A/N: Hello! I've been gone so long, most of my documents that I was working on are now GONE! Sad days.
Update on June 19, 2013: I FINALLY HAVE A COVER IMAGE FOR MY STAR STORY! YEEEEEE!
All credit for this lovely awesome fantastic image goes to Pixie-tenshi for the painting, liui-aquino for the cosplay, and Fritz Tentativa for the photography! (they're all on deviant art)
I DO have permission to use this wonderful image, so... yeah. My username's FrostyLokian (I know, SO ORIGINAL) and you can see me asking permission in the comments if you have any doubts ^^
Reviews help immensely! Thank you, enjoy and please review this if I need work or if you enjoyed it!
Chapter 1: Jack Frost, At Your Service
I thought I knew what pain was.
I was never so wrong in my life.
I thought things couldn't get worse, since he had stolen all my dreams, my hopes, my life. I had someone I loved- who is now gone.
I ask now- Pitch, what do you plan on taking next?
"Hazel, play with me!"
I squeeze my eyes shut and took a deep breath, fighting back my tears. His voice reminds me of Dad's. I bite my lip and pretend to pout.
I forcibly release my shaky breath and snap my book shut, rolling my eyes dramatically. I can't let him see the pain I've been feeling for years now. Danny tugs at my sleeve again.
"But whhhhhyyyy?" I ask him in a nasal voice, which helps hides my stuffy nose.
"Because you're my big sissy, and it's your job to play with me," he pouts and folds his arms.
I look at his face, trying desperately to stay stern, but I smile and laugh. His chubby little face slowly melts away at the darkness within me.
"Fine. But I have to put on a jacket. Go to your room and put on a jacket too, Mister. Last one ready is a frozen worm!" I shout and we both make a mad dash up the stairs. I pretend to go extra slow up the stairs so he could think he was fast. He laughs when he reaches the top and goes into his room, slamming the door shut. I put on my long black pea coat, white mittens, and a light blue beanie from my bed. I hear Danny's door open again and we both race downstairs. He makes it to the door faster than me, and I pretend to be disappointed.
"Awwwww! I'M the frozen wooooorm!" I put on a frowny face.
"You're a frozen worm, you're a frozen worm!" Danny gleefully chants.
"Hey, I bet I can beat you in a snowball match!" I grin mischievously and sprint out the front door before he can say anything. Cold air instantly hits my face, and I grimace almost automatically. GOD, it's freezing tits out here! Danny laughs and runs in a huge pile of snow, disappearing momentarily and coming back up with a snowball. I relax in the chilled winter air and decide to live a little.
Pretty soon, my little brother and I are pelting snowballs at each other and laughing hard. It's only a Saturday in November, but there still aren't a lot of kids yet playing in the abundance of snow.
"Need some ammo?" I ask Danny, who's making the cutest little snow fort. He suddenly stops and pouts again, arms crossed.
"You're the bad guy, you're not supposed to help me." He sounds like a little teacher.
I play along and face-palm my forehead.
"Oh, you're right! Gosh, you're so smart! Okay then!" I scoot to my spot and start putting up a fort. I could never tire of my little brother, Daniel. After my father died 3 years ago, Danny had become my first priority, and I vowed to make him feel as loved as he could. It was hard to take care of others while your own soul feels ripped from your body. My mother was currently in a depressed state... like mother, like daughter, I guess. Almost every day, I gave her soup in bed.
Danny could tell something was wrong with us. I never liked it when children could tell if you were broken inside. I still remember the day when a random boy named Jamie came up to me and asked if I was ok. I had been drawing a faceless sketch of a boy with a hoodie, so I didn't pay attention to the tears starting to fall down my face. He didn't believe that I just had allergies. After that, I tried to promise to myself that I couldn't let Danny see the hurt in me. I bet I was the only 19 year old who still played with their 7 year old sibling every day. Snow was a big help. Danny loved the cold sparkling flakes, as did I. Winter was our favorite season. The cold always reminds me that I could be dumped out in the street instead of having a warm house
"Wow Danny, your fort looks huuuuge!" I dramatically marvel at his little white fort. He puts on a big smile, and love tugs at my heart. We look the same with dark brown hair and bright green eyes, which gave me more reason to love him with all my heart. Kind of selfish, really, but he is sort of all I have left in the world.
A lean boy suddenly kneels next to me, crushing a perfect-looking snowball that I made.
Asshole.
"Holy... crud!" I shout and fall down, trying not to use profanity in front of my brother.
"Would you like to play, sir?" Danny runs up to the boy and holds out a snowball for him. The boy looks at me and playfully smirks. He looks to be about 18 years old, pale, with messy white hair, dark eyebrows, and startling blue eyes. I look at his attire and raise my eyebrows. He's wearing a blue sweatshirt with intricate designs along the collar, sleeve ends, and at the edge of the hood and brown pants that have some sort of thick leather threads crisscrossing up to his knees. That's it. No shoes. He shifts his legs, and I see he's holding some sort of stick thing with a hook at the end. My eyes widen at the weapon and I scramble off my ass. I grab onto Danny and crouch in front of him, holding him behind my back. I scowl at the teen.
"If you want to hurt him, you'll have to go through me," I snarl at the surprised boy. He swiftly stands up and drops his stick in the snow.
"Woah there, I just wanted to check out your forts. You can see me?" His voice is smooth, sort of unlike how a teenager would sound like.
"Of course I can see you. What've you been smoking, old man?" I'm hella confused.
He scowls back at me.
"I didn't tell you my age," he says.
"Doesn't matter. You sound like a grown-up. Although even the stupidest person could even tell that you're definitely not grown up, with that wonderful introduction of yourself," I taunt sarcastically. My words bite him as cold as the air around us, and his frown deepens. Whoever messes with my snowballs messes with me.
"Oh, and by the way, you owe me the most perfect snowball in the world." I pointedly stare at my crushed snowball under his feet. He lifts his foot and smirks, and my heart flips a little. He's cute.
"And what are you, some kind of hobbit?" I ask, still holding Danny back.
The boy looks at me with extreme confusion in his eyes. I roll mine. He must be stupid.
"For a teenager, you're pretty out of the bandwagon, Mister Hermit. Hobbits have large feet that have some sort of a thick sole at the bottom so they're like shoes. They keep warm even in the snow. They're also extremely hairy. I see you've got that part down," I add, nodding to his un-hairy feet. His head snaps back down to his feet and snaps back up to me, blue eyes in annoyance and awe. What's going on? Usually he's the one torturing people with snide remarks, but this girl's got him completely speechless.
"You really can see me?" he avoids my rude comments.
"Yeah. Buzz off or I'll have to call animal control."
"That's awesome! I mean, I never really get tired of when kids see me, but it still feels rad when they're able to see me. It's not like-" he cuts off and squints at me. I hold Danny tighter. "You're... you're my age..." he trails off and shakes his head. "I mean, you're close to 18, right?" he asks me.
"Yeah," I answer. I'm determined to answer all his questions with 'yeah'. Even if the question is: Hey, you're totally sexy, you wanna like, go put on this lace red lingerie and then we can play a game where I act like a creepy teenager but you find me completely desirable for some odd and totally normal reason and we go to my place and do something not PG rated? Oh, and by the way, leave your little brother with a friend.
He runs over to me with surprisingly nimble legs and stares in my face, his blue eyes catching hold of my green ones. I hold my breath. Don't think about the lingerie... don't think about the lingerie...
"You still believe?" he breathes, wonder plain in his eyes. His cool breath smells like peppermint. .
..peppermint-smelling red lace lingerie... That's a good idea. Maybe I should write a letter to Victoria's Secret.
"Yeah. Wait... what...?" I ask. I don't understand a word of what he's saying, but I figure he's not here to kidnap me. Or make me wear lingerie.
He laughs and holds out his hand right in front of my face. I hesitantly take it, he doesn't seem like a creeper. I flinch at the temperature of his hands, they're freezing! He stands up and I stand up too and let go of Danny. He releases my hand and mockingly bows deeply.
"Jack Frost, at your service." He straightens up and wipes a lock of white hair out of his face. He's all smiles.
"Jack... Frost?"
"There's none other!" He flicks up his staff with his foot and leans against it, a hand shoved in his hoodie pocket. That's not THE Jack Frost... is it? It could be just some random teenager from another school. He was a good actor. Or maybe I'm a victim of one of those prank videos that I spend all night watching on YouTube with the canned laughter.
Danny suddenly runs around me and runs up to the teen.
"Danny, NO!" I shout and make a grab for Daniel, but the teen is already grabbing onto the snowball that Danny held out.
"Danny, don't give a snowball to that jerk! He. Owes. Me!"
Jack smirks at me and softly blows on the snowball, his eyes never leaving mine as a film of light blue whatever covers the ball. He smirks mischievously, narrows his eyes and looks to his side. We both try to see what he's looking at and follow his gaze.
Next thing I know, Danny is laughing joyfully and pelting snowballs at me. I get some snow in my mouth and I vainly try to spit it out. I look at Danny and see his jacket wet in the chest.
"WHAT THE-" I sharply look at the boy pretending to be Jack Frost and my jaw nearly hits the ground. Balanced on top of the hook of the staff is a crouching Jack, snowballs in each hand.
"Obviously that stick is a lot thicker than it looks, or you're really skinny. Tell me your diet secret. See look here, I got all this fat here and-" My squeezing of my belly fat's interrupted by a freezing-tits cold snowball knocking right past my hands... and onto my stomach.
He smirks and throws another snowball at me, hitting the exact middle of my face. Oh no he didn't. There is NO way this fool will win this. NO ONE... messes with me, especially not in the wintertime. This fool obviously doesn't live here, or he'd have known my infamous title of Sir Chief Dude of the Snowball Fighting. This imposter was getting on my last dam-
My mind wipes out all negative thoughts, and I suddenly laugh. I cover my mouth quickly, trying to hide the laugh. I really have to get Danny out before trouble comes. This teen's gonna bring out the worst in me. But maybe... Naw, it's all good! This is Jack freaking Frost! He'll protect me. He'll protect Daniel. I hope. If he doesn't nip our asses off. I uncover my mouth and start making some snowballs. Jack smiles and leaps off his staff. He touches the ground with the curved tip and the snow bubbles and grows with us still on top of it. I try to scramble to Danny, but then the bubbling stops. Jack lifts his staff from the snow and takes a step. He sinks in the snow, the flakes covering the whole bottom half of his body.
"Need some ammo?" he smirks.
I laugh and quickly throw a snowball at him. It hits his face.
"ALRIGHT!" I shout, fist pumping. "TAKE THAT! You mess with the wrong girl, Jack Frost!"
He wipes the snow off his face and playfully narrows his eyes at me. He sharply lifts up into the air and flies to a less deeper patch of snow. He turns his back to me and I look over at Danny, who has his mouth wide open. I look back to Jack, and suddenly, he's facing me and holding about... oh lord... fifty snowballs. He smirks at me and starts flying back towards me. I smile.
"Danny, under cover! Now!" I playfully yell at my brother, and he laughs and ducks behind a pile of snow.
"Did I tell you I'm the King of Snowball fights?" he taunts, juggling all fifty balls.
"Did I tell you that I've been named Sir Chief Dude of the Snowball Fighting by the whole of this town?" I taunt back at him and I take off running towards a large tree.
"Sir? Dude? I KNEW you were a guy when I saw you!" Jack shouts in glee and flies right behind me as I run and try to duck the volley of snow behind the huge trunk.
I glare back at him. Behind him is Danny, creeping literally on the tips of his toes, a small snowball in each hand. I smirk as Danny lobs the back of Jack's head. Jack freezes in the middle of his act of making more snowballs, and looks at me in shock.
"Oh, and did I also tell you... Danny here's in training to be the next Sir Chief Dude of the Snowball Fights," I nonchalantly reply. Danny giggles and runs over to me. I put my hands on his shoulders and we both smirk at Jack.
"Finally, a challenge. You sure that you're up for this awesomeness?" Jack straightens up and gestures to the rest of his body.
"Oh please. A three year old girl could hit better than you," I taunt back.
An evil smile slides on his face.
We're screwed.
"Tell me, dearest. How are those petty little Guardians coming along?" a sharp voice cuts through darkness as a skeletal, shimmering black horse with yellow eyes clop in the darkness. The horse neighs, and dim lights turn on. A dark man with short hair and no eyebrows snarls and rises from a black recliner.
"What? It cannot be!" He shakes his head and grabs the horse by its throat.
"Say it again," he seethes. The horse nervously whinnies and shakes its mane.
Wonder dawns on the dark man's face, malice glittering in his sickening yellow eyes.
The horse whinnies again, and Pitch Black releases its throat and rubs his hands together.
"Yes, my beauty. We must get ready to meet the Adult Believer! She must not fulfill the prophecy... She's mine!" The man evilly cackles and hops onto the black horse. An Adult Believer is the rarest and greatest gift of all, whether the Guardians or he got it. Pitch rather get the Adult Believers himself, but they have lately been... how should he say it? Short of stock. Adults were throwing away their 'childish' fantasies for more dull, more drab work, so they could have whining children of their own and fill their heads with 'lies'. Pitch didn't know the exact details of what happens to an A.B. when the Guardians had it, nor did he care. Of course, the Guardians didn't think of an Adult Believer as a mere object, but Pitch thought otherwise. What's a human to him? Mortal, pathetic, insignificant, weak... need he go on? Last time, Pitch had the Adult Believer. A woman, in fact. 19. Very loud. Very ugly. Pitch was glad to be rid of THAT burden. The Guardians would take care to protect the new one with all their godly pink sparkly powers. Good for Pitch that he took the time to learn a few new tricks. This time, Frost won't EVER stand in his way again!
His laughter echoes throughout the tunnels as he rides the thin steed, horrible plans already forming in his black mind. This time, poor little Jack Frost AND the new Adult Believer will get a little preview of his powers before anyone else. They truly are lucky! Well... as lucky as you can get when you're writhing in absolute pain.