a huff and took to the skies as well, not wanting to be outdone by a mere holiday.
"Looks like we're getting more company," North said as he pointed at the mountain again. Pitch had sent forward large tentacles of black sand, which began to lash out. The holidays still found it easy to dodge and fight.
"At this rate, by the time the others get here, it'll be over," Neoelle said. "But you guys are right. It seems too easy."
"And we still don't know what happened to Aurora and Stella," Cimag pointed out. "I hope they're alright."
...
"We need to go back," Aurora whispered to Stella.
"No, can't you hear the fighting? The counterattack has already begun," Stella said. "Besides, you need to check what the heck is going on around the corner." The two raven haired girls were crouching outside of the workshop. Stella had heard a noise and landed with Aurora, trying to figure out what it was. Now, Stella was urging Aurora to check it out.
"Fine, I'll take a quick look," Aurora said. "But then we are teleporting away from here." She crept through the snow, failing to be quiet due to the crunch of her shoes in the icy ground. It made her cringe and pray that there was nothing around the corner to hear her. She peaked around and saw...
Nothing.
"Hmm," she said, straightening up.
"What is it?" Stella asked as she came up behind Aurora.
"There's nothing here," she said, confused.
"Are you sure?" Stella asked. "I can still hear it. Whatever it is, it should be right in front of us." Aurora felt chills run up her spine as she raised her hand and stepped forward. After a few steps, she felt something cold and metal.
"What is this?" Aurora wondered.
"Hmm, I'm not sure. I'd tell you what it looks like, but I can't, now can I?" Stella said sarcastically.
"I wasn't going to say that," Aurora said. A noise to her right caught her attention. "Stella, was that-?" She was cut off as when she took a crowbar to the face.
"Aurora! What's happening?" Stella asked as she heard the crowbar hit again and again. Something splattered across her face, making Stella freeze. "Aurora?" she asked in a whisper. The only thing she heard were footsteps approaching her. She could have teleported right then, but she was paralyzed with fear.
"Make sure you get that one," a girl's voice said. "We need a living specimen to test the machine on. You just killed the first one."
"I know, sorry," another voice, this time male, said. "I just lost control a little. Won't happen again."
"It better not," the girl said. "After all, if you want that vengeance against Frost so badly, it'd be better to kill him slowly. You have eternity to, after all."
"I guess," the boy said. As the two had talked, the boy had gotten closer and closer to Stella. Now, he was almost within crowbars reach. Stella sensed him getting nearer and forced herself to teleport away, into the workshop.
"Darn it, Tyler," the girl said. "Now Pitch is going to be angry at both of us."
"I don't think so," Tyler said as he walked back over to Aurora, who was still in the snow. "Are you sure that this one is dead?"
"I'm not the ghost whisperer here," the girl said. Tyler rolled his eyes.
"Tianna, I can always grab another holiday. Besides, I think that this one could have teleported, too, had she gotten the chance," Tyler said, kicking Aurora's body with his boot. "Oh well, time to grab another victim."
"Wait," Tianna said. She handed her brother a paper. "Here is the list of holidays, from the largest amount of stored energy to the least." Tyler looked at the list and took out a black pen.
"We just killed one of the ones with a moderate amount of energy," Tyler said.
"No, you're the one who killed her, not me. And don't forget that we scared one away," Tianna said.
"Alright," Tyler said, memorizing the pictures and ranking on the paper. "I think that we just need a moderate amount of stored energy for the test, eh? Should be easy." He sat down and summoned several ghosts. One vanished, heading to Pitch to give him an update. The others were going to bait and capture another holiday.
This is pretty easy, Tyler thought with a smirk.
...
Neoelle and Cimag spun around as a sharp pop sounded behind them. Stella emerged from a cloud of smoke, shaking. There were trails of blood across her face, which were being smudged due to the tears running down her face.
"Oh my god, Stella! What happened to you?" Neoelle asked, seeing the blood and tears on her friends face. She didn't appear to be hurt in anyway, though.
"Whose blood is this?" Cimag asked.
"I-It's Auroras," Stella sobbed. "I heard something on the other side of the workshop, so we went to check it out."
"Where is Aurora now?" Bunnymund asked. Stella shook her head.
"It's my fault," Stella whispered. "We found this machine on the other side, and I told her to check around the corner, and she said that she couldn't see anything..."
"Oh, Stella," was all Neoelle could say as she wrapped her friend in a hug.
"She found something, and she sounded really surprised about it," Stella said with a shuddering breath. "Then she started to ask something, and I heard something hit her." Tears began to come down Stella's face even faster. Neoelle stared at her friend. "They wouldn't stop hitting her. There was a girl, and she mention something about the boys revenge against Jack." Bunnymund and North shared looks of concern.
"Did she say anything else?" Bunnymund asked.
"Yeah, something about killing a specimen for their machine," Stella said. She began to cry again and Neoelle hugged her tighter.
"It's okay, Stella. Let's just stay in here," Neoelle said. Stella mutely nodded.
Bunnymund and North were sharing alarmed looks, which Cimag noticed.
"What is it?" she whispered to them.
"I think that we know what the ulterior motive is," Bunnymund muttered. Cimag raised an eyebrow, silently urging him to continue.
"They aren't attacking to get back at us," North said. "They are after you all. The holidays."
"What?" Cimag whisper-shouted.
"This is just a ploy. They are trying to capture some or all of the holidays," Bunnymund whispered.
"Why they'd want to catch some puny creatures like you is beyond me, though," North muttered, earning an angry look from Cimag.
"How many of the holidays are coming?" Bunnymund asked.
"Everyone," Cimag said. "Except for three. Sparks was injured, and Marshall and Cha are taking care of her."
"This is not good," Bunnymund said. "We need to warn everyone. Now." As he said that, the next wave of back up arrived. That meant that all but a few of the holidays had arrived. As this happened, the enemy on the mountain took to the air to meet with the holidays.
"Too late," Cimag whispered as North and Bunnymund cursed and ran out of the room, going for the sleigh. "We're too late."
Chapter done!
Yay!
And I reposted the previous chapter with an extra sentence at the end to make it a little more clear since a few people seemed confused.
And, to make this clear now:
Eric is good
Erik is bad
They are two completely different people.
Thanks,
~CatKkit.