(A/N: How we doing so far? I hope everyone's enjoying this fanfiction. Even if it is kinda bleak.

I don't own anything you recognize. There are bits and pieces from the books thrown in here, so I don't own those too.)

The Moon began to fall into discord after the nightmares started. The Moonbots and Lunar Mice didn't know what to make of it. The Lunar Moths tried to calm him by circling the Moon Clipper on nights like that, like they used to when he was a child. It helped for a short while, and sometimes MiM did get dreams, but it just wasn't the same.

He didn't know if the Guardians had already sensed that something was wrong. He hadn't told them himself what exactly had happened, and every once in a while his mind would drift to that one little lever that would send a moonbeam down to North, alert the Guardians, and tell them what was wrong.

F

But every time he reached out to push the button, he imagined something terrible. Something out of his nightmares.

E

Something would happen to his Guardians.

A

"You'll do the harming for us."

R

His finger steeled itself, and tried to push the button, but in the end he couldn't do it.

The balloons were his only retreat. Listening to the wishes of the children of Earth made him feel a lot better. Sure, there were the children who wished for something that Jack couldn't distract them from with his fun, something that Tooth couldn't bring back good memories to cheer them up with, something that Sandy or North or Bunny couldn't make them happy with their dreams or toys or eggs.

But he had the moonbeams shine on them and tell them to have faith.

It was all he could give them, even when he lost his.

The aurora borealis spread across the sky, summoning all of the Guardians.

Nightlight was the first to arrive, then Mother Goose following close behind, and then the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny would show up at the same time for some reason. Sandman would come flying in with his dreamsand-mode-of-transportation, and finally Jack Frost would fly in with the wind.

"Good to see you all here!" North greeted them all as they came in to his workshop, one by one, ignoring Bunny's irked calls and Sandy's pictures telling him that he was busy and Tooth's chatter to the fairies about teeth that needed to be collected.

"Especially you, Nightlight and Katherine," the jolly old man walked to hug and kiss them. "Ombric has not been too much trouble to you, I suppose?"

"Not really, but the darkness was," Mother Goose said, patting her goose Kailash on the head. "Nightlight and I had a hard time trying to protect the children from there. Pitch had indeed gotten powerful that time."

"Indeed." A muffled sound interrupted their talk, and turned to see who was trying to talk.

"Tooth, fingers out of mouth."

"Oh, sorry," she apologized, taking her fingers out of the spectral boy's mouth. "It's just been so long, and I needed to check if his teeth were alright." Jack, who had been looking at Kailash with the same fascination a child has, chuckled. "And I thought Tooth's obsession with my teeth was bad."

"Oh, I forgot!" North took Jack to Katherine. "This is Mother Goose, and that is Nightlight." At the last word he pointed at the spectral boy trying to fly away from the mini-fairies who wanted to see his teeth as well.

Jack nodded. "Well, I must say, it's, um, nice to meet you." He stuck a hand out, and Mother Goose accepted it. "Nice to meet you too, Jack Frost, and welcome to the Guardians."

"Alright, alright, we've got the introductions down, now let's get to business," Bunnymund took out an egg and began to paint it. "What is it that made you summon us all the way here to the Pole? You feel the Bogeyman in your belly again?"

"Maybe," North walked up to the Pooka, pointing a finger upwards to state his point, "may have something to do with Pitch." At this point, Tooth shushed her fairies, and they were quiet at the mention of the Nightmare King.

"What happened?" Katherine asked. North cleared his throat, and asked her if she had seen the Moon lately. She nodded, but said, "I didn't see anything wrong with it."

"It might seem like that to you, but look closer at this picture of the Moon weeks before," he pulled out on picture of the Moon, and then another one before continuing, "and then look at this one taken last night."

Nightlight's green eyes were the first to widen, and the moonbeam inside his dagger blinked, shocked. Katherine turned to him. "What is it, Nightlight?"

The spectral boy pointed to the picture of the Moon that was taken first, and opened and closed his fist in front of the others, which made it seem like a flickering light. He repeated this gesture several times, then pointed to the second picture of the Moon.

"What's he trying to say?" Jack asked, and Mother Goose looked closer. "I think he's trying to say that the Moon is slowly, gradually losing its light." "Losing its light?" Jack asked. "But why?"

"Must have something to do with Man in Moon," North said, setting the pictures down on a table. "Man in Moon would never do this thing deliberately, so I'm guessing something is wrong."

"Something's wrong, huh?" Bunny asked. "Well, why won't he tell us what it is?"

North tried to say something, but was interrupted by the moonbeam rapidly flashing. Nightlight held the dagger up to his face, and it glowed even brighter. If it had a voice, then this would have been its version of shouting frantically. The spectral boy looked shocked, and then turned to the other Guardians, the word slipping off his tongue as light as a feather and yet as heavy as a stone.

"Danger."