This was another one of those chapters that were difficult to write but once you get past them you unlock UNLIMITED CREATIVITY!

At least, until you run into another one of those chapters again.

But I've been doing a lot of hiking and playing in the snow to get inspiration for this story so it's not like I've been 100% goofing off this whole time.

Besides, I've never actually been in a full out snowball fight so writing such a scene is much more difficult for me than it should be :P

Anyway, I hope all the 'research' I've been doing proves to be useful!


'Is he dead?'

'But it was just a snowball.'

'I'm not checking. He might grab me like last time.'

'I'm starting to think that Peter would die very easily.'

Peter opened his eyes, blinking the snowflakes from his eyelashes.

'I'm not dead,' he grumbled, sitting up from the snow covered ground, 'I'm just shocked is all.'

'Shocked about what?' Caleb asked.

'Oh, I dunno, just the entire existence of this,' Peter gestured dramatically at the white haired teen floating a foot above the ground before him.

'"This?"' Jack asked with a raised eyebrow.

'But what's there to be so surprised about?' Jamie questioned, 'You already knew he was real.'

'Correction, I didn't know squat,' Peter clarified, 'I just kind of assumed...'

Claude groaned in frustration, 'Are we seriously going to go through this again? I just want to have a snowball fight!'

'Hey, you'd be surprised too if one day you suddenly found that there was some Thanksgiving turkey man running around!' Peter argued, 'It's basically the same as this.'

Pippa wrinkled up her nose, 'Except I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a Thanksgiving turkey person.'

Monty turned to Jack, 'Is there?'

Jack shrugged, 'I've never met them but I wouldn't be too surprised if they decided to stay low key.'

Cupcake laughed, 'Yeah, they'd be embarrassing.'

'But you guys get where I'm coming from, right?' Peter said.

The teen was met with a sea of poker faces.

'Well,' Caleb began, 'A turkey man is a lot weirder.'

'A turkey man is just weird,' Claude clarified.

'Uh, you have no sympathy,' Peter mourned.

'I can get where you're coming from,' Jamie said, 'Whenever I first believed… Well, I was the first one to so I didn't really expect to see him or anything. But Jack was there and it was awesome!'

'Yeah but you don't think people will think you're crazy for talking to some invisible flying guy?' Peter questioned.

'I have a name,' Jack muttered.

'I'm just trying to put things in perspective,' Peter explained, 'Well?'

'Not really,' Jamie answered, ''Cause I'm just a kid that can get away with having "imaginary friends." People will think you're crazy.'

Peter narrowed his eyes and jabbed a finger at Jamie, 'You devious little twerp. You set me up!'

'I didn't do anything. It was- hey!' Jamie yelped as a snowball made contact with his shoulder.

'Attack!' Claude decreed, assaulting Peter with his icy projectile.

Peter quickly turned tail and ran away from his assailments, 'Come on! Why do you always have to gang up on me?!'

In response he received a barrage of snowballs that knocked him off his feet. The teen jumped to his feet, shaking the snow out his hair. 'What happened to free for all?' A snowball whizzed past his head. 'Team battles?' Another lodged in his chest. 'Something!'

The kids stopped for a moment of collective thought. In a wink, Pippa declared, 'Kids versus teens!'

Jack laughed, flying over to Peter, 'That's the only fair team there would be.'

'Because the two of us equal the five of them, right?' Peter asked, already preparing a snowball.

'Eh, something like that,' he responded, forming a snowball in his free hand.

Peter puzzled over his reply before he gritted his teeth in annoyance 'Oh come on! Do people really have nothing better to do than bag on me?'

Jack shrugged carefreely, 'It's the truth.'

'The truth hurts though,' Peter muttered bitterly.

'Fire! Pippa yelled, signaling for her fellow teammates based safely behind their fort wall to launch their ammo.

Jack dodged the volley easily enough while Peter went scrambling behind a tree for cover.

'When the heck did you guys make a fort?!' Peter shouted.

'While you two were chatting like old ladies!' Caleb yelled back, 'Fire!'

Another synchronized fusillade barraged the tree trunk. Jack landed on the snow behind it, already creating another snowball, 'What's the plan?'

'Why are you asking me? I suck at snowball fights,' Peter sulked.

'Okay… So you can run out as a distraction and-'

'No, no, no!' Peter hollered over Jack's snickers, 'I am not running out there so I can turn more into a popsicle than I already am!'

'Alright,' Jack surrendered, 'So what do you have in mind?'

….

Peter moved with the stealth of… hopefully something stealthy. If the nippers caught him then the plan would be foiled and he and Jack would lose. Yes, Peter may have resigned himself to the fact he was terrible at the whole throwing-snow-in-people's-faces thing, but he wasn't ready to give up yet. Especially considering he had The Spirit of Winter on his side. Victory should be a piece of cake.

Finally ready to initiate the plan, Peter watched from his vantage point as Jack lured the nippers over the tree where he was hiding. With them only a few paces away, Peter grabbed the tree branch piled with snow and started to bend it upwards. Closer… The rugged branch began to groan in protest from the strain of such a maneuver, depositing a dusting of white on the kids maybe twenty feet beneath his perch.

It seemed none of them noticed. No- Cupcake looked up. It felt as though it happened in slow motion, her yelling out warning to the others and the satisfactory snap! as the branch was released, launching a barrage of snow below. Peter laughed smugly as the nippers were buried in the white. Maybe not deep enough to make them minorly stuck, but enough to make the teen feel content.

With the distraction in the play, the teen started to barrage the kids with snow, leaving them stumbling over each other in efforts to get back to their makeshift fort. In their retreat, Jack pegged Monty in the back of his head, causing him to fall over into a drift. Peter continued to assault the blonde with snowballs until he yelled, 'I surrender!'

The brunette let out a whoop of victory, 'Yeah! High five!'

Peter couldn't help but be half surprised that Jack flew over and returned the gesture. Despite the fact Jack's hand nipped at his already numb one, it was nice to not be left hanging after such a long time of not high fiving people. Such was the tragic case he was.

Claude groaned, 'We always lose because of you Monty!' He let out a yelp at a snowball filled with yellow and orange leaves exploded in his face.

'Well now you lost Peter style!' Peter yelled from up in the tree branches.

'With leaves?' Jamie asked, a confused expression on his face.

Peter flashed a confident smile, 'You betcha! It's my final smash!'

'That's the lamest move ever,' Caleb commented.

'We'll see about tha- Oh cripes.' The teen teetered precariously on the tree branch, grabbing onto a nearby one for balance. He forced a laugh, 'Lost my footing there for a sec.'

'Be careful,' Pippa cautioned.

Peter snorted, 'What's the worst that can happen? I fall?'

She opened her mouth to protest but was cut off by Cupcake yelling, 'Watch out!'

All it took was the weight of one foot on the branch to cause it break off from the trunk. In hindsight, Peter should have foresaw such an issue considering it was the same branch he had bent back earlier to launch snow of the unsuspecting nippers below. Even more so, considering it had specifically been described as 'groan[ing] in protest from the strain of such a maneuver.'

Regardless, the teen couldn't help but widen his eyes in shock as his body began to plummet downwards, a gasp escaping his lips. His hands reached out to grab onto a branch, grazing it with his fingertips but failing to get a firm grip. Peter continued to fall, everything seeming to slow. The rush of the wind against his back that permeated the thick fabric of his coat, the whipping of his hair against his face. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the crushing impact.

And… nothing. The wind had died. The ground was there against his back. Where was the pain that was sure to follow suit?

Peter cracked open his eyes to see Jack staring down at him with a blank expression. He opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by the winter spirit.

'"What's the worst that can happen? I fall?"' Jack mimicked in a high pitched voice.

'I do not sound like that,' Peter said defensively, jumping to his feet, 'I'm more sarcastic.'

He laughed dryly, 'My mistake.'

'You're just standing there joking when you could have been dead two seconds ago?' Caleb asked with disbelief.

'Some people use humor to deal with stressful situations,' Monty informed.

'That was awesome!' Jamie exclaimed, 'It was so cool how Jack caught you and then he froze the pond to land on! I wish that could happen to me.'

Peter laughed smugly, 'Yeah it was pretty awesome, right?'

'All you did was fall though,' Cupcake muttered.

Jamie skidded onto the pond, slipping across the ice to where Jack and Peter were standing in the center, 'Jack, can I have a turn?'

'Yeah, let him have a turn. I wanna see how awesome I looked,' Peter said.

Pippa sighed, 'You guys are going to kill yourselves.'

'Maybe another time,' Jack answered, much to their dismay, 'Look, it's getting dark.'

'Oh yeah,' Jamie said, 'Hey! Maybe it'll be cold enough to go ice skating tomorrow!'

Jack flashed a grin, 'It'll be cold enough so long as I'm around.'

Jamie continued to enthuse about the activities in store for tomorrow as the group began to bid goodbye and gravitate into their usual groups for walking their separate ways back to their homes. Claude, Caleb, and Monty taking to the left, Peter and Cupcake walking right while Jamie and Pippa accompanied by Jack headed straight through the trees.

Per usual, Peter and Cupcake's walk started in silence as though they were waiting to see who would break it first. Peter decided to be the one would and commented offhandedly, 'So, you aren't going to tell Aunty I almost died today, right?'

'No. I don't care enough,' she answered.

'Hey!' Peter exclaimed, 'You would care if you had to end up walking through the creepy dark woods all by yourself.'

She snorted, 'No I wouldn't. I'm not afraid.'

'Oh? That's pretty brave of you,' Peter said, 'I think this is positively terrifying.'

'You're just saying that. Only little kids are scared of the dark,' Cupcake stated.

'Aren't you a little kid?' Peter asked.

'No, because I'm not scared of the dark!' Cupcake argued.

Peter laughed, ''Course not! I'm just messing with you.' He tousled Cupcake's short hair that prompted an irritated grumble in return.

'If you do that again I'm telling Mom you almost died,' Cupcake threatened, a devious smile faintly visible.

'What's she going to even do about it though?' Peter questioned, 'Put me under house arrest?'

'Worse,' Cupcake corrected, 'She'll smother you with cookies and pumpkin sweaters.'

'Pumpkin...' Peter repeated in thought, 'How'd you hear about that?'

Cupcakes grin became more apparent, 'I may have seen one around the house…'

Now walking up the snowy sidewalk with their backs to the faraway woods, the front door to their house swung open to reveal Aunty bearing a smile, 'There you two are! Did you have fun?'

'Uh huh,' Cupcake murmured, heading inside.

'Yeah,' Peter answered, following after her only to be stopped by Aunty.

'You,' Aunty said, 'Need to shovel.' She handed the unwilling teen a wide metal shovel.

'But it's still snowing,' Peter tried to reason.

'If you let it pile up it'll be ice in the morning,' Aunty explained, 'Which means that you'll have to be up by four to scrape away all of it in time for school.'

'But I'll have to shovel in the morning anyway!' he argued.

'Yes,' Aunty agreed, 'But it won't be so bad if you do it now and salt too.'

Peter groaned loudly, trudging to the snow covered driveway, dragging the shovel behind him. Aunty only closed the door behind him, offering a wave from the window.

Grudgingly, Peter shoved the shovel under the snow and hurled it onto the lawn.

One scoop down. However many more to go.

Normally he wouldn't mind shoveling but it was snowing and Peter was cold. Naturally that was testament to the fact he dressed for fall weather when it was in fact a blistering winter in October. That is, if winters could be described as blistering. Why was it that the colder someone got the more they associated the feeling with being hot? Maybe it was kind of like hypothermia. The closer a person was to death the more they wanted to freeze by taking off their clothes.

Peter tossed another shovel full of snow in thought to be snapped out of it when the snow hit him back in the face. He brushed the white dusting from his eyes, his initial confused look fading when his eyes came to rest on Jack who was perfectly perched on his staff that somehow stayed upright.

A lazy smile was on his face as he commented innocently, 'Lovely weather.'

Peter drove the shovel into the snow, 'You would think so.'

Jack laughed, 'I do think so.' After receiving no reply he jumped down from the perch, taking the staff in his hand. 'What? You don't like winter?'

'No, winter is great,' Peter said, stabbing the snow once more with his shovel, 'What I don't like is the fact that it's ruining autumn!' With these words out, it open the gasket for the rant that Peter had brewing inside from since the first snowfall.

'Autumn is all about the harvest and maturing. You know, the last hurrah before everything dies for three months. But your snow puts the plants into a state of shock that makes them freak out and die before they're ready so they aren't prepared to come back to life in the spring! As a result we're stuck with ugly brown twigy things for foliage and everyone will die because it'll be so ugly!'

Jack stared at the teen who was currently trying to expel some form of rage on the fallen snow with his shovel.

'I'm pretty sure people aren't going to die from ugly plants...' Jack reasoned, 'Well, maybe you will but everyone else will be pretty okay.'

Peter stopped shoveling to address Jack fully, 'Everyone else will die from the rip in the atmosphere that'll be created by the surplus of greenhouse gases because of the lack of plants to purify it into oxygen. So, no. They will not be okay.'

'Autumn can't be that important if there isn't a spirit for it,' Jack explained with a shrug, 'So maybe the plants won't "freak out" like you say they will.'

Peter wrinkled up his nose, 'There should be. Or the spirit of summer should at least put a clamp on your willy frost activities.'

'She enjoys the Caribbean too much to be bothered,' he answered.

The brunette mumbled to himself, resuming the trying task of shoveling snow. From there, he decided to strike up a conversation about pretty much everything regarding the winter spirit. His origins, how he became what he was, and the whole Guardian thing. By the time Peter had finished shoveling, the topic was about historical events regarding ice and how it had been Jack's doing.

Just as Peter was about to head inside, a memory crossed his mind he thought to ask about before Jack zipped off to wherever he planned on spending the night.

'So those fish tanks at the mall were you, right?' Peter asked.

'What?' Jack questioned, 'What fish tanks?'

'The one's at the pet store,' Peter clarified, 'They all got frozen solid.'

Jack shook his head, 'I don't make it a habit to go around freezing fish.'

'Hm. Maybe someone dropped some liquid nitrogen in the filters or something then,' he shrugged.

Jack furrowed his eyebrows in thought, 'But why-' He stopped. A look briefly flashed across his face. Realization? Worry? Maybe fear?

'I have to go to the North Pole,' Jack said quickly, 'Tell Jamie I'm sorry I couldn't stick around.'

'Wait, what's going-!' Peter fell silent, realizing that the spirit had already flown out of earshot and disappeared into the snowing clouds.

'What the heck was that about?' Peter asked himself, turning back to the house. His gaze fell on the driveway that was now cloaked in an unblemished coat of fresh snow.

The teen threw the shovel on the ground in frustration, 'FUUUUUU-!'