{ So this is the last chapter! For those of you who read this fanfiction when I first posted it, I decided to end it here like I originally planned to do. I did like the idea of continuing the story, but I just wasn't motivated since I like my original ending so much. Please enjoy, and check out my other stories too if you liked this one! }

Chapter 5: Dead Center

For a lot of children, that Christmas was the best one yet. Everyone had wonderful dreams of Christmas and fairies, and some even dreamt of Easter. They all woke up the next morning to find that Santa came again this year, loading up their stocking with candy and their floor under the tree couldn't be found under large stacks of presents. However, the wonder and light that came with Christmas seemed like just a distant memory a few days after. Jack let them have their fun for the day, but now that he was in charge, there would be no more fun.

On Christmas, he spent the whole day coming up with an even better plan than that worthless Pitch ever thought up. But first, he gave the nightmares and himself a present. Feeling that his old look didn't suit his new life as the king of shadows and ice, he changed his hoodie into a long coat. He had decided to keep the hood but he added an ice blue fur trim that followed the whole length of the coat, which reached just at his ankles. Next, he darkened the color so that it was still dark blue but hinted a black sheen to it. Feeling that it was missing something, he also added ice cycles that stuck out on his shoulders and down the middle of his back. "There," he thought "fit for a king." Giving his reflection a crocked smile at his new image.

He saw the nightmares in the ice mirror nodding in agreement. Turing to look at them, it was their turn to get a makeover. The way they looked now made them feel like they still belonged to Pitch. Jack walked over to the closest mare and lightly rested his hand on its snout. Almost immediately, frost began to cover its' whole body. Soon, it resembled Jack's new coat, but black with visible light blue frost shining across its hide. The frost covering also played another part; it made the nightmare as sturdy as an actual horse and also provided protection from being turned back into dream sand. Along with changing its' appearance and strength, Jack also added a little bit of his own magic into it to connect the nightmare to himself. No, they would no long be called nightmares. They were now frostnightmares. He walked over to each one and made the same changes. All twelve of his frostnightmares neighed then bowed to Jack, letting him know that they were fully at his command. Jack grinned to himself, this was going to be, he paused. For some reason he couldn't think of the right word…No matter, he thought, it wasn't important. Things were finally looking up.

That night, Jack put his new plan into action. He instructed his frostnightmares, frostlings for short, to go to as many kids as they could each night and give them nightmares and using his name, Jack Frost, in them. While the frostlings did what they know best, spreading fear during the night, Jack went out during the day and did what he did best, making it snow. However, that wasn't all he was going to do. No, anytime he saw kids having…kids playing, he would speed up the wind or drop a few ice cycles close to the child, scaring them to go back inside. He didn't flinch when an odd ice cycle would fall on a child injuring them. That's what they deserved after all, for ruining the beauty he had given to the world. Seeing them run in terror made him smile to himself, but it gave him no happiness, or any emotion for that matter. He was just a broken spirit. He would do anything to make people believe in him, no matter the cost.

This continued for a few months and it was now late February, just a few days before March. The Guardians were well aware of the concerning change the frost spirit had made to himself. It took a while to realize that he was also using some of Pitch's old nightmares to aid in his tyranny. At first they thought that Pitch was still controlling them, but one time Sandy came across one and tried to turn it back into dream sand. The attempt failed and the contact with the beast told Sandy that there was a different power coursing through their hides then just Pitch's. The fact that they couldn't track down the frosted nightmares or Jack was even more troubling since Easter was just around the corner.

"'Ow can a dozen nightmares an' one winter spirit, as powerful as this, hide for this long?!" Bunny frustratingly asked the other Guardians. The others couldn't answer; they were just as frustrated and discouraged as he was. Although Jack never made any verbal or physical attacks on the Guardians, they still lost enough believers from fear to know that he was a threat. All they could do was try their best to find Jack. There was nothing they could do about the kids' fear of playing outside. Snow days were the worst. Every night before a snow day, without fail, kids all over would have nightmares about Jack Frost walking down their street while playing outside and then something horrible happening to them. Sandy would try his best to help those children, but when their nightmares came true, there was nothing he could do.

Speaking of snow days, the weatherman in Burgess just announced on the news that it was a snow day for all schools in the area. Usually this news would bring excitement and parents would have to fight for the kids to come back inside from the cold. However, that was no longer the case. The kids knew that it meant Jack Frost himself was in town that day. If they didn't know about awful things Jack did to kids who played outside from nightmares, they soon found out by the rumors spread by all the other children who were unfortunate enough to get those nightmares. Sometimes stories from even more unfortunate kids who actually saw Jack Frost would be passed around too.

"I heard that one time, a girl in fifth grade played in the snow on a snow day and she saw a guy in a long coat go to her and froze her to death."

"Yeah! I heard that too, she went to the hospital and had nightmares about it. She couldn't stop saying "Jack Frost is here!""

Despite all the stories the children would tell each other, on this particular snow day in Berguss a young boy stepped out of his house and made his way down his front steps. He wondered if all the crazy things he's heard were true. Just then, as he made it to the bottom of his steps, the sky grew darker and snow started to fall. The boy remembered what one of the kids had said once, "Jack Frost will walk down the street and freeze anyone he sees outside". He slowly turned his head to look down at the end of the road, and there he saw it. Walking in the middle of the street was a boy wearing a long black and blue coat with ice cycles sticking out of it. His face wasn't visible from under his hood and oddly he wasn't wearing any shoes. However that didn't make him any less recognizable, there was no doubt that it was Jack Frost.

The boy gasped at the sight of Jack walking toward him. Jack had heard the sudden noise and saw the child standing there, the boy turned and scrambled up the steps as fast as he could, slamming the door behind him when he was in the safety of his house. Jack laughed at the terror the child showed. He couldn't and didn't feel anything. He never felt anger or joy anymore, not even when he looked at the frozen form of Pitch in his layer, his laughter was hallow and bore no emotion. Jack was just an empty shell of his old self and nothing, or no one, could ever stop him.