A few months have passed since I'd "joined" Pitch. Currently, I was in his hideout, if you'd even call it that. His "hideout" was just a dark, underground cave full of cages and recently, tooth boxes, and the only way in or out was the oh so evil-looking rabbit hole leading to the surface. Real evil, huh? Also, guess what? I'm stuck in a cage. Thanks to Pitch. I mean, I know I'd be able to escape, but this was Pitch's lair. With all the Nightmares about, I'd be caught before I even make it past a fifty meter radius from the cage. I don't recall this being part of the deal- "Thump."

The sound reverberated throughout the cave, interrupting my annoyance-filled thoughts.

"Thump."

I glanced about the cave. The whole place was completely stuffed with cages. Cages and stairs. Birdcages hung from the ceiling, large cells rested on the ground and everything seemed to be either black or grey. I looked behind, at the rabbit-hole entrance, probably just to confirm I really did enter from there. At the surface of the entrance was a broken, wooden bed that seemed pretty old.

I gripped my frosted staff tighter, 'I have a bad feeling about this place.'

The wind picked up around me as I lifted off the ground, my tousled silver hair shifting slightly. I jumped and latched onto one of the birdcages. My eyes widened. The cages were packed with little tooth fairies. I assured them, "I'm going to get you guys out, kay? Just give me a sec…" I jumped back down. Pitch. When I see him, I am so gonna -

"Please… L-let me out?" a soft voice whispered somewhere behind me.

I swivelled around, staff poised. Slowly, I made my way towards the voice, cautious of my surroundings, should it be a trap. The voice came from a large, metal cage. As I advanced, a figure shifted into my view. The prisoner was a frail-looking girl around my age (in appearance- which is about 14 or 15). She had her bruised hands snaked around the bars of the cell, looking at me with desperate, fearful eyes. One of her hands slowly extended to point at something hanging on the wall. Jail keys.

My previously determined face softened. I nodded, taking off to retrieve the cell key. The padlock fell to the floor, a "clunk" resounding throughout the lair. The girl gingerly crawled forward and pushed the cell door open. "Th-thanks…"

I grinned at her, "Don't mention it! But we'll leave intros till later, yeah? We should focus on getting outta here."

I saw her return a slight smile, before shakily standing up. I extended my hand, which she took to steady herself and stand up to her full height. I was about half a head taller than her. Her auburn hair reached halfway down her back and was slightly dishevelled. She was wearing a tattered rag-like dress that ended above her knees. I noted she had beautiful eyes that blazed like wildfire. Fire, huh? I would not want to get on her bad side. I could tell there was something on her back, but it was hidden by the darkness. "Okay, let's go. I'm fine now," she said, suddenly sounding a lot more confident, and drawing me out of my thoughts.

I narrowed my brows, concerned, "You sound confident now."

She smiled sheepishly. Seeing as she was relatively fine, I took off, along with her trailing behind. Then I realised: I was going to fight Pitch. With this injured girl. How could I have forgotten that she was weakened? I turned to her, rubbing my neck awkwardly, "Say… I kinda forgot to tell you… I'm going after Pitch. And uh, you'd get hurt. Maybe I should help you escape fist."

She shook her head, "I have some unfinished business with that bastard. I'll be fine."

Seeing as there'd be no way to convince the stubborn girl otherwise, we continued. We sped through winding staircases, and quite frankly, I had no clue where I was going. I took the left path as we were met with a fork in the tunnels. We ended up at a dead end. Before I could utter a single curse, a shadow flew past us.

Pitch materialised from the shadows, "Ah Jack, I see you've met Arye."

Arye? So that must be her name. I felt her shiver and shrink behind me, losing her earlier confidence. I wonder what Pitch must've done, to make this fearful. "But anyway, I thought I'd give you what you want. It's all in here," Pitch continued, holding a tooth box out of me.

I immediately reached my hand out, before hesitating and retracting it. It may be a trap. Pitch faded into a shadow, his evil laughter echoing throughout the cave, "You want them, don't you, Jack? Your memories."

He was right: I did want those memories. I wanted to know why I was chosen to be this way. Unnoticed. Invisible. Alone. I chased after the shadow. The shadow of Pitch holding the box out to me. Taunting me. Daring me to get it. I vaguely noticed Arye following me, at an extremely inhuman speed, but I was too preoccupied to give it any further thought. The chase continued, before I finally ended up at dull bronze globe, much like North's, but smaller.

"Unseen. They won't accept you. You'll be alone, forever. Afterall, you aren't one of them." I heard Pitch's voice taunt me as he stepped from the shadows.

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHO I AM!" I yelled back at him, panting.

"Why of course I do," he remained calm, "You're Jack Frost. You make a mess wherever you go. And in fact, you're doing it right now."

The tooth box was suddenly tossed at me, and I caught it. Pitch started to retreat back into the darkness. I stared in horror at the box. Something was wrong. "WHAT DID YOU DO?"

A chuckle. "More importantly, Jack, what did you do?"

Pitch was swallowed entirely by the darkness. I sprinted after him, into the dark tunnel, my staff glowing an ice blue. Somehow, from that pitch black tunnels –pausing momentarily to groan at my inappropriately timed pun, I ended up in a brighter tunnel with moss creeping up its walls.

The Warren.

I turned a full circle. 'No…' Billions of easter eggs lay crushed and unmoving on the mossy ground. None of them reached the surface in time for Easter. "Wh…what just happened?" I heard Arye behind me.

That was awfully fast, for an injured girl. "Pitch. That's what happened," I was shocked by how dead and cold my voice sounded.

Somehow, the scene around me changed and faded. I was in a lusciously green park. And so were the other Guardians. I checked if Arye was still behind me. But as I turned, she vanished in a few grey wisps of smoke.

The kids in the park were in the middle of an easter egg hunt. An eggless easter egg hunt. "The Easter Bunny didn't come this year…" I heard someone sigh, "I knew he doesn't exist."

Bunny kept desperately trying to offer the kids hand-painted eggs, begging them to believe that he still existed. I could see the fear in his eyes. The fear of being forgotten, like me. The kid walked right through him.

Bunny froze, "They…they don't believe in me anymore."

The basket of hand-painted eggs dropped to the ground, its contents spilling out. The kids dejectedly returned home with empty baskets and empty hopes. Bunny's head gradually turned towards me, sneering with his Australian accent, "Oh look, it's Frostboy. Here to make an even greater mess, eh?"

Tooth- Toothiana, as some called her- looked to me with tears in her eyes. I saw her eyes shift to the golden box in my hand. "J-jack… What did you do? Where's Baby Tooth?" Her voice was flustered, panicked.

Bunny stepped forward, "You traitor. You will never be one of us. "

From behind Tooth and Bunny, I saw North look at me with pained eyes.

They… They distrusted me so easily. Could this…be what Pitch was talking about? I'm not one of them. They never really will accept me, will they? I should never have joined them in the first place. This was such a stupid idea. In my fury, the wind started forming vortexes around me. I leaped into the air, and let the wind carry me anywhere.

I touched down at a frozen, icy cliff, silver hair fluttering about, tooth box gripped tightly in one hand. The wind subsided, but my anger didn't. Putting all my hate into that one movement, I burst towards the edge of the cliff. When I was about to hurl the cursed box over the edge, my arm froze, and slowly retracted. But it wasn't intentional. Meaning, something forced my arm. My eyes widened at the sight of the narrow shadow coiled around my arm like a snake.

Pitch.

I spun around, staff raised in defence, prepared to strike. "…Ayre?"

I didn't know she followed me all along. The sun shone brightly, there at the cliff. My eyes widened. 'So that's how she was so fast.' I couldn't look away from the wide bat wings on her back. But more importantly, how did she control my own shadow? "It's not worth it. Treasure your memories," she whispered, closing my open palm around the box.

"Oh? What have we here? A little reunion? How nice." Pitch chuckled darkly.

I immediately hopped past Arye and dashed towards Pitch, the cool, icy air going against my movement. A few meters from Pitch, I sent a blast of ice at him from my staff. He merely laughed and dodged the attack easily. At that moment, a group of maybe thirty Nightmares emerged. Their only target: me. Although, I was mildly glad that Arye was left out of this, since none of this had anything to do with her, right?

The Nightmares surrounded me, blocking my view of Pitch. That coward. Immediately, I began taking out as many of them as I could. My staff sliced through the air swiftly, landing clean blows on the horses, or just freezing them. But the more Nightmares I defeated, the more seemed to appear. It felt as if there was an unlimited supply of them coming at me all at once, and my attacks had no impact on their great numbers.

"J-Jack! Look out!"