Welcome to Gaia! ::

(Oh yeah, I remember that! xd Honestly, though, you're thinking along the wrong lines... this is a pic of Bunnymund in the books. HE'S BASICALLY A FREAKIN' AUSSIE TIME LORD BUNNY BADASS!!! HOW MUCH MORE AWESOME CAN YOU GET?!? eek eek eek )

"Well, honestly, I've been doing my best to fix that, but I can see your point," Jack admitted. "Still, you should probably come with me to give your refusal in person - otherwise the others won't take no for an answer... and even then, there's roughly a 50/50 chance of them not accepting your refusal anyway," he added, grinning slightly in amusement at his old friend's predicament.

Once the Guardians woke up, Bunny blinked, now able to see Off White. "Wait... I can see you now? Why not before, mate?"
White sighed softly. "That's what I was trying to tell you - when it comes to me, the Rule of Belief," otherwise summed up as "mortals have to believe in you before they can see you", "applies to spirits, too." His voice was soft and gentle, like that of a child, yet there was something in his eyes that suggested he was more experienced than he appeared. "My name is Off White."
Bunny blinked, then laid his ears flat against his head as he realized exactly why he was smacked for his little misinterpretation. "Oh... er, my bad, mate. And, er, it's nice to meet ya." At White's nod of acceptance, Bunny promptly changed the subject to get away from his mixture of embarrassment and slight guilt. "Anyway, where's Frostbite? You'd think he'd be here by now, if he's as good a pal to this Crystal sheila as he implied."
"Bah! Come now, Bunny, you know Jack would not be Jack if he not late by at least half-hour!" North quipped with a small grin.
Bunny rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, a bloke can hope; I thought he'd at least be quicker than usual, seein' as he seemed pretty excited."

"Deadman Walking, but just call me Walker; I suppose you could call me a protector spirit of a sort," Walker answered, inclining his head slightly in greeting.

"Perfectly understandable, just make sure I'm at a good angle to commit the look on his face to memory," Jack told her, nodding sagely, though the twinkle in his eye and the grin on his face gave away how much he was looking forward to Bunny's reaction. "Now c'mon, I'll lead the way to North's globe room, that's probably where everyone's gathering and/or being dumped." With that, he began leading Crystal away, grinning cheekily over his shoulder at her.

Off White shrugged. "Sort of... I was made, yeah, but I suppose you could say that I was born a spirit in the sense that I'm the only spirit who never had a mortal life - Dad just created me from the light of a solar eclipse. I wasn't anyone before that - I've always been me."

Walker nodded. "I do my best," he answered in his raspy voice - no pride or modesty, just a simple statement of fact. "It's good to see that someone is helping them through the trauma; the most I could help with was taking care of the physical threat, the memories and emotions are still there."

Bunny immediately glared at Jack irritably. "What took ya so long, mate? Everyone else is here already!"
Jack rolled his eyes, leaning on his staff nonchalantly. "Relax, Kangaroo, I'm here now, aren't I?" Ignoring Bunny's shout of "I'M NOT A BLOODY KANGAROO!", he continued with a flourish, "Everyone, meet Crystal Ice, my fellow winter spirit and comrade-in-pranks." He then noticed Sandy chatting with thin air. "Uh, Sandy? Who are you talking to?" Cue a ball of dreamsand to the face, Sandy giving a quick dream in explanation as Off White watched with amusement.

"Probably some combination of magic and very good building skills," Walker noted, watching the "jellyfish" go by in amusement, the airborne invertebrate an oddity among the many yetis and elves as it "swam" off.

Cue Bunny's jaw dropping as he sputtered in indignation, Jack waking up from the Sandman-induced dream just in time to burst out laughing at the look on his fellow Guardian's face.
Of course, North chose that moment to speak up as Deadman and Gal entered the room. "Did not know that! Well, is no matter. Now, we are wiping clean the slate."
Recognizing what was about to happen, Jack groaned softly in exasperation even as Off White quirked an eyebrow. "And why would that be?"
"Why? I tell you why!"
Jack twitched. 'Dear MiM, please tell me he's not going to do what I think he's going to do...'
"Because now, you are GUARDIANS!" Cue the torches and the fanfare and festivities galore as North got the Guardian handbook...
...All promptly stopped by a sheet of ice on the floor that practically screamed 'deja vu' to the other Guardians. "North," Jack said in a tone that indicated he was trying to be patient with the jolly, but sometimes clueless old man, "Some of them might not want to be Guardians."
North stared at Jack a moment, then burst out into jolly laughter. Once he was done, he looked at Jack and said in a way that was WAY too familiar to him, "Of course they do."
Jack's hand, meet Jack's forehead. Jack's forehead, say hello to Jack's hand.
...Well, at least the Guardians-to-be seemed amused, if nothing else.

Jack blinked, looking over at his old friend. "Huh... I figured you were behind the Rudolph incident. Guess I was right."
Deadman shrugged. "It's not really my thing. You look after the kids emotionally, I look after them physically."
The Guardians then looked over at Off White for his answer, only for the boy to shrug. "Don't get me wrong, you guys seem nice enough, and I respect what you do... but I get the impression that I don't see eye to eye on most of you."
Bunny gave him a glare, paws on his hips. "And what, pray tell, is that supposed to mean?"
White shrugged. "It's really quite simple. You see things in terms of good and evil, black and white, naughty and nice, light and darkness, and only rarely do you acknowledge the shades of gray in between." He then flashed down from the windowsill, strolling slowly around the room as he continued. "I, on the other hand, see things a bit more clearly. Even the blackest of hearts has a little light in it, and it's always the brightest lights that create the darkest shadows. To me, there is no moral black or white - the closest shades you can get are light black... and Off White." He glanced over at the Guardians. "When you learn to accept that, only then I will even consider joining you."
At that little speech, Bunny seemed to be about ready to blow his top, and Tooth just looked rather puzzled, but Jack and Sandy were nodding in understanding, and North was looking rather thoughtful.

White inclined his head, whereas Walker merely looked thoughtful. "True; however, while that is my main reason, I also have other, more personal reasons for not joining the Guardians."
"Come to think of it, why does Manny think we need more Guardians anyway?" Jack interjected. "Don't get me wrong, the more the merrier, and I'd particularly love to have Crystal on the team, but why? As far as I know, there's no impending threat - Pitch is probably still licking his wounds from when we beat him. And even if there was an impending threat, wouldn't one new Guardian be enough?"
Of course, the Man in the Moon promptly decided to interject to explain, giving them an image of six silhouettes. (Think along the lines of how MiM warned them about Pitch in the movie.)
Jack blinked, studying the silhouettes and noting that they practically screamed "malevolent and dangerous". "...Oh... that would probably do it..."

(Actually, I've been using her as an NPC a couple of times... I'm just not quite sure what her personality's like other than her being emotional and having a tooth fetish, so I've been keeping her in the background for the moment. Feel free to take her over if you want.)

"Well, from what I understand, the whole silhouette-on-the-floor thing is how MiM warned us - or rather, the Guardians, since I wasn't a member of the group at the time - about Pitch last time," Jack clarified. "If he's using the same warning for... whoever these guys are..." he waved a hand to indicate the silhouettes, "Then they're probably a similar threat, if not worse."
"Oh, I like to think that we're worse," a voice drawled from behind the group.
The Guardians and their would-be proteges immediately whirled to face this unknown threat, only to find a strange boy lazily watching them.
"I mean, really," the unknown being continued, "Pitchy-boy's reliant on fear for his power. My siblings and I, on the other hand, have no such handicap." He smiled at them, but the action was cold, with no trace of happiness behind it. "In fact, I think it's safe to say that at least three of you would be no challenge at all for us."
"And exactly who would you be?" Walker asked, one hand on his scythe as he eyed the being warily.
The boy chuckled again before gazing at the lot of them. "My name is Zephyr, Lord of the Winds and son of the Dark Side of the Moon... and if I were you, I'd stay out of our way, or you WILL be destroyed."
"Destroy THIS!" Bunny, ever the hot-tempered fighter, threw his boomerangs at the young man, intending to knock him out...
...only for the boomerangs to stop mere inches short of their target, still spinning. Zephyr smirked at the group, and a quick flick of the wrist caused the boomerangs to slam into Bunny's gut hard enough to throw him against the wall, his boomerangs ending up buried right on either side of the furry Guardian.

(Meh, maybe... it'd probably end up being one-sided on Zephyr's part, though, unless she enjoys the senseless slaughter of millions. 3nodding )
Zephyr just gave her an amused look before the winds suddenly stopped listening to her commands, her little attacks failing even as she dropped out of the air. Fortunately, Jack managed to catch her, so there was no real damage done. "Like I said: stay out of our way." With that, he quite literally vanished in a gust of wind.
There was a brief silence for a moment as everyone gathered themselves, Jack looking Crystal over to make sure she was okay; then, "All in favor of tracking down Pitch and seeing what he knows about this?" At the looks he got from the Guardians, Bunny added, "Look, mates, the bloke's older than all of us except maybe Sandy, plus "Dark" stuff is the rat-bag's specialty - there's no way he doesn't know something about this!"
"Bunny may have point," North reluctantly conceded, helping the rabbit get his boomerangs out of the wall. "In order to make plan against new threat, we need to know what new threat is. Only way I can think of to do that is to talk to Pitch. To the sleigh!"
While Jack seemed a bit hesitant about interrogating Pitch, he brightened at the mention of the sleigh, grinning at Crystal. "C'mon, Crystal, come with us - if nothing else, you've just got to have a ride in the sleigh!" he declared, oblivious to North's chuckle of "Everyone loves the sleigh".
Deadman stood there, hesitating a moment, before starting to head in the general direction of where he figured the sleigh was. The wind spirit's mention of the Dark Side of the Moon did seem familiar, and not in a good way...
Off White, on the other hand, slipped away unnoticed by any but the Sandman, who was perfectly aware of where the light spirit was heading and as such didn't draw any attention to him.