Hey, guys! Here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own ROTG.

Leaving the interaction with Chaos left us all more confused than ever. Brent had summoned his powers of intelligence back from Amanda since he needed to be able to process his surroundings to stay sane, and Amanda gratefully went back into her naive oblivion. That was strangely relieving to me. A six-year-old didn't deserve to face up to the things she had already faced up to in her young life.

Who was Chaos? How much control did the three of us have in this strange land? Where was the way out of this place? What was Chaos really trying to do? Why couldn't he face Amanda? It didn't seem like he was inclined to answer any of these questions, but it was no time before we were onto our next challenge.

The tone of this new challenge was with a more somber tone than I'd ever heard Chaos speak. It was reminiscent of a balloon that had been punctured with a pin and was slowly losing altitude. Something about Amanda approaching him like that had really wounded him, but what?

"Think carefully over this next challenge," said Chaos, who then sighed sadly. We all looked before us at a table spread out with a variety of potions in various colors and shapes of containers. "Some of these are poison, some of these will trap you here forever, but one will get you out."

"Out?" I said, blinking in surprise. "Like out of this land, out? Out back into our proper lives?"

"Yes," said Chaos. "All the way out."

Amanda whimpered and spoke with tears tainting her voice. "Can't you just tell us which one it is, Mr. Chaos?"

The same teary voice met her back, rolling over the ether. "I-I'm sorry, Amanda. I can't." We were then left in silence as Chaos refused to speak any longer, and I had to console a sobbing Amanda. It almost seemed like she was starting to get attached to Chaos for some reason, though I couldn't fathom why. He certainly seemed to have gotten attached to her.

Brent dismissed us with a flick of his hand. "You guys just stay cool. I've got this." I nodded that he should just continue on with what he knew best, and he began ransacking the display of potions, picking up vials, shaking them, sniffing them, and all around doing pretty much everything but tasting them. I hadn't the foggiest idea how he was discerning anything about them with just the information he had, but as I watched him continue to sort the various potions apart, I had to hand it to him. Somehow he still had enough information to do what needed to be done.

"There!" said Brent as he set the last vial down in the place he'd assigned to that kind of potion on the table. He wiped the sweat off his brow. "That's the last of them."

My eyebrows shot up in expectation. "So you know the one that'll get us out?" I said.

He bit his lip, a worrying expression that wasn't supposed to come over Brent after he'd just solved a tough puzzle. Something was wrong.

"Yes and no," he said. "I found it, but…"

I jumped to my feet. "But what? What could possibly be wrong with finding it?"

He picked up the vial in question and held it up for me to see, and I groaned as I took the situation in. The vial was the smallest one in the entire arrangement on the table, and held only enough potion for one person to take a gulp, meaning that it would send one person back home, and no more. Either Chaos was teasing us, or Chaos was giving us two puzzles for the price of one.

"What do we do?" I asked Brent. He shrugged.

"Seems the only thing we can do is figure out who we're sending back, and who's staying behind."

"No!" shrieked Amanda, and she ran up and threw her arms around my waist, squeezing so hard she nearly pressed all the air out of me. "Stay together. Chaos said."

"We don't take our orders from Chaos, Amanda," said Brent, and he continued staring at the vial in question as I reached down to try and console Amanda again.

"It's okay, snowflake. We'll get you out of here. I promise."

"All of us." She squeezed my waist even tighter. "Get all of us out."

I glanced uneasily between her and the vial in Brent's hand, unsure as to whether I could keep such a promise if I made it, but I certainly wanted to promise that. Still, I couldn't lie to her. If I couldn't promise that we would all be safe, I wasn't going to say we were. Instead, I settled on, "W-We'll try."

"Noooo! Promise!" She leapt up and down in her fervor to get the response she desired of me, but I just went mute. I had no idea how I was to accomplish what she wanted, and I couldn't bring myself to make a false promise.

After a while of allowing Amanda to assault me like this, Brent finally spoke again. "I think I know what to do."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "You do?"

He nodded hesitantly. "I think—I-I think we need to send one of us out. A-And then that person can go and get help to get the other two out of here."

"What?!" I didn't like the sound of this plan at all. I stumbled backward a couple steps, dragging a startled Amanda with me. "Who would you be thinking to send out?"

Brent sighed, then cast his gaze down at the ground for a moment, as though knowing his response wouldn't be met with much enthusiasm. He cleared his throat. "You."

I had to do a double take at that. "Wait, what? Me? Why me?"

He looked back up at me, a transparent look in his eyes through which I could see every pain he had ever encountered in his lifetime. "Because," he said, "you have abilities neither of us have. If you leave, you could get help—magical help—and then find a way back in to rescue us."

I shook my head adamantly. This was not a worthy plan. Even though Brent had been right in his logical deductions thus far, I was drawing the line on this one. "No. Absolutely not. I can't guarantee anything since I don't even know how I got in here in the first place."

"But—"

"No!" I said. "If only one of us can get out, send Amanda. She's still young and deserves a chance to live out the rest of her life."

"But if you go, all three of us have a chance to get out!" His voice rose up a notch, and his fist that was clenched around the vial began to shake. "You've always trusted my reasoning ability before. Why doubt me now?"

"Because I know my own limits better than you, Brent. Even with all the magic on Earth at my disposal I couldn't guarantee I'd ever be able to find a way back in here. I don't even know where here is."

"You're still the best shot we have."

"And it's a very slim shot at that!" I crossed my arms and turned my head away. "No, Amanda goes. I'm not going to be the reason that a child stays trapped in this crazy place forever."

"Newsflash, Frost boy, but we're all children, or haven't you noticed?"

I hmphed and turned my head back to look directly at him. "I'm a three hundred something child, and you're in your teens. Amanda's a little girl. The two of us can handle staying here if we have to, but don't subject a little girl to that fate!"

"If you would just listen to me—"

Whatever he was about to say, I never found out, because Amanda spontaneously released my waist and grabbed the vial out of Brent's shaking hand. Then, before either of us had a chance to react, she threw it on the ground, shattering the vial before our very eyes. As we helplessly watched the liquid drain away that could have saved at least one of us, she turned around with hands firmly on her hips, looking almost as intimidating as she had when she'd had Brent's ability with words.

"Stop fighting! We're in this together!"

I blinked, surprised at the sudden display of anger directed at us from the little thing, especially since I'd been fighting on her behalf. "But—"

"No!" She stomped her foot, causing both Brent and I to take a step backward. "Chaos said stay together. We stay together."

I couldn't do anything but nod in silence at her words, feeling thoroughly chastised by this little girl who was quickly proving herself to be wiser and braver than myself. Brent hid his face as he rubbed his arms for comfort. It seemed Amanda's words had cut him deep too. This little girl seemed to be able to whip anyone into shape. Even the Boogieman. Even Chaos.

I hung my head sadly, not knowing what else we would be able to do now that our one way out had been taken from us, but not wanting to screw up again in front of her. "I'm sorry, Amanda," I said. "We'll stay together. I promise."

She shook her finger at me. "You better!" Then she directed her attention at Brent. "You better too!"

He sighed and hung his head as well, then shrugged as he resigned himself to his fate. "Alright, I promise too."

She nodded, satisfied, then reached out to take one of each of our hands in hers as she led us out of the room with the table and onto adventures unknown. And Chaos didn't seem inclined to punish us for it.

I wish I could say that trouble left us alone for a while, but it seemed that the longer we spent in this strange land, the shorter the time between one bout of trouble and another occurred. Chaos was right. Time was ticking, though I hadn't the slightest idea what was making us run out of time. Were we getting sick and hadn't realized it yet? Was the land infected with poison? Was the food or water contaminated?

That last thought made me stop in my tracks as it occurred to me how strange it was. "Guys," I said, which made them both stop walking and turn to look at me. "How long do you think we've been here?"

Brent raised his eyebrow at me. "A few minutes?"

I shook my head, knowing he'd missed my question by a mile. "No, not here here. I meant this land… of Chaos."

"Oh," said Brent, who I guessed was suddenly feeling stupid for missing such a simple question. He scratched the back of his head as he thought. "I don't know. Time's been kind of weird. Maybe a few days? Or a few weeks?"

I nodded at this, as I'd been suspecting this too. "And how much have either of you eaten?"

The haunted expression on Brent's face was enough to clue me in that my suspicions were right on the mark. Somehow, through all we'd been through in this land, none of us had ever thought to stop and eat or drink. And our bodies didn't seem to be complaining about it either.

"What about sleep?" I said. "Am I forgetting something, or have neither of you slept since coming here?"

Brent shot a look at Amanda, who looked back at him in confused oblivion, bless her little soul. At least she didn't have to fathom how puzzling this ordeal truly was. Brent gulped on whatever saliva he had in his mouth, but it sounded like he didn't have enough to do the job. "We…" he said, "we haven't… eaten or slept since coming here."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "And your body's not complaining about this?" He shook his head slowly, looking for all the world like he had just seen a ghost. I sighed and rubbed at my forehead, feeling like a migraine was bound to come on any second now.

"Well," I said, "Either the both of you have somehow become immortal like me, or…" I sighed, looked up at the heavens, then closed my eyes. "Or this place never existed to begin with."

Brent's eyebrows shot up. "Like a hallucination?"

I placed my hand across my chest, silently giving into Brent's fantasies about this place. It was the only thing that made sense to me. "Yeah," I said. "Like you'd originally thought. Maybe you were right after all."

For some reason, he didn't seem to be so fond of my telling him that he was right. His arms shot out in a gesture of distress. "But what are we all doing in the same hallucination then, huh? Are you trying to tell me the two of you aren't real?"

I held my hands up in front of me and took a couple steps back. He'd sure gone from calm to freaked out in an awfully short amount of time. "Whoa, Brent, I didn't say anything like that. Remember that I've been roped into this too, which means there's magic involved, which might explain the group hallucination. I just don't know how it happened."

"Care for a little assistance in figuring that out?"

The three of us whirled around at the sound of that voice, fear automatically pricking at each one of us as was evidenced by the looks on everyone's faces. We all knew that voice by now. Pitch had returned.

I narrowed my eyes and glared at the intruder. "What are you doing here again, Pitch?"

Pitch feigned a deep emotional wound as he placed his hand over his heart and staggered under the weight of it. "Oh, Frost, you'll let random little ragamuffins wander all about this countryside and you won't even let me pop in for a visit?"

"What do you want?" I wasn't about to let him divert the conversation. The best way to deal with this guy was to cut to the chase and get it over with quickly.

"What do you think I want, Frost?" He placed his hands behind his back and strolled casually in front of us, glancing over his shoulder to make sure that we were still watching. "You know me well enough by now, don't you? What do I always want?"

"Fear," I said matter-of-factly.

"And not just any fear," he said. "Yours is particularly delicious, especially when you find yourself trapped in a land that is more confusing than anything you've ever dreamed of."

I sighed and rubbed my forehead again. It was just as I'd feared. He was indeed feeding off of our fears to regain his strength. Especially mine. This couldn't be good. I had no way to contact the other Guardians to tell them where I was, and Pitch had free reign to do whatever he wanted to me to make my fears escalate until he was strong enough to return to our world. I didn't know how I was going to convince him into leaving this place, but I had to do something.

"Isn't it something?" he said, still strolling around in a gloating fashion. "And here you'd almost found your way out of here too. Pity it didn't work." The smirk he directed my way told me clearly what he really thought. He loved that I was a sitting duck here. Maybe I should have taken that potion after all if it would have protected all the rest of the children of the world, though that thought left a pang of guilt about leaving Amanda and Brent behind to fend for themselves.

It seemed Amanda had had enough, and she stormed up to Pitch and shook her finger at him once again. "You leave Jack alone! Chaos will let us out, and then you'll be sorry, Mr. Meanie!"

Once again, Pitch burst out laughing at Amanda's display of bravado, and he turned back to face me. "Really, Frost, your pets are adorable, but I'm afraid the little dear is sadly ignorant of what's really going on here."

I crossed my arms and glared, hoping to make myself look as intimidating as possible, though I wasn't sure it would actually work against someone like Pitch. "Really?" I said. "Care to enlighten us, oh wise one?"

Pitch smirked, and I'd almost wished I hadn't said such a thing. This wasn't going to turn out so well for us, I was sure. He casually strolled up to Brent and looked him squarely in the eye. "Think about it, Jack. Who was it who knew all along that this was a hallucinatory world? Who was the first to figure out that the three of you could control happenings here as well as this 'Chaos' you speak of? Who despised you from day one and tried to be rid of you? Think about it, Jack. It's not that hard to see."

A hand flew to my mouth as I realized what Pitch was implying. That was impossible. Brent couldn't be Chaos. Could he? I shook my head. No. Chaos was too powerful. It couldn't be Brent. It couldn't be. Though Brent hadn't liked me when we'd first shown up here. That was the truth. But still.

I glared at Pitch, then swung my staff as I sent a wave of frost his way. "Don't you talk to my friend that way!"

Pitch merely sidestepped the blast and burst out laughing. He clasped his hands as he stared at me mockingly. "Oh, Frost, you really are much too fun. You truly do fit your title, don't you?" I growled and knashed my teeth together as he strolled amusedly in front of us once again. "You're so quick to call people your friends because you only recently started to have people around to call friends. Yet you don't even fathom what a friend is. Are you sure Brent is your friend, Jack, really? You know friend and fiend only have a one letter difference."

"Shut up!" I swung my staff at him again to blast him with ice, but he once again dodged it. I couldn't even get close to him, which was odd. Normally I at least had a fighting chance with this guy. How was he able to predict my moves so well? Then again, if this was all a hallucinatory world, wouldn't the Nightmare King be right at home here? No wonder he could come and go as he pleased and know how to mess with things before we were aware we could do the same.

Something about that thought went ricocheting through my mind as I processed the extent of it, then it came bouncing back with something I hadn't thought of before. If Pitch could come and go in this world, then so could…

"Sandy!" I blurted out before I realized what I was doing. Amanda and Brent gave me funny looks at this randomness of mine, and I coughed awkwardly into my hand before I tried to explain. "He's a colleague of mine. I-I just realized… he can come and go wherever Pitch goes. If we can call him…"

"…Then your friend could come and help us drive Pitch off," said Brent. "You don't have to tell me twice. Sandy, was it?"

I nodded, and Brent immediately started shouting Sandy's name. I got Amanda doing it too before I joined in my voice with theirs. Surely he would hear if three of us were calling. Pitch did not look happy that we had thought of this and started spewing garbage about how Sandy wouldn't hear us while we were trapped in this world, but I didn't believe it. If Pitch could find us, so could Sandy.

My hopes were soon realized as a whirlwind of golden sand dropped from the sky, quickly forming into the little golden man I had come to know so well. I smiled and breathed a happy sigh of relief, while Brent jumped backward, startled. I guessed he hadn't expected Sandy to look the way he did, but at least he wasn't as terrifying as Pitch.

Sandy quickly sized up the situation with Pitch, and the two instantly locked into an all out magical brawl of flinging various shapes and sizes of black and golden sand back and forth. I raised up my staff to join in the fight and help Sandy have a better chance of winning, but found that my power kept short circuiting and would not come out of the staff no matter how hard I pushed it. I tried dropping my staff onto the ground to see if letting my power go without my staff to control it would help, but I could barely frost the ground beneath my feet.

I didn't know what was happening with my powers, but the more Pitch and Sandy fought, the more it felt like I was being electrocuted. Brent and Amanda didn't seem to be faring too well either, though I didn't have a chance to examine the extent of the damage being inflicted on them as I suddenly dropped to the ground and grabbed my head as a raging headache throbbed through it. I lost control and screamed. What was happening to me?

After that, I lost track of time or the battle. I had no idea who was winning or losing, and I had no idea how Amanda and Brent were holding up to all of this. I only knew that something about the fight affected me and left me powerless. And that I was not very happy about that fact.

I don't know when it happened, but at some point, I found myself collapsed into a sobbing mess, and I haven't the foggiest idea how long I stayed that way. I only knew when a golden hand reached into my field of vision and grasped my hand to pull me up into a sitting position. I allowed Sandy to pull me up, despite how weak I felt. I felt like I had fought a battle of my own, even though I had just sat on the sidelines, bawling like a baby.

I wearily looked over to where Brent and Amanda sat, and saw that they were both worse for wear too. The battle had drained all three of us, and I felt another sob escape at that realization. I'd had no idea that would happen.

Still, Sandy had saved us from Pitch, and I wearily nodded in his direction and muttered a weak, "Thanks."

He smiled and patted my shoulder. Of course, Jack. It was the least I could do.

I did a double take and nearly fell over again from dizziness. Had Sandy just spoken aloud? I'd never heard his voice in my life. He'd always just communicated via sand symbols above his head, and never with his voice. Something about being afraid of waking up a child by speaking.

He seemed to sense what was going on in my head as he laughed silently and then turned back to face me. I'm not speaking aloud, Jack. This is telepathy.

I raised my eyebrow about as far up my forehead as it would go. "Telepathy?" I said. I then shook my head. "I didn't even know you could do that."

Sandy shrugged dismissively. It only works under certain conditions.

I then nodded, finally starting to get it. "And I guess this is one of those conditions." Sandy nodded in response, and I relaxed. He was still the same old Sandy I'd always known, even if I was finally seeing this power of his for the first time, which was incredibly weird. Why hadn't he ever shown it to me before? It could have been useful to know he could sometimes communicate telepathically, though I grant that I had no idea what the special conditions for his ability were.

Not wanting to waste this opportunity, now that I'd finally gotten in touch with one of the other Guardians, I grasped one of Sandy's wrists and said, "Sandy, you've got to tell the other Guardians we're trapped here. We're being tormented by this guy named Chaos, and we don't know how to get out. And now he's saying we're running out of time, and I don't know what he means."

A look of shock, followed by a look of sadness, spread across Sandy's face. I thought he would react in some way like being angry at Chaos for trapping us here and treating us badly and blah blah blah, but he didn't do any of that. Instead, he placed his hand on my head and rubbed my hair affectionately, then inclined his head toward me. You have no idea what's happening here?

I shook my head. "No! I have no idea how I got stuck in this crazy world, and I have no idea how to get any of us out." Then, as I watched Sandy's face, something clicked in my mind. "Wait… you know something, don't you?"

Sandy bowed his head sadly and then nodded, and I decided right then and there to spring on that faint ray of hope. "What's going on, Sandy? Please, you've got to tell me!" I shook his wrist as I spoke, hoping to drive the message home. "Please!"

His sad look only grew sadder as he looked from me to Amanda to Brent, then he turned back to me. I need to go and talk to the others before I try to explain anything to you. But I'll keep an eye on you from now on to ensure Pitch doesn't return.

Sandy then pulled his wrist out of my grasp and conjured up a massive sand cloud that raised him up, and soon he was out of my reach, since I was still too weak to use my powers. "Wait, Sandy!" I reached up as far as I could, but he was already quite a few feet over my head. "Wait, come back! Sandy! Please help us, Sandy!"

He didn't come back, but as he disappeared from view, I felt a few small sand forms fall down around me. As I looked at them, I could have sworn they looked like tears.

...And the plot thickens.

Also, thought I should probably mention something that I thought was obvious, though I guess looking at things that it's not. *chuckles* All these chapters are written, and I'd be happy to upload them all quickly one after another if it doesn't kill the review count since people actually search by reviews nowadays. I want anyone who needs this story in the future to be able to find it.

Which means that if you'd like me to upload the rest of the chapters really quickly, just leave me some reviews. I don't really care how many, just some. Otherwise I'll keep doing the one chapter a week thing. You'll still get your chapters either way, but if you want them faster, it's possible.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that. See you all next time, whenever next time happens to be. Take care!