By the way, this story is written based on my assumption that Jack Frost drowned in the Burgess Pond at age 17, in the year 1712.

And please review if you feel like it. It's really nice to know what readers like and don't like. This chapter is dedicated to all of you wonderful people!

Now ladies and gentlemen, please sit back, relax, and enjoy the show...

Chapter 14: Coldest, Darkest, Strongest

The moon shone overhead, the Sun's last rays had faded behind the clouds above the horizon, and the evening star had appeared in the sky by the time the battle finally halted. Jack Frost had been fighting Hell on the edge of a cliff that overlooked one of the steeper drops into the canyon. "Hey Frost," Hell began yet another taunt, while their respective weapons— the trident and staff— clashed together. "You know why leaves fall in Autumn?"

The winter spirits changed his staff from his right hand to his left, suppressing a shudder of exhaustion that he would let no one see. His eyes, though weary, blazed with power. "They fall because the spirit of Autumn ushers in her season." Jack answered, watching Hell closely. Behind them, the other Guardians were fighting the fire spirits. Hell smirked, and his voice was what could only be described as dripping with malice as he said, "No Jackson, how naïve you are. The leaves fall because they mourn. They mourn for the lives that winter will take, the lives you will take."

Jack hesitated for one second too long and that was all Hell needed. Tongues of flame whirled out from his hands to surround Jack, one of them wrapping tightly around the staff of winter and yanking it from its owners hands. The staff was released and it skidded over the edge of the cliff. Jack Frost watched it fall, and Jack Frost felt it break, as if his own soul was torn into a billion little pieces. The great river would admit the splinters of the staff into its waters, and slowly carry them away on its endless, winding journey to the sea. Jack could not contain the scream of pain that tore itself from his lungs, and his back arched as though hundreds of volts of electricity were surging through his body.

There was only darkness, only pain. He felt the pain, he heard the pain, he breathed the pain and he lived the pain. You see, Jack Frost was used to pain; He knew the many forms that pain could come in, and he had lived them all. But then a fire was lit in his heart. Someone would know his pain. Someone would feel his pain, raw and uncontained. Hell would feel his pain, from every one of the 1,397 blizzards, and every second of the 116,800 days Jack had spent mostly alone.

Bunny saw Jack collapse to his knees with his head in his hands. The Guardian of Hope was back-to-back with North. 'Jack, come one, get up!' Bunny thought, blocking a fire spirits red-hot sword as Tooth threw a stray egg bomb at it. As the fire spirit went up into a multi-colored flaming fireball, the four other Guardians saw Hell kick Jack in the back, knocking him face down into the dusty red rock where he lay unmoving. Hell let out a cold laugh and turned to the Guardians with a ruthless smile.

As Jack had been kicked to the ground, his hand had grazed something cold and wooden. It was his bow! Jack knew he could create an arrow out of ice, he'd done it before with Phil, and this was his last hope. He located Hell (who was practically standing next to him) by the sound of his voice as he commanded his army. "To their knees." Jack heard Hell command his army, and then he launched himself at the perpetrator, not even looking to confirm if his trajectory was correct. He was only a little off, but was still able to tackle Hell to the ground. Jack began feel the familiar burning stings of pain on his skin, that became more painful the longer his skin was in contact with Hell's, but he pushed those feelings to the back of his mind. They both went crashing to the ground. The trident clanged as it hit the red stone a few feet away beside them. Hell elbowed Jack in the collar bone, twisting out of the Guardian's arms that had been locked around his abdomen. Hell scrambled to his feet, almost tripping as Jack grabbed his left foot, but he got free. He was trying to get his trident, but a strong gust of wind blew it off the cliff before he could reach it.

Hell cackled, a smirk still playing on his lips as the trident materialized with a whirling burst of fire and sparks in his right hand. "Nice try, Frost." But when he turned back around, Jack wasn't there. Hell narrowed his eyes. He shouldn't have underestimated the newest Guardian, he knew that now. But Hell had watched how dependent Jack was on his staff; breaking it should have disabled his ability to fight. "Where did you go, Guardian? I mean seriously, even calling you a Guardian is, like, an insult the real thing-"

Jack appeared behind Hell out of a snowglobe portal. Snow began to fly around them, coming from Jack himself; frost coated the reddish dirt, pale limestone, and what few planets dared to grow in the desert. The snow and frost melted when they touched the ground, making tiny rivulets as the water flowed down the side of the canyon toward the Colorado River. "Are you questioning my legitimacy as a Guardian?" The spirit of winter looked dangerously emotionless. Hell's trident caught fire as he took a step back. The ground grew warmer. Hell was summoning heat to the surface from the Earth's mantle, thousands of feet below. The sky darkened and it began to rain heavily, Jack's snow melting as soon as it left the clouds. The Guardians and fire army stopped to watch this battle of powers. The Colorado River began reaching up it's banks, turning to ice as it raced up the canyon walls.

"Yes. Obviously." The trident whistled as it cut through the air, raising a wall of flame around the two spirits.

For one moment, Jack and Hell looked at each other, one with certainty and arrogance, the other with contained fury. The calm before the storm. Jack's hands were at his sides, holding his bow in his right hand. "You will all die. You have no chance. I meant what I said." Hell spat, moving forward in one fluid motion to strike the winter spirit down. From behind Jack, came a loud crackling sound, and the ice from the Colorado River roared up over the side of the canyon. The ice curved over him like a wave, and shot towards Hell. Hell threw his arms up in front of himself to protect his face as the ice wave crashed onto the ground, sending ice shards flying everywhere. When Hell finally lowered his arms, he found himself trapped within an icy cell with hundreds of shards of ice only a centimeter away from impaling him. Ice crystals grew upward from the frozen ground, wrapping around Hell's wrists and ankles, and restraining him until he could barely move.

Jack stood defiantly in front of him, eyes blazing with anger. The winter spirit had an arrow, also made of ice, aimed directly at Hell's heart. "I am a Guardian," Jack bit out, his words fueling the bitter anger he was barely keeping under control. "You will never be able to change that, no matter how hard you try. We will always be there to protect world. Not only the children, but everyone else too."

"You can't do it. You'd never kill more than a Nightmare." Hell snarled while he struggle to get free of the ice.

"And you would send hundreds of people to their graves long before their time!" Jack shouted at him, drawing his bowstring back a little farther.

"I dare you." Hell smirked confidently.

"No need." Jack whispered, and loosed the arrow just inches away from Hell's chest. Such was the poison of winter's wrath, that Hell began to literally freeze up. By the time he could think past the pain, his entire upper body was paralyzed.

As this was happening, the Guardians gained the upper-hand against the fire spirits. "We gotta help Jack!" Sandy flashed the words over his head as he whipped some fire spirits back to the hellish pit from whence came from. Tooth definitely agreed, but she couldn't get past the two fire spirits who seemed intent on following her until either she stopped flying to fight them off, or got too tired to fly any further. The two spirits created a wall of fire around her, trapping her, but the wind blew through the flames and picked her up from where the ground where she had been forced to land and whisked her high above the battlefield. She found Jack and Hell on the edge of the cliff, and saw the wall of ice roar over the side of the canyon. "But...how? I thought without his staff..." She thought, dazed and puzzled.

Tooth was the sole witness to what happened next. Jack's arrow became lodged in Hell's chest, and she saw him go still, though he remained standing. Jack stumbled back, and would have fallen over the edge had the ice not been there. He slid down the ice, collapsing heavily onto his left side. Tooth was about to fly down to help him, but the wind held her in place a moment longer, and she soon saw why. The spirit of hellfire was melting the arrow, therefore stopping its paralyzing effect. He was only momentarily slowed by the small green-gold blur that shot toward him over him, whirring past his face close enough to slice his cheek and leaving a long, shallow cut in its wake. "Go B.T.!" Tooth cheered in her mind. Then the wind released her, and she dove toward the Guardian of Fun, flying around, up under, and over all the fire spirits reaching up to get her.

She had to get to Jack.

With a renewed drive to defeat the Guardians and avenge Pitch's death, Hell fueled the fire in his body, and the ice-arrow melted completely. Meanwhile, Jack Frost lay unmoving on the ground. All of his previous energy was gone. The pain he felt was no longer skin-deep, but had traveled to his heart, where it pulled at his determination, pulsing through him like an all-consuming darkness. His fingers grasped weakly at his bow. It was the last thing he could hold on to, to keep from falling into the empty abyss of unconsciousness.

Inside his hoodie, Pitch's dagger slipped and its tip grazed Jack's skin through a small tear in the blue fabric.