Chapter Eight:
While the Frost King commanded the north, and the Bear Queen reigned over the south, the rest of the world had fallen to chaos. There seemed to be nowhere safe from the fearlings and snow, or the dragons.
And when the Nightmare King - Pitch Black, the whispers called him - broke out of his cell, he had attacked his enemies first.
The North Pole had been almost completely decimated by Pitch, and then the Frost King, who'd come across its smoking ruins in the tundra. While North had pushed for the yetis and elves to escape with the essentials, he himself had not escaped before the Frost King appeared.
No one had heard of Santa Claus since. The others hoped he was still alive, and the bonds that connected them - guardian to guardian - hadn't broken. They didn't know where he was, but he hadn't been killed by the Frost King.
Yet.
"Sheila, we don't have a lot of time left,"
Toothiana nodded, dropping the grubby human cloak she'd taken to wearing. It covered her sparkling feathers, helping her blend in among the villagers. The fairy nodded to Bunny, who was similarly dressed.
"Okay girls, quick and hidden," Tooth whispered as a small group of her fairies popped out from under her cloak. They all clutched small trinkets - not the coins they used too, but bright flowers or small glistening stones. The small fairies nodded, and raced down the tunnel system that Bunny had conjured.
"That's a lot more than usual," Bunny muttered, watching the six mini fairies.
"There was a raid," Tooth replied, fixing her hood. "A group of children lost teeth in the chaos, as well as family members,"
Bunny nodded. In a normal life, Tooth's fairies took to the skies, able to cross to hundreds of homes overnight. Now, it took Bunny to open secure tunnels to specific locations, which cut their spread down to only one town a night.
Bunny had vowed to never let the Nightmare King, nor the other dark spirits, touch Toothiana. She was too important. Unlike him and North, who only focused on a single holiday, Tooth and Sandy had jobs every night of the year. And with Sandy out battling and searching for Pitch Black… it was only Tooth left.
They waited for the fairies in silence, slumped against the tunnel walls. After almost an eternity, Bunny suddenly stood up.
"What?" Tooth asked, but Bunny grabbed the fairy and pulled her back against the wall, a hand over her mouth.
"Whispering Death," He muttered. "They're close - they're tunneling."
"My fairies-?" Tooth asked nervously.
"If they stay still, they'll survive," Bunny muttered. "But the Death's might not even notice them, they're too small,"
They waited until the quiet rumbling faded away, and before Bunny could react, Tooth shot out of his arms and hurried down the tunnel, where she found her fairies, huddled together in a terrified group. She gathered them up quickly, slipping them into the pouches at her waist and turning back to Bunny, who appeared behind her.
"Lets go." The fairy said. "I don't want to spend anymore time underground,"
The duo made their way out of the Tunnels and into the woods, where they then trekked to a small hidden clearing with a tiny cottage. The house was built into a small hill, which completely hid it from onlookers.
Once inside, Tooth dismissed her fairies to her side of the cottage, where they quickly flew to a shelf that housed their remaining sisters. The numbers had certainly dwindled in the years since the Frost King and Bear Queen took over, and barely filled the small shelf that Tooth had carefully padded and built.
Bunny's side of the cottage was cleaner than the fairy's. It held a bed, small chest and a desk, where a few scattered maps tracked the borderlines between the two dark spirits. He hadn't been able to salvage much during the destruction of the Warren, and what he did have was kept locked away.
The two guardians didn't talk as they both collapsed into bed, trying to forget their encounters. It was a cycle they were both too familiar with, but didn't have the energy to change.
The night was rough and uneasy, so it didn't take much to wake Bunny up.
He realised with a start that it was a Nightfury scream. Bunny leapt to his feet and quickly doused the lights inside the cottage before shaking Tooth awake.
"It's time," He muttered, grabbing his discarded armor and boomerangs from the chest. Tooth nodded and grabbed her cloak, pulling out two ornate knives from her home.
The guardians crept out of the cottage and through the woods, heading towards a small hidden cove hidden deep in the forest. Bunny (through a combination of maps and using Tooth's fairies to scout) had figured out that the Cove was a regularly visited spot for Hiccup the Dragon Conqueror. It seemed to be a middle ground between his raids on the Frost King and the Bear Queen's castle.
As expected, the spirit and his dragon were inside the cove. The dragon was attempting to catch fish in the pond while his rider seemed to be sketching in a small leather bound book.
They'd chosen Hiccup for several reasons. Once separated from his dragon, he didn't really command the same power the other dark spirits did, and he had a certain… calmness. Like he wasn't as evil as the others.
Which made this moment all the more important.
Bunny made sure Tooth was in position before tapping his foot, causing a large hole to appear underneath the Nightfury. Before it could react, the tunnel transported the dragon to who knows where, leaving Hiccup unguarded.
The younger spirit looked up as the noise, golden eyes flashing as he leapt to his feet. He whirled around to where Bunny and Tooth had been standing, but only caught a glimpse of the two guardians before they disappeared behind trees.
Hiccup growled, moving into a fighting sense as he tried to locate his attackers. Bunny popped out of a tunnel in front of him, striking out with his boomerangs. The blow caught Hiccup in the face, sending his sprawling to the side where Tooth lunged at him with her knives. Hiccup scrambled back, but it seemed the fight was in the guardians favor.
Until Hiccup flicked his hands and wind yanked the duo into the sky.
"What?" Bunny yelled, throwing a boomerang. Hiccup ducked and avoided the projectile, just as two hidden dragons crawled out of his shirt and onto his head.
This. This was the Dragon Conqueror.
"I don't know who you are," Hiccup snarled. "Or what you want, but I can tell you that you have made a very grave mistake,"
Bunny and Tooth struggled against the wind, but it was no use. They could barely move, and Hiccup only looked bored. He rolled his wrists, and the two tiny dragons were sent up the wind streams towards the guardians.
"These are two of the most dangerous, small dragons in the world," Hiccup muttered. "And I have not had a very good day, so it will be a lot of fun watching you scream."
"You darklings are destoyin' the world!" Bunny croaked. Hiccup only smirked.
"No," He muttered darkly. "We're making it beau…"
A glowing lasso of sand wrapped around his waist, and Hiccup trailed off. Toothiana gasped and Bunny smirked as the lasso tightened and Hiccup was yanked backwards. The younger spirit hit the ground hard before he was dusted with a layer of dreamsand, and Sandy stepped out of a glowing cloud of the same stuff.
"Sandy!" Tooth cheered, rushing to the smaller spirit and enveloping him in a hug. "You saved us!"
Sandy smiled and tipped an imaginary hat.
Back in the cottage, the three guardians worked quickly. Sandy had tied Hiccup down to the table, arms and legs restrained by ropes of dreamsand. Toothiana had retrieved both a spellbook - saved from the rubble of North's workshop - and their greatest asset, a memory box. Bunny stood guard at the door, boomerangs in hand.
"Ready?" Tooth asked Sandy, who nodded. The fairy took a deep breath and opened the book, starting to read.
As soon as the words left her lips, Hiccup's eyes flashed open and he started to wrestle against the ropes. Sandy and Bunny lunged forwards to hold him down, and Tooth kept reading. Hiccup seized again and started yelling.
"Finish this up sheila!" Bunny griped. "Or his yammering will call every dragon in the north down here!"
Tooth quickly finished the page, and threw the book to the ground, grabbing for the memory case. She tried to touch Hiccup with it, but the spirit broke out of his dreamsand bonds at the last second. He sat straight up and hurled a gust of wind at Sandy, who was caught in the chest and dissipated into a puff of sand.
"NO!" Tooth screamed. She slammed the box into Hiccup's hands and the boy slumped over, hitting the table as he was sucked into his own memories.
"Damn it!" Bunny cursed. "That bugger got Sandy!"
"Look!" Tooth interrupted, pointing at the dragon rider. "It worked…"
As the two guardians watched, Hiccup black hair slowly lightened to brown, and his skin lost the pale grey tint. He groaned, and his eyes blinked open.
Revealing two green irises and not the golden evil they had expected.
Authors Note: An important chapter today! This week has both flown past and gone by super slowly. I just started college classes yesterday, but I'm already tired, and my writing schedule has slown down considerably. Luckily, I have a little more than half of this story left, then the ten chapter Voltron fic, and Omega Children is four chapters away from being finished! So content shall continue!