So...I just want to apologize in advance for what happens in this chapter. I promise I'm not the kind of person who actually wants to inflict pain on anybody, but somehow I ended up doing that to the Guardians a lot in this chapter (sorry guys!)
Chapter 24: Para Bellum
Down through layers of twisting shadows, tunnels of eternal flames, and caverns full of lava pools dripping magma into dark voids. Pitch Black's former lair looked nothing like it had only a week before. The shadows and endless dead-end tunnels were there, but everything else was changed to fit the tastes of Hell and Dark; there were legions of fire spirits, lava lakes, and hundreds of sudden drop-offs into endless pits of terrifying illusions.
"This place definitely isn't under Burgess anymore," Jamie whispered, not ashamed to grab his mom's hand and hold onto it tightly as he took in the view of Hell and Dark's base.
"It's possible that Dark might be able to make their base appear anywhere they want it to be, or completely hide it from us through various illusions." Tempus said, straining to keep the time-space portal open in the face of Hell and Dark's defenses.
"Then how can we see this now?" Diane wondered aloud.
"In a way, I'm manipulating their magic back at them. It's like watching something on a screen without knowing where the thing you're watching is coming from, but you can still see it simply because you picked up the magical signature. Hell and Dark are very powerful, so when they want their presence to be known, it's relatively easy to pick up. And, well, they seem to want us to see this, or it would be much harder. They are aware of us on some level."
Jamie respressed a shiver of fear at that thought.
Jack Frost was kneeling with his back against the only wall in Pitch's former lair that a sliver of light used touch—but no light reached so far underground in the base Hell and Dark had constructed now. Jack's hands were bound tightly behind him with cords of solid shadows, and he looked even more exhausted and beaten down than he had at the Warren earlier that day.
A foot in front of him sat Pandora's box, unopened.
"There's no hope, Frost, so why do you keep fighting? It's pointless." Hell stood in front of the Guardian of Fun, holding his signature trident on one hand. It glowed red and orange like it was made of hot coals.
"I will never surrender." Jack said, glaring defiantly up at the spirit of suffering.
"But you already have, Jackson," Dark seemed to melt out of the shadows next to Hell as easily as Pitch Black once had. "You said you gave up your hope in exchange for your precious believer." He said, nudging Pandora's box closer to Jack with his foot.
Jamie turned to look at his mother, shocked. "Bunny said Jack was forced to give up his hope! Don't you think it would be kind of important for me to know that I was used as the BARGAINING CHIP?"
Hell grabbed Jack's right arm and sent a surge of magic into the winter spirit as he hauled him to his feet. The effect of Hell's powers on Jack was instantaneous, giving him the sensation of fire burning through his body. He almost blacked out. Only Hell's grip on his arm kept him from collapsing. Jack shook his head in an attempt to clear his head, despite the overwhelming pain.
When Jack regained control of himself and tried to pull away from Hell, Jamie caught sight of his eyes. They were changing, the amber in them flaring and overtaking most of the cerulean within seconds.
Hell shoved the winter spirit into the stone wall behind him. Above Jack's head there were words carved lightly into the gray stone that read "Ex Umbra In Solem". From shadow into light.
Udaya was the first figure out what Hell and Dark planned to do. "They can't touch the box because Chaos created them and he's the opposite of Hope contained, but Jack can open it. I should have foreseen this long ago!" The spirit of light lamented, voice heavy with the weight of her failure.
"We have waited for this moment for too long to let you stop us, Frost. You WILL surrender, and you will do it NOW." Dark snarled. Raising his hands out in front of him, the embodiment of illusion made the shadows rise from the ground around Jack and force him onto his knees again. Jack fought his new bonds with renewed vigor, but his efforts were in vain. Dark's powers took control of his movements and the Guardian watched in horror as his hands reached for Pandora's box.
"No, NO! Don't do this, please, don't make me do this! I won't open it!" Jack tried desperately to fight his own body, but his hands still picked up Pandora's box and threw open the lid. The spirit of Hope rose out of the container with the sound of laughter. It was a brilliant flickering light, so fragile and tiny that it looked no larger than an average candle flame as it danced higher and higher into the air—
—and then it was snuffed out by Hell's fire and Dark's shadows. The fragments of Hope went flying in all directions, shattering as they hit the ground as if they were made of glass. The light of Hope in those slivers of glass faded to black.
Hell and Dark took a step away from the devastated winter spirit, who collapsed onto his side like a marionette with its strings cut. The ground in the lair began to shake, as if some ancient creature beneath the earth's surface was waking up. The earthquake lasted for just half a minute, but it was enough to open a multitude of deep cracks in the lair's solid stone which all radiated outward from Hell, Dark, and Jack. From the cracks flowed a jet black substance that was neither pure liquid nor vaporous smoke. It curled around Jack's body, dissolving into his skin even as more and more of the darkness emerged from the earth. The unconscious winter spirit began to writhe violently on the stone floor of the lair.
Diane had to physically restrain Jamie from charging recklessly into the time-space portal. "Jamie, stop! Jamie Bennett, listen to me! We can't do anything right now!" she said in her son's ear, trying to calm him even as he struggled to break out of her hold. Eventually the teen stopped struggling, realizing that there was no way he could even go through the portal.
A jet black sword formed from the shadows in Dark's hand, and then, moving as one, he and Hell slammed their respective weapons into the rocky ground. From the sword of shadows and Hell's burning trident rose a ring of cobalt blue fire around the Guardian of Fun's body, blocking him from sight completely.
Out of nowhere, a cold wind blew through Hell and Dark's base, snuffing out fires and cooling the surfaces of lava pools as it made its way toward the winter spirit. Hell and Dark were forced to throw themselves flat against the ground as the wind whirled around them, slowly forcing the wall of dark blue flames around Jack into submission. Jack's body was suspended upright in midair, inky blackness still wrapped around him and dissolving into his pale skin. But his eyes…
His eyes were open and blazing with luminous power.
It was as if pure moonlight was shining from his eyes, and that light grew brighter and brighter as it fought the darkness of Chaos. The light had the upper hand for a few moments, but then a wave of darkness rose out of the cracks in the earth beneath Jack's body and shot straight into his heart.
A blast of powerful magic suddenly flung fire, darkness and light outward from the winter spirit in all directions. The rush of magic was so powerful that it even shook the edges of Tempus' portal.
Jamie suddenly felt something cold slam into his chest, knocking the air out of him. He choked, pushing blindly out of his mother's arms in a desperate attempt to find a way to get oxygen back into his burning lungs. He fell to his hands and knees, gasping and coughing as he tried to breathe normally. Diane knelt beside him, watching her son fearfully and gently rubbing his back.
"What's going on?" she asked, when it appeared that Jamie was not recovering after a few long seconds. She didn't know what to do, as there was no obvious reason for Jamie to start choking.
"I don't know. I..." Terra trailed off. She was torn between watching the portal and helping the young believer. She began to walk over to Jamie and Diane, though she stopped halfway there when the teen finally began to breathe normally again.
For Jamie, it seemed like as quickly as the breathless feeling had come over him, it disappeared just as rapidly. He breathed in deeply, never feeling more thankful to be able to breath than he did at that moment. When he look up at his mother, bewildered by what had just happened to him, Diane jerked away from him in shock.
For one second, his eyes had glowed pure white as Jack Frost's had done moments before. Only Diane was close enough to see this happen before the glow disappeared and Jamie was left staring at her in confusion.
"What?" he asked her.
"Your eyes, they were...it's probably just a reflection of light from the portal. It looked like they were glowing." Diane didn't quite know how to put what she had just seen into words.
For what felt like an eternity, the lair was totally obscured from view, completely covered with darkness. Then, in one fluid motion, the darkness was drawn inward to a single point, where it seemed to vanishe into thin air.
As the last shadows disappeared, Tempus was forced to release his hold on the portal out of pure exhausted.
The portal slowly began to close. No one dared break the silence in the Globe Room as everyone strained to hear Hell's words before it closed completely.
The embodiment of suffering had scrambled to his feet after the explosion of light and dark magic. Now, he and his brother each got down on one knee, bowing their heads to the terrifying, powerful immortal who now stood before them.
"All hail Chaos, embodiment of destruction, master of suffering, lord of illusion, and creator of fear."
The last thing the Bennetts and spirits in the Globe Room saw through the portal was someone who looked like Jack, yet his appearance and the magic he radiated were nothing like that of the fun-loving Guardian and winter spirit.
He had hair the color of a raven's wing, eyes as red as rubies, and deathly pale skin.
Form-fitting armor covered his body, so dark in color and infused with evil magic that its surface did not reflect any light. The sleek combat boots he wore were the same.
A sword rested in the sheath belted around his waist, the obsidian hilt glinting dangerously in the dim light of Pitch Black's former lair.
When the space-time portal finally fused shut, it felt to those present in the Globe Room like the final tolling of a ancient bell, marking the end of one world and the start of another.
"What do we do now?" Diane asked from where she crouched next Jamie. She had gotten over her initial shock about her son's eyes glowing. For a long time, it seemed that no one was going to answer her. "Well?" she pressed them, "Any ideas on how to stop Chaos from destroying the planet, and get Jack Frost, my son's best friend, back?"
"We have to address all of this one aspect at a time. This fight began long ago, and it clearly never stopped like we thought. It will take more than a few spirits and magic tricks to stop Chaos for good this time." Udaya said, her voice full of conviction.
"And Jack?" Jamie asked. He was feeling so many emotions at once—sadness confusion—that he didn't know which of them was stronger. He had just lost the his Guardian and best friend; he was scared, and angry at Hell, Dark, and Chaos. He was also confused about why Jack's eyes (and apparently his too) had glowed and how that light was able to stop the invading darkness for a few seconds.
"First we must prepare for war. We can't avoid it now. We must alert the rest of the spirits that Chaos has returned and taken two of our own already." Tempus' voice filled the workshop with cold finality.
There had been many battles before this moment, but their situation had not truly been called what it was. There were many questions still left unanswered, but a war was coming, and to war all of them would go.
But before preparing for war, before anything else could happen, they would mourn the loss of the Guardian of Hope and the Guardian of Fun.
*Coming Soon: I'm planning a surprise for chapter 26 or 27 (whether it's a good or bad surprise will be for you to decide.) I think it might be a good surprise...but that might just be me, and I could be a slightly biased.