This climax seems a bit drawn out, it's almost been 10 chapters since it started, it's pretty intense if we put it all together. What do you expect from me, I have school and work. Maybe I'll slap some of these chapters together when I'm done. Until then I'll just make you suffer by making you wait for the delayed finish line. MWHAHAHAHA. Anyways, here's an interesting chapter for you guys.


"What the heck!" cried Jack. "What's this boogeyman doing now?"

"Well, it's been a few minutes," I said, suddenly looking at a watch. "I guess he's decided to try a new tactic. Either he's still trying to impress me or he's afraid he's going to lose."

"Okay, but what did that last attack even do? Is he trying to infect us with nightmare sand," he said rubbing the spot he was struck in the side.

"I already went through that," I said nonchalantly. The nightmares were not attacking us at the moment. Either they were too busy changing their forms or it was because I was ironically calm at that moment. "I am not a fan of the tactic. Surely he wouldn't do it a second time. Yet, just in case…" I shook my head around, and started trying to knock the sand out of my ears like I had water log. Nothing happened and I sensed nothing. "Nope, it's not the case."

"Then what did he do?" I shrugged my shoulders. I was starting to get nervous, but this confirmed that the nightmares lack of action was because they were too busy changing forms. It was almost as if they were buffering or something.

Once the sand settled, the form the nightmares took were…the guardians.

Okay…why? Did Pitch think it would be uncomfortable for us to fight them? What did the spike thing do? Turn the nightmares into something we would least want to fight? Or maybe, I did feel oddly calm, it sucked out our greatest fears…being enemies of these guys. Or maybe our past nightmares were coming to life. I didn't know.

Suddenly, the nightmares came rushing towards us, despite how calm I felt before. We had no choice but to defend ourselves. Their fighting styles matched how the guardians would fight, North with his swords, Sandy with his Whips, Tooth flying at us with sharp wings, and Bunny with sandy boomerangs and egg bombs. It was easier to fight the nightmares when they fought us with the age old tactic, just charge us and slash. This was a little creative and all over the place to wrap my head around. It didn't help that there was more than one of each of the guardians.

This led us to an interesting question…could we fight the guardians, let alone defeat them. Sure we had power, but they had centuries of experience over us. I knew about the guardians enough, from what Jack told me and from what I've seen so far. I needed to call upon all of my creative insight in order to match these new nightmares. It would help if it wasn't so overwhelming.

Dodge a Tooth Fairy, Block a North, roll away from an egg bomb, duck under a boomerang, repeat and repeat. It was hard to even get a hit in, so much so Nightmare Sandmans kept hitting us with their whips. Red welts kept appearing on us; I got so frustrated I turned those red welts into snakes that leapt off my body to attack the Sandmen.

"They're not giving us the chance to fight normally," I said. I was honestly starting to get tired. How much longer could we keep this us? "I have an idea!" I exclaimed. I reached my arms into my quiver and pulled them out again, and now they looked like swords.

"Be creative!" I said. I charged into battle. I swung my arm out, making a whip blade which struck several of the nightmare guardians at once. Jack took my advice and started spinning his staff around, making a tornado of frost and snow barrel out in front of him. It took down several nightmare guardians as well. They quickly regained their composure. I swung my swords at a shadow North, and he easily blocked it.

That's odd, I thought. Aren't these supposed to be made of sand? Why don't they crumple easy?

I flipped away, and landed mid-air next to Jack.

"Weren't these easier to fight back in the day?"

"Well we are kicking up enough sand to make more," he responded. Sure enough there was some more forming. They took the form of…the kids.

"Oh no, not them," I said.

The elf warriors were fighting with swords and shields, the doctors were fighting with sand-needle cannons, and WERE THOSE FREAKING SAWS!?...The Sand Kaylas kept making booby traps and obstacles. We dodged the blasts and thrown saws from the doctor, apparently she also started throwing apple bombs at us; very similar to how Bunny fought. The Elf warriors kept charging at us, right beside the Tooth Fairies, for right now we just blocked them to the best of our ability. We swerved to avoid the oncoming obstacles from Sand Kaylas. Eventually they summoned up a bunch of nightmare fairies which we easily took down.

"He's really trying to psych us out by making us fight versions of the kids," said Jack.

"Not only that, but it seems they are using the same move-set as our friends outside this place."

"They are?!" said Jack, who froze off an elven warrior and Tooth fairy.

"Yeah, I saw," I said. That's when I started to notice something. I had shot arrows from my crossbow arm towards the Bunnymunds; those that didn't dodge were blocked by Nightmare Kayla's conjuring. Jack tried to long range freeze the Sandmans who had already gotten rid of my snakes as well as the North and Doctors; the Sandmans blocked with their own walls, but the Nightmare Norths protected the Nightmare Doctors. Nightmare Tooth fairies were not attacking us at the moment, as they were protecting and helping each other from Jack's most recent attack.

"Hold on a moment," I said. I used half of my vision to peek into the vision of my Mini-mes.

The usual nightmares were there, as well as the nightmare Jack and Emas, except that they looked more like us and less demonic. It was kind of creepy to see doppelgangers like that. When the Sandman launched his whip at me, Jack threw some ice at it to destroy it. The same thing happened with a nightmare Ema and Jack that Sandman was facing. There was the doctor and North. North came charging at the Nightmare Jacks, and black sand was everywhere on the ground and on them as well. The doctor had just summoned up a Band-Aid, which now radiated and aura around them. I checked, and the Nightmare Doctors had summoned up sandy Band-Aids, which not only restored their forms but all the other nightmares we were fighting as well. I just had to be completely sure. I checked on the elf and Tooth fairy.

"We won't let you beat us that easily," said the elvin warrior with a giant blade and shield facing towards a nightmare Ema and Jack. She charged, back in the tornado I noticed a couple Elvin warriors charging towards us with giant swords and shields. I summoned a giant pole to keep her at bay, while Jack knocked her off with a swift kick and a bop with the staff. Nightmare Ema had summoned a giant sandy pole having a confused look on her face, while the Nightmare Jack jumped in to kick her in the chest and bop her on the head with his shadow staff.

What about…

I had run into some sandy foliage, so I ejected the swords from my arms and just cut them up. In my vision of what happened over on Kayla's end, a nightmare Ema had just mercilessly cut up all the brambles and trees she had conjured up and was stalking towards her. A boomerang then headed toward my head, which I casually threw up a shield to block. I looked, just as nightmare Ema did over at a Bunnymund, glaring at me with a foul gaze.

"Ah," I said. I pulled on an invisible cord and zipped back towards Jack. "We can't fight these things," I said as we were back to back.

"We should try though," said Jack, slightly confused.

"What I mean is that we shouldn't," I said. The Nightmares started charging towards us. I put up a barrier: tiny nightmare fairies pecked at it, Nightmare North was slashing at it, Nightmare Sandman kept up with his whips. Nightmare Doctor was blasting it with her needle gun, The elf warrior threw her giant sword at it, Kayla conjured up giant hands to rip it apart.

"We're fighting our friends," I said, trying to hold up the shield.

"Not really," said Jack as he threw out some ice from behind it.

"Yes really," I said grasping his staff and pulling it back.

"What did you see?"

"Nightmare versions of ourselves doing exactly what we're doing, and our friends doing exactly what they're doing," I said pointing towards the nightmare creatures. Jack pieced it together.

"The jabs from the spikes," he said. I lifted up my shirt a little, and there was a black spot where I was struck. No matter what, I couldn't shapeshift it away.

"It was to link us to the nightmares outside. We experience what they experience."

"They do what we do," said Jack. "That's messed up."

"This is Pitch Black we're talking about. The bad news is we can stop fighting all we want, but they won't stop because to them we're nightmares."

An egg bomb from Bunny broke my shield, so we fled.

"Any way you look at this, Pitch is getting what he wants," exclaimed Jack.

We're traumatized, we're defeated, we wipe out the guardians or all three…he had a point.

"No wonder all these attacks feel too real," I said.

"How do we tell the guardians not to fight us?" Jack deflected an incoming projectile. "If this keeps up, we'll all be defeated."

"Pitch won't even have to lift a finger, now that wouldn't be fair."

"Maybe you can find a way to tell them, if the Nightmare Emas have your powers."

"Good idea," I said. I turned to face our enemies. I made fireworks that spelt out:

YOUR ATTACKS WILL DEFEAT THE REAL JACK AND EMA

I checked on what was going on outside, the nightmare version of me was sticking her hands forward like a crazy person…no fireworks though.

The Nightmare guardians were closing in on me.

"DANG IT!" I said as Jack pulled me away. "It didn't go through."

"Pitch must be keeping a closer eye on things then we thought."

"He wants this fight to keep going until one of us loses."

"Or both of us."

"There has to be a way to escape this."

Suddenly, Pitch's voice broke through.

"How interesting? Ladies and Gentlemen we have a new fighter entering the ring."

"New fighter," I said. "Like what?"

The nightmares stopped as another type Nightmare began to materialize. It grew a pair of wings.

"Oh no, there's no way she's possibly here." The tip of an arrow started to form.

"She hates me, why would she help me." Glowing eyes appeared on a feminine form.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!" It was Cupid.


Things just keep getting worse and worse for Ema. Will she be able to win the day? Will she be able to get out of the tornado? Questions to be answered at a later date. Until then, stay tuned!

-Admiringroseblossom11