There weren't even any orders necessary for the nightmare Guardians to be aware of where they needed to meet up and why. The one-sided war between fear and the world had begun, and the soldiers knew that meeting at the base was a necessity. They all flew into Pitch's lair in their various ways of flight: North on his sleigh, Bunny through his tunnels, Sandy atop a cloud of sand, and both Jack and Tooth flying through the air. They moved, shadows in the dark, to stand in front of the globe, waiting for Pitch. None of them questioned that North was amongst them; they knew that was the inevitable change that would occur; he had been alone without a chance. Now they stood together, all completely reunited once again, waiting for Pitch.
"And now it starts," Bunnymund started solemnly, sniffing the air with a nod.
"Oh, don't be like that, Bunny," Jack chuckled, rolling his eyes at the rabbit beside him. His words glowed with the familiar teasing air that they normally held, but it was a ghost of the kind laughter that had once filled his eyes. His voice also had lost some of its warmth, a cruel edge biting away at every word, which was true for all of them. "You know it'll be fun. None of you have really had the experience of going out and doing things just for the fun of it."
"Jack, I don't think you really understand what we're doing here," Tooth twittered in a hiss. "This isn't some snowstorm or playtime; it takes a lot to conquer the world."
"Nightmare sand still hasn't settled, has it, mate?" Bunny grinned, his large teeth framing his grin.
"I didn't say it would be easy," Jack admitted, letting loose another spur of laughter. "I said it would be fun. And, yeah, I realize that we have a goal and deadlines and all that, blah, blah, blah. But let's be honest here! If Pitch wasn't around, we'd still be doing the exact same thing!"
"I don't follow," North muttered. "If Pitch was not here, we would still live in ignorance."
"Nightmares, nightmares, please!" Another voice sighed dramatically, stepping from the shadows. "Let's not bicker like children. It's like I never showed you the darkness in the first place! That's how you always used to be—a constant stream of childish bickering. I thought I made you better than that." Pitch emerged, shaking his head as he scolded the Guardians. "Come now, we have much better things to apply our effort towards."
This last phrase caused them all to stir to attention, all faces raised to meet Pitch's gaze. This was the real reason they were gathered here, not to hear the squabbles of one another, but to find out what their task was, what their path to victory was.
"Nightmares, this is our chance, our turn, to be believed in—with all the power and no limits to cross our paths!" Pitch promised, a steely glint glowing in those grey pupils that he possessed. "Nothing stands in our path besides our own selves and time. If we use this time, take advantage of every moment, we can shift the world to fear and nothing will be left but our darkness and despair!"
"What do we do?" North asked, looking up to their leader.
"Spread the fear," Pitch hissed softly, letting his words sink into the still air that soaked up the tones so fully. "Go to each and every child and make them afraid; tear down their dreams, fill their minds with fear, and reawaken the worst memories inside them. There will be no hope or wonder, nor dreams or happy memories—even fun will disappear into the frost." He paused, gazing around at them all to build up the dramatic effect.
"Go! Go, my nightmares! It is time for fear to rule the world!" Pitch shooed them away, his ovular eyes wide and glistening in the darkness, frightening enough to scatter the Guardians before him that were imprisoned behind their cage of fear. Each of them departed the way they came, this time going completely opposite directions to spread their fear even further. Tooth buzzed away on her wings; Jack departed through calling up the wind; Sandy flew off on his cloud; Bunny was transported through his tunnels; North rode his sleigh. One by one, they all went about to their tasks before them.
Sandy hardly even needed to move to spread his fear and agony into the world, but did so anyway so that he could get a better view of the awfulness he managed to construct. He rose high into the air, before glancing down at the world splayed out below him. It took him mere moments to begin to spin his webs of nightmare sand, which glistened with all of their brilliantly dark shades of blues and purples that mingled with the shimmering black. They fell down in ribbons, transporting themselves into the bedrooms of the sleeping and filling their heads with terrors selected for each child with special thought and horrors. Pitch may have been able to do this, but no one spun dreams like the Sandman.
Toothiana made her way to the closest town, since her mode of transportation was oftentimes the slowest. She looked down upon a group of children, who were playing around merrily in a park, bouncing a ball between them in a repetitious pattern of kicks, laughter and voices springing up around them. They didn't see her, couldn't anymore—no one had ever believed that the Tooth Fairy could possibly be evil. But Tooth knew that even if they couldn't see or hear her, she could still affect them if she went about it in the right way.
Tooth flew over to hover behind one little boy, so close that the child would have been able to feel the fairy's breath on his cheek if he had believed in her. She whispered in his unhearing ear, speaking of days that had gone by, experiences he knew well, and the horror and fear that had pulsed through him at the time. And although this child did not hear her, the presence of these words drifting through the air, stirred memories that he had long since buried. Flashes of images were brought to the top of his mind, a sister's laughter, a busy intersection, a bright red ball, and a car that had been moving too fast to stop soon enough... the little boy gasped, staggering back and missing the ball as it flew towards him, tears beginning to little the edges of his eyes.
"Oh, come on, Jimmy, we lasted so long that time!" a girl opposite from him groaned. "We went past a hundred and everything!"
"Sorry I just—I don't feel so well," Jimmy replied shakily, stepping back further from the group. "I just need to...sit down for a minute. I'll be fine in a bit."
"Are you sure?" the girl continued, her tone changing to concern.
"Yeah," he lied—for Toothiana knew that this wasn't something that a moment of sitting down could help at all, now since this memory had been brought back to the surface. Satisfied, she moved onto the next child.
Bunnymund was busy with his own group of small humans. These children were stuffed around a crowded table, hands shaking furiously at dice before continuing to move places across a brightly painted game board. None of them noticed Bunny hopping out of the ground, and no one felt his presence at all. Smirking at the lot of them, he fetched an egg bomb from his basket. Throwing it forward, it puffed into colorful smoke around one of the kid's faces, which caused the oblivious girl to take a deep sigh.
She couldn't make sense of the sudden sadness that had suddenly sprung within her. She was having a brilliant time as she had all night, and yet...this doubt had rooted inside her, reminding her that there should be something that for her to be sad about, biting away at her insides. There was nothing specific that she honestly needed to worry about, but everyone had their problems, and this prompt would cause her to search for them until they were upon her at full force.
Bunny reached into the basket for another egg.
Jack Frost sped through the air, his eyes directed towards the ground in attempt to find the perfect group of people to work his magic on. This was so completely new to him and Jack wasn't ashamed to admit he was filled with a sort of giddy excitement at the mere idea of this whole situation. Really, he had to wonder why he had needed Pitch to stir such simple joy within him.
Finally spying a group of children in someone's back yard, he flew to watch them from the overhanging roof. Each little kid was giggling merrily in their game of tag, chasing each other around the yard. Such joy amongst them stitched a niche into Jack's heart, causing hatred to flare within him. Twirling a snowflake between his fingers, he let it loose, so that it tumbled down and into the face of one child.
Frowning, this little girl stopped in her tracks, causing her friend to fall into her in mid-chase. "This isn't fun anymore, let's do something else," she complained, crossing her arms in front of her.
"Come on, Elsie!" the little boy behind her whined, lifting himself up off the ground. "You were having plenty of fun before!"
"Yeah, well, I'm not now, let's do something else," Elsie replied crisply, without being aware that the boredom that had thickened in a layer around her mind wouldn't be shaken away by simply changing the activity.
Satisfied in the displeasure he had caused here, Jack flew back into the sky, a laugh at his lips, and a snowflake at his fingertips. Boredom at a small scale may not seem that impressive, but for some children, nothing can be so terrifying and irritating as the lack of satisfaction at the playthings that so often cause such joy. This weighed heavily on a little heart, and was just as successful at spreading the displeasure as the rest of the Guardians.
North rode for the longest of them all for his first victims, having no need to stop because of tiredness or fatigue, since it wasn't his own two legs that carried him onwards. When he finally did rest, it was at two older children splayed out on a grassy hill, soaking up the warmth of the incoming summer. Before them lay a varied collection of pens and pencils, scattered about several pads of paper. The two were talking very intensely, their faces furrowed in concentration as they poured their every being into the drawings that bloomed from their markers and fingertips. Before North even did anything, he took a moment to watch them, feeling a slight pang stir inside him. This strange emotion didn't make much sense, but the other Guardians had assured him that they had felt similar things shortly after being changed, and that it was nothing to worry about. Taking a deep breath, he proceeded in what he knew was his task at hand. He sat down beside them, watching their pencils move for another second or two, before arching his neck forward to blow heartily into their ears, his breath penetrating into their brains, causing their inspiration to stop all together, stunting their very thoughts.
The first child looked up from her work, stunned by the sudden suppression of passion for it. It had just completely disappeared, with no reason and no warning, leaving her mind at an unsatisfied blank.
Standing back up, North's eyes twinkled with the light of a job well done. The others had been right: just ignore the slight murmurs negative emotions, and eventually they died before doing any harm.
Meanwhile Pitch watched from afar, miles and miles away, still in his lair. He didn't need to do any work at this point; everything necessary was done. Perhaps he would come out for a scare or two later, just for the joy of it, but nothing was needed for world domination on his part. With utter delight, he watched the globe, its etched surfaces shimmering in the darkness and the cold presence of his eyes. Ever so quickly, all those little gleaming lights were disappearing, one by one, and child by child.