All remaining chapters posted on May 10, 2018 unless otherwise noted. I originally wanted to edit this because the ending is cheesy, but I never figured out a better ending.
Chapter Three: The Moonless Night
"Okay, mates, watch and learn." Bunnymund said holding a package.
The Guardians and the Great Pumpkin squinted as the December winds whistled past their faces a thousand feet above the Pacific Ocean. Jack grinned back at Bunny and the Pumpkin in the back seat, Bunny was trying his best to put a brave face on to hide his fear of flying from the Pumpkin, but his rigid posture and strained smile just seemed to add to the Pumpkin's apprehension. They'd had a quick stop at the North Pole to pick up the presents – which were hauled in sacks that diminished the mass of the presents to fit them all aboard – and now they were travelling to their first stops west of the International Date Line.
After a few quick pauses at smaller islands, they reached Auckland, New Zealand. It was a city large enough for them to branch out, and Sandy pulled the reindeer to a stop before each of the Guardians parted ways carrying their sacks of presents. Usually, North had the presents divided into the sacks by region, but this time the presents were divided equally among the legends, to cover the ground quicker. Jack glided to the nearest neighborhood the magic Christmas tree bulb indicated. Tooth and Bunny didn't need the "GPS" bulbs, they were used to delivering items to endless lists of children and seemed to have developed an intuitive knowledge of where they were next needed – but Jack, Sandy, and the Great Pumpkin didn't have the experience.
Jack Frost came to the first house and stepped onto the roof. The shingles felt warm and sandy under his toes; it was summer in the southern hemisphere which meant, (among other things), that it was safe to jump down chimneys.
They then set out over Asia. In Singapore, Jack had just jumped down a chimney (after putting out the fire, thank you) when he saw something strange. Instead of sweets left out for the bearer of gifts, a child's drawing rested on the table. Three[E1] kids were in the picture, hiding behind a chair, while an evil dragon holding a large rock in its talons looked for them. It seemed he had seen it before, then he remembered that he'd seen nearly the same picture in Australia… odd. And there had been no cookies there, either. Strangely, he found renditions later that night in other houses. He began to wonder if a television show was influencing these drawings, but he found them even in mountainous areas with only satellite radios. Always still on the table, as if they'd only been drawn that night. He paused and held a drawing for a closer look; it was then that he noticed something he had missed earlier in the night delivering presents so fast: children crying and low adult voices trying to comfort them. He didn't understand the words. Later, keeping his ears open, he noticed crying in about a third of the houses. If Pitch was giving these children bad dreams, he would pay, but for now it was Jack's job to deliver presents.
As they went on west, the pictures changed a little, instead of dragons he sometimes found wolves, hippopotamuses, or hyenas or even non-living things such as tornadoes, wayward cars, or bombs. No matter the enemy, though, the drawings always showed children cowering in fear behind a chair or a large rock, and the combination of no cookies or milk left out on the table. And it seemed that the frequency of these findings increased. Finally, after a lack of cookies and milk to keep them going, they stopped by the Sandman's glass house, The Hyaline, in the Sahara Desert for some food.
Jack brought up the topic they'd been repressing from fear and lack of time. "Have you guys seen those strange drawings?" He asked, sitting in a silvery glass chair and nonchalantly gobbling down an entire box of Turkish Delight.
Everyone nodded. Bunny looked a little sick.
"Why do you think the kids are drawing them?" Jack asked, pushing the question.
"Well," Tooth said, abruptly changing the subject. "We've brought gifts to most of the children in the world!" She clapped her hands wearily, Bunny and the Great Pumpkin let out an obviously forced, half-hearted cheer. They had been working for twelve hours straight. Children in Asia would already be awakening to find their presents, so maybe the fears framing those pictures would dissolve into dust.
"Time to be moving along." Bunny tensely leapt onto the windowsill, downing a ginger-bread pavendar.
Soon Liberia, Gambia, Iceland, and Ireland had all been covered, and they were riding to Greenland in the sleigh, hoping the last farm they stopped by wouldn't miss the hay bales the reindeer had surreptitiously tackled while the Guardians had delivered presents to the nearby houses. Jack still couldn't get anyone to talk with him about the pictures, and the sleigh was almost entirely silent. Jack looked up at the black velvet that shrouded the night sky. There was no moon. He had the strangest impression for a second that space was really a curtain and the stars were really a giant light on the other side – shoving pinpricks through the weave. In a flash the impression vanished. He could see Orion, the Big Dipper, and Ursa Major and Minor. It had been a while since he'd been in the wilderness to appreciate them; there was even one large star that he couldn't remember. It almost appeared to be moving.
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In Burgess, Jamie Bennett and Lucy VanPelt listened at the corner of the living room. The grown-ups were watching TV and thought their children were all in bed. The weatherman was telling of terrible, terrible things. Supposedly a meteor the size of Antarctica was headed straight for the Earth. They thought it would hit Christmas morning. The children crept back to Jamie's room. There was nothing anybody could do.
"We're all going to die!" Lucy VanPelt sobbed, fists clenched.
"We don't know that." Jamie said. "North could save us." But Jaime was nervous; weren't adults always right?
"Who's North?" Lucy asked.
"Uh, Santa Claus." Jamie replied. "He's real, you know." He picked up his teddy bear and tried to place it in Lucy's arms to calm her.
"He's no more real than the Great Pumpkin!" Lucy snarled, as she plucked the bear up by the foot and slammed it in Jaime's face, and he stumbled back over Linus' occupied sleeping bag.
"Do you have to be crabby on Christmas Eve?" Linus asked, waking up.
"YES, you blockhead! Christmas is ruined. Linus here…" Lucy said loftily, "…believes there is a Great Pumpkin."
"Well, if Santa, Jack Frost, the Tooth Fairy and all the rest are real…I suppose he could be real too." Jamie surmised.
"Everyone is a BLOCKHEAD!" Lucy growled, trying to let anger replace her fear. "If they're real, why haven't they done anything?"
"About what?" Linus asked, gripping his security blanket.
"The asteroid!" Lucy cried, pointing back towards the living room. "On tv. The weathermen say it's headed straight to earth!"
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Jack Frost grinned for a second into the warm Caribbean breeze before jumping down a chimney in Florida. He had no idea why there were chimneys in Florida, but they were best way for him to deliver presents to children and practically no one in Florida had their fireplace lit on that warm Christmas Eve night.
Jack crawled out of the hearth and tiptoed to the family's Christmas tree carrying a sack of presents no bigger than a backpack. He pulled open the drawstring, and jumped into the sack, which had a room the size of a country church on the inside, landing on a comfortable armchair. A couple of North's Elves, hiding in the sack, brought him the family's presents and Jack sprung off the armchair and back into the living room. He had to keep up with the others somehow, and this method had cut his time by 75%. He silently set the gifts under the tree, then, struck with sudden inspiration, slipped into the kitchen and opened the freezer door. He had suspected this was a poor family, and after looking in the mostly empty freezer he was certain he was right. When was the last time any of them have seen an ice sculpture? Jack thought. Then, in the barren bit of the freezer, he froze a perfect tiny rendition of the family, using the family portrait on the wall as his guide.
Jack closed the freezer door; it was time to go on to other houses. Passing the table, he couldn't bring himself to eat the cookies left for North and slipped the glass of milk back in the fridge.
Jack landed on the roof of the next house where his map said that children lived. Looking around, he found no chimney and in the end had to freeze open a window. Unlike Tooth's fairies, Jack Frost couldn't go through solid objects, and he'd perfected the trick of using the expansion of freezing water to open windows the last time the Coyote Trickster had locked him in a building. After freezing open the window, he pushed his sack ahead, then followed.
The house smelled overwhelmingly of cats. Ten pairs of yellow and green eyes blinked sleepily at him as he jumped into the roomy sack. He'd just landed in the armchair when he heard the drawstring of the sack being pulled, then he had to grip the armchair as the sack lurched up and down. Someone was carrying the sack away.
He heard a man yell and cats hissing. It sounded like the cats were attacking the thief. Then his world spun in circles at what he could only guess was him being thrown out the window. The presents and elves were flying in circles. Then a package the size of a bowling ball landed on Jack's head, and he was unconscious.
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The Easter Bunny and the Great Pumpkin returned to North's sleigh and dropped their empty sacks in disbelief: the sleigh was empty and the reindeer's harnesses had been snipped.
"What…" Bunny began, then he leaped forward and sniffed some claw-marks on the wood. "Wendigo." He muttered grimly, ears fiercely flattened.
Bunny squinted at a vague shadow heading for the Atlantic Ocean.
Bunny slipped an exploding Easter egg from his utility belt and slung it into the air, and the onslaught of sparklers in the air resounded across Florida and Tooth and Sandy whipped around to face the new threat.
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Jack awoke aboard a fifty-foot long pirate ship, feet chained to a large anchor with his hands chained and padlocked behind his back and a headache. The shadowy form of Pitch shoved a gag cloth in his mouth before he could say anything. He backed away, looming in the center of the deck, glaring down at him and holding Jack's shepherd's crook. Around him were masked figures shaped like Wendigo.
"Jack. We meet again. Because it is obviously your intention to keep me talking until you can escape, I will not explain my evil plan. I would like you to show some fear." Pitch's voice was deadly serious. Wendigo, riding a nightmare horse sleigh, alighted on the forecastle. Growling, they heaved red sacks from the sleigh in their claws, and Jack recognized the stolen sacks: now the children would have no toys.
Pitch nodded to the Wendigo and continued, "There is much in life to fear, Jack. I may not be able to 'freeze' you with fear physically, but there are other ways."
Jack grunted and flexed his hands to worm his hands out of the cuffs on his wrists.
"As long as you're there, bringing hope and fun to the Guardians, they won't fear me." A masked figure grunted something to Pitch who then said: "You're right, I'm explaining my plan again, I have to keep to the schedule."
Pitch and the masked figure pushed the anchor Jack was chained to to the side of the deck and folded back the railing as Jack tried to dig his heels into the deck.
"Notice, Jack, that there is no moon tonight." Pitch gloated, then they shoved Jack over the edge.
The water in the Gulf of Mexico felt terribly warm to Jack and he couldn't wriggle free of the chains on his wrists. The chains gripping his legs pulled him to the depths as if he wasn't sinking fast enough already. The moonless sky could now barely be seen through the dark seawater.
He managed to undo the ropes on his wrists, but there was nothing for his hands to grab onto to halt his descent as the anchor he was bound to yanked him down.
The hot water seemed to seep into his mind, pressure flooded into his ears, and his heart pounded like a jackhammer, clouding all thought. He thought of the family he'd forgotten, now he would see them again.
It was happening again.
No, he couldn't give up: without thinking he shoved his hands up, and although he did not have his shepherd's crook, the fingers began to freeze the salt water. They froze handles that connected together and he began to create a round huge block of ice.
And ice floats.
He was Jack Frost. He would never have to drown again.
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Pitch stood aboard the boat, his job was terribly easy for his villainous side: just bide the minutes until he was sure the chilly boy had drowned. Wouldn't the Man in the Moon be surprised? Pitch jumped, taking a quick peek at the sky to assure himself the Moon hadn't returned. The sky was as grim as ever, and Pitch smiled at the asteroid now glinting above their heads. He smirked and peered into the murky water. A faint pale area appeared in the water.
Pitch leaned over the railing, as the blob became larger. It was rising fast. Pitch skidded back; the shape looked like the moon.
The spherical ice-sculpture leapt out of the water and rolled on its side with Jack Frost clinging to it, pulling him to the top. Panting, Jack jumped onto the deck, and ran for his shepherd's crook. He dodged past Wendigo, over their arms, under their legs and made a final pounce for the shepherd's crook. Just as Jack was about to snatch it, Pitch kicked it away.
Clattering, it slipped over the side of the ship. The Wendigoes made a jump for Jack Frost, and flattened him under their finely furred arms, Jack's eyes could barely be seen under the football-tackle-style furry mountain.
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"You have to do something!" Lucy VanPelt said after Jamie explained about the asteroid.
Linus responded by curling in his security blanket. Lucy stomped on the floor, and glared at Jaime.
"Well, we could always wake the groundhog." Jaime said.
"What?" Lucy said.
"You know, the groundhog, like during Groundhog Day." Jaime said.
"He's just a furry little rodent."
"You say that, but he's the one legend everyone believes exists." Jaime had made his point; the children bundled themselves in coats and slipped out the back door.