A/N: We're approaching the climax! Only two chapters to go after this...
Disclaimer: They're just rubbing it my face now. At least I have Reshma to comfort me.
"What did lunatic do to Tooth and Bunny?" North bellows, storming into his sanctuary decorated by all manner of carefully sculpted ice prototypes and knick-knacks. Sandy and Reshma glide in behind him, prepared for damage control.
"You know what he did," Reshma retorts, in no mood to accommodate the Russian and his silly temper. "He is driving them insane."
"How did he get into Pole? Is perfectly secure!" North rants. Reshma laughs, full-blown cackling, as though North told a particularly funny joke.
"Ha! The Pole is not secure! Virhorann did not even have to try! In fact…" Reshma freezes, horror-stricken.
"What? What is it?" the large man booms. Sand images go unseen over the Sandman's head.
"Wait. Wait. WAIT." Reshma begins to pace, her hands a blur as they flit to and fro. "He- he never left," she mumbles. Sandy forms a question mark. What? "Virhorann! He's still here!" she cries. She whirls around and shoots through the door, sprinting to an unknown destination.
"Impossible!" North shouts, chasing after her alongside Sandy.
"Impossible is only a word," Reshma snaps in response.
The situation escalates from there. Reshma bursts into the Globe Room, eyes darting over every nook and cranny in search of the elusive Insanity. "Virhorann!" she screeches. "Come out! I know you're here!" In truth, she looks quite mad herself screaming at a seemingly empty room.
"Maybe he is not here," North tries in an attempt to placate her. He takes a hesitant step towards Reshma, only for her to spring into the air and land atop the massive globe, the lights representing the children who believe flickering. Eyes closed, Reshma stumbles as though blind across the Globe's surface, halting on top of the North Pole. She thrusts her arms into the white paint depicting the Earth's icy cold tundra and pulls out Insanity by his stringy hair.
"Clever, hiding in the Pole," Reshma comments, dodging Insanity's snapping jaw. She lunges, he parries and scratches, she kicks, both moving in a flurry of offense and defence as unpredictable as their own natures. With a swift succession of elbows and knees, Insanity topples from the globe in a tangle of limbs. Reshma, bleeding from the scratches on her cheek and hands sparking, gives a curt nod as the only acknowledgement to her victory. "Your turn!" she yells to Sandy and North, leaving the Globe Room in a trail of ember-like droplets.
North brandishes his sabres, grateful that he had thought to pick them up on his quest to follow Reshma. Sandy forms his customary Dreamsand whips. Without a moment's pause, the formidable pair launch their attack.
At a pace only Bunny could match Reshma barrels into Jack's room, where the infected Guardians are congregated. Tooth has tear tracks on her face, Bunny's ears are pressed against his skull and Jack is oddly quiet for the winter spirit. All in all, though the Guardians, especially Bunny, would never admit it, they look terrible. Fragile. Not ready for a fight at all. Reshma grimaces. It will make what she is about to do next that much worse.
Upon seeing Reshma, Bunny and Jack sit up straighter, while Tooth hastily scrubs away her tears. "What is it?" Jack asks, grabbing his staff.
"Something unpleasant," she replies gravely.
Meanwhile Sandy and North are putting up their best effort against Insanity. His strikes are seemingly random and with his power he is a difficult adversary. Had North and Sandy been lesser warriors they would have been slaughtered. But this is the Guardians. Sandy, thousands of years old and able to tame wild shooting stars, and North, master swordsman and bandit. Yes, they could hold their own but even they struggled during the battle. Just when it seems they are winning he does something unexpected. Sand whip around his ankle and sword point at his throat and somehow Insanity slithered out of it. Reshma better hurry.
That is when they hear the screams.
In Jack's room, Reshma yanks out the red mass inhabiting Tooth's body. There is no delicacy as there was when she performed the task while Jack slept. Hand in and red out. But Man in the Moon does it hurt. Like each of her sensitive nerve ending have been set ablaze. Reshma's face is stony with concentration as she reels in the infection, gritting her teeth. Once it completely leaves Tooth she wilts. Reshma stiffens. "Next," she commands, voice rocky.
The process repeats twice more, eliciting screams from both Bunny and Jack. Only Reshma stays silent, tears rolling down her cheeks and mingling with her congealed blood. The red collected, vivid and writhing in her hands, is equivalent in size to a toddler. It slowly slides, crackling down Reshma's arms. Bunny reaches out a paw to support her as she stands but she jumps away. "Don't touch me!" she shrieks wildly. "Jack, the wind."
Jack gets the idea. "You heard her, wind," he croaks. "Give us a hand." The wind complies, pushing the four along as Tooth, Bunny and Jack hover around Reshma, unsteady and panting, in case she falls.
When they enter the Globe Room they are met with the sight of North, sword to claw-thing with Insanity. What appears to be squid ink stains North's chest and face, twig litter the floor and North's beard and Sandy lies in a puddle of sand. Without thinking the three other Guardians race to his side, fearing for the Sandman's life. Pitch would have a feast.
"North! MOVE!" Reshma demands. Only his true warrior reflexes saved him that second, in which he leaped away centimetres from Reshma as she careened into Insanity. The violent red flies between them, reverberating on their bodies. Insanity wails as Reshma forces the angry mass into him, crying out in something beyond the Guardians' comprehension. As the red plunges into Insanity's flesh sickly black seeping from his joints. The last of it pushes itself in from Reshma, tendrils waving from him. The strange, poisonous darkness makes Insanity look as though his limbs are disconnected, like a broken puppet.
A whip of Dreamsand abruptly wraps around Insanity and flings him into the wall. The Guardians cheer for Sandy and for Reshma. Whimpering, Insanity drags himself into the corner, melting into the floor with one final whisper; "Eira." He goes unnoticed by all except Reshma. She closes her eyes.