Now, the chapter after this one is the one that might make those few that like Death absolutely hate her...
Or, you know, like her even more. Eh. That's okay.
Oh, was anything wrong with the last chapter? That was a mobile upload (part of the reason why it took so long) and I'm not sure if anything came out weird in the computer. This too, is a mobile upload.
Recently an acquaintance of mine read over this story and said, "Hmm, so where does she (Death) fall in inexplicable, illogical love with Jack?" as a joke (as, of course, he had read the plot of the story already).
I have never laughed so harder in my life. Thank you for making my day, Antoni.
Of course, Death won't fall in inexplicable, illogical love with Jack. She's Death. She's mean. She's not going to fall in love with this Winter kid who's just a pawn in her plan.
She's evil. And she's going to stay that way.
Anyway, enjoy!
Pitch was sulking in the cage of dreamsand Sandy had created. "Can you at the least expand it so I can stan-"
Tooth hissed. Pitch shrank.
Regaining her composure, Tooth turned back to the group. "It's no good. Death could be anywhere right now." She fluttered to the globe. North sighed. "Tooth is right. She does not care about children's belief. Our globe shows nothing." Bunny hopped forward to his two defeated teammates. "Oi, we can't give up! Not now! Jack could be ou' there, you lot!" he encouraged, but neither of them seemed to find any hope in the situation.
Sandy bit his lip in silent, deep thought. A few minutes later, his face lit up and a golden light bulb formed above his head almost as a reflex. Nobody saw it, of course, and Sandy rolled his eyes.
It's so hard to be a recognized genius these days.
The Maker of Dreams turned to Pitch, who tried his best to look intimidating while being forced to huddle in the small space of his confines. Sandy made a sand figure of a hooded Death, then a question mark.
Alright, Pitch, 'fess up. Where is she?
Pitch scoffed. "As if I'd tell you," he spat, gaining the attention of the other three Guardians in the room. Sandy looked unimpressed and shrank the cage further. The Nightmare King soon found himself unable to move a single limb. "Is this your attempt to abase me, Sanderson?" he sneered, then yelped as he felt his shoulder grow numb. His eyes flicked back to see gold bleeding through his grey skin tone.
He looked back up to see the others looking down at him with smug expressions on their faces.
Today is not my day, he thought.
Death was at her lair - but ugh, who uses that word these days? Why can't I just say, "Welcome to my house" or something and sound equally threatening? - with Jack trailing behind her in handcuffs. She sighed as he struggled with them. "How many times have I told you those are magic-proof?" she asked rhetorically, her voice managing to sound innocent, like a young child's.
She didn't see it, but Death could tell Jack was glaring at her. A few moments later, he started to struggle again. Sigh. Seriously? She decided to ignore the annoying clicking of the handcuffs.
As they walked down the hallway to a rather big opening, Jack blinked his eyes as to not be blinded by the glittering chandelier. It was surprisingly bright here, instead of the dark atmosphere he was expecting. There were red carpets on yellow floors and green walls with white elaborate designs glittered down at him. "Wow. A bit... prettier than I thought it would be," he said truthfully. Death smiled back at him, and for a second Jack thought that it was genuine. "Well, yeah. Nobody said being evil had to mean dark and gloomy and slimy and" - at that moment the genuine smile disappeared, replaced by one of malice - "cold. Oh, whoops. Didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Really." Jack scowled. "You're so self-confident."
"Just like Pitch."
Death turned around, fiery red eyes glinting cold. Oh, the irony, Jack thought before he was taken by the throat. He choked as Death held him a few inches off the ground and glared at him. "Look kid, I'm not joking around. I'm not like that so-called "King of Fear." I'm Death. I'm not going to hesitate to kill you just because I need your fear. In fact, you being dead would be wonderful." She dropped Jack, leaving him to gasp and cough for air on the floor. "You don't have to tell me how this staff works. I can figure it out in a few thousand years at most."
Jack glared up at her. "I'll break it before you figure out how." He yelped as the Grim Reaper behind him picked him up and forced him on his feet. Jack looked around the hallway they were in and shuddered at the Grim Reapers all lined up on the sides of their path. "Why are these creepy pile of bones following you anyway?"
"His name is Jim," came back the voice, once again light and carefree yet still managing to be twisted and threatening. "And he's not a creepy pile of bones, he's a reanimated dead person." Jack choked in surprise. "Wh-what?" Death kept walking past the huge hallway and opened a door into a different hallway. "Uh, I said 'reanimated dead person. You deaf or something?" She picked up an arm of one of the skeletons and held up the hand so Jack could see it clearly. "See these?" she asked, pointing at one of the finger bones. There were runes scratched all over it in painstaking detail, in a language Jack didn't understand. "These things keep them under my control. Of course, the first time they're reanimated they're nothing more than moving flesh and bones, so I usually have to wait until the flesh part rots out."
Jack felt sick.
"Buuut, enough about them, let's talk more about you." She brought him through the door to a blank corridor with rooms on either side. No elaborate designs, no glitter. Just white. One of the doors opened with a snap of red-manicured-fingers and Jack yelped as he was thrown inside unceremoniously. "You can either help me learn how to use this, or stay here and rot for all eternity. Your choice."
With a laugh, the door shut and he was left in walls of blinding white.
Jack shuddered. He could feel the staff in her fingers, and it felt like there were giant fingers around him as well, ready to squeeze him to death. It was a terrible feeling, as if someone was able to hurt him without even physically touching him.
Death laughed as she sauntered to the throne she had stolen a few hundred years ago. She sat down, feeling happier than she had for centuries. "Now to learn how to use this thing," she said, looking down at the wooden staff in her hands. Honestly, it couldn't be that hard, right? When she had stolen May Flowers' bracelet, she had learned that there wasn't really much to it except twirling her hands. Surely this was the same.
She swung the staff.
And she watched, as...
...nothing happened.
Growling, Death lightly tapped the floor with the staff, then stabbed it with the piece of wood. When she realized that nothing was going to happen, she let out a frustrated scream. "This is a piece of junk!" she yelled, ruby colored hair in disarray. Sighing, she ran her hand through it and glared at the wretched stick disdainfully. "Apparently I do need the brat's cooperation," she muttered, "but he won't give it to me, that ignorant little-" With another frustrated scream, she threw the staff down, and brought her foot down upon it before it even had the chance to clatter. A hairline crack appeared where the damage had been done.
And what came to her like music to her ears was Jack's pained scream echoing around the dark tunnels.
As she picked the staff up carefully as not to break it completely, the ends of her mouth began to curl upwards. Why hadn't she remembered this earlier?
This was way too easy.
Sandy looked back from the front of the sleigh, where he was creating a path of golden sand for North to follow. He signed a question mark above his head while beaming a thought to the Nightmare King (who was, indeed, still in a cage) in the back seat where the presents usually were.
Okay, we're near the mountains. Where now?
Pitch grumbled. "I'm not your GPS." Tooth swiveled around to face him. "You're right. You don't need constant charging," she said, shooting a look to Bunny. Aster growled. "You do, however, need a bit more threatening." Pitch Black found himself facing the bad end of a boomerang as North looked back at him, his hand finding a grip on one of his swords' handle.
He sighed.
"To the right."
So after reading this, my friend Antoni commented a few things.
A: "So Death turned to the staff like an unopened Christmas present."
Me: "Pretty much, yeah."
A: "And when she found out she couldn't use it because she's not Jack she got mad like she found out the present was a pair of socks."
I laughed. I won't deny it. I laughed so hard I choked.
((Partly because my Christmas present happened to be a bunch of socks last year but that's irrelevant))
ANYWAY! Hope you enjoyed this chapter and tune in for the next chapter!