Chapter 36

Treat

"Treat"

That voice. I knew it from somewhere...

"Wake up Treat..." It was a kind sounding voice, a man's to be exact. In those simple words it sounded as if he had seen everything that has happen to the human race. All of their hopes, dreams, memories, their wonder of things, the fun they would have, their fears, their courage these things he had seen the world go through. But at the same time it sounded as innocent as a child's voice. It was the familiar stranger's voice again in my mind.

I was in total darkness. I couldn't move, I couldn't see, I couldn't feel anything. I was suspended in nothingness yet in everything all at once. What had happened? I remember the fight with Jack and Sandman. Then the ice... the ice breaking... was I still in the lake?

"Trick r Treat... come to me..." The gentleness of the voice was startling to me. I tried to answer him, but words were stolen from me. I tried to react but my body betrayed me and would not move. Then I suddenly saw a light right in front of me. It was small at first but then it slowly began to grow. The light got bigger and bigger before I was suddenly enveloped into the light.

I could move again. I looked down at myself seeing I was just the same. Grey skinned and yellow marks. I looked around and saw nothing but white. But it wasn't blinding, it was more comforting than I thought. Was I truly that close to the darkness that I forgot about what it felt like to be with in the Moon's light. Wait the moon's light?

That's when I realized I knew where I was. I was in the moon. But if I was in the moon then that voice...

"Trick r Treat" the voice came from behind me. I turned to see a small, round man. He was bald except for a large strand of hair that stood straight up and curled at the end. He had a round face with a small round nose. His eyes were large and full of light, like a childs. But after looking at them for a moment I could see the age with in them. He smile at me warmly as if he had been looking at his long-lost friend.

I stood there my eye wide in shock. It was HIM! Tsunar Lunar, the Man in the Moon, Manny, MiM standing right there before me.

"MiM..." I said quietly as I drank up his appearance. The small man's smile widened.

"You have certainly been through a lot in your first year of life Treat." he said to me.

"How do you know?" I ask curiously

MiM chuckled a little before answering me. "I see everything my dear. Nothing goes unnoticed. Even when Pitchiner hides in his darkness."

I suddenly remembered my master when MiM spoke his name. I looked around to see if he could be here. MiM seemed to understand why I was looking around.

"No worries. Pitchiner can't come here. There is no darkness here for him to travel with. We are safe and our conversation is kept secret." I looked at MiM as he seemed to keep his warming smile.

"You seem to have lost your way in the darkness Treat. You have forgotten who you were and now you can not move forward into the Guardian you have chosen to be." He said his voice becoming a little more serious.

"I was nothing before my Master made me. I was no one." I said confused. What was he talking about and why was he calling me a Guardian?

MiM chuckled lightly. "Of course you were! Pitchiner has made you forgotten more than you know. I watched you when you were human, all the way up to when you died."

This was a lot to take in as he talked. I couldn't believe what he was telling me. I had been someone? I was human once? Had Master made me forget? This was the Man in the Moon he wouldn't lie to me would he?

As I thought a round image appeared the size of the basketball beside MiM. I walked closer to it and saw the images starting to move. It showed a little girl with brown hair and bright green eyes with a man with brown hair and blue eyes standing beside a woman with brown hair and green eyes. She was running around and playing with a stuffed pink bunny with an Easter Egg on it . The little girl looked very familiar.

"Daddy do you like him? The Easter Bunny gave him to me!" the little girl said happily as she ran up to the man.

"And what is his name?" The man asks curiously as he kneels down to look at the stuffed animal in the childs arms.

"Aster! That's Bunny's real name! So I named it after him!" the girl smiled happily.

"Aster? Well that is certainly a unique little name." The girl just smiled at the man.

"This was me... wasn't it?" I asked as the images played.

MiM nodded as he watched them with me. "Yes this was you as a child, Lexi"

Something in me suddenly cracked when he said that name. I mean literally cracked... I touched my face feeling cracks in it. What was happening to me?! MiM looked at me as if he knew this was going to happen. The cracks continued along my face until... my mask fell...

It hit the ground with a loud thud as I felt myself... my actual self come back. I was me, I was Trick again! I remembered everything! I had been Lexi! MiM smiled at me as he picked up the cracked mask.

It was a grey color with a yellow eye instead of an orange one. MiM placed a hand over the cracked mask before it glowed. I watched silently as my mask was back to normal.

"What just happened...?" I asked curiously.

"Two things actually. One you remembered who you were and two Aster just broke though your nightmare." MiM answered me.

"How?" I asked astounded at his answer. Aster, Bunny had broken my Nightmare?

"Fortitude of the mind and heart is something greater than fear. And YOU Trick r Treat are both." I took a step back and thought about what he said.

"I... I'm a Guardian...?" He smiled and nodded.

"As Trick you are the Fortitude. The courage of the heart and mind in which brings people to celebrate the harvest and continue to live their lives. But as Treat you are Fear. Something in which everyone needs. To over come fear helps us grow, especially as children. To face the monster under the bed and the creature in your closet helps them grow to become the adults they need to be. You Trick r Treat are there to help them teach that."

I could feel it, his words entering my body and flowing through my body like a living entity awaking me for the very first time since I have been alive. He was right, this was why he chose me. This is what I had to do. I was both Fortitude and Fear.

"Before you go there is one thing I must show you." MiM said. That's when I noticed something, he was starting to fade around the edges of his body telling me our time was almost up.

"What is it?" I asked as the floating sphere seemed to change its image.

"You need to know how you died..." MiM said solemnly. How I died... the one memory I did not know... that I did not remember...

I looked at him before turning my attention to the sphere and seeing the memory appear in front of my eyes.

"Let them go!" I screamed looking at Jamie and Sophie.

"Please! I'll tell you my decision if you would just let them go." Both kids from the neck down was covered in the black sand. Some of it was around their mouth to keep them from screaming. Tears streamed down Sophie's face and it looked as if Jamie was about to cry as well.

I looked at Pitch, was NOT going to hurt my cousins! Pitch just laughed as the sand suddenly let the three of us go. I fell to the ground, landing on my side, ouch. Jamie and Sophie scrambled up and ran over to me as I slowly stood ignoring the small pain I was starting to feel. I put the two behind me my body getting in a defensive position.

"Jamie, long time no see." Pitch said to the body behind me. I felt him grasp my dress.

"Pitch leave them out of this. They are just children." I say, I needed to get them out of here. If I made a diversion maybe they could escape and run to the house, where Jack hopefully was.

"If they are just children then why do you care so much about them?" He asked smiling.

"Because they are my cousins and I will do anything to protect them." I keep an eye on them. He was bad, I couldn't join him no matter what. Why did I ever consider joining him? At this moment I didn't care about knowing my past or not, all I cared about was protecting Jamie and Sophie.

"So Lexi, have you made your decision?" Pitch asked in a sickingly sweet voice.

I stood up stood up straight. "Actually I have."

"And?" He smiled standing perfectly still.

"The answer is no." I say confidently.

Jamie, I remembered how Pitch sent me to hurt him... Sorrow appeared on my face as I watched the two frightened children. They were looking at me, Lexi with such fear but such hope and belief that I was going to save them. The memory kept playing and the Guardians arrived, Pitch showed us one of his memories of him and... my mother...

"Didn't you kind it strange that all your mother told you was that he died in a car accident. Never saying what caused the accident and his death." I stood there, my chest heaving in fear. "Well I believe it was time for you to know." He chuckled and leaned into my ear. "I killed your father."

No... no... NO! I felt the blood drain from my face and tears formed in my eyes. Pitch had taken my dad, because he married my mom and took her away from him...

"No..." I breathed out quietly.

"Oh yes Lexi I did. He took Amanda away from me! Told her I was just in her imagination! He made her stop believing in me! After that i decided that if I couldn't have her then neither could he!" he was the cause, the cause for my mother becoming a drug addict. The reason why I suffered.

"The Guardians here use to be your little friends. Coming and visiting you, giving you stuffed bunnies" I looked at Bunnymund when he said that. "I tried to go after you once, but they stopped me. That's when I went after James."

This was why the Guardians wanted me to stay away from Pitch. This was ALL his fault. He killed my father, he killed me just over the fact that he loved my mother but she not longer loved him... I felt the tears forming in my eyes as I continued to watch, my chest aching.

"That is why they made you forget. They thought by erasing your memory you would be safe and could grow up with out worrying about me or the memories. But they were wrong. After the stunt they pulled earlier this year with that brat Jamie and his friends I had already made another plan. I found you, planning on moving here after high school. It was perfect. I could get my revenge on the guardians, crush their spirits, as well and those two brats, as I took their girl. Then I could also get my revenge on Amanda for leaving me! Her precious child, taken by the boogeyman." My heart raced faster, it felt as if it were going to explode out of my chest.

Pitch chuckled evilly. "And now I'm going to kill two birds with one stone. Well more like one little bird" I felt him move the knife and aim for my chest.

"NO!" WACK! The knife fell from Pitch's hand as a boomerang flew back to bunny. Pitch growled as more sand appeared and made what look to be horses with yellow eyes.

The creatures attacked the Guardians at full speed. Jack was having a hard time since he didn't have his staff. I had to get out of his grip... I looked to my left and saw Jack's staff. In mere moments I had a plan all I had to do now was put it into motion.

I stomped on Pitch's foot, hearing him cry out in shock and pain. I then elbowed him in the gut, causing him to loosen his grip. At that moment I tore free and grabbed the staff which was being held by a small amount of sand.

"JACK!" I cried out before throwing the staff. Jack turned and jumped over a few of the nightmarish horses just in time to grab his staff and freeze them. I smiled before hearing Pitch's voice behind me.

"Not so fast!" I whirled around to see his enraged face as a pain suddenly exploded in my chest. I looked down to see the dagger... planted into my chest...

The sphere showed one last image after that. It was of me, well my corpse now, being held by Bunny. My blood was soaking his fur as he cradled me and cried into the crook of my neck. I had been his girl for so long... and I never knew it. The other Guardians were around him staring down at me as the last of the light left my eyes. Tears were all rolling down each of their faces. I had become a part of them and them apart of me. They had been with me all of my life...

I looked at MiM as tears ran down my face. He smiled at me, he was almost translucent now as he wiped a tear away.

"I know this is hard and it will become harder soon. But would not have chosen you if I did not know that you could do this Lexi... I will always be here with you and so will some others in here" He pointed to my jack-o-lantern choker. Suddenly a snapping sound came from the thing and it opened... it was a locket... In one side it was Jamie and Sophie on either side of Lexi, me. On the other side there was a picture of my father, Bunny, and Jack. How MiM made this picture of those three I did not know but this was MiM.

I looked at it before looking at him and smiled. MiM smiled back to me.

"You are still under his control in body Trick. You must use what I have shown you to break Pitchinir Nightmares from you. Be strong young Guardian for I believe in you..."

Then with out another word MiM disappeared and I was slowly enveloped into darkness once more...

Author's Note: Manny has done it! Trick has found who she was and who she now is. She has also realized that Pitch has done all of this to her. Now comes the biggest fight that Trick must face. What will happen? How did Bunny break his nightmare? All will be revealed in the next chapter!

I feel proud of myself for doing a longer chapter this time. ^^

Thank you all for reading! Much love!