Chapter 9: The Final Battle
With a roar, the demon goddess summoned an arc of red lightning that pulsed through the icy tundra. The Guardians scattered, each using their forms to weave in and out of the lightning's path of destruction: Jack scattered his form to join the falling snow, only coalescing once the lightning cleared; Tooth followed his example by dispersing herself throughout the field, only to appear behind the demon goddess and fire a salvo of tiny pinpricks of light.
"What are those things?" I asked; my eyes still glued to the battle waging below.
"I think those are memories, Jack," Tooth replied in wonder. "Memories that I manifested into light projectiles like my feathers; see how they affect Eris mentally, too?"
"Uh… no?"
"Oh! Sorry," she grinned sheepishly as she started to explain how each of the projectiles was memories compacted together and coalesced to form a "light". She also explained that as each memory made contact with the demon, they released a flood of memories to shatter her concentration to create an opening where the Guardians will attack. She beckoned us to watch:
As the salvo of light made contact with the void of Eris' form, the darkness began to sizzle and pop like a snail that was sprinkled with salt by some cruel boy. Then with a howl of pain, a beam of light burst from the point of impact, and the darkness chipped away.
She—it hissed. And the air around the battle trembled with her message:
"How dare you!"
She then whirled around and fired a blast of black energy from her ram-like horns. It hit Tooth's form square in the chest.
"Gaaaargh!" a loud screech woke me from my trance-like state in observing the battle. I whirled behind me, where Tooth sat in Jamie's bead, clutching her chest. Her form crackled with black lightning, almost like she was electrocuted.
"Tooth!" I yelled.
Jack's zenith form materialized below Tooth and caught her by summoning gusts of wind to lower her into its arms. Then it raised its head to hiss at the goddess, who was busy fighting North, Bunny and Sandy.
North stood to her left, his body lighting up the flood of darkness that had settled over the battlefield. He was firing stream after stream of multi-colored lights—aurora—that constantly lit up around Eris' form. Swirls of vapor hissed whenever a ray made contact with her skin.
Bunny's form dashed around and about, firing concentrated beams of yellow light whenever Eris was distracted by the other two Guardians. They imploded whenever they made contact.
Sandy worked the range combat; summoning beams, whips, and constructs that exploded whenever they touched the goddess. His cloak was spread around him like majestic wings, further illuminating the flood of darkness.
Jack's form gently laid Tooth down and erected a dome of pale blue energy around her. Then, he turned around, his carved mouth set into a tight line. He clenched his fist as he summoned the Wind to rage around the goddess. Eris whirled around.
"Jack, darling," It hissed. The ground beneath its feet began to tremble as tendrils of darkness seeped through the cracks. They swirled around the demon goddess. She closed her fist, and the swirling tendrils froze. Jack could plainly see from where he was that they had sharpened to fine points.
Eris waved her hands and sent them flying to the ice being. But he merely raised his hand, and suddenly they were encased with ice.
"What—"
Jack's form opened its mouth impossibly wide, revealing a cavern of white that seemed to extend to forever. A breath of thick, roiling white mist emerged in torrents and proceeded to engulf the demon goddess's form.
"Oh, yuck." I said, gagging when I saw the display.
Tooth was fine, now; she explained that since that that was still their bodies down there, albeit they were now the manifestation of their respective element. She explained that after Man in the Moon liberated them from their corporeal forms—
"By having us focus on our centre." I remembered. Sandy nodded.
—he took them to this… plane. Tooth had no other word for it. But she explained that right now, they were purely nothing but a conscious thought: something less than a spirit, but something more than nothing.
"Wow." I breathed.
"You said it, mate." Bunny agreed, turning once more to focus on the battle.
The mist swirled around Eris. Her dark body expanded, as if a beast unfurled itself from within and spread out its wings. The demon's wings flapped around her form, sending gusts of dark wind. Eris howled.
A surge of a thought passed through the ice being that passed as Jack. It spoke a single command:
Finish her.
Tooth rose from the cocoon the Jack wrought upon her being. She held out her hand, the glowing appendage wrapping itself around Jack's own outstretched one as they rose from the ground and teleported behind Eris, who whirled around in surprise.
"Cowards!" she spat. Her wings continued to blow torrents of dark wind towards the two. But Jack raised his hand, and immediately a bright blue light enclosed the group, protecting them from Eris' darkness.
The Epitomes of Wonder, Dreams, and Hope joined hands with that of Memory and Fun. Their outstretched appendages glowed with a slivery white light as they floated ever higher in the sky, Jack's dome keeping Eris' influence at bay.
Their eyes closed and their bodies stilled, the only sound coming from Eris' enraged howls as she fought in vain to breach Jack's magic barrier.
Then, all at once, their eyes opened, and their intertwined hands pointed themselves to the struggling goddess. Their mouths opened, and a voice so powerful it shook the land said:
Be gone, Chaos Queen. We banish you, now and forevermore!
Immediately, a beam of light shot from the heavens and pierced Eris' dark form. She screamed in shock and pain as the tiny pinprick of light slowly ate through her zenith, vaporizing it and leaving nothing in their wake.
She hissed as she summoned more chaos energy from around her, even resorting to archaic means—such as spells and enchantments—to invoke the power of discord. She cackled as her form slowly began to materialize once more.
Now, Jack always was the youngest of the group, therefore, the most prone to stupid, if sometimes great, ideas. Even when his consciousness had departed from his form and Manny was the one controlling them now, Jack retained his sense of… thinking.
A voice as soft as the falling snow, but as loud as a howling blizzard, called out:
Queen of Discord, Bane of Joy, we sentence you to entombment.
Your body shan't rot, nor shall your soul. But we cast you to the darkness, where you shall lay, now until the end of time!
I smirked at my spell. Bunny chuckled.
"Nice words mate."
Eris' cackling faltered when she heard the incantation.
"NO!"
A flash of blue light emanated from Jack's form and filled up the scene like a bright sea of aquamarine. The light wrapped itself around Eris, who had stopped moving, and slowly pushed her down. The ice cracked and gave way beneath her feet as the light sank with her, wrapping her up in an endless void of blue. The panorama returned once more to its normal color as the Guardian's zenith forms disappeared in a flash of white light.
"What's happening?" I asked. My eyes were wide open as I and my friends' bodies were slowly fading out of sight.
"We're returning." Said North, his Russian accent alight with joy and relief.
"Aye," Bunny muttered affirmative, his face a mirror of North's.
"I'm gonna miss this dress." Tooth sniffled. I held back a chortle as I felt my sight give way to darkness.