The honorary Guardian

"No…" Pitch stated, watching all his planning for centuries be wiped away and ducking from a dream sand Manta Ray, "You dare have fun in my presence?! I am the Boogeyman! And you will fear me!" It wasn't until Jamie ran straight through him that the realization of what just happened settled in.

"No! Oh... No…"

This realization transitioned into horror as he looked towards the Guardians, all ready and waiting for his next move. Pitch bolted into the forest, desperately trying to get away from his pursuers, until he collided with North and fell to the iced over lake.

"Leaving the party so soon?" North asked.

"You didn't even say goodbye!" Tooth stated with a mock happiness, tossing the dark spirit a quarter.

"A quarter?" Pitch questioned.

Tooth answered this question with a punch to the teeth, knocking one out in the process.

"And that's for my fairies." The few fairies that were with her squeaked at the fallen villain.

"You can't get rid of me! Not forever!" Pitch yelled desperately. "There will always be fear!"

"So what?" North asked, "As long as one child believes, we will be here to fight fear."

"Really?" Pitch questioned with a smirk, "Then what are they doing here?"

The Guardians looked around, the black sand nightmares surrounding the frozen lake. Each focusing and ready to launch themselves at their target.

"Haha!" North laughed aloud, "They can't be my Nightmares, I'm not afraid."

"Looks like it's your fear they smell." Jack said with a smile.

Pitch gasped ready to run from the predators, until a column of black smoke erupted from the heavens and crashed into the surface of the ice. The nightmares stopped their charge and paused at the edge of the ice.

The dark spirit had turned around when the collision occurred, and when the smoke cleared all he did was laugh.

Jack, being the newest Guardian and new to a whole lot of what comes with the job, lowered his staff and was ready to freeze the figure that prevented the nightmares from getting rid of Pitch. He was stopped when North put a hand on his shoulder, the knowing smile he had let him know that whatever was happening was on their side.

Said figure was the dark spirit of Christmas. With his crown of horns and goat legs, he materialized from the cloud of smoke. Small patches of fire puffed from the suit he wore on his upper half.

Pitch approached the man and slung his arm over the being, "How long has it been my old friend? What, 700 years?"

"Long enough for me to remember your presence. Your feeble grasp at power once more has been pitiful at most."

The amount of venom that accompanied this statement made Pitch recoil.

"What?" Pitch remarked, "Look around at what I've got. With your help we could rule the night once more. Think of all the fear, the power, all from us."

Krampus' eyes glowed as he changed into a more ancient form. His crown shortened and two Yule goat horns grew forth from his head. The suit he wore transfigured to a long cloak that hid a now hunchback Krampus. A staff in his left hand formed from nothing, a skull of a buck adorning the top. The crimson sled erupting from the hill of snow behind him.

Krampus looked down at his younger self, remembering all that came with the trips to this world during those dark times.

The sounds of bones cracking cut through the silence, Krampus standing at his full height once more. And the laugh. The laugh that came from it shook the forest around them, as if the trees trembled from the memory of the last time that laugh was produced. Jack looked over to North once more, expecting something that would make him feel better about this situation, but the look of concern that adorned the large man's face did nothing but make him wonder what they were supposed to do.

Pitch had a half smile on his face, until the laughing stopped and was met with a scowl from the demonic goat-man.

"Make no mistake vermin, we may both torment people, but at least I do it as punishment or at the very least as an incentive. You. All you are is the fear that people have when all they know is uncertainty. You are a remnant of an age of worldwide fear that kept everyone from being better. An age where your power was the strongest and ruled both the day and night. I hated the dark ages. Do you think that I enjoy my job? In a few cases I do, but I hate having to fill my night with the screams. Oh the screams. They never stopped when you were in charge. I'd have to fill my night with the wickedness you caused."

The flames across his body cast shadows all across the forest, but neither Pitch nor the nightmares recoiled from the light. A light as impure as the one Krampus let off invited those of the darker nature to relish in its presence. The opposite could have been said about the dark smoke that rolled off him, the feeling of being overwhelmed enveloped them when it licked near them.

The Guardians were spared from these feelings, but the sight of it was just as terrifying. The mix of the light and dark was like tendrils that surrounded them, but paid them no mind when moving past them. A beam of light from the Man in the Moon had put them in more or less of a spotlight of white light in the swarm of dark smoke and blue sparks of flame.

Pitch was left in a void, standing in the ice and surrounded by all of this. The smoke and fire refusing to touch the being.

"And look at you now. Back to the same way when the dark ages ended. Powerless and forgotten."

The smoke and fire suddenly imploded back into the being, leaving the visage of a young man in a suit in its place, but the black eyes with the orange rectangular pupils told that this was still the same being.

"I move on and evolve, making sure that people will remember me in more ways than just the fear that I caused. That is why I can stay the way I do, and another reason that I just hate you. But the one thing. The one thing that makes me see no issue with letting what is next to happen occur without a hitch."

Krampus raised his hand, ready to snap his fingers.

"You interrupted my job."

With the sound of the snap shooting through the night Pitch remembered why he felt so much dread before Krampus appeared.

"Oh no!" Pitch yelled.

To be fair he did try to run from his dark creations. But nothing stopped them from overwhelming him and taking him to a certain place in the forest.

They dragged him through the forest and down to his lair and as they forced their former master into the depths they pulled all of the leftovers of the bedpost into the hole with them. They covered up the ground's opening as a final measure.

"No, don't! Ahh! Nooo!"

Pitch's final words echoed through the night.

The Guardians turned to the dark shadow of Christmas before them, not sure of what was going to happen next, until North approached the man and held out his hand.

"Couldn't have been later? Almost always on time except when it means something else."

Krampus looked at the offer and smiled as he shook the man's hand.

"It's kinda hard to notice a message when you use borealis. I was wrapping up in Alaska when I finally pieced it together."

"Uh North?" Tooth asked, "Who's your friend?"

Before North could explain the mentioned "friend" pushed past him and did an extravagant bow to the other four.

"Krampus, King of krampusnacht and honorary Guardian of discipline and development."

"What?"

"What?"

"Huh?"

All but Sandman let out a questioning word at this statement.

Sandman tried to explain but the shapes of dreams formed faster than could be read.

"I was doing my thing once Nicholas started. I met with the Man in the Moon about what I do. Since I'm only supposed to be here one day of the year I wasn't made an official Guardian."

"Alright." Bunny started, "Sure you've been doing it for a while, we get it. What's the discipline and development thing about? Last time I checked that's not really what kids like."

Krampus sighed as a response to this, until actually answering the question.

"Sure they don't like it, but I'm a necessary thing for them. I'm the reason that kids should be better than terrible around the holidays, and what better way of getting over fears than just having them in your face. Sure it's not perfect, but I'm just something that has to happen for the bad kids to be a little bit better and the fearful kids to be just the smallest bit braver."

Krampus looked down at his pocket watch as he finished.

"Time to go." He said, directing the statement at North. "Make sure I don't have to do this again, please."

Before the man could respond, Krampus was gone.