Return of The Nightmare King

Fire and Ice Meet Face to Face

 After having to fly off and leave Team Phantom when they were suddenly ejected from the sleigh the Guardians continued to fight off the skeletal Nightmares that were attacking them. Having no idea where they came from or how they knew they were in the area the protectors of the children of the world only knew that they had to fend them off then turn around and pick up their fallen comrades. Slowly, one by one the black creatures were destroyed either by an icy blast, a boomerang, a sword, a wing, or golden sand. Finally the last of them were defeated which let the five beings breath a relieving sigh of relief thankful that it was over. Seeing that everything was fine North was about to snap the reigns to make the reindeer turn around and head back in the opposite direction when Tooth had noticed a figure up ahead and alerted, "Um, you might want to wait, North. I think there's somebody else waiting for us up ahead."

During the entire battle Nyreena was floating off in the distance watching the whole scene play out. At the same time she had to do all that she could to keep the guilt that was making her stomach grow sicker by the minute get worse and worse. She still couldn't imagine what was happening to her and still couldn't believe that she was doing this just to keep her worst nightmare from coming true. But she was also defending her home and protecting it from being ruled in darkness once again and she knew in her heart that this was the only way to keep her hopes and dreams safe. Watching the last of her force be destroyed she huffed a deep sigh of remorse then flew off towards them to begin her assault.

As the two sides were coming closer to each other the princess formed a fireball in her hands and fired it at the sleigh to which Jack saw as his need to fight her one on one. Quickly jumping into the air and flying out he swung his staff in an arc firing a blast of ice that obliterated the oncoming attack. The two finally coming face to face Nyreena threw the first punch, lit up with fire of course, that Frost quickly ducked away from it and returned it with another icy blast that she quickly destroyed before it even got to touch her. No matter how much they tried each attack canceled each other out for as long as they fought which was a good several minutes. But Nyreena knew that she had to win, and not because she was ordered to, and figured that the only way to end this was to use her second form of firepower one that ice couldn't deflect. Seeing an opening she zoomed forward pulling up to be only a foot away and charged up a big ball of lightning pushing it forward and touching it to Jack's stomach. Screaming in utter pain from the shock he managed to get a look at his opponent's face and saw the look of guilt and pain on it and and understood that she was being forced to do this and had no choice. Seeing that there was no further need to attack Nyreena silenced her power and let Jack out of the sky she focused her attention back on the sleigh and started shooting a mulititude of fire and lightning blasts in order to distract them then disappeared in a cloud of black sand summoned by the gauntlet.

Dodging the barrage of fire and lightning the Guardians finally made it through and zoomed forward to try and catch Jack before he had a chance to hit the ground. They were so focused on saving their fellow Guardian they didn't see Nyreena escape. Snapping the reigns harder North pushed the reindeer to fly faster to beat Jack as he continued to skyrocket to the ground below. Just as the former rebel was about to hit the trees the sleigh flew right under him and caught in just the nick of time. Getting him comfortable a very concerned Tooth asked him, "Jack, are you alright? Are you badly hurt?"

"Well, if getting electrocuted for the first time didn't do the trick of killing me, then I guess I'll be alright," Jack managed to say through the pain.

"Jack, what happened up there?," North asked, wondering what had transpired.

Leaning himselft up a bit Jack responded, "Well, nothing much at first. Our fire and ice attacks kept cancelling each other out for a while then all of a sudden she flew right up to me and shocked the living daylights out of me. But that's not what's really bothering me right now, besides the pain. It was the look on her face when she was shocking me."

"What kind of look was it?," Bunny inquired, starting to get curious about the situation himself.

Readjusting his position and coughing a bit Jack answered, "It was one of regret, guilt, and sorrow. The moment I saw it I realized that she was being forced to do this against her will and had no choice in the matter. Guys, I think we need to work faster to save her or else her guilt is going to swallow her up and take her down forever."

Everyone nodding in agreement North snapped the reigns again and directed the reindeer back towards the area Team Phantom fell to when they were thrown out of the sleigh.

Back in Burgess Jaime was following the trio his curiosity growing bigger and bigger as he wondered what they were doing in town. His friend, who were following behind, were curious themselves at what Jaime was up to and decided to help him out. But what they didn't know what the three older friends were slowly catching on that they were being tailed by the kids. Making it look like he didn't know what was going on Danny whispered, "We need to shake them off of our trail. Anybody got a plan on how to do it?"

"Well, I certainly don't have one," Tucker whispered back. "I thought maybe they would have taken off by now."

"How about we duck into an alleyway and wait for them to leave?," Sam suggested as she pointed to one they were passing by.

"Wait, I've got it!," Danny said as a sudden idea popped into his head. "Quick, into the next alley. I think I've got just the thing to throw them off our trail."

Suddenly walking off into an alleyway the kids sped up and entered as well only to stunned to find that the trio was nowhere to be found. Walking down the side street they tried to find the threesome who had in fact turned invisible thanks to Danny and his quick planning. As the kids were searching the teens managed to sneak by and get behind them. Wanting to know why they were being followed Danny made them reappear scaring the children and stopping their search. Once the kids were calmed down Danny asked them, "So, uh, what's got you so curious about us three that made you follow us?"

"Uh, it's just that I never seen you three around here before and I guess my curiosity got the better of me," Jaime replied a bit sheepishly.

"Ah, that's okay kid," the ghost boy said, not worried about it. "We all get curious about things we don't know about."

"Thanks," Jaime returned. "So, what are you guys doing in Burgess anyways?"

Getting a nervous feeling about all of this Sam quickly interjected, "Oh, we're just waiting for some friends of our to pick us up. They dropped us off so they could go run an errand."

"Yeah," Tucker agreed, quickly catching on to what Sam was going at. "They thought that maybe we could entertain ourselves here while they took their trip."

"Oh, okay," the kid agreed, believing the quickly concoted lie. "Well, I hope you guys enjoy your stay and hope your friends will come for you soon."

Nodding in agreement Danny said, "Thanks, kid. Come on guys, let's go see if we can find our ride."

As the three were turning to leave Jaime quickly got a thought in his head and called out, "Hey, just be careful if some winter winds decide to blow up. It could be Jack Frost having some fun!"

The three looking at each other with a knowing glint in their eye Danny returned, "Don't worry, we will!"

As the team took off around the corner all three of them started to wonder if the kid, or the whole group of kids for that matter, knew Jack in person which raised a whole new round of questions that they were going to have to ask once they grouped back together with the Guardians. That is, if the Guardians managed get out of the situation they were in with the Nightmares and were on their way back to find them.