The Big Five

Ch.7 The Nightmare King

Still curious about his new discovery, Jack began to search through North's books hoping to find some information about it. He pulled out the large Guardian Book that contained the Guardian's Oath as he placed it opened on the desk and began flipping through the pages. But he couldn't find anything about this clock. Now frustrated, Jack decided that he should ask North about it, but then he remembered that he wasn't supposed to be going through North's things, and if North found out about this, he had no idea what would be the consequences.

After a moment of hard thinking, Jack decided to ask North anyway, considering that Jack was known as the troublemaker and rule-breaker, North would probably understand... probably. So with the clock in his pocket, he flew out an opened window and headed out to find North who was most likely at Bunny's Warren helping him clean up after Easter.

Soaring through the sky, Jack suddenly noticed that the air was starting to get foggy which was blocking his view. Hoping that he would fly into anything, he tried to lower himself beneath the clouds, only to crash into a thick tree which caused him to fall through the branches until he landed on the ground with a thud.

"Ow," he moaned in pain as he pushed himself up and brushed the leaves off his hair "Well that could have been worse."

And with that, some tree branches fell onto his head.

"Seriously?!" he exclaimed while rubbing his head, already feeling a bump beginning to form.

After hoisting himself up and brushing the extra leaves off him and stretching out his muscles, he put his hand in his pocket, only to realize that it was empty. His eyes widen as he felt his heart drop, the clock wasn't there anymore. He looked around hoping to find that it had landed somewhere, but everywhere he looked it was no luck, the clock was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh no," he started to panic "This is bad this is very very bad."

"Jack?!" a thick Russian voice suddenly called out startling the winter spirit as he looked up to see North circling him above in his sleigh.

"Oh!" he replied while trying to act cool "Hey North!"

"What are you doing out here?!" North asked.

"I was uh, on a fly!"

"Well come on back to headquarters! I've got something I want to show you and the others!"

Jack felt himself having a mini heart attack, hoping hard that it wasn't the clock he just lost.

"Um!" he replied with a nervous smile "Okay I'll follow you!"

As North headed off, Jack took one last glance around for one last chance in finding the clock, but no luck. Now all he could do was hope that North will never notice as he took off and flew after the sleigh.

But little did he know was that the clock didn't land anywhere in the woods, instead, it had fallen down a small hole, a hole that led down beneath the earth in an underground lair that belonged to the one and only Nightmare King known as Pitch Black. Just last year he had been banished to his lair by the Guardians, never to be seen again, and never to see the light of day or anything from above. Until now that is when he heard the sound of something clicking on his walls as it soon came to a stop. Wondering what it was, he made his way to where it happened as he looked down to see the clock, not a single scratch was noticeable.

"What do we have here?" he sneered in his sinister voice as he reached down and picked up the clock "Is this what I think it is?"

After examining the clock, he felt his sneaky sneer curl up again.

"Well, what do you know? Looks like this Guardians aren't so clever with hiding this from me. Now, where should I go to first?"

_________

Back at the headquarters, once all the Guardians had gathered up in the globe room, Jack tried to appear calm, hoping no one would notice his nervousness of losing the clock.

"Alright everyone" North entered "Now I know you all are wondering why I gathered all of you here. And that is because I've got something to show all of you."

"What is it?" Bunny asked with a smirk "A new workout machine?"

"Haha very funny" North frowned while pulling up his large sack "No what I have is something I recently found in storage, and I thought I would never see this again."

Feeling a sigh of relief run through him knowing that North wasn't talking about the clock, Jack watched as North reached into his sack and pulled out a large rolled up piece of old paper that he had unrolled and placed in front of the Globe to reveal to everyone a map.

"The Map of Realms?" Jack read the title.

"I've been looking for the right time to show you this Jack" North explain "Now you know we've all been around for many years, going from different country to country. But before you joined us, we discovered that all of these countries we've been to in the past have become realms, realms that we were able to travel to."

"It was kind of like time traveling" Tooth put in "We were able to travel back in time to certain time periods."

"And you guys don't do it now?" Jack raised an eyebrow.

"Well we can't anymore, you see when we first discovered about the realms, Pitch knew about them too. And because of it, he created a special object that allows him to travel to certain realms just like that. It was in the form of a pocket watch that we called the Realm Clock."

At that point Jack nearly jumped out of his skin, already knowing that the Realm Clock was most likely the item he just lost in the woods.

"And because of his invention, he used it to travel to these certain realms, spreading fear and darkness."

"But then we stopped him and took away his invention" North finished with a proud smile "I keep it in me office now, and even though we could use it, we're too focused on our time period that we never have the time to try it out."

"But it doesn't matter anymore" Tooth guaranteed "What matters is that it's safe from Pitch and that he won't be going back anymore."

But all of a sudden a loud rumble was heard as the room began to shake. Everyone wondered what was happening when they suddenly heard a burst of familiar and sinister laughter.

"It- it can't be" North gasped when everyone saw the shadow of the Nightmare King circling them in the room.

"Pitch!" Bunny growled while pulling out his boomerang.

"I don't understand" Tooth gasped "How is he back?"

"Show yourself Pitch!" North demanded as Pitch did so while standing on the Globe.

"Here I am" he offered in his sneaky smile "Miss me?"

"Talk! Now!" North pointed with anger "How did you get out of your lair?!"

"I had a feeling you were going to ask me that first" Pitch smirked, "And the answer is simple, you all simply aren't smart enough to keep this hidden from me."

He pulled out the Realm Clock as they all felt their stomachs drop.

"Remember this?" Pitch mocked "My invention that you all took from me? Well, I don't know how I got it back but it's mine again."

"How?" North breathed in shock "I kept it in me office and no one is allowed-".

At that point, everyone frowned as they turned to Jack who stood there frozen with guilt.

"Uh, why are you all looking at me?" he asked with a guilty smile "Maybe the elves did it."

3 nearby elves all scowled at him with their mouths full of candies. He added a nervous laughter as they all just looked at him with frowns, knowing they weren't buying it.

"Okay it was me" he confessed while lowering his head.