Bone Boy

I placed this crossover in the main RotG fanfiction because I had a strong feeling it wouldn't see the light of day for a while if I ever set it into the Crossover Section.

Anyway, enjoy—because I have a feeling this is the only time you'll ever see Bunnymund interact with the characters of this particular movie (at least in my stories).

Bunnymund and all characters and elements of "Rise of the Guardians" belong to Dreamworks Animation and William Joyce. The characters and elements of the other movie belong to Disney and a guy with the first name Tim. (I'll let you folks figure out the last name on your own. X))

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I don' believe this."

Right this instant, Bunnymund was stomping his way down the central hub of a dark, spook-themed town, set in the middle of desolate, ghastly scenic nowhere, his huge feet pounding on the cold cobblestone, a beautiful , pale blue skinned ragdoll woman in a faded yellow and green, almost knee-length patchwork dress keeping in delicate step with him. Under the grip of one of his lean yet powerful arms, a silvery, metallic, egg-shaped container violently trembled from the interior every one or two seconds.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

"Hey, let us out, fuzz bucket!"

"You can't treat us like this!"

"Yeah, what they said!"

Bunnymund could only roll his verdant irises, hardly affected at all by the captive children's impudent protests. In all honesty, the little buggers hadn't been difficult to catch whatsoever. After all, one can't hide well enough if one has only been in a new area for only a few seconds; that had been exactly the case with this trio of midget miscreants that trespassed on Bunny's home territory.

Needless to say...the rabbit was not amused.

"I'm terribly sorry for this, Mr. Easter Bunny!" the ragdoll woman pleaded in a soft, melodic voice full of concern. She clasped her hands as if in prayer. She might as well have been praying at this point…though not for herself. "Jack was only—"

"Messin' with things he shouldn' be messin' wit' in the first place." Bunnymund's strong, gritty, Australian accented voice cut through Sally's pleading like a knife into a pumpkin; the doll mistress gasped a bit at the harsh tone and equally sharp glare Bunny tossed her way before turning back and continuing forward. "These ankle-bitahs are downright lucky I was the one who caught 'em instead of somethin' else."

At these chilling words, the young woman nodded gravely, well understanding and aware of the dangers Lock, Shock, and Barrel risked—and all because Jack asked them to.

'Although I don't think what they did was quite what Jack had in mind.'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You."

All voices in the gothic-decorated hall hushed and all heads revolved in unison the second the humanoid lapine kicked the large, wooden double doors open then stomped his way inside, his fierce glare insuring a safe distance between him and the apprehensive monsters and ghouls.

Bunny only had interest in one particular citizen of this town—a lanky, lean, round-headed skeleton dressed in a black pinstripe suit and pants, bat-like tie, white undershirt, and shiny, black dress shoes. The hollow yet expressive eye sockets of the Pumpkin King blinked in a mixture of shock and confusion at the azure mammal's appearance as the bone-man turned his back on a strange, irate-looking, beaked elder professor in a wheelchair. With a bony finger, Jack Skellington scratched the top of his bare, white noggin while his mouth downturned into a frown.

"Odd...You're not Sandy Claws." Bunnymund raised an eyebrow, both at the genuine curiosity in Jack's voice and the odd pronunciation of the name of a certain other Guardian. The skeleton sounded more like he'd found an Easter egg consisting of licorice instead of chocolate.

'Brilliant deduction, mate...' However, instead of vocalizing this thought, "I believe these…," Bunny, with a dry countenance, released the hatch on the egg-shaped container and unceremoniously deposited the children at Jack's slim feet ", are yours."

Lock, Shock, and Barrel remained where they were in startled silence before the mighty Pumpkin King, whose expression, upon the sight of them, promised only stark disappointment and rebuttal, then resorted to what they excelled at best: making excuses and blaming each other.

Shock, a tiny girl in a pink witch dress, a pointed hat that shared the same purple shade as the scraggly, long hair it covered, and a light green, crooked-nosed mask, being the self-proclaimed leader, exclaimed on behalf of both herself and the boys, "We only did what you told us to do!"

Jack Skellington shook his head in light vexation at Shock's poorly supported justification, a dissatisfied-looking scowl still on his face. "No, no, no, no, no...I told you: 'Go to Christmas Town and get Sandy Claws!'" While continuing, Jack gestured a hand to a cross-armed and momentarily disinterested Bunnymund. "And that is most certainly not him."

Shock sighed in frustration at her cohorts. "I knew we went the wrong way!"

"Oh yeah...?" sneered a boy about the same height as Shock. He dressed similarly except his costume resembled a red devil, a horned and maliciously grinning mask revealing his neatly combed and parted crimson hair. "How come ya didn't say anything back then, huh?"

"Don't look at me! It's all Barrel's fault!" Shock retorted angrily, pointing a tiny finger to the aforementioned in childish exasperation.

A slightly shorter boy, dressed in a sickly grinning skeleton mask and violet suit fittingly illustrated with bone parts and with a round head topped with cropped light green hair, snappily retaliated with, "Hey, wait, what did I—"

In spite of the disparity of roles in the situation, both Bunny and Jack inevitably emitted heavy sighs, the former rolling his verdant eyes in further annoyance and the latter shaking his head once again in disapproval, the two men already fed up with these three and their pointless squabbling. So without further ado, Jack stuck his index fingers into his mouth to stretch it to gruesome proportions, thus revealing his funky-colored green and purple striped teeth, adding in a savage growl for added effect.

Instantaneously, the trio shut up quite nicely, too startled and spooked by the Pumpkin King's (more so than usual) frightening expression to think of further fighting amongst one another. If Bunny weren't so ticked off right now, he would have almost admitted to being impressed by Jack's ability to establish authority...off-kilter as it was.

The satisfied Jack nodded with a dignified huff then pointed an index finger to the hall entrance. His voice emerged even but still fierce enough to allow inexistent room for future misinterpretation and argument. "Now go back and bring the real Sandy Claws!"

'Sandy Claws...?' Again with the mispronounced names— oh man, this guy was even more delusional than Bunny initially figured him to be—all the more reason to stop this nuisance at the source while the opportunity remained ripe. A thick finger tapped Jack's shoulder, bringing the attention of a perplexed Pumpkin King to a Pooka scowling, much to the deep confusion of Jack and everyone else in the hall except Sally, even darker and fiercer than before. "I got uh bettah idea, mate. How 'bout they don' go anywhere at all?"

Jack wavered naught under Bunnymund's glare. On the contrary, his expression became just as stern, except with a strong touch of determination instead of challenge. "I assure you, Mr. Bunny, you won't have to worry about these three wandering around in your warren again," Jack heroically guaranteed with a grand sweep of one of his hands. At the very least, Lock, Shock, and Barrel did not appear pleased at hearing such potent words.

A lower eyelid twitched imperceptibly on Bunny's face; this guy still wasn't seeing the big picture. "No, see Bone Boy, that ain't the problem. The real problem...," he continued, jabbing a finger into Jack's chest, "is that you're doin' somethin' not in your job description."

Even then, the skeleton displayed no signs of wavering—or understanding either. "Oh, I see what this is all about! Fret not, Mr. Easter Bunny! I'm still well cognizant of my role as Pumpkin King! All I'm simply doing is searching for new and exciting ways to celebrate Halloween—research, in a way." Jack's assuring smile waned slightly as he scratched the back of his head in a sheepish manner. "Unfortunately, the range of my area of activity isn't as extended as yours or those of the rest of the Guardians, so that's why I sent Lock, Shock, and Barrel to notify Mr. Claws of my request for suggestions."

Bunny raised his dense eyebrows up as if in interest of this plan, a falsely supportive grin on his snow-white muzzle. "Oh, a'right, then feel free ta take in this suggestion, mate..." and in a flash his deceptive façade of pleasantry evaporated into the same grimace from prior. "Keep your nose where it belongs, Bone Boy. Otherwise, the next time I knock on your door, it ain't gonna be fo' a pleasant drop-in."

Ludicrously enough, Jack, thoughtful frown and all, actually tapped his own face in the place where his nose would have been if he had one. "Hmm...I'm not sure how I'll get that to work, to be honest. I'm afraid I don't even have a nose."

Bunny could only reel his head back, eyes wide, and stare at Jack as if the skeleton suddenly grew two heads. 'Was this bloke makin' fun of me? Or is he just slow in the noggin?'

Either way, the Guardian of Hope knew that trying to convince this bonehead (no pun intended) of the foolishness of this plan was a lost cause. So without a single word of goodbye, Bunnymund, shaking his head in either pity or frustration, pivoted on his heel to stomp his way to the exit. He was not coming back to this place again.

"Bunny!" one of the citizens suddenly called out from behind the human-sized rabbit. Bunny couldn't resist the urge to just freeze in place, shocked by the exclamation. Did these nuts just figure his species out now?

'Oh yeah, I am not comin' back ta this godforsaken place.'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'What the bloody hell am I doin' back in this godforsaken place?'

Because of Tooth, who else? As much as Bunny adored the feathered Guardian, even to the point of having a small (secret) crush on her, he really struggled with the reality that she didn't find Jack Skellington an annoyance at all. Actually, save for the Easter Bunny himself, none of the Guardians viewed Jack as an annoyance—just a misguided soul. For crying out loud, even North had no problem with the scatter-brained Pumpkin King—and he'd been the one whose holiday Bone Boy had tampered with in the first place!

"Why do you insist on seeing the bad in the poor guy anyway? You act like it's your holiday he messed with years ago," Tooth inquired as she finished waving back to a few friendly witches that noticed them a few seconds ago.

The taller lapine, not too far behind (and not quite as warmly receptive to the greetings from the oblivious townsfolk), shot a look of disbelief at the Queen of Fairies. "Tooth, that fruit loop is off his rockah in ways I neva' woulda thought were possible!" In exasperation, Bunnymund began to count off with his fingers, tapping them to represent each of the following points: "He tried ta kidnap North, planned ta take ova' Christmas, nea'ly got the man's sleigh blown sky-high, an' worst off, he had the nerve ta get help from tha' frostbitten punk, Jack Frost!"

The iridescent Guardian of Memories halted in mid-air then merely stared at her furry counterpart for a few seconds before crossing her arms and sending him a playful smirk. "Are you sure you don't like Jack just because he and Jack Frost have the same first name?"

Bunny huffed and rolled his eyes at the quip. He should've known better than to have expected Tooth, of all mystical beings, to have taken his frustration towards the Pumpkin King seriously. She could be so ditzy sometimes.

Tooth sighed in a manner far too teenage-like for someone her age, allowing her smirk to drop in place for a pleading frown. "Come on, Aster, no one's saying that he should be a Guardian. Okay, North was a little upset when Jack tried to take his place, yeah...but, when you think about it, the guy is kind of like a kid. He'd been doing Halloween for so long, the idea of other holidays fascinated him a lot."

Bunny turned away, trying not to show, for the sake of his pride, the crumbling resolve in his eyes. Tooth refused to relent. "Remember how you felt when you first found out about Christmas?"

A slow-in-coming smile grew over the Pooka's muzzle. How could he ever—ever—forget that time? Even with the holiday argument that always managed to manifest between the hulking hare and the bringer of wonder, Bunnymund could never deny the awe and inspiration Christmas Town incited in its visitors, even in the case of a "stone-hearted warrior" like him.

Besides, that cozy, little town had also been where he'd first met Tooth.

'Crikey...this dame is gonna be the death of me someday, ain't she?' Bunny mused in a lovingly joking train of thought. Releasing a long sigh through his nostrils, the Pooka allowed his arms to drop and passed a half-smile to his fluttering friend. "Fine...I'll do this for your sake, Tooth...," he shot a finger up in a no-nonsense manner, "but just this once!"

Keeping the avian fairy at arms-length proved impossible immediately afterwards.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Come on, Mister Bunnymund! You just have to try these night-crawlers! They're to die for!"

'Shouldn' the words be 'die from',' the flabbergasted lapine thought to himself. He cautiously scooped a few of the creepy crawlies into his large metal spoon and eyed them cynically. The tribal-tattooed Pooka glanced over to Tooth who, surprisingly and impressively enough, didn't even seem to blanch at the sensations and tastes of the dark-hued bugs and arachnids her dainty lips consumed with interest.

Bunny figured the sprite would at least look a little green—uh, greener than usual. Then again, he felt hidden relief that his best friend wasn't suffering from the off-kilter gourmet and overenthusiastic approaches of their new acquaintances (calling them friends would have been a major stretch in Bunny's opinion).

Besides, he was the only one actually suffering. Yes, survival instincts ran through his veins as easily as the river-waters of his Warren...but seriously...What on Earth could have possibly prepared him for this?

Dining in a gothic-styled house in a land where Pitch would have almost felt at home, and having awkward conversations with a talking skeleton and ragdoll (although the awkwardness was completely the rabbit's own doing), with insects and other questionable-looking critters swarming around in chipped bowls—Bunnymund was no snob—not by a long shot—but he simply couldn't help but feel...way out of his element here. In all honesty, he would've rather eaten outside; at least the moonlight, jaundice lighting aside, would made him feel less as if he were having his Last Meal. The fact that Tooth, who had a glittering palace full of cutely tiny helpers, didn't even bat a single eyelash at the darkness and haunts utterly astounded the Pooka to no end, to say the least.

Only the chipper voice of a certain skeleton succeeded in pulling him out of his discomfiture-induced reverie. "So Bunny—may I call you Bunny? I've been thinking. Ever since the Christmas Nightmare incident, I've kept asking myself: why is it we folks of Halloween Town rarely associate with anyone from the outside—like you and Tooth for instance?" He went so far as to even gesture to the two aforementioned Guardians.

The Pooka warrior tensed up upon hearing that question. 'This gumby wouldn'...' "Bone-Boy," he uttered in a warning growl, "if ya thinkin' what I think ya thinkin'—"

Sally was already one step ahead of the rabbit. "Oh no, Mr. Bunny; what Jack means is that our town almost never has guests, save for the occasional traveler—and even then that's usually by accident. Before the fiasco with Oogie Boogie, we always kept to ourselves, keeping our celebrations within the town's boundaries."

Bunny relaxed upon hearing those words—somewhat—but remained wary, not quite ready to trust Jack Skellington and his scatterbrained sense of "good ideas."

The Pumpkin King nodded in agreement; as usual, his fiancée hit the nail right on the head. "Don't misunderstand me! I haven't forgotten my place as Pumpkin King. I just thought it would be nice to be in touch with the rest of the world. Besides, the thought of there being others who celebrate Halloween as much as we do is so positively thrilling, I can't help but get goosebumps from just thinking about it!"

"Of course, that sounds wonderful! What do you think, Bunny? Should Halloween Town try it?" the Queen of Fairies finally piped up. Her delight at the proposal of this town's people "getting familiar" with the outside world was clear and evident.

At this hopeful inquiry, the addressed halted in stark silence, speechless and slightly wide-eyed under the four stares trained on him (even that of Zero, who, sleeping on Sally's lap, woke up and turned his head in the same direction as everyone else did). Bunny scratched the back of his furry head, his ears drooping in a rare show of embarrassment. As much as the idea of someone as vivacious and overeager as Jack gallivanting around the world unnerved the Guardian of Hope...the notion itself did possess a sort of appeal the humanoid lapine found anything but unfamiliar. Like the leader of Halloween Town at present, Bunny, too, was once just as innocent and curious, even if not as giddy with impatient anticipation.

Deep down, however, the lapine still held reservations and doubts. He could still recall the so-called "Christmas Nightmare" incident in full lucidity—the disarray sent across North's workshop and the rest of Christmas Town, the chaos the two Jacks—Skellington and Frost—inadvertently wrought upon the world, the dramatic drops that occurred in the levels of Wonder and the resultant severe weakening of the value's respective Guardian...and the fact that the Pumpkin King nearly lost his life...

That last fact stuck closer and harder to the Pooka's mind than the others, only North's loss of strength and verge upon vanishing at the time being close enough to almost rival it.

Bunny truly both envied and puzzled over North's ability to forgive. When the rabbit faced the Russian man for the first time after the Pumpkin King's holiday mishap, that subject became the first question he ever asked him.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh yes, I am steell...how you say?—teecked that he tried to take my place thees year."

"An' yet yer sayin' that you forgive the bloke...? That doesn' make a damn shred of sense—you realize that, righ'?"

"Or perhaps you are one without sense, hmm?"

The rabbit stared at the present-bringer as if the man had grown a second head—and a third eye to go for each of them. "The bloody hell does that mean?"

"Why do you focus so much on bad of his actions, Bunny? It eez not like we talk about Pitch here."

"The bad of—North, are ya forgettin' what that dipstick and Frostbite's tinkerin' did? They messed with your holiday, treated it like some kinda joyride! Damn it, those show-ponies made ya lose believers! An' don' go tellin' me ya also forgot what that did to ya! North...mate...what is it gonna take to open your eyes tha' the bonehead is jus' trouble, waitin' to happen?"

"Because my comrade...I can see past de surface. Past that smile and energy, all I see eez grown child with no one to guide him. Same weeth other Jack...although I would not quite conseeder him full grown..."

"..."

"Just theenk about it."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Aussie mammal never forgot about remaining still in silence, verdant eyes larger than the Moon, unmoving feet planted on the warm, smooth, wooden floor of Santoff Claussen as if glued there, his body as stone-still as those of his Warren's golems, as he numbly watched the broad-shouldered man in red walk away, going about his business once again—ordering elves and yetis and checking over presents as usual— as if nothing out of the ordinary occurred in the last forty-eight hours.

At not only this memory but the realization finally dawning in relation to the situation at hand, a heavy sigh escaped Bunny as the lapine rubbed a hand down his tired eyelids, stubborn to a fault, being the personification of Hope after all, but not stubborn enough to deny when the facts have him beat.

'Who knows? Bone Boy migh' even set'le down a bit.' A pensive and reluctant smile on his muzzle, Bunny slowly shrugged his shoulders, not quite as hyped for the plan as his companions were yet not quite as skeptical to the prospect as prior to this point in time. "I...guess you lot could give it a shot."

Those words uplifted Jack's spirit significantly, a fact quite evident via the ginormous smile that quickly dominated the skeleton's baseball-shaped head. The overjoyed Skeleton Master of Ceremonies threw his lanky arms into the air and then, thanks to his impressive height, managed to reach across the circle-topped table and grab onto one of Bunnymund's hands and administer to it a vigorous, hearty shake. "Excellent, marvelous, beautiful—and just so you know, I'll be making sure to keep in touch with you, Bunny! You never know, one of us might need the other's help for his respective holiday one of these days!"

Bunny swore he felt something on his face twitch—he swore it was either one of his eyes again or the corners of his mouth. Forgetting the smile of relief on his own face—or was it from excitement, too? Man, were this guy's smiles contagious?—the Easter Bunny remembered enough of his dignity to smirk and comment while pointing to Jack, "Good, cuz I'll be checkin' up on ya, Skellington."

The Pooka didn't know it (even though the two ladies present held a fair hunch or two), but that handshake ignited a friendship— right then and there.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And there you have it! I originally intended this piece to be longer and more tragic, especially with our favorite skeleton becoming a Guardian...but then I decided that such a path would have been too predictable, so I choose to settle for this little number.

Feel free to comment!