Author's note: Please note that this story, although original, is based on Rise of the Guardians by Dreamworks Animation and William Joyce and also based on Charles Schultz's "Peanuts" weekly and daily newspaper comics. My story is a fanfiction, receives no monetary reward, and is purely for your enjoyment. Thanks to my sister for beta-reading. Please enjoy!

In the last chapter, Tooth, Jack, Sandy, and Bunny were interrupted by the Northern Lights...

Rise of the Great Pumpkin: Chapter Two: It's the Great Pumpkin!

Posted Nov. 18, 2015 by Nursing Student

Soon, they reached the North Pole in Sandman's surprisingly speedy hot air balloon. The Yeti opened the weighty doors for them and they stepped inside. It was hard for them to understand Phil as he spoke in Yeti, "北男很病! 他不会说ho-ho-ho!" and dramatically motioned to North's workroom which could only be reached through a minefield of unorganized gift-boxes.

"Did you say, 'Ho, ho, ho?'" Asked Tooth.

Phil nodded.

"Where's North?" Bunnymund asked.

Phil pretended to sneeze. Then shook his paw while saying, "Ho, ho, ho."

"North's sick!" Jack gasped.

"That, mate," Bunny said, "Is no laughing matter."

Sandy stomped his foot and shook his head.

"You mean," asked Tooth, "That North can't even say, 'Ho, ho, ho?'"

Phil bobbed his head and roared.

The Guardians stood gloomily gazing at the floor. Immortals rarely got sick. Sandy waved them to the Globe room, and they dawdled behind him.

"Well," said Tooth, "We're going to have to make a plan."

"Yeah, how're we going to get toys to a billion name-specific kids?" Bunny grumbled, holding a present labeled in North's firm handwriting. "Manny's waned too fast, so we can't ask him."

"Maybe the fairies can help." Jack said, a dozen fairies chirruping agreement by his ear.

"You're away with the pixies, Frostbite."* Bunny fell into a plush chair with his head in his paws. "The fairies can't carry large presents."

Phil padded into the room, and went past a device like a telescope, but instead of using the telescope (it had a sign on it saying "broken"), he walked over to North's "belief globe" control panel, and took out a giant cowrie shell that the yeti could hardly encircle in his arms.

Phil grunted as he set it down in the center of the room, the others could clearly see North's Cyrillic-font handwriting staining the side: "Man in Moon's Tidal Cowrie Shell for Emergencies." Before anyone could speak, Phil grabbed North's mallet and smashed the shell into dusty pieces. A shiny mist rose out of the container, quickly setting into a roundish shape that became clearer and clearer as a white light gleamed up from the broken cowrie shell fragments. As the Guardians stared at it, it grew ridges and large leaves. Laughing, triangular eyes glowed with a toothy smile underlying them. It was the Great Pumpkin.

"NO!" Bunny yelled, jumping twenty feet in the air. "No! He gave up on Halloween years ago!"

"Because no one ever saw him?" Jack asked.

"No," moaned Tooth, "Because he said no one was sincere… No one! How could the Man in the Moon have chosen him?"

"If he'd done his job, Pitch wouldn't have had the chance to gain so much support on Halloween, and Pitch would've never grown strong enough to take over the world." Bunny was clenching his paws.

Sandman nodded, an image of Pitch and the Great Pumpkin arm wrestling appeared over his head – Pitch was winning.

"Maybe he just needs a chance!" Jack glided over to the hologram.

"Kid, he's not like you. You were young, that's why you could still change." Bunny said.

"Young? I'm over three-hundred years old! I'm in North's soccer club, The White Hair Company. We play the Red-Headed League every month!"

"Bunny means that nothing's ever happened to make you grow up." Explained Tooth, flying towards Jack, she'd brightened up after hearing Jack was in a soccer club; now she would have to schedule that day off.

"Like what?"

"Like your best-friend dying or losing your entire planet." Bunny said quietly.

"Oh." Jack replied, suddenly appearing to become very interested in the Atlantic Ocean on North's globe.

"But I don't think that's what happened to the Great Pumpkin…" Tooth chattered. "I think he just lost faith in humanity – that anyone was sincere."

Sandy motioned that they should shove the Great Pumpkin in a sack and get going.

"Oh, no!" Jack said, "No sacks; I know how that feels."

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Phil showed them a GPS in North's sleigh that would find anyone you needed to give a present to in the whole world. After wrapping up a quick present for the Great Pumpkin, the Sandman returned, and the sleigh dashed down the icy track. The sound of metal and hoofs screeched in their ears. Sandy launched a snow globe ahead of them. The sleigh jumped through as if coming out of an elevator. They emerged in a barren winter field in Kansas.

"Gang, I don't see 'im." Bunny leaped out of the sleigh, glad to find solid ground.

Sandy created a picture of a pumpkin growing out of the ground as if in time-lapse photography.

"Huh?" Everyone puzzled.

"Oh, yes, I remember, the Great Pumpkin supposedly rises out of the most sincere pumpkin patch on Halloween night, to give presents to all the good children of the world." Tooth recited. "I think I read it in a newspaper somewhere."

Bunny jumped to the center of the field, ignoring the cold wind that hit him and the hard, dried pumpkin stems he'd landed upon. He gave two smart taps with his hind foot. The ground opened up as he thrust his ears forward, intently listening for sounds. Soon, an orange and green shape catapulted out of the tunnel and into the air. Sandy threw a sand-mattress underneath him as he plunged back down, vines waving in the air.

The pumpkin climbed out of the mattress and stared at them. His melon was about three feet in diameter. A golden light gleamed from his eyes and mouth. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"I'm Tooth, the Tooth Fairy. This is the Eater Bunny, Sandman, and Jack Frost. We really could use your help."

"I don't believe a word of it." The Great Pumpkin said, stiffening.

"But the Man in the Moon told us-" Began Jack.

"No one ever needs my help!" The Great Pumpkin said and turned to wander back down underneath his field.

"Please, NORTH needs your help, mate!" Bunny begged.

"A likely story. He's always thought I stole his idea! Even though Manny suggested it."

"North's sick. We need you to help save Christmas." Jack said, absent-mindedly waving his shepherd's crook in the pumpkin's face.

"Why? To give presents to kids that don't deserve them! Children just want presents, they don't care about anything else. They don't care about how much the gifts cost, or that it's better to give than to receive. No. No one is sincere; they just want presents that are better than the next guy's." He rose up to look Jack in the eye. "Do you know why I stopped, Jack? Because no one appreciated my gifts… No one even bothered to leave pumpkins in the field for me. They would always sell the pumpkins before Halloween. There are no sincere pumpkin patches anywhere!"

Jack looked down, the Great Pumpkin was right. But he was also wrong. "Look, Great Pumpkin, I know sort of what it's like… No kids even saw me for three-hundred years. But that doesn't mean you can give up on them. Sometimes people need to be given something before they know how to give to others."

"Manny's giving you a chance." Tooth echoed, smiling.

"Take it from me," Bunny said, "You can't live in a burrow for eternity."

The others turned. Behind their heads, where only the Great Pumpkin could see its ongoing construction, Sandy had fashioned a great Christmas tree that rose to be the tallest thing in that dry Kansas field. Each needle edge glinted from the golden sand and from every branch there dangled an ornament that resembled smiling children from everywhere in the world. Then from under the tree, the Sandman picked up a single golden package and handed it to the Great Pumpkin, bowing his head.

The Great Pumpkin undid the ribbon and the package dissolved in his hands to leave a stack of letters and a leaf-full of candy corn.

He read the first one.

"Deer Grate Pumpkin,

"How are yu? My sister and evryone tells me yu are fake. But I believe in yu. Do yu have a dog?

"Sincerely,

"Linus VanPelt

"P.S. Don't feel bad if yu don't have a dog, I don't either."

The leafy vines ran to the next one.

"Dear Great Pumpkin,

"I hope you had a good year. Did you get cold in the winter or do you have a house like Santa? I am fine. I live near a pumpkin patch.

I have tried to be a very good boy.

"Sincere,

"Linus VanPelt

"P.S. If you are real, please write back. My sister won't stop laughing at me."

There were more letters, all from Linus except the last one, which was from Charlie Brown to North. The postmen had always delivered the former letters to North by mistake.

He looked more closely at the last one.

"Dear Santa Claus,

"I am not asking you to give me presents this year. I'd like you to give my presents to my best friend, Linus VanPelt. You see, he believes the Great Pumpkin exists and he waits for him all night every Halloween in the pumpkin patch and never gets any candy or treats. Everyone laughs at him. So, this year, could you please give him my Christmas presents? He has been very good all year.

"Thank you,

"Charlie Brown"

"Are these letters real?" The Great Pumpkin looked up, Sandy nodded.

*"Away with the pixies." is apparently Australian for "You're dreaming."

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Note: misspelled words in the letters were intentional.