By the time the two reached the city, it was already night time and Sandy had started with his work. Jack stood on the roof of a building, watching in amusement as streaks of dream sand flowed past him, reaching for every child's dream and making it a fantasy. He looked up at the dark sky, wondering if he could spot Sandy nearby.
"Go ahead." Pitch suddenly said, getting Jack's attention. "Find them and ask what you wish to know. Just don't regret anything." He smiled.
By this point, Jack was no longer sure if Pitch was a friend or a foe. If possible, he would still hope for them to be friends. From the looks of it, Pitch wanted to maintain that relation too. "... Yeah, sure, why not? How bad can it get?" He smiled back after much consideration.
getting a nod from Pitch, The white haired teen took a step forward, free falling down the building. His fall was broken by a cold gust of wind, carrying him as he chased after a particularly thick streak of dream sand. Following the streak, he surfed in between the buildings full of dreaming kids.
He came to a smooth stop when he spotted a window different from the others; this one had carrots dancing out of the window while swinging candy canes around. Grinning to himself at how ridiculous it seemed, Jack pointed towards the window and within moments, the wind toned down to a gentle one and sent him towards the window.
Landing in the room quietly, he almost laughed out loud at the scene in front of him. All four of the guardians were in the room, but three of them were sound asleep and the only one away had the same "uh-oh" expression on his face as Jack's. Imagine Jack's surprise when he found out that the only kid in the room was none other than the kid who had the honors of riding with him. Jamie, right?
"Crazy night?" Jack laughed, keeping his volume down. Among the four guardians, he got to admit that he's probably most comfortable with Sandy. Why? Well... the Easter kangaroo kind of still remembered about that Blizzard on Easter Sunday, he's been trying to sneak into Santa's workshop for quite a while now (300 years, give or take) and he had never really met the tooth fairy before.
Well the tooth fairy's got a colorful taste, unlike someone Jack knew.
But Sandy, Jack's met Sandy plenty of times. Being a winter spirit with absolutely no responsibilities and rules to follow, he's pretty much very free. So while roaming the towns at night, Jack stumbled upon Sandy and his work. Fascinated, he followed the sand to the controller and before he knew it, the two of them became friends of little words.
Sandy shrugged his reply as he waved his hands. Then, looking at Jack with a questioning look, a question mark formed on his head.
"Oh, don't mind me. Just dropping by." Jack shrugged with a relaxed smile. "Though I seriously want to know, how do you do that with the sand?" He asked as he pointed his staff to the question mark. "Is that thing freezable?"
Sandy shrugged again, pushing the staff away with a smile; another way of saying "let's not try something silly".
Jacked laughed and turned back at the other three. "You think we can get a photo of this?" He joked, "you'll never know when it will come handy you know."
The latter was about to nod in agreement when something poked up from the window. The both of them immediately turned to look at the window. Jack's eyes widened at what it was; a horse as dark as the night itself, Pitch's pet.
Sandy on the other hand wasn't as calm. he immediately became defensive as he held out his hand. Immediately, the question mark shattered into sand particles, which then formed a whip in his hand. The creature of fear sensed the dangerous situation it was in and fled almost immediately. Sandy followed it out of the window without hesitation.
Jack watched as Sandy dashed out, riding on a cloud of dream sand, and wondered if he should follow. It was obvious that Pitch was behind the horse, but he couldn't understand why except that Pitch was up to something. But he can't just leave Sandy to fight alone...
"... I'm... I'm gonna regret this." Rolling his eyes at himself, Jack sighed and charged out of the window, giving the sleeping guardians one last glance before chasing after Sandy.
Pitch wondered how long he could have control over Jack.
Though it wasn't that much of an importance; Jack had proved his worth and done every task perfectly. Guess one really couldn't change another's purpose in life.
"You can have him back then." he spoke as he looked up at the crescent moon. "Though I have to say, I might have broken him a little." he smiled contently as he looked down from the top of the building, observing the town.
His fearlings have emerged from the shadows and were sneaking into every child's dream, changing their fantasies into fear filled nightmares. As the golden dream sands were slowly replaced by the coal dark specks of fear, Sandy finally appeared, riding his cloud of golden sand.
"Ahh, our guest has arrived." Pitch tightened his lips into a grin. Lifting a hand, a whole wave of dark sand gathered behind him, swirling around him and, taking the shape or a tornado, lifted him up into the air. "right on time as well, how very much delightful."
Pointing towards Sandy, dark horses started emerging from the tornado's body. One by one, the horses took their solid shape and galloped at Sandy, tens of them surrounding the solo fighter in no time. Sandy took no time to rest as two whips formed on his hand. Turing on the spot, he landed the whips on the horses mercilessly as the very cloud he's on started rising, trying to gain the same level of height Pitch was on.
Once the whip landed on the horses bodies, the horses started turning gold from the very spot where the whip had touched. Once the whole horse was covered in gold, it started fading from the outlines and become a part of Sandy's dream sand. It was a neat and efficient trick, if only there weren't so many of them.
Sandy fought hard, but the number of horses was just way too overwhelming. In fact, it's turned into such an unfair fight that even the horses decided that there's no need to charge at the guy one by one. In stead, they shook off their shape and returned to dark sand, which then swirled around Sandy.
By this time, Jack had already caught up with Sandy and was well aware that things weren't looking good for his friend. He had to say that he was a little surprised that Pitch was able to launch an attack an attack during such an fortunate time; with the other three guardians dead asleep, there's no way that Sandy could win.
"Still regretting it!" Sighing to himself, Jack took a deep breath and getting mentally prepared, plunged right through the ring of dark sand with the help of a gust of freezing wind, joining Sandy at the center. "Ok, Plan A, you take the ones on the left, I'll take the ones on the right."
Happy with the company, Sandy gave Jack a grateful smile, then nodded to what seemed like the world's simplest plan ever. As they battled it out with perfect teamwork, neither of them noticed that Pitch was smiling.
Taking a break from observing the fight, Pitch turned to look at where Sandy came from. It was then when he spotted a small dot fly over. Squinting his eyes for a better view, he soon recognized the dot to be Santa's sleigh. Looked like they managed to wake up on time after all. Brilliant, now that all the invited audience had arrived, it was time to get on to the show's climax.
Lifting both of his hands and assuming the position of holding a bow and arrow, the dark sand around him almost immediately formed into the requested weapon. With no time wasted, Pitch was already pulling on the ink black arrow and carefully taking aim. Now when it came to shooting live targets, timings were particularly the most important element of all. So Pitch waited and at the same time, the ring of dark sand surround Jack and Sandy started moving faster and increased in terms of thickness.
There was, of course, a purpose for that.
Taking note that the other guardians were probably close enough to have more a less a clear view, Pitch squinted his eyes and with a steady and smooth motion, let go of the arrow. the arrow sliced through the air with ease and stabbed right into the back of the unsuspecting victim.
By the time Sandy noticed it, he was already shot. Jack had sensed that something was off and turned to look at Sandy too. Man what a shock that was. Sandy had a painful expression on his face, and it wasn't hard to figure out why. From where the arrow had hit him, the sand around it had started turning black. The black patch started spreading out in a fast speed, and well. Jack started to freak out.
"Sandy! Sandy hang in there, fight it or something!" Jack suggested, flustered as he busied himself between Sandy and the attacking dark sand.
"Save it Jack, there's nothing you can do." Pitch's cold voice sounded in the midst of the panic, and for a moment, Jack simple stopped, and turned to glare at Pitch.
"There's no way to fight fear Sandy my friend, accept it. Accept your defeat." Pitch persuaded, ignoring a pair of mad blue eyes as he looked at Sandy. The latter put up a brave expression and faced it with determination.
Of course, aside from the teen, both of them knew how this fight was going to end.
"Can't this bloody thing go faster?!" Bunnymund complained as he fixed his eyes on the crowd in the far distance, his eyebrows furrowed.
"Complaining won't help!" North replied as he swung the reindeer strap in his hand, urging the deer to go faster.
"We won't make it! What should we do? Do you think it will be faster if I fly there?" Tooth asked indecisively in a incredible speed, making it a little difficult for the other two to actually understand her.
"Woa, woa, calm down there mate," Bunnymund advised as he waved his paws, "the only thing we can do now is hope that Santa here can go faste-"
The sleigh came to a sudden stop, interrupting Bunny as the two unknowing passengers stumbled in their seats.
"What in the world was that-"
"Sandy... No." North sighed, cutting into a certain bunny's complains and causing the two to look.
The scene that they were both observing from the start had taken a major change. All that was gold was gone, and as the dark sand faded into the dark night, only two figures remained.
One in full black, staring at them with a triumphant smile. The other had his back facing them, but his blue hoodie and unique staff made his identity clear. Sandy was nowhere to be seen. The one in black's smile grew as they came closer, and opening his mouth, mouthed two words at the three. Then, in front of their eyes, disappeared into the darkness, bringing the teen along with him.
"Is... that who i think he is?" Tooth asked, her face showing nothing but sadness. "Wh- what's going to happen to Sandy now? We can't just lose a guardian, can we?"
"...Seems like we just did." Bunny replied, his long ears drooping to his sad mood.
"We lost more than just one." North sighed, placing a hand on Tooth's shoulder and the other on Bunnymund's. "We've also lost Jack."
And with that, no one word was exchanged. All three of them had mixed feelings in their heart, and the one that stood out the most was probably fear.
For the last two words that Pitch gave them was "I win".