Summary: Slightly AU, set somewhat if in the middle of the movie, it took a different turn. Mentions of Dark!Jack. And a much more evil Pitch.
In order to once again claim the world, Pitch had to trick a winter sprite into falling under his control. The Guardians had been too focused on themselves and their duties, and had not caught onto Pitch's plan unto too late, and are now paying the price. The remaining Guardians must now hold on to the one called "Shadow Creeper" until they can find Nightlight, the one The Man In The Moon has told them to temporarily recruit. But little do they know she is a target for Mischief.
*Jack/OC
Tooth/Jack
Maybe Tooth/Bunny
T for language and mentions of death. May be rated M later for future mature content and maybe graphic writing.
A/N: Had to do some cleaning up in my life around here. Thank you all you readers and I'm sorry for the ridiculously long wait.
To LittleLottie187: thank you, your review helps a lot! What exactly are you confused about, maybe I can explain? Yes, my OC is...friends with Sandy, I guess you can say, and not with the other Guardians. The time line is supposed to jump back and forth from the present to the past to past-life as a sort of time spacer. I'll go back and add 'Flashback' to those that are set back in time if you'd like.
To NightWindAlchemist: I hope that was a good wow... ':)
Listen to: "only" by Nine Inch Nails
Ch5:Incarceration
ˈinˌkärsəˈrāSH(ə)n | (noun) 1. the state of being confined in prison; imprisonment.
It was no surprise that Santa's workshop was busy, even in late February. Yetis kept occupied, many of them busy building presents for the new year. Several carried large mounds of toys to a room where those completed sat waiting for next Christmas. Other yetis carried out business elsewhere, whether it was baking another batch of cookies or shooing away elves, the North Pole was kept in nonstop motion.
Everything was going well.
Eddie, one of the yetis in charge, was on his way to report to Santa's office, but was surprised to find the large Russian burst through the large wooden double doors down the hall. Eddie grumbled in the language only North understood, speaking of the workers' progress, but stopped noticing the three other Guardians flanking him and a large sack slugged over his shoulder. His eyebrows were knitted together as he barked at the other legendary figures, his hard expression clearly said now was not the time. Eddie stepped aside in time to let them all pass, then went to tell his fellow yetis.
North waved for the Guardians to follow upstairs, ordering a trio of passing yetis to join them, and opened a door to a large room overlooking the gigantic globe.
The four had not said much after escaping thru the portal, all thinking about Jack Frost and concerned about the sprite asleep inside the sag slugged over North's shoulder.
It had been the first time they all had seen Jack since he disappeared, since that failed Easter Bunnymund began to shrink. Since the day he betrayed them all by bringing back his teeth's preserved container instead of returning to help battle nightmares. Since he went back and joined Pitch. Neither of them had expected to run into him again, much less of what they saw.
North carefully loosened the knotted sack and set it in the center of the room, then backed up aligned the others at the edge of the room. He let out a heavy sigh, raising his hand to message the bridge of his nose.
The room was large and very spacious. Polished wooden tile were the floor. Glass walls covered both sides of the room, overlooking the snowy scenery of the mountains outside on the right and the workshop to the left, not allowing any form of darkness in the room.
Sandy floated above the sack and gave it a light tap to wake its sleeping occupant (since he had been the one to put her to sleep). He looking up expectantly hearing a groggy groan from inside.
North gripped the handle of his swords, ready; Bunnymund held up a pointed boomerang in each hand in defense. They all knew a sprite like this could be dangerous, but how much exactly they didn't know, but they were not willing to take any chances.
All the Guardians had their weapons at the ready except Sandy. He twiddled his thumbs, his gaze darting from them to the bag nervously.
Once again, the room was deathly quiet as they waited for him to come out, for a sound, anything. The yetis beside them took a battle stance, ready for in case their guest decided to attack.
Moments, then minutes went by and still, nothing.
Bunnymund had now grown impatient. "Are you sure he's even in there?!" His arms crossed.
North ordered for the yeti beside him to go and inspect. All watched as the furry giant carefully opened the sack and cautiously peeked inside.
He frowned and turned to North, grumbling in accusing. He held up the bag showing it was dark and empty, then pressed it flat between his hands for emphasis.
Everyone's eyebrows arched in shock. The Guardians looked at one another. They had been sure they saw her stuffed into that sack just minutes ago.
Bunnymund was absolutely positive he had done his part and was not about to take blame, and made that known, yet not all too nicely.
The yeti tossed the sack over his shoulder, giving up on the situation. Just as it hit the floor, a blur shot out and tackled the tall yeti's legs.
Everyone looked up in surprise hearing the yeti suddenly fall to the floor. They were even more shocked to see a small girl standing behind him, staring at them wide eyed.
"Oh, no....." She muttered, frozen slightly and hunched over the yeti, her arms out to her side for balance.
She was not young, but more petite. Wearing a black large pull-over hoodie, slide-in ballet shoes and denim shorts, Bunnymund guessed she might be a little younger than Tooth, maybe around Jack's age.
"Where-where in bloody hell did you come from?!"
She just stared at him, her mouth parted, not knowing how to respond.
Tooth fluttered towards the girl, keeping a safe distance. "You are the Shadow Creeper, by any chance, aren't you?"
She straightened up. They began to think she was a mute like Sandman after several more moments of silence, until finally asking, "Why would the Tooth Fairy care to know anything of that?" Her voice held no resistance, but still snark.
Tooth eyed for a moment before hovering back to North's side.
"Are you the Shadow Creeper, as they call it, or are you not," North ordered sternly.
"I am. Why would that be of any importance to you all? Aren't you supposed to be working year-round for presents or hiding eggs or exchanging tiny bones for money." She made air quotations with her fingers when talking about their jobs.
She looked around, noticing the lighted room and the yetis taking a defensive stance. Her brows furrowed at the start of suspicion. "...Why am I even here?!"
"This is very important business," North's voice was gruff—serious. "Man in Moon had wanted us to bring you here to discuss with you."
"You know you could have just actually talked to me like a normal person, instead of kidnapping me."
Bunnymund scoffed, "well that'd might have been a great idea if we could ever find you."
She crossed her arms.
"Shadow Creeper," North paused, seeing her scrunch her nose at the sound of her name. "Eh, Shadow..."
Her eyebrow raised a little—curious.
"'Scuse me Mr. Saint Nick, but how in heaven's forsaken did you all even see me. No one is supposed to know where I am," she chuckled dryly, "after over a hundred years, now you all want to communicate, to'talk'?!"
Sandy exhaled nervously, turning to North in hopes that he would hurry and get to the point.
"Shadow, we mean no harm." North put his swords away.
Her forced grin disappeared as a realization dawned on her.
"Well, it wasn't exactly easy, mate. Sandy here—-"
Shadow had already turned to the short man, abruptly ending his sentence. Her expression darkened greatly.
"You sold me out!"
Sandy looked shocked. He twiddled his fingers, shapes forming and disappearing rapidly above his head as he tried to find the right thing to say. But Shadow wasn't having that. He knew he was guilty.
"I can't believe you!" She began stalking towards the short man. "I asked you—nicely—to never tell, and still!"
Extremities began pouring from her mouth. Curse words, accusing words.
The faint flickering of the lights overhead is what made Tooth look up, and noticed the room growing steadily darker. She tapped North frantically to get his attention but he was fixed on he enraged girl walking towards them, his hands back on the handles of his swords.
The room was picked specifically to keep her from using her powers, by shrouding the room in only light.
"Sandy~" Bunnymund glanced at him, his tone sounding like a nervous warning.
The lights above flickered, daring to blow any minute. The shadows danced menicingly around he room. One of Tooth's fairies shrieked from fear in her ear.
Shadow jabbed a finger at the sandman, harsh words still pouring from her mouth. She then darted towards them, her hands outstretched, her hands positioned as if to strangle them. The two yetis ran after her, one yanked her back by her arms and the other stood ready in case she got away.
Sandy tugged North's pants and gestered to let her go. But North did not so much as give a downward glance.
When the yeti turned around, the small girl's arms were held out to her sides at an awkward angle by his elbows, a deep frown was carved into her face.
"Now, Shadow," North took several steps closer, and rubbed his hands together. He stared her in the eyes. "You must cooperate with us, or there will be dire consequences."
Sandy slapped North's leg and he finally looking down. Sandy pointed at her just in time to see her yawn, and North noticed her eyelids drooping.
Sandy formed a tiny image of a girl stretching and yawning then climb into a tiny bed made of sand, letter 'Z's floating from her mouth.
North frowned.
'She's really cranky,' he wrote in gold above his head.
North furrowed his eyebrows. How is this crankiness, he thought, watching her.
The lights flickered once more before Sandy flicked a handfull of dreamsand in her face, and watched in satisfaction as her head slumped to the side as she fell asleep. North focused on her exposed neck, where a lone shadow lingered. The room was once again bright and the lights stopped, so there should be no form of shade at all.
Then he saw it move.
The shadow coiled along her neck as that of a small snake. Except for the fact that it was black, and appeared to shimmer like crystallized sand...
Sandy must have seen it as well, because in the next moment he had peeled it off of her, much like a leech, not seeing it leave a thin trail of blood behind. Sandy then transformed the snake-like nightmare into a happy lizard in the palm of his hand. It then dispersing it into golden sand and evaporating in the air.
Sandy dusted his hand off as if completing a hard day of work.
Tooth could only stare.
Sandy glared up at North, no doubly thinking "I told you so!" He flung his hand out to the side as if to say 'see?!'
"Well that hopefully explains her attitude," Bunnymund remarked a little snarky.
*~.*~.~*
Shadow opened her eyes to see Tooth standing over her. She realized her fingers were probing her mouth. Shadow barely stopped herself from clamping her teeth around the Tooth Fairy's fingers.
"North," Toothiana called almost singsong-like.
Light flickered off of glaciers outside and danced across the blankets; the room here had suddenly shrunk a lot smaller. Shadow looked around noticing she was on a bed, and saw Sandy sitting at the end of her feet, a shy grin spread across his face. She also noticed she had been stripped of her hoodie and was lying in only her shorts and spaghetti-strapped tank top.
Shadow frowned.
Moments later the large man, known as North, barged thru the door of the bedroom.
Shadow glared at him.
"You have a sprained ankle and a bad-looking freezer burn on your arm," Tooth decreaded after a through medical analysis while Shadow was asleep. She looked as if there was more she wanted to say, but held her tongue instead.
Shadow stared at North, her eyes hard and saying everything her lips weren't.
Confusion. Determination.
Mostly anger.
North was scolding her on one thing or another. She wasn't listening and was glaring intensivly at Sandy. He did everything but meet her gaze.
She tuned North out for some time the room became quiet, and still it were minutes until words were spoken. Sandy found his fingers suddenly very interesting.
"What do you want from me."
Tooth blinked. "Excuse me?"
"So you all kidnapped me and brought me to your hideout for one reason or another, I hope. So what do you want from me?" This time it sounded more of a question, "'Cause I hope there's a reasonable explanation."
North opened his mouth, his large hand already leveling with Shadow's face, and was cut off as Aster stood up straight on his hind legs. "Hold on—-h-hold on," he stuttered, getting frustrated. "Of anything, you should be thanking us for saving your behind back there."
Shadow scoffed and sat up in the bed. Her eyes looked straight ahead, focusing on nothing in particular, although it was clear she was speaking to Bunnymund. "Of what?! I and everyone in here know that there was nothing other than the norm going on. For whatever reason of your paranoia, it's not true and I wasn't going to do anything to 'jeopardizing your believers,'" she made air quotients with her fingers about the children of the world.
"It's not you we were worried about," Aster's ears flattened against his head as he stalked to stand in front of her, "it was that messed-up little dipstick that wanted to massacre us."
And then to everyone's surprise, Shadow barked a laugh.
"You mean that walking snowman!?" She looked up at the giant rabbit standing beside the bed and couldn't help the sly grin that spread across her face, "he's harmless!"
"He could kill you." Bunnymund's voice was low, no longer angry.
"So could you," Shadow shot back just as calmly, "but I'm not seeing any throws."
Once again, the Guardians were left quiet. And before they could speak any further, Shadow pulled the blankets back and jumped down. Besides a flinch when she landed on the floor she didn't show any other emotions other than irritation and anger, and leant against the bed and folded her arms. "Well it was nice to chat, but—-"
"Shadow, I do not think you are understanding the importance here."
She strained to not roll her eyes, and turned to North. "What importance?" It was no a genuine question.
"That it is very dangerous for you to be out there," North indicated the world outside, "alone. At this moment, that is. ...You see...we need you here. ...We were advised to get your help."
She raised an eyebrow.
"If this has anything to do with your Christmas rounds or any other holiday—-"
"It has to do with all holidays; with every day. Man in Moon told us that you need to help us—-"
"Oh, now there's the Man in the Moon in this..." She scoffed under her breath.
North had obviously heard the comment and he frowned. North unfolded his arms to point a large finger at her chest, his large boots making loud thuds across the floor until he stood not far from her. His accent was thick as his frustration grew.
"Shadow Creeper. We were warned that something very terrible will be brought on by someone very sinister. And in order for that to never happen, you are not permitted to leave premises."
This made her eyes grow wide.
"Yes, they are orders from Man in Moon, but me as well—-"
She stood up straight, defensive. "You can't keep me here!" she interrupted.
North continued as if she had never said a thing. "-—This is not only for your safety, but everyone else's lives as well." North gradually took a step towards the short girl.
His bright blue eyes were not going to rest until he was sure, she knew.
"Understand?"
Shadow didn't need to sneer, the displeasure was clear on her face. But yet her head dipped just slightly.
Sandy looked from the large Russian and back to Shadow nervously. North had no idea who he was dealing with, Sandy knew, and one wrong move could cause the death of all of them.
Her fists clenched at her sides. And Sandy became very antsy. He waved his hand trying to get North's attention, but failing.
"You don't control me." Her voice low.
"Shadow, this is for your own good—-"
"This is from what some gigantic floating mass in the sky 'told' you." By now, Shadow no longer held her tongue. "How would you know what is best for me, huh!?"
Tooth and Aster knew that this was a matter best dealt without their presence and proceeded to leave, but didn't look away from the scene in front of them. Sandy was the only one to notice that the door to the bedroom's closet was open, exposing the darkness shadows inside.
Shadows.
'Oh no!'
North did not notice the exclamation mark appearing above Sandy's head.
Shadow grew increasingly angry by the second until she was practically shouting. "You think you know e'erything about e'eryone. I doubt you knowanything I've been through, Santa!" She spat the name, more from frustration. There were more things said, but they were not the nicest or cleanest choice of words.
North had hardly noticed the room quickly growing darker, or the long dark tendrils stretching across the floor from the dark closet just behind him.
"Sandy! The dreamsand!" Bunnymund shouted and the short man jumped. He noticed.
Sandy panicked, looking back and forth from the pair arguing to the two in the doorway. He couldn't think.
"Sandy! NOW!"
And that was the last thing she remembered before a warm, fuzzy sensation came over her once again. Before she was knocked out by a particularly large ball of dreamsand. Because the next thing she knew she was waking up back under the covers with restraints binding her wrist to the sides of the bed.
She tugged at the cloth but Kris Kringle proved his skills in knots—there was no escape.
A loud shout escaped her throat.
She had lost control again. That has to be the only explanation that required the need for restraints to be used. She hung her head. She was frustrated with herself more than the Guardians. She knew that because of this incident, she wouldn't be able to use the shadows to break out now for some time.
She sat there for sometime, too many thoughts and schemes running thru her head. And the pain from her ankle and her upper arm catching her attention now and then.
Sleep still ebbed at the edge of her conscious despite her trying to shake it off.
She tried to think of what to do when she got out, of the houses to scope out, of those she'd been meaning to visit for some time. Of Sandy...
Sandy and the other Guardians. ...She tried to think of anything to take her mind off of the betrayal of the short golden man. Of happy things. Of going back to her palace she treated like a getaway beach house. Of upcoming Thanksgiving and the following Halloween. Of the parties to come. Of spring and Bunnymund's Easter egg hunts she was really considering sabotaging.
Of what they were saying earlier...of why they seemed so insistent that Jack Frost would do something horrible... She had never had a real conflict with him before, so naturally, she did not understand the Guardians' feelings.
Shadow began replaying back everything in her head, from earlier that night, to when she ran into Jack, to now.
Why did she go down that rooftop, she wondered to herself, if she hadn't she would have never been in this.
Why didn't she go the other way, like she originally thought? Why did she listen to Jack instead of leaving, ignoring him?
"Dammit Jack, why did he have to start shooting at them in the first place. The hell is his problem..."
She sighed to herself but the breath stopped midway her throat. Her body froze in fear knowing that that voice did not belong to any of the Guardians.
That voice...should not be here...
"Because I've had enough of not being believed in."
A/N: The Guardians kinda left Shadow hanging there didn't they lol. What should happen?! I was considering some mature content next chapter. what do you all think about that?