Wow, I got four reviews on that last chapter in one day? I don't think that has happened for this story yet. That makes this story seem almost... normal. *laughs* Thank you guys so much!

So, since you guys were so nice, I decided to be nice too and find a way back to the library today to upload another chapter. I don't know if I can do this every day, but if you guys keep motivating me like that, I'll keep trying. *chuckles*

Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians, and my inspiration for creatively destroying disclaimers is unfortunately gone at the moment. Pity.

It took a while for the full impact of what had happened to hit me, but once it did, I actually fell over from the impact of what all this meant for me. And for us.

I clutched my arms to my sides and began shivering, though I strangely wasn't sure whether this was a reaction to the cold or to fear. I honestly felt cold at the moment, though I also did not. And both reactions seemed perfectly natural, which was intensely confusing. I knew we had previously been three separate entities just before that last challenge had consumed us in its depths, but now I wasn't so sure. Just after we had merged, I had still been referring to the collective as "we" and occasionally referring to the one person I used to be as "I", a separate entity from the other two in the group. However, the longer this went on, the less I was able to see any of the three of us as separate, and the more I referred to the being in this body as "I".

That's right. One being. I couldn't even see myself as three people anymore, and that thought scared me. I knew logically that there were three people trapped in here with three separate lives to live once they all got out of this crazy world and back to their own lives, though with how weird things were going in this world, I wasn't sure if each of the three would make it out in one piece. Chaos had never promised for all three people to make it out as all three people. He had only said that the three of us needed each other in order to get out, and that if one of us died, all of us would be stuck forever. Could he have been meaning that the three of us had to become one person, and that we would never be able to live our separate lives again?

I knew in that moment that I would not be able to stand it for another minute if I didn't know the extent of the damage done, and I took off running as fast as I could toward a pool of water I could see a few yards distant. Part of me wanted to fly that distance, but another part of me was terrified of the thought and wanted nothing to do with the magic I now possessed. I could find no way to settle the two sides of my mind into any semblance of an agreement, and giving in to either side felt painful. I needed my magic, and I needed to avoid my magic too. Quite the dilemma. I chose to ignore my magic this time and possibly use it the next time and hopefully that helped both sides of my mind to not panic too much.

I dropped to my knees in front of the pool and leaned over to peer into it, this being the only mirror I was going to find anywhere. My hair was partially short and white, but also streaked with short brown hair. Equally strange was the under layer of long brown hair beneath the brown and white streaked layer. I ran my hand through my hair as I thought. This was the result of three people's hair combining onto one head. So strange. My eyes were an equally odd combination with rings of blue, brown, and green.

I shakily pushed myself to my feet, then absentmindedly ran my hands over my hips as though to gauge that damage too, then stopped. I was not in the mood to see what had become of my gender too after having several people merge into one being. If I honestly got stuck like this, I would have to deal with it eventually, but there was no reason I should have to deal with everything all at once when this was difficult enough as it was.

I hugged myself, a scared little child, as I wished for my teddy bear. My eyebrows then knitted together. Wait, I had a teddy bear? Yes, yes, I did. It was back home. But where was home? I was so confused. I remembered an image of my mom giving me the teddy bear for my last birthday, then felt a deep wave of sadness at seeing her image in my memory, followed by a wave of guilt. And then… fear.

The hairs on the back of my neck bristled as I knew I was no longer alone, and I spun around to look up into the mocking face of someone I knew all too well, but was not too pleased to see.

"Having fun, Frost?" he said.

Frost. Yes. That was what he called me, right? Because he didn't like me very much, and so we weren't on a first name basis. Jack Frost. That was my name. Jack Frost? I laughed out loud. That was ridiculous. There was no such person as Jack Frost. But who was Jack Frost?

I shook my head to clear all the contradictory questions aside and just focused my attention on the man before me. I did know him, and I was going to deal with him before I dealt with the problems in my mind. "I knew you had something to do with this, Pitch."

Pitch? Who was Pitch? Bitch was a bad word. I was very naughty for saying it. I shook my head. I didn't say Bitch, I said Pitch. His name is Pitch Black. That's a stupid name. No one's actually named Pitch Black. But would I rather if I called him the Boogieman? Now that was just really stupid. There was definitely no such thing as the Boogieman. Oh no, the Boogieman was here to eat me!

I shook my head clear of rampaging thoughts once again as I waited for Pitch to respond to what I'd said, but he only seemed amused. I wasn't so sure how I felt about that. Pitch being amused was never a good thing. "Believe me, Frost," he said, "even I'm not this sadistic." He laughed again, then turned toward me again. "Though I must say that I find myself more amused than I've been about anything in quite a few years."

Wait, did that mean Pitch wasn't responsible? Who else would be capable of this much insanity? Well, obviously Chaos was, but it didn't mean I could comprehend having an insanity level that high.

I narrowed my eyes as I stared at him, placing my hands protectively in front of my body as though trying to shield a little child who was hiding in there. Maybe that was what I actually was doing. I had been merged with a child, right? It was getting hard to remember exactly what had happened. My mind was getting fuzzy, but I still had to deal with this guy before he did any harm. "What are you doing here, Pitch?"

Another laugh emanated from him that sent chills down my spine, and not the kind of chills that result from cold. I whimpered in fright, then promptly rubbed my shoulders to comfort myself. It was okay. I would be okay.

"I thought I would come and lend you a hand, but seeing how you don't seem to want anything to do with me, I'll just be going then."

Part of me wanted to say good riddance as he turned to leave, but an ornery side of my mind suddenly threw my hand up in the air and shouted, "Wait!"

Pitch turned around and raised an eyebrow expectantly. Well, he would have if there had been an eyebrow to raise. The lame-o couldn't even grow eyebrows. "Yes?"

Defeated, I let the part of myself that wanted to know what Pitch was up to take over and run the few steps toward Pitch so I wouldn't have to shout. After catching my breath for a moment, I looked up at him and said, "How can you help me?"

The amused look spread across Pitch's face once again and sent chills down my spine afresh. "I thought you'd never ask," he said, and before I had time to react, he drew up a whip of his nightmare sand and sent it thrashing down upon me, effectively slicing me in half. Then he did it again before I had the chance to get up and run.

I hurt. Every part of my body hurt. I didn't dare open my eyes yet to see the damage, but I did a mental scan of my body and couldn't detect the presence of any nightmares spreading through me, so at least I hadn't been infected by him. He must not have been trying to turn me into a fearling at this point in time. Or perhaps he couldn't. He had lost a lot of power when we had defeated him a couple years ago.

The sudden realization of how clear my thoughts had become made me snap my eyes open and look around. There were three of us again, though his brutal method of cutting us apart had come at the cost of a lot of injury and blood, despite the fact that we all seemed to be healing quickly. How he had ever known that his nightmare sand could separate three people who had merged together like that, I had no idea. And why he had wanted to help in the first place had me even more puzzled.

I struggled to my feet, balancing awkwardly on my staff as pain still coursed its way through my body, but I did my best to pretend it wasn't there. Best if he didn't realize just how weak I had become at his attack. "What do you want, Pitch? I know you're not just trying to be charitable."

He placed his hand over his heart as he made an expression I could only describe as unholy mirth. "Oh, you wound me, Frost. Do you really trust me that little?"

"Yes," I said. No point in denying it. I didn't trust him any farther than I could throw him, and I usually couldn't throw him very far.

"You aren't one to mince words, are you, Frost?"

"Get on with it," I said. "Why are you really here?"

He placed his hands behind his back as he paced, regarding me closely. "Oh, Frost, I'm almost ashamed to say I know you. What else would I be here for?"

I rolled my eyes, mentally kicking myself for not picking up on Pitch's obvious ploy. What else would a defeated spirit of fear be doing in a place like this if not trying to feed off of some rogue fears flying around? There were certainly plenty of fears for the taking. My grip tightened on my staff and I pointed it firmly at him. "You're not messing with these two," I said. "They're under my protection."

He touched the end of my staff and shoved it away as though it was nothing to him. I couldn't say what made me allow him to do so when I could have simply blasted him right then and there. Perhaps the curiosity of the whole situation was getting to me, and he knew that. "You have an interesting way of protecting people."

"Better than you're doing," I said.

"I wouldn't be so sure," he said. "You all might actually fare better by being confronted with your deepest fears while you're here, would you not?"

I growled, probably a habit I would take a while to break after having adopted it in the sound world, and then I pointed decisively at him. "Unless you're planning on helping us get out of this crazy place, then you get out. Unless you're trapped too."

He burst out laughing at this idea and pointed at his chest. "Me? Trapped? Oh, Frost, you can't trap me. I can go anywhere the shadows go. And I had no idea there were this many shadows here. It has proven to be quite… fascinating."

I was about to interrupt with something angry to say again which I would think of after I opened my mouth when Brent interrupted me. "Wait, are you saying this guy can actually show you your greatest fears?"

I looked at Brent, quirked an eyebrow, and then nodded. "He's pretty much fear personified. I and my comrades are constantly fighting to keep him under control."

Without missing a beat, Brent was suddenly on his feet and approaching Pitch. That explained where the side of my mind came from that just ran after Pitch without thinking twice. It had been Brent. Stupid Brent. Didn't he know how bad Pitch was?

Brent looked Pitch hard in the eye, and without flinching, said, "Show me."

"What?!" I shouted, but Pitch merely smirked at me, then turned to Brent and touched a gray finger to the boy's forehead. That was it. Pitch was going too far. I had to stop him. I raised my staff and prepared to send my power through it, and… nothing. I held my staff up to my eyes to inspect it and was surprised to see that it had not frosted over at my touch. Where was my power?

"This boy is interesting, Jack," said Pitch, finally using my first name for some reason. "Would you like to hear about his fears?" I didn't, but there was nothing I could do about it, and I think Pitch knew that somehow. "He is afraid that he is going to wake up after all is said and done only to find that this world, and all he experienced here was all a fantasy. He's afraid that he will either lose the two of you to the recesses of his mind, or that if you really exist, that you'll just ignore him and he'll never see you again. He's afraid that he'll just have to return to his boring life, never to have a friend or witness magic again, because all those who knew him before will deem him crazy after this."

My heart skipped a beat. Brent had come to feel that deeply about us? I'd thought he just wanted me to stop being around since I kept challenging his beliefs about magic. I knew that he was kind of okay with Amanda since one could just write off the things a little kid said about weird things, but I had never had it occur to me that he actually needed us around. Especially considering how mad I tended to make him.

"Allow me to reassure you, Brent," said Pitch, in his menacing voice that he uses when trying to offer false comfort, "Your fears are not unfounded. You will likely never see Jack again after you leave this place. Really, you know you can't believe in Jack Frost and live the life you've been striving toward your entire life. And Amanda is just a child. She'll quickly forget about you. It would be much easier for you to just forget this entire experience."

Brent closed his eyes, and I could see his shoulders begin to heave up and down. Was Brent crying? There was no way… was there? Not tough Brent. What could I do other than shouting at Pitch? I had to do something, but I had no idea what. Like it or not, Brent was still a child, even if an older one, and still under my protection.

Amanda chose this moment to run up to Pitch and shake her finger at him. "You're a naughty, naughty Boogieman! You make Brent cry. Not nice!"

This had the effect of making Pitch burst out laughing, which was not a reaction I'd anticipated, and he removed his hand from Brent's forehead and then… patted Amanda on the head. Without harming her for her little outburst. I scratched my head. What had gotten into him?

"I like this one, Frost. You should take a lesson from her. She knows how to feel her fear all the while acting courageously. As the newest Guardian, you might do well to learn to do the same."

I stepped forward, hoping to get him to stop touching either of the two young people and arrest some attention and respect back my way, since I didn't have my powers to do it with. "Wait, why are you-?"

Without taking the time to hear me out and answer me, he smirked knowingly at me, then waved his hand mysteriously and vanished in a puff of smoke, back to whatever abyss he had come from. I suddenly felt tingly all over and breathed a sigh of relief at the return of power in my blood, but it didn't feel quite right. I held my staff up to my eyes again to check, and shook my head in resignation. I still wasn't frosting it at my touch.

"Well, that was an interesting development." I blinked in complete shock at who I had heard speak those words and spun around to stare at… Amanda? "I do believe this Pitch person was merely coming here to feed off of our latent fear energies, and since we were not a sufficient source of fear for him in his weakened state, he left us alone."

I held my hands up shakily, then slowly backed away from the girl, fear creeping its way up through my veins. Since when does Amanda talk like this? Since when does she even know such words? What was happening to all of us?

"How did you figure all of that out and I didn't?" Amanda and I both turned our heads to see a freaked out Brent, crouched on the ground and holding himself tightly as he rocked himself back and forth as though on the verge of an identity crisis. "You're like, what—six? How are you suddenly smarter than me? I'm the smart one. Me!" I raised an eyebrow and felt a pang of empathy for Brent. He was acting really strange for Brent, though it was no worse than Amanda. And I couldn't say I blamed him for freaking out at having someone else steal his thunder like that.

A cold wind sprung out out of nowhere, and Amanda and I took cover on the ground, both shivering from the effects of this sudden breeze. The cold was bothering me? Since when did that happen? Despite my fear of what had just transpired with Amanda, I decided that it was best to stay alive for now and figure out what was going on later as we both huddled together for warmth.

We weren't joined by Brent in our little circle, which had me puzzled until I turned and saw him sitting there by himself, then I promptly broke down into what could only be described as a childlike tantrum while Amanda tried to comfort me with her strange sudden logic.

Brent was making it snow.

*chuckles* I loved writing this chapter. Such an interesting writing challenge of writing three people in one body who all thought of it as themselves. Never had to do that before. This story has stretched my writing skills farther than I've ever had to stretch them before. That's a good thing, I think. I hope, haha.

Anyway, feel free to share your thoughts. I love your reviews. I sorry I'm not responding directly to many of you yet, but I have very limited time at the library, and my phone doesn't have enough juice to allow me to respond to you. But hey, you got this chapter quickly because of your awesome reviews, so that means they're not going to waste, right? *snickers*

Take care, everybody, and see you next time!