Survival

Chapter 11: Gone Under

A/N This is my second fighting sequence ever to write, so please give me suggestions on how to improve the technique. Thanks!

'Where am I? What on Earth is going on?' He was floating in darkness. The cold swirled around him in deadly currents playing with his limbs. Under water. 'Again? Why am I thinking about when I died again? Wait...' This was different. Not the same time as the night he was created, but another memory in the same lake; the first time he had tried to take his life since awaking as a spirit. The first of many attempts to end his pointless existence as an unseen nuisance that had no purpose. He was one year old since his rebirth and had not been seen, touched or received recognition for existing since that disembodied voice gave him a name and nothing else. A name to share with no one, be called by no one, or even cursed at by anyone. An empty identity.

That first anniversary had been hard. A year of not making a difference in anybody's life or coming any closer to knowing why or if he even existed. Could he die? He had before. Maybe if he died again he would finally rest or maybe comeback as something else that could at least been seen! It was worth a shot. He had nothing to lose. With one last walk through Burgess he stopped avoiding any living creature as they passed through. With each aching chill that knifed through him as they pierced his soul, his resolve strengthened. What better way to go than the way he came? Children had drowned in his lake before, surely he could to.

Reaching the edge, he closed his eyes and felt the wind pluck at his cloak. It seemed to be begging him to step back, not to do it. Maybe the wind would miss him. She had many others to play with though. He was nothing special. He didn't even have wings! He stepped. Again, and again. Wading deeper into the bowels of his birthplace. Even though he himself was a winter spirit and exuded the cold, he was losing feeling in his legs. He began to swim out to the center where the depths shifted from indigo to the deepest midnight, and stopped. He stopped breathing, moving, and hoping that someone would ever know him. Sinking. Into the depths he drifted at a leisurely pace as the surface frosted over. The farther he sank, the thicker the ice became causing the light to dim even more as it filtered through the rippling patterns of the current. He opened his mouth to breath in the release.

Nothing. He was freezing the water before it could pass through his lips. It wasn't on purpose, just an incidental built in defense of sort damning him to life. The harder he breathed, the farther the ice spread. Soon the entire lake was frozen solid with him at the center, the weight crushing his soul. 'I guess drowning doesn't work on me. Why?! What have I done to deserve this existence?!' In his despair, he cracked through the ice causing shard projectiles to shoot from the lake in all directions leaving an escape rout for the desolate spirit of winter.

'Why am I remembering this? What did Pitch do? Last thing I remember, he carved some funky symbols into me and then pain. Oh no, why THIS memory!' The scene changed displaying the next in a long line of dredged up memories from Jack's haunted past.

"Jack! What happened to you! Are you alright!?" That was as far as Tooth got in her questions before the object of her inquiries launched at them staff spinning in his grey hands laughing hysterically while the nightmares joined the fray bearing their gnashing teeth.

Bunnymund launched a boomerang at Jacks staff while it twirled spreading ice along the ground making their footing insecure. It deflected as Wind tossed it aside into a charging nightmare smashing the sand into a dark blossom of destruction before returning to Bunnymund's hand. Tooth buzzed slightly above the ground and brandished her newly reforged rapiers slicing into the withers of two rearing nightmares simultaneously causing them to disperse into darkness while turning and impaling another though the forehead with both weapons. Sandy was covering their backs with whips of pure gold slicing through the twisted versions of his own creations. North raised his twin sabers into a block against Jack's descending staff and was forced to take a knee on the icy ground. Frost spread along his sabers from the point of extended contact and Jack continued to bare down on the Russian laughing the entire time.

"Who are you?" North gritted out between clenched teeth. He shifted his weight to the right bringing his sabers over and uncrossing them sending Jack's staff to the floor causing more frost to spread out in hauntingly beautiful patterns across the already frozen landscape. Jack's only reply was to let a jagged grin split his face as he launched yet again at the man from the north.

"He won't respond to you. His body is mine now, along with his gifts." Pitch's voice echoed through the claustrophobic chaos.

"What d'ya mean? Wha'd ya do ta 'im?" Bunny asked between swipes with his boomerangs at five fearlings snapping at his tail, ears, and whatever else they could reach. It was less than effective so he sheathed them and broke out his martial arts repertoire instead smashing them with feet, hands and his skull. He was a one man fighting machine but the fearlings were like a hydra, constantly being replaced by more. 'When did Pitch make all these and how the bloody bushranger did we not notice!'

"Poor Jacks mind is gone. Lost in a loop of his worst memories. Ones that drove him to self-harm and worse. If only you knew."

"What are you talking about Pitch? Jack would never do such a thing! He is the Guardian of Fun not despair or fear like you!" Tooth had maneuvered above the raging fearlings and had started taking them from above with deep cuts and fatally wounding many with each path she carved through the fray.

"Ah, but he wasn't always. Did you notice rabbit? The stench of hopelessness that clung to him for almost 300 years? Is that why you avoided him all that time?"

Bunnymund stole a look at Jack who was locked in a stalemate once again with North but was steadily weakening the older man with each blow that landed on the glittering twin sabers slick and dulled with ice. "I jus' didn' pay attention. I look after the living anklebitters, spirits are not my main concern." He ducked under a lunging fearling and struck out with a back kick to pierce though it's rib cage causing it to join the other victims. "I could feel it's lingerin' effects on 'im tho'. 'Is smile was never quite right."

"And it never will be now. He will never recover from this mental torture, but that's all the better for me. He's too resistant and spiteful. This way, I get everything I want from him without the continued struggle and Jack has a purpose in existing. It's a win-win!"

"You are sick man Pitch!" North huffed as he redirected another of Jack's wild swings still trying not to harm the young Guardian of Fun. It was no use. He was loosing energy and needed to end this soon. Time for drastic measures. He pulled out a snowglobe with one hand while he parried with the other. Holding it close, he whispered to it and threw it straight at Jack. Having access to all of Jack's pre-possession memories, the dark version of Jack knew to avoid at all costs. Leaping into the air on the wind into the shadows of the ceiling he avoided being transported to wherever North had intended. Without missing a beat, he teleported through the shadows into North's own silhouette. Rising from beneath, he transformed his staff into his own version of Pitch's scythe sinking it deep into the burly Russians unprotected back.

"Nooo!" screamed Tooth as she zipped to North's aid taking on the twisted form of Jack while North sunk to his knees, then to the ground as blood the color of his suit spread around him following the frost patterns in a demented version of beauty.

"North!" Bunnymund cried while leaving a wake of destruction wading his way over to his fallen comrade. Sandy looked back at them fought with renewed vigor decimating the fearlings in great swaths.

Pitch's laughter reverberated through the underground tunnel.