Chapter 12 Defeated
Athena reached up to finish nailing a plank above her, trying to avoid using the ladder as much as possible. Suddenly she was swept off her feet from behind. Knowing who it was who had snuck up on her she couldn't help but laugh.
"You know that wasn't very wise, I have a hammer and a nail in my hand. You could have caused one of us to get hurt." Athena said to Kozmotis. The two had been together for about seven months now but it had only taken two months for either to realize that they had found who they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with.
"You're careful. I trust that you know how to get through a day without hurting yourself." He said teasingly.
"Then you clearly have too much confidence in me. Can you please put me down now? I want to get this thing nailed up before it falls apart." She replied. He set her back on her feet and she went back to hammering the nails where they needed to go. The second she finished he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a hug.
"Well you seem to be in a very good mood today." She remarked with a smile.
"I guess I am in a pretty good mood. Why don't you stop for the day? We should go to the beach for the rest of the day?" He suggested.
"But you usually do not like the beach." Athena said confused.
"But you do like it. And as you have observed I am in a good mood today. Besides I know a part that is difficult to get to. No one knows about it so we won't have to worry about the ships, workers or others around." He replied.
"Well...alright." She agreed. Once ready they headed out until they arrived at the river and followed it downstream where it dumped into a large pond that led to the ocean. The area below was surrounded by cliff on three sides. The water dumped into the pond below and a shallow stream pushed freshwater out into the ocean while the waves of the ocean pushed salt water into the pond with sand lining the water.
"So how are we supposed to get down General?" Athena asked.
"I'm glad you asked." He replied and wrapped an arm around her waist after picking up a thick rope.
"Oh no, you are not doing what I think you're doing are you?" She asked while wrapping her arms around him.
"That would depend on what you think I am doing." He responded and jumped right off the cliff and slowly jumped off the cliff side as they went down and landed on the beach.
"Well that wasn't as bad as I feared." She remarked.
"You have no trust in me do you?" He questioned teasingly.
"You? Yes. The rope? No." She responded.
"I can understand that I suppose." He replied. Athena set her bag down on the ground and started pulling things out.
"So what possessed you to come up with this?" She asked.
"Well it is a nice day." He started but looked like there was more he was going to say but decided against it. Athena choose not to press, he would tell her when he was ready to, but it did confuse her immensely as to why he was there. She had invited him to the beach before and he declined, that did not bother her once he explained that he did not like the beach very much.
Athena sat crouched at the top of one of the taller buildings of the town, wand in hand and eyes flickering all around, using a spell to see through her head behind her. It gave her a headache to do this but at the present time she ignored it. She had called for help, finally being able to find who she had been trying to contact and maybe could help. Although some of them were...unpredictable like herself.
She heard the flap of wings and saw behind her a young man, looked like he was about in his mid twenties, with blonde hair, deep sea blue eyes and a smirk that always suggested he was up to something. He had off white wings, as if they use to be pure white but had started to discolor from struggle and wear. He carried an odd sword, the hilt had a smoky but a little see through look with a few red and blue jewels imbedded into it while the blade looked like it was made of glass, but Athena knew better, the blade of the sword was made of diamond and could be incredibly sharp.
Despite having been thrown out of Heaven for disagreeing with God he was still able to keep his position as a Guardian Angle, he just wasn't assigned to anyone in particular. He could choose who he protected and watched over. In Athena's opinion he didn't always take his position as seriously as he should. Her friend Nixie who had been a spirit for only two years did his job better than he did.
"Long time no see Athena. having some trouble with Pitch eh?" He asked.
"Hello Tanjiro. How is your cousin?" Athena said.
"Fine I suppose. I don't see her much." Tanjiro replied as an eagle landed on the roof as Athena stood up to face the two. The eagle morphed into a girl with violet eyes and dark curly brown hair. She wore a blue cocktail dress, similar to the orange one Athena herself was wearing, however this girl didn't wear shoes. Athena couldn't help but be reminded of Nixie when around this spirit despite their many differences.
"Thank you for coming Crystal, how are you doing?" Athena asked her with a small smile.
"Fine." Crystal replied shyly. Usually Crystal was okay around Athena but she knew Tanjiro and Crystal had never met.
"Crystal this is Tanjiro, don't hesitate to tell him when he's being an idiot, he can be a goof at times. I'm surprised he and Jack haven't met yet." Athena said to introduce them.
Tanjiro rolled his eyes and said, "It will be interesting to meet the Guardian of fun."
"You said you needed help. Why ask us?" Crystal asked.
"Well for one thing, you're two of the few I could find and trust enough to ask for help. For another you're the only two who are willing to try to help."
"What about Nixie? Aren't you friends with her? We have similar abilities right?" Crystal asked.
"She's busy doing his job." Athena replied casually while jutting a thumb at Tanjiro and added, "Along with her own self assigned duties. And she doesn't want to get mixed up into this stuff of picking sides and fighting. She wants to stay on civil terms with everyone so I didn't bother asking."
"Hey I do my job." Tanjiro said defensively.
"You make jokes all the time, learn to take one." Athena replied while rolling her eyes with a sigh.
"So what do we need to do?" Crystal asked in a soft spoken tone.
"Right. Well we only have a few hours left until evening, we barely managed to keep the nightmares and fearlings at bay the past day when Halloween came on other parts of the world but this side of the world goes a little crazier in response to this time of the year." Athena explained.
"How will keeping the nightmares and fearlings at bay during the night keep Pitch from gaining strength?" Tanjiro questioned.
"We keep them weak then it'll make Pitch weaker for the time being. For the rest of the day I just need you to help us remind the kids why Halloween has turned into a fun holiday. not one to be feared. Pitch and the fearlings have been under our radar for the past two days now but not so much the nightmares. We'll be okay with just Pitch and the fearlings but with so much black sand and nightmares we don't have much hope without help." She replied.
"And if we fail?" Crystal asked. Asking the question that weighed heaviest on everyone's minds.
"Then it may be almost impossible to stop Pitch from overrunning the world with fear and darkness." She answered bluntly.
They were silent for a little bit before Tanjiro opened his mouth again, "What's it like fighting your husband? I mean serious combat fighting. Must be really odd."
Athena merely shot him a glare in response before tossing him a communicator similar to the others and handed one to Crystal and explained how to use it before they headed out in their separate ways.
Throughout the rest of the day things were relatively quiet. Children were having fun with doing Halloween crafts in class and ready to go trick or treating. Teenagers and young adults were ready to dash out of class to get into their costumes and go to movies, parties, trick or treating, haunted houses or trails or to go scare others.
Nothing really happened until about seven or eight when it actually started to get dark. Athena was already busy with the varying things she did on Halloween night but because of the nightmares and fearlings it just made things that much harder. Her communicator started to beep constantly later in the night and several times she split into her two forms and fought like that.
Everyone was quickly tiring, especially Sandy who was already sending out dream sand. Almost immediately after it reached the children the sand was infected, creating more nightmares, even worse than the night before. With each scream or reaction of fright meant a stronger fearling that was surly hovering nearby.
While moving Athena put spells on different objects, charming them to fight and counter the black sand, or as much as magic could, while moving from one destination to another. Everyone was spread out, Sandy was further East where it was later in the night while North and Bunnymund were more to the west. Tooth, Jack, Tanjiro, Crystal and Athena traveled to where they needed to be, often running into each other. Jack had managed to talk to Jamie and his friends about the situation and they did what they could in changing the sand from black to gold.
Athena noticed North's sleigh and flew over to it to see an exhausted Jack and Crystal.
"You two okay?" Athena asked. They both nodded in response.
"Do we even have any idea as to what we're up against? How we're doing? We're all so spread out along with all of the Nightmares and Fearlings. You must have some idea don't you Athena?" Jack questioned.
Athena chewed on her lip before responding, "Don't ask question you don't want to know the answers to."
"So things are not going well." Crystal replied.
"I did manage to contact a few others for help and Nixie is helping Sandy out as much as she can and two others are doing what they can, but that's about it. I really don't know how Pitch has gotten so strong even with using Halloween to his advantage, I mean sure it really helps him but not this much." Athena replied.
"You think He's been gaining some strength from another source? Or someone helping him to do so?" Crystal concluded. Athena nodded.
"Well it doesn't matter right now does it? What matters is knocking him down few notches right?" North replied.
"Right. Good luck." She answered before diving off the sleigh and jumping back onto her broom.
Only a few minutes had passed before she was knocked off her broom.
"Ow!" She yelped putting a hand to the side of her head where she could feel a warm sticky substance and held her hand away to see the blood on her hand from the side of her face. She whistled loudly to call her broom back, as soon as it was close enough she grabbed it and pulled herself back up, almost being knocked off again and looked off to the side to see Pitch standing on a cloud of black sand.
"You know knocking me off my broom is not going to kill me!" She yelled over to him while flying closer to the ground in case she were to fall off it wouldn't be a very long fall.
"It can certainly keep you out of commission for a little while though." He responded but didn't try again, instead a swirl of black sand surrounded her like a ball, stopping her descent with the nightmares throwing jabs and blows while she struck back, standing on her broom and whacking them with a tennis racket and changing into swirls of magic and gold sand. In her other hand was a smaller version of the machine she had created before that she and Sandy has used to suck the black sand and change back to gold sand, of course it didn't work as well without Sandy but Athena figured that it was better than nothing.
Pitch appeared behind Athena saying, "You're certainly determined, even lasting longer than the Tooth Fairy despite your weakening state."
Athena whirled around and hit him in the side of the head, catching him off guard. His surprised, yet amused slivery gold eyes met Athena's fierce blue blazing ones.
"What did you do to Tooth?" She demanded, panting heavily and throwing small cherry-bomb like devices at the black sand around them while turning to try and find Pitch who had disappeared again.
"I would worry less about your friend and more about yourself." He said right in her ear, standing behind her once again. A stab of pain spread from her back to her abdomen right in between her ribs. She coughed and fought to breath looking down to see a black blade sticking out from in between her rib cage, her own blood dripping off of it.
"First time literally being stabbed in the back." She said sounding like she was going to laugh about it. Pitch pulled the blade and she coughed up and spit out blood instead. He turned her around to face him and held her face close to his.
"You were foolish to believe that you could stop me. You have failed darling." He said smoothly.
"Just-because one battle...is lost does not mean that...the war is." She replied thought shallow breaths.
"You've always been very foolish haven't you?" He questioned.
"Damn," She coughed, "Straight." She was quickly fading into unconsciousness, her mind becoming foggy and the pain spreading and clouding her mind.
"You lose and you will never have a chance at beating me again. I hope you have frightful nightmares during your slow and painful recovery dear. Here is something to keep me in your thoughts." He pulled her to him and kissed her before giving her a simple push. The black sand allowed her to fall through it and to the ground.
I'm baaaack! Okay so this was a chapter to more or less start to introduce the new characters. They'll play a bigger role and the other two will be introduced soon.
I am so sorry I'm so slow I don't know what my writing brain is doing to me! Uh...oh yeah! If anyone is a tumblr user I just thought I should put it out there that I created an ask/rp blog for Athena and Nixie (my other RotG oc who I mention briefly in this chapter). Athena's tag is athenarulerofhalloween (i'm pretty sure), and if you wanna know Nixie's I put it in the most recent of her chapters, or you can ask me if you want to know.
Yes I did mention Nixie, no I am not crossing the two stories over because their plots don't work for crossing over but every-so-often I do mention them in each other's stories and they may be featured sometimes but not enough for anyone to need to really know anymore about them than what is mentioned.
Um...I think that's all for now, I'll be adding my sis and my friend's oc's soon and Crystal and Tanj will be playing a bigger part as well. Thank you all for reading I love you all! and Happy Valentine's Day/Early Valentine's Day!
