Chapter Ten
AN: Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
Pitch stood over him sneering. He struggled, but the mares had their full weight on his wings. The nightmare king opened his mouth to say something, but was kicked in the jaw by Jack. He pushed him into one of the nightmares holding Matthew down. The Reaper rolled over and grabbed the nightmares legs and whacked it with his other wing. The mare reared up long enough for him to get his wing out from underneath its hooves.
Matthew rolled back onto his feet and dived over to where his hockey stick was and smacked a nightmare that got to close. He looked around, the number of nightmares was dwindling to about twenty. Bunny threw his boomerang and hit three of the mares then kicked one in the face. Pitch had disappeared again. Jack flew over to him, freezing a couple of nightmares on the way.
"You okay?" Jack asked worriedly landing beside him and keeping a defensive stance.
"Just a few ruffled feathers. Nothing's broken, luckily." Matthew said. "What about you?"
"A couple cuts and bruises, nothing major." Jack said soothing a blast of ice at a group of nightmares.
Bunny finished off the last mare and trudged over. "You got the souls back, let's find the others and leave." He said with a huff.
"That was maybe half of the souls." Matthew said shaking his head. He pulled the sand off the ceiling and formed it into a glowing purple ball. "We need to keep going."
"Are ya serious? After that there's still more left!" Bunny grumbled under his breath. "There at least had to have been a couple hundred fearlings there!"
"You can leave if you want, but have fun finding your way out." Jack said with a sly smile.
The Reaper started towards the other end of the cave where he had seen another tunnel earlier. He was starting to get a head ache from using a lot of magic and concentrating hard. Jack jogged to catch up with him, Bunny hopping close behind.
The long rock tunnel started to climb back upwards and soon they came into a large open room. There were holes in the rock ceiling where vines and moss hung down and moonlight shone through. Matthew dropped the sand and it slithered back into the shadows. He held his hockey stick close ready for Pitch to appear.
A glow a gold caught Matthew's attention and he spun to face it, but it was gone. "What did ya see Reaper?" Bunny asked.
The blond turned to answer Bunny, but something caught his eye behind the guardian of hope. He recognized what it was and caught the black sand arrow inches before it would have hit Bunny. The rabbit turned around and gasped seeing the arrow and how close it was.
"That was close." Bunny said. Matthew dissolved the arrow and dropped the sand. The guardian of hope turned to him. "Thanks mate."
The Reaper smiled. "No problem." He said. Matthew looked around knowing Pitch was hiding in the shadows.
"Come out Pitch, we know you're here." Jack said his voice echoing.
"Be careful what you wish for Frost." Pitch said stepping out of the shadows. The trio got ready for another fight. "I'd like to introduce to you a new breed of fearling, Oculi Mortui. Made especially for you Reaper." The king of nightmare smiled bringing one forward. It was the shape of a human, but twisted and dripping like black ink. It took a step towards them, raspy breath and groaning.
Matthew started to pull the soul forward, but pain bloomed in his head and the soul started to scream. He let go out of surprise and the screaming and pain stopped.
"Birdie?" Jack asked seeing the pained look in his husbands face.
"It hurts them." The Reaper said. Pitch's laugh echoed through the cavern as he stepped back into the shadows and disappeared leaving behind more Oculi. The king of darkness wouldn't be back for a while.
"What can we do? How do we fight them?" Jack asked.
"Can you please freeze their feet to the floor?" Matthew asked. The frost spirit nodded and shot a blast of ice at the pack of Oculi. They groaned and moved like zombies scraping and clawing at the ice that came up to their waist.
The Reaper walked up to the one he tried to pull the soul out of earlier; Jack and Bunny stayed back. He reached out and tried to pull the soul again, but it started screaming again. He let go and stepped back.
"What are you going to do?" Jack asked.
"I'm going to try to bring another soul forward, someone they knew, and see if they can help." Matthew said.
"Why don't you just take them out even if it hurts them? Won't it be better in the long run?" Bunny asked.
"If it hurts them it hurts their future and next incarnation. It's part of my job to protect that." The Reaper said shaking his head. He concentrated on the soul and picked the best person to help them. In their case it was an older sister who died because of cancer. Her soul swirled bright orange around him and formed into an orange translucent young woman. She smiled at the Reaper then moved towards her brother.
"How did you do that?" Bunny asked.
"I might have left a few things out when Sandy asked about my powers." The blond said watching the sister walk up to the Oculi.