A/N: I really am sorry about the long wait for this chapter. Also, you as the guardian of light have the ability to make your staff disappear and you can resummon it at any time. Enjoy, but just know that if you steal my story you will have my wrath to face.

Everyone gave a silent nod and proceeded forward with caution. Tension radiated from the group, everyone was on edge, expecting a fight or a trap, or something besides the quiet, dimly lit hall they were walking in.

You were walking silently beside Jack, having only been reunited with him for a short amount of time after Pitch's induced coma, you were determined to not let him out of your sight, and it didn't bother him one bit.

To say you were walking close to him was an understatement. You were literally hip to hip with him. Your staff was in a death like hold in your (s/c) hands. You gazed around sweeping your eyes around the hall, keeping a keen eye for anything that might be out of place. Nothing, just a hallway, no trip wires or holes to fall into, nothing

You all walked silently down the hall for what seemed like hours staring at nothing but dirt walls until the hall widened into a room. The room was furnished lightly in black and whatever light that had lit the hall disappeared leaving the room in shadows. At the far end of the room was another door but it wasn't exactly…there. The door looked like you could walk right through it, it was a sheer-blackish color, it looked like it was made of shadows and phantoms.

'The phantoms were probably contributed by Pitch.' You thought in your head, you snorted at the thought. Jack glanced at you before continuing to look about the room. You walked over to the door and cautiously reached your hand out to touch it. You brushed your fingers along the surface of it, it was cold and immediately the blurry blackish-purple "phantoms" surrounded around where your fingers were on the door, almost like a greeting. You cracked a small smile and giggled softly.

Jack came up behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist while resting his head upon your shoulder.

"Hey princess, what cha' doin'?" He asked.

"Don't call me princess."

"Okay, Snowflake." He grinned lopsidedly. You turned around in his arms and stuck your lip out in a playful pout, crossing your arms over your chest.

"Jaaaack." You whined.

"Ok, ok (y/n)." Jack smiled and pressed kisses about your face. You scrunched your nose. "Jack," you giggled, "Stop" pushing on his face as he continued to kiss your face. Your laughter filled the small room.

"Oi, love birds, quit foolin' around, we have a mission!" Bunny barked at the two of you. You stuck your tongue out at him.

"He's right. We have to go through that shadow door. This door is special though, shadow doors are portals, you never know where you'll end up, but there's a trick to it." Everyone looked awed at Manny's words.

"What do you mean?" You asked him. He then brought his hands together then pulled them apart and protruded a long white rope from nowhere.

"I was getting to that, the thing is, if a large number of people, or in this case creatures, were to enter the door, tied together of course," Manny said brandishing the rope, "The door would get confused so to speak, the magic on it would falter for only a few moments allowing everyone to get through, but the portal tends to be tricky if anyone doesn't get out in time before the portal's magic restores itself they'll be stuck in the shadow world or they'll be spit out in a random destination decided by the door, but that's another reason for the rope."

"Let's do it." You said enthusiastically before shooting forward and grabbing the rope from Manny.

"Who's first?" You asked looking around at the other guardians.

"Come on Bun Bun, show some courage." You egged on Bunny. He let out an extremely audible sigh but came forward nonetheless. You smiled, "That's more like it." You wrapped the rope around his furry torso and tied an intricate knot at his back. Then you made a motion with your hand to usher the next guardian forward. One by one they all stepped forward and were tied to the rope; the line ended with Manny, having tied yourself to the rope ahead of him.

"Let's go, Bunny, walk calmly into the shadow door. All of you keep a tight grip onto the rope and make sure you can see whoever's ahead of you at all times." Manny said from behind you. You were staring at the back of Jack's snowy white head. Jack stepped through the door before you. You looked at the door uncertainty written all over your visage.

"Manny, are you sure?" You said quietly.

"Yes my dear, you will be fine." You took a deep breath before stepping through the shadow door.

If someone asked you what it felt like to step through the portal you weren't sure you could even tell them. You could only describe it as…strange. It felt like all the shadows in the door turned to leeches, but not blood-sucking, it felt like they were kissing your skin with mist. It felt like walking through jelly but also through air, it was disorienting to say the least.

You finally stepped through to the other side where all the others were. Your eyes had been closed while walking through, you slowly opened them right as Jack glomped you. You let out a small indignant sound of surprise. Jack pulled away a moment later.

"What was that for?" You asked holding on to his forearms as he supported your own forearms up.

"Just glad to see you made it okay, Frostbite." He nuzzled your cheek.

"Since when am I a disease that people who stay out in the cold too long get?" You laughed as his hair was tickling your skin. A throat was cleared from behind you, you both turned to see Manny.

"If you two are done, I would like to proceed." He said with a small smile on his face. You stepped away from Jack reluctantly.

"We have less than five minutes to find the rip in the portal. We need to stick together and look quickly." Manny instructed as you all stood back in line then proceeded in Manny's designated direction.

You looked for a while, but just when you all thought you'd get stuck inside the portal or get spit out in some unknown place you found the rip.

"Run!" Manny yelled. "We've got thirty seconds before the rip closes." Everyone sprinted towards the jagged hole in the never ending shifting black and purple shadows. You just barely managed to jump out and pull Manny with you before the rip closed itself with sucking noise.

You and Manny tumbled to the ground, rolling to a stop and getting tangled in the rope as well as having your hair pulled over your face. You lifted yourself up pulling your hair out of your face and coughing out dirt from the floor. Jack knelt by you patting your back while Tooth was concentrating on getting the rope untied, and in your case untangled, from everyone.

"Thanks." You rasped out. "Where are we?" You asked as Jack helped you up.

"We are about one room away from the Master of Darkness's throne room, so I suggest no noise. For this encounter I would prefer we had the upper hand with the element of surprise." Manny Murmured just loud enough for all of you to hear. Everyone nodded.

You stood up and summoned your staff that you had put away earlier. All of you looked towards a large metal door-painted black- at the far end of the room. Then all of you taking battle stances, prowled quietly towards it.

You went up to the door, quietly pushing it open and holding it so all the others could pass. You closed it as silently as was possible after all the others had walked through. You crossed through the next room quietly, you motioned for all the guardians to go to either side of the metal doors and you would open them. They did and you quietly went to the door, placing your hand on the handle, getting ready to yank the door open. Before you could do anything else a booming voice was heard.

"You know you really should stop hiding, I know you're there and it's rude to keep your master waiting. I've been expecting you." Your blood froze at those words. You looked quizzically towards Manny.

"The shadow door, it must have been." Manny murmured.

"Mim, is that you? Well, now, this is a surprise." The voice said. "I expected your pawns to come but not you in the flesh, so to speak." The voice chuckled in obvious amusement.

You bared your teeth in annoyance and threw the doors open violently. The guardians came to your sides in a flash all holding their weapons of choice towards where they thought the threat was coming from.

A man sitting on a pure black thrown of thorns was in the room. His skin was a milky, ashy grey, kind of like Pitch's, but almost prettier in a dark way. He had long black hair that faded to silver near the ends. Atop his head was a foreboding looking crown of sorts made of black thorns. He wore what you assumed to be black armor but you couldn't tell because the man looked as if he was made of mist.

"So you're the Master of Darkness? Funny, if you're such a master, I wonder why you're not even solid." You taunted him. The smile fell from his lips into a snarl.

"And this is my throne room, and my world, I could manipulate it so you could die ten times over. And you wouldn't be able to do anything about it, since you don't have your precious center yet. Do you?" The smirk reappeared on his face again. You growled, but then a hand was laid on your shoulder, it was Manny. He stepped in front of you.

"You have no right giving Pitch the power he has now." Manny said with an assertive tone.

"Of course I do, you and your little pawns always think you can win, and you're in charge but you're not. So this time, I played a card that would tip the scales in my favor."

"You do not choose whether a child can believe, this fight is between the guardians and you, do not involve the children in our conflict." Manny retaliated.

"Oh but it does. If I want to get to you, I need to take out your energy source and that would be the 'precious children'." He laughed. Before you even realized what you were doing you jumped over Manny and shot a ball of pure light at the cursed thing sitting on the throne. The light burnt a hole into his torso. The darkness looked surprised for a moment, before snarling at you.

"You will pay for that little trick, my dear." And with that, tendrils of the same black mist that his body was made of erupted from his back.

"Let's see who's most precious to you?" You made a small move in front of Jack, which was a mistake.

"Oh, I see." In a split second a tendril whipped out and grabbed Jack. His staff dropped to the ground and you grabbed onto his hand.

"Jack, don't let go." you murmured as your own staff fell to the ground and shattered as it was made of a glass like material, but it would reform later. Jack looked sincerely fearful at that moment as your eyes connected, but the look changed to one of love.

"I'm sorry (y/n)." He whispered to you. Realization struck with those words as to what he was planning on doing. He let go of your hand and let the tendril pull him back to the other tendrils that were ready to envelope him. In seconds the black misty tendrils had completely covered Jack's body.

"Give him back!" You yelled infuriated as you summoned your staff again.

"Oh, I don't think I will." The Darkness said. "Now if you'd kindly get out of my lair." He said and with a swish of his hand the dark throne room blurred away like a dream and was replaced with North's factory. You blinked then looked down seeing Jack's staff. Kneeling down you picked it up. You stared at it, and then all the feelings that had been suppressed by your rage while in the throne room hit you full force. Tears slipped down your face before you even realized you were crying.

"Why?! I just got you back." You sobbed, curling over into a hunched position.

You honestly didn't know how long you stayed in that position but either way you didn't care. After the tears stopped you brought your head up. You brought Jack's staff up to eye level. Then summoning your staff you began making swirling patterns of light. His staff lifted in the air and continued rising until it reached the direct center above the globe, then with a silent gesture with your staff, Jack's was encased in an unbreakable case of light. The only person who could break the case now, was you.

Silently, you turned away and flew out one of the windows. You flew for a while in the cold snow, until you got to a deserted overhang, overlooking a deep chasm. You looked down and decided it would be perfect. You kneeled near the edge then began writing in the snow. After you were done you flew back to the factory. What you wrote in the snow, only you would know, but you wrote a single name.

Jack Frost.