Disclaimer: I don't own DP, or Rise of the Guardians… wait, didn't I say I was not doing more disclaimers?… Force of habit is so hard to break *sobs*.

A thousand million thanks to my beta: Anne Camp aka Obi-quiet, she made this chapter a lot smoother and awesome ^_^

Chapter 2: The confusion before Christmas.

Nicholas S. North could not comprehend the fact that he —the guardian of wonder, capable of going around the world in one night to deliver presents to all kids house by house— could possible lose the trail of one simple teenager. "Daniel Fenton" was the name provided to him by his mental list. The guardian knew every child in the world, and this fourteen year old was still, technically a child. So, as the bearded man looked at the empty street before him, he scanned every nook and cranny with his eyes, searching for the mysterious youth that had bumped into him not two minutes ago. He was so into his examination that he didn't notice his fellow guardian, Jack, flying several meters above him seconds before landing to his right.

"Where is he?" The Guardian of Fun inquired, mimicking the older and trying to land his own eyes on the boy North had been chasing.

"I do not know! I have lost him!" The Spirit of Christmas disbelievingly declared, moving his arms up in an exaggerated surprised gesture moments before starting a pointless narration. "He just turned around that building. I followed, and then POOF!" North continued, making sure to add the appropriated gestures to make emphasis at his somewhat loud words. The big man looked wide-eyed towards the shorter one, who gave him a wry smile in return. North could only guess the meaning of that expression as his companion briefly scratched the back of his head in an awkward motion; which is why he rapidly lost interest in it and returned his gaze to the familiar area of the decorated little town.

The following two hours were filled with fruitless searching. The two guardians had peeked in all the windows of the area, in the alleys, on the trees… but no matter where they looked, they couldn't catch a glimpse of the slippery teenager. It was like Daniel had vanished into thin air.

Eventually, sore and tired —more mentally than physically—, the two Guardians ended up stopping for a rest on top of a rather plain house's roof. Deep down, the white-haired duo knew they were not getting anywhere with their search, so they decided to go back to their respective duties as guardians; meaning that they would be parting ways soon: North going back to the Pole and Jack back to wander from town to town covering things with frost; after all, they were both extremely busy this time of the year, it being the season in which both needed to join forces to make a "White Christmas" for the kids in the world.

North and Jack exchanged a few more opinions and words, which ended up delaying their parting since the conversation ended up doing a circle back to the event that took place in Jamie's birthday party, and Jack ended up adding a bit more detail to his narration this time around. The white-bearded did his best to give some encouragement, but to no avail. Sure, he had said some words that he deemed good enough to lift his fellow Guardian's spirit, but the hatred of Danny Fenton for Christmas made his little speech sound a bit forced —discovering the son of one of his favorite hated the things he stood for hurt the Russian deeply.

The Guardian of Fun noticed the dispirited ways of the usually cheerful Guardian of Wonder, but chose not to comment since he had no idea what to say to improve the big man's mood. Jack knew it was impossible for anyone to be liked by everyone, and, no matter what Jack tried to said to make things better, he knew this was not going to change. Eventually, he settled for giving North a reassuring pat on the shoulder, blue eyes meeting blue and, thankfully, no words needed to be exchanged. North seemed to have snapped out of his depression somewhat thanks to the friendly gesture, letting out a small smile towards his fellow Guardian.

Now that the Russian's mood had lifted a bit, Jack decided to leave Amity Park to continue frosting things in other American locations before moving on to the next country. Asking the wind to lift him up and take him away as soon as he had said goodbye to his fellow guardian, Jack Frost lifted his wooden staff; the wind complied, taking the youngest guardian flying under the starry sky, yet far above the houses and buildings. North, on the other hand, decided to stay behind just a little bit longer in Amity before making it back to The Pole.

The Bearded Spirit had waved his thick hand to the flying Jack Frost and was soon left standing alone under the full moon, from where North knew 'Man in the Moon' was always watching.

"I suppose you won't tell me where he went; eh? Moony?" he questioned the silent moon, which didn't speak back to him. North wasn't sure why, but he suspected that if someone knew what everything that had gone on today meant, that person could only be the one who chose him as a guardian.

North shook his head and sighed, knowing he had to go back to the Pole soon for the final Christmas preparations yet wanting to go back to the Fenton kid's house to see if he had come back. He also considered ringing the bell of the Fenton household, so maybe his long-time believer, Jack Fenton, would open the door for him. Usually the man wouldn't consider such approach, for it was long since decided that the guardians wouldn't show themselves in public so easily and meeting the black-haired ghost hunter would be unavoidably doing that. Nevertheless, on the other hand, it being Christmas time, there were plenty of people dressing as him and pretending to be Santa, which actually made the Russian very inconspicuous in his normal attire, thus very unlikely to be thought of as the "real Santa". North dismissed the idea though: as much as a conversation with the male, spandex-wearing adult might lift his mood, it would be quite problematic given that Jack's wife, Maddie, and Jack's teenager daughter, Jazz, couldn't see him, which would mean the women would end up seeing his and the Fenton patriarch's exchange like the latter talking to empty air and, possibly, end up worrying about Jack's mental sanity.

Still rooted on the same spot of the roof he stood on when Jack parted, North shook his head, as if by doing so he could shake away the temptation to get back to Fentonworks to visit. Finally finding his resolve to go back, North's hand disappeared inside his pants' pocket, rummaging inside of it to find the magical snow-globe he had used to come to the little town. He had barely grazed the small sphere with hi thick fingers when, all of a sudden, an explosion took place several rooftops away. Immediately lifting his once-pocketed , empty hand, North squinted his eyes momentarily as green flames seemed to dance on the night-sky in a way that was clearly unnatural. The bearded man could not make out what was happening: a cloud of dust and debris had formed instantly after the explosion and rapidly moved towards him, making the flying particles sting his eyes and forcing him to close them and shield his face with his arm protectively. It took a moment for most of the dust to settle, allowing him to open his teary, blue orbs to take a look to the distant… figures? He really couldn't be sure what the fast-moving blurs his temporary-damaged eyesight caught were, but he was sure that they were actually there. While his brain was still trying to make sense of things, a second grey cloud formed, but North reacted in time to prevent further damage to his vision.

"What in world?" He mouthed in a rare quiet voice, sounding almost like he was daydreaming. Not being one to stay put for long –especially now that his eyesight had been almost fully restored—, he decided to get closer to the area where the apparently-not-so-spontaneous destruction was taking place. It took him a blink of the eye to reach the area he had aimed for, but the green fire was no longer present, except for some faltering flames that lingered in the cracks of the buildings and the surrounding streets down below. It was decidedly surprising for the bearded guardian to see that some light poles had been tore away from the ground, and several of them had been imbedded in the house next to the one he currently stood on. It was especially surprising among the rest or the damaged objects —which included cars, windows, streets and buildings— a pile of broken electronics that almost looked like they'd been laid out in a vague humanoid form with a TV screen in place of the head.

The red-clothed giant couldn't for the life of him decipher what that seemingly random assortment of electronics was doing in the middle of a half-destroyed street, and wondered if it had something to do with the green fire-lights from before. North felt uneasy: the tingly feeling in his belly came as a premonition that something was about to happen, and North knew that when he could feel something in his belly, it always came true. But he couldn't figure out the nature of what he was feeling this time: Was it excitement? Was it fear? Or was it something completely different? All he knew was that it was something big, and big usually meant the guardians were needed to come together and protect the children from whatever force was loose.

Once North had come to the conclusion that the situation needed further investigation, he buried his big hands inside of his pocket once more, then took the snow-globe out of it. Right after he got the magical artifact out, he ordered it to open the path home, to the Globe Room. Now, with the portal swirling in front of him, he started to wonder what exactly he would tell his fellow guardians. However, North was not a man who could seriously plan a speech beforehand, he was a man who lived the moment and acted according to what he felt at that particular instant, so, it wasn't a surprise he had forgotten to put his ideas in order as he hurriedly made his way to the switch that send out the signal for all the Guardians to gather.

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AN: Just in case some of you don't remember, the "Globe room" is where the golden globe with the light of believers is, same place where Pitch Black displayed his shadowy form in the movie the first time, where North called the Guardians in the movie with the aurora-borealis.

Anyway. Sorry it took me so long for updating, but this story is going to be updated very sporadically, mostly because I find it hard to write. I know you would probably all like for it to be more frequent, and I would like to make you all as happy as all your wonderful reviews have made me, but I can't. I do hope you have liked this chapter, as I hope you will stick around…

I do have something I would love to ask you people, though. Completely out of curiosity: Would you guys prefer to have Pitch as the bad guy, or should I stick with the Ghost Writer? I will be the one to make the final choice, but I'm curious to know what you guys think in a review.