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Disclaimer: I don't own Rise of The Guardians

Rain pelted his body, the sections of his exposed limbs stinging with the impact of the hundreds of water particles. His face was fortunately saved from this onslaught of ice and water, covered by his arms. Unfortunately, his hands and feet weren't so lucky. The hurricane force winds drove the torrential downpour onto his unprotected flesh, causing Jack to hiss in pain.

He dropped unexpectedly in the air and he brought his arms out in a quick motion. Stabilizing himself, his hood couldn't stop the pellets from hitting him directly in the face. He inwardly groaned. Violent flashes of blinding light lit up the black cloud, forking unnervingly close to the area where Jack was located. Jack forgot about his face for the moment and desperately tried to shield his ears from the screaming thunder produced at such a close range. Only partially succeeding, bursts of radiant white, purple, and blue continued exploding around him. A cyclone of wind got hold of him again and forced his body downwards toward the ground. Tumbling in mid air, Jack continued clutching at his ears, eyes closed from the gusts and water. He didn't bother stabilizing himself, figuring that at some point he would somersault himself into the dirt.

Not knowing the difference between up or down, his plunge lengthened. He was thrust from side to side, the wind swinging him around like a toy. Lightning erupted in green right above him. The noise only partially muffled by the sound of his hands pressing against his ears. Jack wondered how long this nightmare would last.

He was abruptly held upright, the wind continuing to howl around him. Light blinked rapidly through his closed eyelids, though the rain was no longer barraging his face. The wind continued to hold him up, blasting up underneath him with more force than he could ever remember. He cracked an eye open. The rain had indeed stopped, though that wasn't what had caught Jack's attention. Walls of deep grey clouds surrounded him on all sides. The large swirling vortex of humidity spiraled endlessly upwards, pushed by the invisible wind. With his staff tucked safely in the crook of his elbow, and his hands firmly against his ears, he watched the lightning continue to strike along the cylinder. The electricity forked in the crevices of cloud formed by the intense updraft. Bringing his gaze upwards to the origin of the lightning, Jack could see a circle of clear night sky, the form bending and bowing with the movements of the cell.

Ignoring the sky, a continuous crackle and flickering of light caught his eye. The soft ambient light glimmering constantly below him, he faced downwards. He couldn't make out much, there were trees swaying in the gale and leaves fluttering all about. The light was radiating from a central point, directly below Jack. It was coming from underneath the canopy of the trees, an occasional pale yellow gleaming into his face, faceted from the odd holes in the clusters of leaves.

It was her. It must be her.

The wind tried to bring him slowly back down to Earth, but in the wake of such a strong upwards current the smooth descent was more like a jerky falling. Jack got low enough to touch the tops of the trees, and the wind released him onto a sturdy branch. He uncovered his ears, the lightning farther above him and the thunder dulled just enough to let him think. With his staff in one hand, he began to jump from branch to branch steadily.

Jack began to get worried, what with the display she put on for him, that this was not going to be a peaceful encounter. He could feel an obvious amount of turmoil within the storm she had most likely created, and he was unwilling to have it directed at him. When she had left, Jack saw guilt and pain on her face. Hopefully, it was directed at herself. Jack wanted her to feel that way. A small retribution for him. Jack unfortunately understood that when someone was hurt, they could lash out in ways they never meant to. For Jack, that would probably mean thousands of volts of electricity crawling through his veins. Adding even more to the list of uncertainties, he took into account that he had only known her for a grand total of a few hours. Most of the time was spent traveling here, though a half an hour had been spent with her directly. Her complete mood swing had been more than slightly disconcerting to Jack, and he wasn't sure how many more attitude variances she was capable of.

With those thoughts in mind, he crept downward and towards the ominous light. He tried to be silent, however the noise from the storm masked his presence well enough. Breaking through to ground level, he hopped to a low branch. The light had gotten almost too bright for his eyes, he squinted to be able to just barely make out the basic shape of a person. Their entire form was bright pale yellow.

Jack covered his eyes against the light. The person, more specifically the girl, was kneeling. Her head was pressed to the bank of a small stream. Feet folded beneath her, she was stretched against the ground, her bright arms reaching just beyond her, hands clenched into fists. Her whole body was alight in white, neon yellow marking the separation between her limbs and her torso. Crackling electricity had replaced her hair. The arcing currents zigzagged upwards and outwards from her head. Sparking tendrils of pure energy appeared and disappeared from existence, only to be replaced by another coil. Her electric hair spilled into the sky in irregular angles, providing Jack with enough reason to put her as the cause of the storm. The voltage forced itself into the atmosphere, fueling the eye of the storm above them.

Jack had been wrong about one thing, at least. The lightning was not originating from the charged top of the cell, but was instead sprouting from the girl in front of him. His mouth had somehow opened ajar while observing the manifestation of her affinity. The writhing white spectrum of lightning traveled upwards from the girl and forked and veined its way into the super cell's eye. Yet, above all the sound the wind and power created, he could still hear the paranormal resonance of the girl.

Harmonic voices and deep bass couldn't mask her skin crawling cries. If Jack looked close enough, he could see her body convulsing with breaths of air. She would breathe in deeply, then heave an anguished sound. She trembled with sorrow and effort. Jack had pity for her, he really did.

His pity was not an excuse for what she had done. In her violent sobs he could feel the echo of his despair, and for a moment he wondered whether or not to join her in her melancholic performance. She made a sudden movement, lifting her upper body from the ground. She raised her arms above and behind her. Strenuously, she flexed her torso, clenching her fists harder.

With a great roar, she slammed her fists and forearms into the silt of the bank. Jack didn't have enough time to register the blinding bang of lightning. The force threw him from the branch he had been perched upon, and he crashed onto the forest floor.

It took more than a few seconds for Jack to regain his bearings, ears ringing with the aftermath of the thunder. Slowly, he propped himself up on all fours. Jack couldn't decide on what was worse at that moment, getting hit by lightning or just being too close to it. The light that she had produced earlier seemed different. He looked to her area, watching her electric silhouette flicker. She was more quiet, the hums and voices continuing to provide an eerie aura about her. The place where the lightning had struck was now scorched and barren. Any bushes or plants that had been near the point of contact had been evaporated, simply turned to ash. Small embers spread from her fists in a star like pattern. The ground beneath her was smoking and smoldering, having endured such a massive amount of heat.

Jack stood up and decided to approach her in this small lull. Staff pointed warily at her, he stalked towards her. He pushed aside a particularly dense branch with the hook of his staff. Cautiously, he proceeded forward, aware of his unhidden presence. She sat up slowly, her cries gone for the moment. He opened his mouth, ready to make himself known.

"Jack?"

He stopped dead in his tracks, once again beaten to the punch line by this spirit. She slowly sat up. The movement made him aware that, similar to him, she wasn't wearing any shoes. He glanced back up to her head. Turning ever so slightly, she faced Jack. Her eyes were blazing light, an amber circle making up her pupil. They seemed to be as bright as her hair. Jack thought once more how spectral she appeared, her eyes lighting up her face like a weird nightlight. Though this nightlight was as bright as the sun.

"Why are you here?" echoing against the sound of the storm, her voice resounded with the hum of power. Jack took another step forward.

"Tell me exactly what happened that day. I want to know it word for word." his voice stern and exuding a confidence that he wasn't sure he had.

"Please!" she pleaded, "It was an accident. I only wanted you both to have fun."

"Really?" Jack added coldly, "Does it look like I'm having fun to you?" he let go of his staff with one of his hands, gesturing to the space between them. "Why didn't you come and fish me out of the water, huh? That sounds like a simple enough solution." Jack continued walking towards her, now only about ten feet away.

"Didn't I tell you before? I couldn't!" her palms open in front of her in offering.

"And why couldn't you?" he emphasized.

"If I had gone into that water after you," her voice rising, "both you and your sister would have died!" she screamed at him, hands brought back as fists once more. Sparks shot out from her being, but not enough to actually harm Jack.

He flinched backwards.

"What do you mean, we both would have died?" he furrowed his brows.

"I mean," she motioned to herself, "that I am pure energy. If I had so much as touched that water, you both would have been electrocuted." Jack backtracked his thoughts.

"But you were able to touch those machines tonight without any problem."

"Machines can absorb most rises in electrical current. People and any other living beings don't handle energy the same way." she replied.

"My sister wasn't even near the hole where I fell, she wasn't wet." he denied.

"Yes, she was." she defended, "Any kind of moisture on her, from melted snow or ice, would have grounded her to the lake as well. Even with that ice between."

Jack was silent, absorbing this new information. From what she had been saying, she couldn't have helped them, even if she had wanted to. So her electric current was a normal thing? Was it like the cold that Jack produced unwillingly to everything he touched? Yet, she could make herself visible, or invisible. She could change her appearance, and even show up in close range with others without shocking them. Maybe she could control her affinity enough to not shock anyone she didn't touch, but couldn't stop the current if people touched her. It sounded too dangerous to Jack. Too much of a precarious position for someone who was the spirit of inspiration, where touch could be an accidental event. Something wasn't right. It didn't add up.

"I'm so sorry, Jack."

He looked up at her, from staring down at the ground in thought.

"You don't owe me an apology." he ground out, squaring his shoulders and setting his jaw, "You should apologize to the people who actually need it. My family."

He was done with her. Nothing was adding up, and now that the time for forgiveness had come and gone, he was ready to head home. She drew into herself, hunching her back as if she was a hollow cavern. A small groan, or sob, he didn't necessarily give enough energy to care, escaped her sad lips. The static and lightning flashed and crackled ominously. Jack shuffled his foot backwards, ready to hightail it out of there if she seemed threatening enough. She either didn't care or didn't notice, Jack supposed it was the latter, because her eyes remained luminously glazed over, staring at some point on the tree line surrounding them both.

Claps of thunder and the high pitched squealing of rampant electricity had Jack darting his eyes about. The flashes of light intensified to the point where his brain felt sluggish and confused. He squinted his eyes in thought and continued backwards, his hands anxiously squeezing his staff.

In one movement her head whipped up, her eyes meeting his in a flash. The electricity calmed down, and that unpleasant feeling of static electricity stopped. Her eye brows were pulled down angrily. She stared him down, and he returned the glare.

"How dare you." she started, mouth frowning, "For hundreds of years I've dealt with the burden of so many lives I've unwillingly taken." she got to one knee from her crouched position. Jack consciously raised his staff, ready to cool her off.

"I used to just blame the Fates, all of this death that surrounded me wasn't my fault." Jack didn't like where this was going, after the numbing sounds that had accompanied her distraught mind, the small silence seemed too great. He was reminded of the calm before the storm, and that set his teeth on edge.

"I was fine and dandy with that assumption, that is, until I got entangled with you." now standing, she pointed her burning bright finger at him, "I got emotionally involved, and your death broke me, Jack!" she yelled the last part at him, voice ringing with thunder far above them.

"I don't want to do this anymore! These deaths are my fault!" her arms open and palms facing the sky, "Why else do you think I show myself to no one?! I don't want to hurt anyone, and if that means being alone for the rest of my existence-" the wind picked up and began creating a great whirlwind around her. The bright static stitched through the currents sewing them together. Jack realized that this was a wind that he had no control of. Her hands seemed like powerful magnets, all of the air, forest debri, and electricity tunneled from them. When she started raising her arms, Jack knew it was time to think fast. She restarted her monologue.

"-then so be it!" with her arms fully in the air, Jack pulled back his staff with his right hand. She was busy gathering her energy for the moment, eyes glaring intently at him. He then thrust his staff forward, before she had enough time to attack him first, as she was so obviously about to do. Swinging the rest of his body with the leverage needed to stay on his feet, his staff produced a light that for the moment was as bright as the lightning she wielded. It shot out from the tip of the crook of the staff, spreading about in the air like fireworks.

Just a split second after he had produced his attack, she pushed the great amount of wind his way. He had just enough time to see his blast connect with her straight on, in her chest. She hadn't moved or tried to avoid the attack, and Jack vaguely thought that she wasn't a very good combat expert. He ducked down, away from the sparking cloud she'd torpedoed his way. On all fours, he was thrown backwards by a sonic boom. The bullet had been a ball of extremely compressed air, a ticking time bomb for her opponent. It had gone off with an implanted spark of lightning, creating a macro-burst of hurricane force winds and tendrils of electricity. In mid air, Jack was being tasered from all sides, the feeling of electricity wreaking havoc through his veins making him convulse and shudder. His short flight was ended by the sturdy trunk of a tree.

His head snapped back and made contact with the hard wood. The stars that swam in his vision was either caused by the electricity or the concussion he now had to deal with. Or both. His body slumped the rest of the way back down to the ground. Jack's muscles weren't responding the way he wanted, so there was nothing to break the drop. He landed face first into the dirt. He twitched interspersingly, the volts taking their time to slowly filter from his body to discharge into the ground. His head twitched in a way that made him face the area they had fought. The area was dark, with residual amounts of smoke and embers filling the space.

There was no more lightning or wind in the air. Everything was calm, awaiting the next noise. A small amount of glowing lit up the forest floor a good 10 meters away. He could just barely see the girls body lying there, emitting a tiny shower of static. Steam and water vapor slithered around her torso. His eyes beginning to close, he noticed that she looked... different.

He didn't regret throwing the ice bolt at her, it was for his own protection. Even if it hadn't protected him much from the already formed attack. The moss covered floor was a good resting place for Jack, whose mind had swapped to telling him to sleep. One small nap wouldn't hurt, he thought. The twitching had stopped, and Jack didn't want to think anymore. Eyes fully closed, he inhaled the scent of the deep forest, then passed out.

Hi guys! Sorry this took so long to publish, I've had to re-write a bunch of my essays for my required English class, and I couldn't really stomach the thought of more typing. The good news is that I'm finally finished my first semester! I'll be packing my stuff up to head back home in a few days, then I'll really start writing hard.

I really enjoyed describing all the details of the chapter. It looks so cool in my head!

I just wanted to thank those of you who took the time to read this! Writing this story has me so GODDAMN PUMPED! I also really enjoyed getting feedback from people, and I would really like more!

~itorthedinosaur