Got grounded (again) from my laptop. Finally got it back but I've had work. So I am writing this on Wednesday, August 8th but probably won't update until tomorrow (the 9th) or on Friday the 10th. This is the last chapter of this arc, hence the reason it is so long.
Pitch was not a happy King of Nightmares. All he wanted was to have a nice evening with Cupid. Instead, he got dragged into the Dream Realm, the one place he hated more than anything.
The only reason he even got out of there was that he knew it wasn't real. Nothing he saw or did was real. It was all just a dream.
Just like the giant villain-like castle that looked like it came straight out of a Disney movie or something.
"That, I believe, is the place we need to be. I get the feeling Jack is inside somewhere," Pitch stated.
"That's bloody great." Bunny groaned. Pitch rolled his eyes. Of course, the rabbit had to complain. It wasn't like it was Pitch's fault that Rumple had no creativity.
"We better get this over with."
"For once, I agree with you, North," Pitch replied.
"How did they figure it out?!" Rumpelstiltskin was furious. Those meddlesome Guardians had entered the Dream Realm. And they brought Pitch! "If I was there, I could stop them."
Rumple wasn't stupid enough to think he could resist the allure the Dream Realm held. That's why he had stayed back in the real world. And a little magic was all it took to take Jack there.
But he didn't have a choice anymore. He couldn't let them take the boy back. North knew he what he was getting into when he signed that contract.
And there was no way Rumpelstiltskin was going to let him out of their deal anytime soon.
Jack was bored out of his mind. I mean, there are only so many games a teenager could play at a time before they got tired of it. Plus Jack was getting sick of waiting around.
'They're taking too long,' Jack thought as he dreamed up a bunch of stuff he might need to escape. Then he went over to the balcony and pressed his hand against the barrier.
"I wish I could leave." Kind of a long shot, but Jack wanted to try it. Needless to say, it did not work. 'Dang it. I was so sure Rumple wasn't that smart.'
"I wish I knew how to leave."As soon as Jack spoke, a piece of paper appeared in his hands.
Must three riddles you answer. No help from friends shall you receive. When finished you are with them, the game will be over. This you do and freedom you and your allies will gain.
I am a cold man without a soul. If there is warmth in me, it slowly will kill me. What am I?
A man pushes his car end he ends up in front of a hotel. In that exact moment, he goes bankrupt. Why?
Where can you find roads without cars, rivers without water, cities with no people, and forests without trees?
"Yoda much?" Jack asked as he looked at the paper. "And what kind of riddles are these?"
The first one was probably the easiest. After all, Jack was the Spirit of Winter. He lied in the cold. A cold man with no soul who would die if he was warm was obviously a man made out of snow. So a snowman. (No, Jack definitely hadn't heard this riddle before at a sleepover with Jamie. He solved it all by himself. Probably. Maybe. Okay, no he didn't.)
The word 'snowman' appeared next to the first riddle with a gold checkmark beside it.
Jack hadn't heard the other two before, so it took him a while to figure out 2 and 3. After all, why would going to a hotel make someone bankrupt? Then Jack remembered something that had happened a few weeks ago.
"Jack, wanna play Monopoly?" Jamie asked.
"What's that?"
"It's this game where we pick an avatar, like this car here, and go around the board. We buy properties and make the other player pay you money if they land on your property. You can add a hotel to make them pay even more than they have to. Whoever has the most money at the end wins."
"Monopoly! He moved his avatar, a car, and landed on someone's property with a hotel!" Jack shouted. "Wait, who am I talking to?"
Another gold check mark appeared next to the word Monopoly. Which left only one riddle left. This one made absolutely no sense to Jack. A road didn't always have cars, at least not in isolated areas. But what river had no water? What city had no people? And what forest had no trees?
"Give me a hint or something." A few seconds passed before some words appeared at the bottom of the paper. "Beyond constrictions, you must think of. For literal it is not."
It took him some time before Jack finally realized what the answer was. It was a-
While Jack was figuring things out, the Guardians plus Cupid plus Pitch had problems of their own to deal with. Only about a million monsters had appeared (okay, probably not that many), most likely due to Rumple dreaming them up. But we'll get to him later.
Anyway, each Guardian managed to defeat them by splitting up and fighting said monsters on their own.
Tooth had to fight Makara, a sea-creature from Hindu mythology. If the Tooth Fairy is real, then a Makara is too.
Bunny had to fight a Drop Bear, which is basically a giant carnivorous koala gone bad.
North had to fight Rusalka, a water nymph known for luring men to their death by using their desires against them. (Yes, from Russian folklore).
Sandy had to fight a Jotun, a giant from Norse Mythology.
Cupid had to fight a Gargouille, which is a monster carved out of stone that sometimes comes to life.
And Pitch had to fight, ironically, his own Nightmares.
After hours and hours of fighting, they finally made their way to the castle….where Jack was sitting on the stairs leading up to the entrance.
"Oh hey guys! Thanks for finding me, but I figured out that map was the answer so we can go home!"
Now some of you might be wondering where Rumple was while all of this was happening. Well, he made a deal with the Dream Realm (are you guys really surprised this place has a conscience of it's own?). The deal was that Jack would be stuck in that room for however long Rumple wanted to keep him there. In return, Rumple would stay out of the Realm because the Realm really didn't want that dwarf hanging around.
Since Rumple went into the Dream Realm and Jack got out….well, no one's going to be hearing anything from him for about a gazillion years.
AN: I suck at fight scenes and this ending is a little bad but I needed this arc to be over so I could continue with my one-shots. Maybe I'll do a one-shot about the fighting later. School will be starting up soon but ironically I'll have more time to write than I had this summer. We're almost to the 100th chapter. Please review and ask me any questions about any of the characters, OC or not.
Kitkat Out!