(I'm back!)

North's sleigh flew high into the air, rising above the skyscrapers at a breakneck pace, causing Bunnymund to freak out and wonder why exactly he was the one forced to ride the sleigh instead of taking the tunnels, while Mother Goose was free to ride Kailash. North's excuses that "the goose wouldn't fit in the sleigh" were still not enough to calm the Easter Bunny.

"So, just who exactly is the Woman in the Sun, and what does she know about the Man in the Moon's condition?" Jack asked Nightlight. The latter looked up in surprise, having been in deep thought himself from the beginning of the trip (excluding North's crazy lift-off from the North Pole).

"Yeah, and why haven't we heard about this sheila before?" asked Bunny, who was currently and pathetically clinging to the side of the sleigh.

Nightlight looked from Jack to Bunny, and sighed. He didn't like having to talk often, but there were just some instances when he needed to.

"The Woman in the Sun, or Lady Solar, as some people tend to call her, is a being almost as old as the Man in the Moon. She watches over Earth much like Tsar Lunar does." The other Guardians listened intently as he continued, "Not many know for sure how she came to being, or why."

"So that means she's probably known quite a bit about the Man in the Moon for some time now," Tooth said. "Maybe she's warning us now because he's slipping over the edge."

"Which is why we need to get to Pitch and stop him." North finalized. Kailash finally matched the speed of the sleigh, and Katherine turned to look at North. "So, how do we plan on getting to Pitch? We don't know where his lair is, or how to find it."

"Is easy solution!" Santa Claus smirked and pulled out a snow globe, while a certain Pooka riding in the back groaned.

The ground of the Irish forest was soft and muddy this time of the year, so much that anyone could have guessed that the ground was very deep. As a matter of fact, one part of the ground was lower than the others, and that was what the Guardians were looking for.

Nightlight looked up at the crescent-shaped Moon hanging in the sky, its light dimmer than the moonbeam inside his diamond dagger.

"Don't worry, little Lunanoff," he said in his heart, "I will do everything in my power to prevent you from falling."

"Bunny! You have tunnels everywhere; won't you know if one hole in the ground isn't yours?" Jack asked, flying above the others with the Wind assisting him. Bunnymund sighed out of his nose as his ears shifted, looking for sounds. "I'm getting to it, mate!"

All of a sudden, Kailash stopped walking forward, and started to quack incessantly, causing everyone to stop and look at the giant goose, which was trying to get away.

"Whoa, whoa, easy, Kailash!" Mother Goose rubbed at its neck, trying to calm it down. "What's the matter?"

The goose turned its head in many directions, its webbed feet stomping on the ground. Katherine hopped off its back, and patted it. "Easy, easy there. What is it?"

Before she got a proper response, though, Kailash lurched to its left, and Katherine slipped, only to bump into wood right beyond a shrub.

Or, to put it specifically, a wooden post of a broken bed.

She turned around, and all the other Guardians gathered around it. Sure enough, there was a hole right under it. Jack knocked the wood of the bedposts, frosting them, while Katherine and North tipped their hats.

"So, this is where Pitch has been hiding all this time, huh?" Jack asked. "Probably," North said. "Perhaps it is time to break in. Right, Sandy?" Sandy nodded and punched his fist into his other palm, which made Jack chuckle.

"Alright, if you're that eager." With that, Jack jabbed the end of his staff into the broken frame. The old wood broke under a few good thrusts, and soon, the Guardians were making their way into the lair, a few crunches accompanying their footsteps.

However, the crunching was not from the broken wood or the ground underneath them; instead, it was from the crescent moon above them, where the man living in it would have his final bad dream.

Tsar Lunar saw himself in a dark void. The world had darkness seeping through it, and he couldn't stand the sight of it. He fell from the Moon Clipper, down into the Earth's atmosphere, and to the children he was protecting, as a Guardian.

His feet touched the ground gently, as if he were still on the Moon. He raised an eyebrow at this; wasn't the Earth supposed to have more gravity than where he lived? Then he shook his head; that didn't matter. All that mattered was keeping the children of Earth safe.

As he ran through the smoky haze, he wondered where the other Guardians were. Weren't they supposed to keep the shadows from getting this strong? Where was everyone?

MiM took a few steps back, his eyebrows creasing with every footstep. Something was wrong.

A whip flew out of nowhere and landed on his wrist, flinging him into the air and bringing him down hard on the ground. He groaned a bit before the whip swung through the sky and grabbed him again, this time wrapping around his leg, and throwing him on hard ground, one that was very cold and breaking under his weight.

Ice.

"That is enough, Sandy," a Russian voice bellowed as more footsteps came to join him on the frozen lake.

A whip cracked, and more thin lines appeared on the ice. Out of the fog appeared shadowy figures; and as they moved closer, MiM recognized them to be his Guardians. But something was off about them, particularly the way even Nightlight was looking at him with a mix of disappointment and hatred.

"This is what you've become, Man in the Moon?" Bunnymund asked, tapping one of his boomerangs into his paw. "Giving in to the madness and even listening to what Pitch is telling you in your nightmares?" He laughed, coldly, and looked to all the other Guardians, as if they were laughing with him. "Can you believe this?"

"Even abandoning your post in the Moon to come down to Earth, where Pitch could overtake you easily? Seriously?" It was Tooth this time, putting her hands on her hips and shaking her head. MiM didn't know what to say, his lips forgot how to move and all that came out was a squeak.

"Pathetic," Jack Frost said, pointing his staff at the little man in front of them. "You wouldn't even talk to me before; and now that we have the opportunity, all that comes out is a little whimper."

"Such a person like you doesn't deserve to be a Guardian," the smooth voice of Nightlight finished, and he pointed his staff at his charge. "Which is why we have to kill you."

Now MiM had said before that he would never lay a finger on any of his Guardians. But now that they were going to slaughter him, he had no choice.

With absolutely nothing running through his mind, he raced forward and met North with his scimitars, fighting the larger man off with his moon-staff, while dodging Bunny's boomerangs and trying to stay out of the way of Sandy's whips.

One by one, he defeated them, all with almost no remorse, from simply snapping their necks to brutally stabbing them with their own weapons. He felt like he was bloodthirsty, wanting to see them die, but he didn't, and he couldn't understand it.

What was that feeling?

Jack was the last to go down, and he broke his staff, making sure that the ice wouldn't be able to hold their weight anymore. He saw the spider-web cracks on the ice, and tried not to look into the winter spirit's blue eyes that were almost like his own.

I'm sorry.

Tsar Lunar swung the end of his staff down hard on the ice, and the ice shattered, causing Jack, as well as the other Guardians, to fall into the cold water, drowning them. MiM was the only one left standing, staring with horror at what he had just done.

"That suffocating feeling you have now, little man? That's fear."

He didn't need to turn around to know who it was.

"You can let go now; that's enough. Let the madness carry you away, and you will be free from all fear and pain. Let go and everything you feel now will evaporate."

His teeth gritted together, yet his mind – broken and crushed as it was – was listening intently. His eyes looked across the cold waters, now turning red. Scarves danced behind him again, enticing him to join them in their insanity.

"There's nothing more you can do here. Your friends have fallen; trying to kill you…there's no point in continuing now. Everything you've done was for nothing. You have no one to stand beside you. Your body is weak and bruised; your heart even more so. There's nothing you can do now to defeat me, or the Nightmare King. You have nothing left."

"…Nothing…left…?"

"Yes, that's right. You have nothing, nothing at all."*

His head was bowed, still looking at the red water, and remembering his Guardians' faces when he was brutally killing them all…why had he done that?

F

Why would he do such a thing, even if they did want to kill him?

E

They wouldn't, would they?

…They might.

A

Especially when he remembered how he had treated Jack; had not answered him all this time and had long given up on trying to say something. He was supposed to protect children, not abandon them and leave them to fend for themselves.

He didn't even try to stop the nightmares from coming, nor keep himself calm when the Lunar Mouse had spoken of the ability to. He lied to WiS all this time and never said a word to his Guardians about it.

Why had he done that?

R

"Have you made your decision yet?" Kishin Asura asked, putting his bony hands on MiM's shoulders.

Tsar Lunar only replied with a grin that was as narrow and as wide as a crescent moon.

The Guardians landed in Pitch's lair.

(* - Based on Asura's speech from Ep 51 of the anime.)

(O.O

My, my, my…)