And here's chapter 2!

Ok, if at all Bunny or North don't sound right in this, I apologise, I'm still not very good at getting their accents right, but I tried XD

I want to say thankyou to everyone who read, reviewed, favoured and followed the first chapter, particularly the first few from whom I never received an email to alert me (Not sure what was happening, the website must've been being fixed or something), though everything is fine now. Thankyou all of you :) I know there was an anoynomous review in there, and since I can't reply to them normally, thankies! XD

Well, hopefully this chapter will answer some questions...still trying to keep the pace slow, but not too slow of course :P

As always, sorry for grammar and spelling mistakes! Please enjoy! :D

Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians or any of its characters, only this fanfiction.

CHAPTER 2: Only Broken Within

"There it goes!"

"I've got it North!"

"Watch out!"

"AH! Oh floss!"

"Sandy, heads up!"

The little man of gold set up as the colourful disk whizzed towards him, an elf holding on for dear life.

Donning a little cap, he created a baseball and bat. With a smooth toss and swing, he hit the sand ball straight at his target.

Well, it did hit dead on target, but it's only success was to knock out the elf, leaving it to tumble off. Tooth was quick to catch it, whilst Sandy darted away from the crazy disk.

"North, how do we catch it?" Tooth panted.

"How? Quickly of course! It's heading for the town!" The large man answered.

Now that was certainly easier said than done. The rainbow disk was beautiful in flight, but spinning so fast, it had become as deadly as Tooths wings or Norths swords.

Just as it was about to head down the hill, it was struck hard from the side. Sandy ducked as it hurdled past, and smashed into a tree. It kept spinning fiercely, cutting deep into the trunk, before it finally wore out, coming to a smoking stop.

"Might wanna put that one on recall mate."

They turned to their fellow guardian as he walked into view, arm still raised from catching his boomerang.

"Bunny!" Tooth chirped happily, giving the Pooka a quick hug from surprise.

"It was not meant to even leave work shop!" North grumbled, clearly frustrated from the pesky chase, "That is LAST time, elves get near spare snow globes!"

As he ranted quietly in Russian and went to collect the toy, Bunnymund turned to Tooth.

"Is this worth understanding?" He frowned at a dent in his weapon, and put it away.

Tooth just gave an awkward smile and shrug.

"He was testing a new toy. Somehow an elf got hold of a snow globe…got in the way of the toy…it was all a bit fast, we barely made it through the portal after it. Sure glad you happened to be nearby."

"Not exactly. I was just below the surface a few miles away, but even there you couldn't miss North's bellows. Thought I'd come see what I was missing out on, if it was big enough to get both you and Sandy to throw a sickie..."

"A what?"

"To skip work. As you've said before, you two work around the clock. Was there a meeting and I missed the signal?"

"No no. Sandy and I just thought we'd pay a quick visit. We wanted to invite you to, but you said you usually spend the first few months' right after Easter to rest and tend to the warren, right?"

"Uh huh…"

"Well don't worry, we really just talked for a few minutes before this happened."

"Yeah, I'm sure."

The fairy stiffened a little as the Pookas tone made it clear that he wasn't giving an inch of belief to her words; rather, all he'd heard from her was an excuse.

Well that wasn't entirely unjustified.

"Bunny Bunny, don't go getting upset. Now that this little mess is done…" North interrupted as he finally yanked the disk free, "…we can all go back to Pole. Eggnog on me…"

"I'll pass."

"Bah! Do not be spoil sport Bunny," The jolly man chuckled, "The pole may be busy, but there is always time for friends to have a drink together."

Sandy showed his agreement by making cups appear in his hands. Then he made another pair stack up on top of those, and continued to do so. It made North laugh.

"Or two or three drinks! You see, Sandy knows how to have…"

"Enough!"

All three flinched from the spirit of hopes snap. North's eyes grew large when he realised his mistake; the one word he should've known better than to use...he'd been going to say…

"Do you all…take me for a bloody fool?" Bunnymund whispered coldly, glaring over his shoulder at them.

He tapped his foot harshly, opening a tunnel as he readied to leave. Sandy quickly floated in his path, holding his hands up, asking the guardian to wait.

"Bunny please," Tooth also flew around in front of him, "I'm sorry, we weren't meaning to offend you…" She shut her eyes tight for a second, knowing not to avoid the topic now, "…We were trying not to upset you again. Sandy and I…we only wanted to know if there'd been any sign…"

"Sign of what?" Bunny growled, his ears lowered, "Why you three keep searching, is beyond me!"

"Bunny!" North yelled, not ready to let the Pookas anger hurt the rest of them, "You know well why we keep searching, and do not pretend that you don't care…"

"I'm not pretending mate!" Bunny snapped as he turned towards the larger man, "If you think I'm wasting my time, hunting down some traitor…"

"He's not a traitor!" It was Tooth's turn to show a bit of anger.

Sandy floated next to her, his expression showing his agreement. He formed images over his head, his arms moving to emphasise the question he was asking his fellow guardian.

"I already told you what I saw a million times!"

"But do you really know what you saw?" North countered.

That seemed exactly the wrong thing to say.

Bunnymund shot him a death glare, before jumping through the tunnel, disappearing as it closed up.

Tooth gave a short gasp, and wrapped her arms around herself. Sandy touched her arm comfortingly, though he too looked saddened.

North breathed out heavily, and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"He did not mean it," He assured her gently.

The fairy gave a short nod, knowing he was right, though she still looked to where the tunnel had been.

"Why does he want to hurt alone?" She whispered, shaking her head.

"Because for once, Bunny doesn't know to act, or how to feel," North answered sadly, "He has always managed to work out things by himself, and deal with them by his own means. But this time he cannot find such a simple answer, so he has chosen to believe the one that fuels only his anger, not the one that will raise false hope."

"But is it really false hope North?" Tooth looked to him, and she sounded almost desperate.

The guardian of wonder took a moment to compose himself, his own pain trying to break him.

"I hope not."

Bunnymund raced through the narrow tunnels faster than any animal could hope to out on open ground.

He was no fool. He knew exactly what today was, and he'd assumed his friends would meet up about it. After last year, he didn't blame them for not telling him…in fact he agreed it was better.

But to treat him like he was naïve? Aster had a lot of pride, and he valued honesty above most things…

…and…how could they ever think that he'd forget?

Going against his anger and pride, he changed course at the last second, adding another couple of minutes to his trip, before he finally opened the ground above, and jumped out.

'What am I doing?'

He growled quietly, hesitating a bit before he forced his steps forward. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the sight before him; a small but beautiful lake that shimmered in the summer sun.

He couldn't recall if he'd seen it like this before, so…unsolid?

'It should never be melted…never.'

The sad, defensive thought cried out in his head before he could even think to stop it, and he soon found his anger and hurt kicking him for it.

"Get past it, you're a pooka! He didn't die, he betrayed you, and a traitor is a traitor!"

The logical answer, it had always served him well in the past…

…so why, this time, did the word 'traitor', make his chest ache and his stomach churn?

He crouched by the lake, his ears lowering as he tried to convince his stomach to calm down.

Oh, he knew EXACTLY why he felt so sick; He hurt just as much as his friends, but damn if his pride was about to let him cry over the matter…

…but, pain had to be expressed in some form, and if nausea was the only path…

"GAH!"

Pain shot through his shoulder as an old wound ached, like mocking him about his emotions, reminding him that he couldn't escape his feelings no matter how strong he acted.

His pride rose once more as he held the aching joint, and stood up straight. The injury had been so bad when he'd first received it that he couldn't move his arm without immense pain. So despite being a quick healing immortal, it hadn't surprised him that it had taken quite a while for the pain to fade. What DID confuse him was that here and there, the ache returned to remind him of the past. He wasn't mortal…the aching should've been long gone after two years.

"It's just as well," He growled quietly, and leant against a tree.

He let his eyes close as he waited for the dulling pain to finish, whilst his emotions silently feuded within his chest.

'Why…?'

No. It didn't matter why; no excuse would change what had happened.

No excuse.

This part of the cavern came off quite noisy, at least compared to the rest of the so called 'hell'.

The nightmares bustled around. Without a purpose as of yet, they were becoming rowdy.

"Settle down all of you," Their master ordered, calm but firm, "You'll get your chance to play."

A dark hand hovered in the air, a tiny item within the palm glinting in the faint light.

The man watched with mild amusement; from within the item, he could see the edge of a forest, where a man sized rabbit stood next to a gleaming lake. He looked to be in pain of more than one kind.

"Hmph, well the rabbit's been surprisingly amusing over all this time, and rather less of a nuisance than the rest of them. It's almost a shame, sometimes I wonder if I gave up the better prize…"

The nightmares growled low somewhere behind him. He raised his gaze and smirked.

No, it was a good prize…but the better one was right here.

The image disappeared, and for a moment a face seemed to glare up at him. But he was quick to place the item away, for now keeping his back to the sudden commotion.

The resentful creatures moved back as the boy of blue and white stepped past, not bothering to return their hateful glares as his dulled blue eyes turned to his…his…

…he refused to say master, no matter who was in charge of everything around here.

"Hello Jack," Came the calm, cool whisper.

"You called, Pitch?" Jack barely avoided a growl in his voice, as his hand slipped up to grip his shoulder tightly, almost still feeling a weak ache there.

Done and dusted :P

If there's ever any confusion within my chapters, please feel free to ask, although if it's to do with part of the plot line, I may not answer to avoid spoilers :P

This is my first time writing Pitch Black. I know there's not much to go by with this chapter (much more next time :P), but I'd like to know how I did with him, if anyone could please let me know? I always do my best to keep them as in character as possible.

I think that's it for now...hopefully the next chapter won't be too far away.

Thanks for reading!