"Everyone's mental!" - Regular Speech
Get off of your ass! - Pitch's inner self/ conscience
"I am light :)" - Unknown... thing
"*laughter*" - Flashback vision
I'm not sure if I should have said any of that... but I thought that you should know :)
Chapter 12: Trials and Error
The elder Jack jolted, letting out a surprised yelp before snapping his head up. He lifted himself from the ground and the child under his hand moaned at the loss of the warmth. He turned his dark eyes over to the shadowed exit to see a few Frostmares trotting towards him menacingly. He loosened himself as to not appear a threat before walking forward to meet them.
"He has decided, he will be coming." Jack's eyes widened upon hearing the rough words coming from one of the mare's unmoving muzzle.
Jack's mouth then twitched up until he had a small smile on his face.
"...Really? Good... now all we have to do is prepare..."
The mares nodded before the one at the head of the herd turned around and galloped at a sprint into the shadows of the entrance until it was out of sight. Jack looked back once at his center which was faring better than before. His breath was at a steady pace and his glow was holding but he didn't know how long it would last.
The black haired sprite walked over to one of the remaining Frostmares and climbed on it's back before sighing. His center might not be in his chest anymore but he could feel the pain having an effect on him. If this wasn't fixed soon...
No. He wouldn't think of that now.
"It's time to get this show on the road," Jack whispered as the remaining group ran into the shadows with Jack leading.
-x-
Pitch growled as he felt his hands throb. He clenched two icicles in his hands, to which the other ends were stuck in the smooth stone wall of the lair. Why in the world did his home have to be so deep underground? And most importantly, why had he decided to lug around a weapon that weighed nearly thirty pounds on his back?
The scythe was strapped firmly to his backside by a leather harness and he was currently scaling the walls of his lair, trying to get to the top. He wasn't even half way there and he was at least thirty feet up! His arms trembled and sweat dripped from his face as he gripped the icicles. This was useless...
Stop it you fool! Do you want to be stuck here for the rest of your life?... or until you die?
Pitch grit his teeth. He had had about enough from the voice in his head but it was better than being alone. He should be grateful...
Stop pitying yourself!
But he wasn't because it was annoying!
"Would you shut up! This isn't easy! I... I've never done anything like this before!" The man seemed to sag at realizing this. He had never had to do anything like this before. He had always relied on his minions and the shadows, he'd never had to do much for himself except be the brains of the operation.
I beg to differ. You just don't remember.
The voice was really starting to annoy him.
Then he heard a noise. His head snapped up before instantly turning his head down when some dirt fell from the ground above. He gave a sharp gasp when he felt the walls that he hung from jolt. The ice in his hand had melted gradually from his body heat and had become fragile. When the wall shook, the already delicate ice couldn't take the pressure and snapped.
The silver eyed man let out a cry as he fell. The scythe on his back clattered to the ground a few meters away, having disentangled from his back during the fall . He let out another pained cry he impacted the ground. There was a sickening crack that echoed through the decaying tunnels of the lair. Pitch's lip trembled as he tried to keep his pain to himself.
So this was how it would end up, him lying on the floor unable to move and unable to get out while his lair collapsed on itself. He'd never thought that this was how it was going to end up for him; He was supposed to be immortal, he hadn't thought that he would be dying anytime soon.
A sparkling tear fell down his face and onto the ground. He painfully curled into himself as he ignored the voice inside his head yelling at him, telling him to get up, that he wasn't supposed to quit. Pitch was at his breaking point.
"Shut up!" His voice echoed dramatically off the walls.
"I tried my best... but my best is not enough! I'm a nothing! I have no power without the fearlings at my side and now they're afraid of me! What, what do you want me to do?" His voice came out in a desperate whisper.
"It's like what they said... I'm weak, I'm worthless..." The tears just kept falling, they wouldn't, couldn't, stop.
"Do you really think like that?" Pitch's eyes widened as he tried to jerk his body up only to wince in pain and failure.
"W-who are you?" His voice trembled with each word.
He couldn't see anyone, there was no one there, but he could tell that this wasn't one of his imaginary voices, this was something that had a purchase. It was real.
"I'm sure you would remember me Pitch Black. After all, I was the first person you came into contact with after your rebirth." It was an echoic voice, holding the tone of many ancient tones, both male and female, but the main voice that was prominent was female.
Pitch's eyes narrowed. He didn't remember the first person he came into contact with, he was too full on his power and hatred at the time. It had been the fearlings doing most of the work then.
"I don't remember, who are you!" He cried out. He had to shut his eyes, however, when a bright light appeared in front of him.
He slowly managed to open eyes, getting accustomed to the brightness, and was surprised at what he saw in front of him.
It was a ball of pure white light, about the size of his fist. It floated in front of his face. The first thought that ran through his mind when he saw the thing was of how familiar the warmth felt on his skin.
"I am here to offer you a deal, Pitch Black. Listen to all I have to say before questioning me."
The man's eyes narrowed. He never liked deals, he had always thought that they were superficial and that someone could lose too much from making a deal no matter how harmless it looked on the outside.
"Jack Frost is of this time period, yes, but his heart does not belong here. It belongs to the time in which things were different. A long time ago he was given a special gift, I need you to retrieve this gift and another that shall be important in the long run."
Pitch's eyes narrowed even further. First, this ball of light was talking to him, and now it was telling him that he had to get something for it?
"I can see the questions in your eyes. Why do I want you to get it? How are you supposed to get out of this hole, especially now with a broken limb? Why is it that I care at all?
Do not worry, all of those questions will be answered within time... but first, you are wondering what is your benefit from the deal?"
Pitch nodded weakly as the glow flickered a bit before returning to its original state.
"I can heal you and get you out of here before it kills you Pitch."
The man's eyes widened in disbelief, hope rising in his chest without his consent.
"And all I have to do is find these gifts? What are they?" Pitch was cautious with this... whatever that thing was.
"Something that will help you. But do not open any of the containers they are in." It was Pandora's box all over again.
"What in the world do you mean to not open them?!" The man's mouth twisted into a snarl before wincing at the pain coming from his body at moving.
"Exactly what I said, do not seek the answers of the treasures until the core is near." For Mim's sake-
"Can you please talk without the riddles?!" Pitch growled. The thing was making no sense!
"Hehe... you will understand what I am saying soon. Do we have an accord?" No one bloody spoke like that anymore!
As annoyed as Pitch was at this blinky...light... whatever it was, it was offering him a way out, a way to save that child. Well, it was better than sitting around and dying.
"Yes I accept," Pitch said, his words coming out rushed before he realized that he really had no idea how he was supposed to find these objects.
"Wai-!"
Pitch didn't have the time to contradict anything because he was blinded by the light that seemed to grow tenfold. He nearly cried out as his arm began to burn and he became disoriented. He didn't know what was going on, but he felt a lightness that came with flying as he was lifted up by who knows what and then for the first time since he could remember, he had dreams; good dreams.
-x-
Seraphina paced and paced in the middle of her Sanctuary, incredibly nervous and annoyed.
This wasn't supposed to happen,
This wasn't supposed to happen!
"What have you done Sera?" Said woman jumped before whipping around, her hair falling in her face from the abrupt motion and covering her eyes.
She knew that voice. She pushed her hair out of her face and was finally able to see the face of who she was talking to.
"Ombric...?" She whispered. She hadn't seen the time master in years. She had thought that he had been replaced!
A sudden yet fearful look came across her face.
"I-it is good to see you again Father time," She stuttered, swallowing her pride and curtsying lowly to the man.
"I think you ought to stay on the ground for everything I am going to say Seraphina," The old man said when she was about to raise herself from her position on the stone.
Her lithe form trembled. She might be older than the man but he was Father time. He could erase her from existence if he wanted to!
The man's eyes narrowed down onto the woman before him.
"You have broken your oath, you are aware of that." Seraphina jolted at that before raising her head in denial.
"I have done no such thing! I am merely trying to..." She trailed off when she saw the hard look in the normally grandfather like male. She quickly looked back down, her red lips trembling. She felt like she was a little girl again, being scolded by her father.
"You swore to uphold your duties by restraining and controlling the four seasons, by taking care of their representations. You have done the opposite! You have sent Winter into a swirling abyss of chaos! You have sent your own son into this mess because of your own selfishness!" Seraphina's eyes narrowed.
"The last few years the seasons have been unbalanced, heat has been dominating this world with little to no cool to support it. And when the cold does come, it comes in unnatural waves in which it has killed many! And then there is the matter of how far you have pushed that child... your own flesh and blood..." Seraphina's eyes snapped wide open.
"What? I never had a child! I was... I was infertile..." She looked away ashamed.
"How sad... have you forgotten that you are Mother Nature. How can you say something so foolish?" The old man was not letting up on her one bit.
"I was not always immortal! I was once... mortal," Her skin paled when she heard herself speak.
Her back bent over in front of her as she shook, her eyes impossibly wide with tears and her hands covering her mouth.
"No..." Ombric's eyes narrowed in pity. How could she not realize what would happen if she went through with this plan?
"I don't care what happens to you anymore. You are a despicable being, a failure as both a daughter and a mother.
No matter what happens from now on, your punishment will be the same. Enjoy your remaining freedom Seraphina Pitcher, because I can assure you that once I find someone to replace you, you will wish the world drowned in snow and ice."
Seraphina looked back up to reply to the man but by the time she had looked up, he was gone, leaving nothing in his place; it looked like no one had even been there in the first place.
The former Mother Nature removed her hand from her mouth, still in shock.
"All of this... everything that I have put everyone around me through... has been for nothing?"
-x-
When Pitch came to he was disoriented, he couldn't feel his limbs and he felt detached from everythign around him. All he saw was black, and then he realized that his eyes were closed.
He had to fight to raise his eyelids but when he did he was surprised at what he saw.
Crystal, and not ice crystals, but these were pure crystals that were not supposed to exist anymore! They were a luminous white and they glowed with an ethereal light. Man had attempted to cultivate these crystals long ago but had failed; when they had attempted to touch the crystals they had lost their light and had dissolved from the greed in His heart.
It took a while before he was able to move the rest of his body and another moment when he started to hear again.
Water, was that water he heard? He asked himself.
No, this wasn't water. Whatever it was, it was something awfully like it.
And then he began to feel. His hand clenched under him to find a cold, smooth surface that felt like ice compared to his body heat.
Finally, at last, he began to see. His eyes had been blurred before and the once golden orbs had turned an incredibly dark oak color that was something strange to look upon. They shifted and blinked as he stared up, seeing a near black sky above him.
"You shall start here; here you will find a part of the first item. Good luck..."
The temporary paralysis had completely worn off by now and the Nightmare king shot up into a sitting position. He groaned in pain as he experienced whiplash in his neck for snapping it too fast. He put his hand to his head as he mumbled to himself about useless beams of light that didn't never do anything good for him. (Yes, the way I wrote was intentional)
Then he realized that there was a warm feeling in his arm. He looked down and nearly fell over in surprise to see something on his arm! It looked like a glowing leech of some sort (though it looked much more heavenly then the disgusting creatures) that had small tendrils spread from the sides of its body. The thing was attached to his skin and instead of draining him, it seemed to give him strength! He refrained from pulling it off of him though it sent shivers up his spine.
He sat up straighter as he looked around. Wherever he was, it looked like it wouldn't be able to hold life of any kind. A small part of him felt disappointed for some reason. Pitch shook it off as he carefully stood up. He was surprised at how light he felt and nearly fell over from how much force he put into his body to move. Pitch carefully looked around and found nothing but crystals and stone under his feet. He had never seen stone like this before. It was almost soft and his feet seemed to sink a bit. He looked to his side and saw his scythe lying on the ground. As he stepped forward to pick it up his foot hit something. He nearly fell to the ground cursing as grabbed his toe in pain and bit his tongue. When his eyes stopped watering he looked at the offending object which he had hit.
The thing was prodding shallowly out of the stone and shone when light hit it. It wasn't another crystal, he knew that much. Pitch reached down and tugged at it. Surprisingly it came out with a small amount of force. The man turned it around in his grip and looked at it. The object shone like silver but looked as fragile as glass. It was a tear shaped container that looked incredibly familiar.
There was absolutely no way that this was it. There was just no way that it was this easy.
I think that you should turn around...
At hearing the warning his eyes widened as he snapped around in time to catch a ball shaped crystal being hurdled at him. He screamed as he ducked and the thing missed him by only a few inches and hit a nearly destroyed stone pillar (which shattered on contact). His heart raced as he felt the ground shake. This was not turning out good.
The previously unmoving crystal pillars began to shake as they shifted, cracked, and grew. Pitch watched wide eyed as shadows fell upon him.
The once lifeless crystals were now 15 ft tall giants made completely out of the crystals they were born from. Spikes were their hands and shoulders while their heads were cube shaped. There were at least five of them towering over Pitch. The man looked down to the container in his hands before looking back at the giants. His gaze then shifted over to his weapon that hadn't moved from the vibrations of the ground, thankfully.
The giants seemed to notice and lunged at him screaming a battle cry in deep piercing voices of an unfamiliar language.
Pitch dove down, sliding slightly as he grabbed his scythe and held it in front of him as he shifted to a battle stance.
When the things finally seemed to realize that Pitch was no longer where he was before, they seemed to become even more enraged. They turned around and skid slightly as they charged again.
It was a battle that Pitch would look back on and wonder what the hell had happened.
One minute he was aware of his body movements and could feel everything that he was doing. His original plan was just to head straight into the fry and swing at the crystal creatures until they were shattered glass.
His body had different ideas.
The leech like being on his arm seemed to glow before dimming. The black on that arm completely separated and became a cloth like substance that clung to his skin and looked like thick woven spider webs while the underneath became a healthy peach.
His eyes seemed to shift, the whites of his eyes dulling, before control was ripped straight from his grasp.
His body seemed to think of it's own accord as it stood still, waiting for the monsters to come closer.
It was with the grace of a snake that he moved and weaved through his opponents, weapon at his side, dodging punches, stomps, and other attacks on his person, his movements akin to that of a graceful dancer. And then he struck and those movements picked up tempo.
It happened so fast that it was a bit fuzzy in his memory but he could recollect most of it.
To put in the best possible way: it was a massacre.
The blade made no noise as it cut through the crystal, clean and smooth, and chopping through the five otherworldly beings as if they were nothing but sitting vegetables.
When Pitch came to he was incredibly disoriented, too disoriented to notice the change to his arm. And then there was the other arm that followed the first's example...
The man tumbled to the ground and lay there with his head in his lap trying to fight the painful pounding in his head. After a minute or two it had faded into just a minor headache which would most likely not go away for some time. Pitch raised his head before looking to the container in his hand.
He knew he wasn't supposed to open it but...
He turned the object around in his hand before he saw a latch on the bottom. He unhooked it and the lid popped open. The man carefully moved his hand to take off the container's top...
and when he pulled it off he found...
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
The man was trembling.
He had been bloody tricked!
In his anger he raised himself to his feet and let out a cry, throwing the item to the side. He continued to fume as the container twisted and tumbled, surprisingly not shattering when it hit the ground, and hit one of the leftovers of the crystal beings.
While Pitch was reveling in the rays of his own stupidity the pieces of crystal began to vibrate. The crystal seemed to be attracted to the container and the metal material acted like a magnet as the crystals began to surround the unknown metal, making a rigid barrier. When Pitch finally noticed the remains of the crystal beings had either become a part of the container or had disintegrated.
The man carefully went over to it and picked it up. The crystal was completely encasing the tear shaped holder, creating a reflected image. Pitch was very confused by now.
"I told you not to open the container Black. The object will not be revealed until you fulfill all three tasks and even then, it will be the object that decides when it will allow you to open it. You have two more tasks to complete."
Pitch wanted to scream at the being. The voice seemed to echo throughout the area and made her(at least he assumed the it was a her) seem almost divine.
"What happened just there? Why did it feel like my body was moving on it's own?! How could I do that in the first place?! And why in the world was this task made so easy ?" In truth the task had been too easy. As if it were meant to be.
He heard a laughter ring out through the area.
"I believe that you have-what is the word that humans use these days- 'jinxed' yourself."
Pitch's eyebrow (which I think that he does have, just that his skin was so dark that no one could tell) twitched as felt like hitting both himself and the invisible being that was apparently "helping" him. The being simply laughed at him and Pitch couldn't help but feel like he knew that laughter.
'Na na Kozy! Don't'a be such a spoil-sport!'
'I'm not a spoil sport, you're just too active for me.'
'Then why is it tha' you're with'a' me?'
'Because you're worth it.'
Pitch shook his head. Where in the world had that come from?
"Pitch, it is time for your second task. Are you ready?"
Pitch braced himself, taking a deep breath before letting it out.
"As ready as I'll ever be."
'Such a spoil-sport lad, have a little fun!' Laughter followed.
0-0 I'm sorry for taking so long! Is not my fault that school started and I barely have any time to type! T-T
But I can honestly say that I don't like the middle of the chapter very much... I hate fighting scenes -_-lll
But I got finished with this chapter so that be good right :D?
Review Responses:
Shadowed Violin: Thank you! :D I've taken a turn here and I hope people like it ^^;
TearsDrippingDown: Here you go! :)
atruebeliever: Thank you! And I love your user XD
Stellalona: I might, you never know. And Jack doesn't suffer just because of her in truth, she just kinda tipped the match into the puddle of gasoline ^^;
lolxxx: Pitch is going as fast as he can! *watching Pitch run around a track field* Come on Pitch! Five more laps! Pitch: I hate you, you damn writer! Anna: You gotta get into shape if you want to face Jack! XD And thank you so much! And it's not going to be that easy for Pitch X3
Phantom Trainer: Maybe I should make a side chapter after the story is done where I put all of the reviewers in the story and let them have a go at her XD would people like that?
Mystichawk: Thank you :D
sarafine-ecleips: Here you go ;) Hope you liked!
Eizus: Thank you! Someone who agrees with me! And I give you my thanks for the compliment *bows*
Peanut Butter Rules: I know... How the hell am I going to keep little Jackie alive until Pitch gets to him?
Thanks for the reviews and please tell me what you think about this chapter!