When they heard that Jack fled the scene of that fateful Christmas eve, mother nature and father time assumed he had run off to avoid the consequences awaiting him.

He did try to take over Santas holiday, and practically succeeded for 12 years before it all came undone.

Not to mention the other offenses, he also had to answer for. Running away from his due punishment that was waiting for him seemed like a very Jack thing to do.

So they sent out a search warrant for his capture, requesting any and all magical beings to keep an eye out, or personally bring him in if they are so able. Since the entire council needed to be present for his trial in order to officially suspend him from the council, they waited to see who would turn him in.

But no one ever did.

He managed to avoid capture and took an uncharacteristic turn and worked from the shadows, and not a peep was heard from him. The other council members tried to get in touch, but he never responded. And never once was he spotted by anyone else for a long while. Truly trying to play the waiting game. The only thing that alerted anyone that he was even still alive was the fact that winter continued to come and go every year.

Which was already strange in of itself, since bounty hunters of the dozens lied in wait during the colder months for jack to make an appearance, and he still didn't show.

No one saw hide nor tail of him for a long time, but as of recently the greater magical world felt as though they almost didn't need to look for him anymore. While yes, he was very much still a wanted criminal in just about every sense of the word, on paper it looked like Jack was actually doing his duties to a tee. He stayed in his designated areas, perfectly white Christmases came and went and the temperatures stayed perfectly cold.

And cold.

And colder.

And colder.

No one noticed right away at first. But every year the temperature seemed to be dropping to a lower average than the last. Mother nature and father time thought it was just a small act of defiance from wherever he was hiding. It almost seemed like he was taunting them in all their failed attempts to capture him over the past years.

But soon enough they would be convinced otherwise.

After the escape clause incident, after his little wakeup call and his slip up with Scott, jack secluded himself. Even more than usual. He hid out in the south pole where his dark work began to take shape.

He was at a breaking point. There, in the wind was his last chance at getting his own holiday. And getting his own holiday was his last-ditch effort to make them proud of him.

There were no other options left. The jig was up.

He had nothing.

Fear. Pure terror of the thought that all of his efforts, vying for their attention meant nothing. Scared half to death of the reality that he will never mean anything to anyone. And that everybody was right about him all along.

He is nothing.

This fearfulness and despair are what made him decide to run. As far and as fast as possible, trying to desperately escape the jaws of fate.

That day, something in him

Snapped.

He told himself he wasn't done fighting just yet. He can come back from this; he still has so much left to prove.

It wasn't obvious at first, least of all to Jack himself. But if he wasn't at least a little delusional before he was now in the tired, slow descent into the trenches of self-deception.

So, taking a holiday didn't work out. Fine by him. He just needed to practice a little more. Yeah, go back to basics, back to something familiar, and really hone in on the ice magic. I mean, it seemed to work out just fine when he was just the winter season and nothing else. Maybe if he can get this right, really tie down his own abilities, it can put him back in the running again. And maybe they'll hate him just a little less.

Another opportunity to prove his worth.

On paper, this sounded like an alright plan. Almost on the brink of turning it all around and retiring the villainous mind-set for good. And it sure would have made a great redemption story if that were the case.

He became hell bent on sharpening his skills even more, no matter how much he had already mastered them. But none of it was ever good enough. And it's not a foolish assumption to make that if you keep sharpening and already sharpened pencil

It will break.

Temperatures in the poles kept dropping, so much so that it got so cold it started throwing off the rest of the world's heat indexes. It even dropped the average of the equator down by a noticeable margin.

Mother nature and father time became highly concerned. If this keeps up, we could very well have another ice age on our hands. But it wasn't until they caught wind of some truly troubling news that they decided to go and look for Jack themselves.

They received news that the temperatures were dropping so low that it was killing native polar wildlife because of the temperature decline. Humans have been dropping left and right, there are mass migrations to the equator, and now animals that were built to survive in the coldest regions of the earth are now dying en masse.

This is where this ends. We find him, and we put an end to this whole thing right now.

So, they set out and search for Jack, going first to the south pole where the animals have started dying off.

The entire area, for as far as the eye can see was whited out, a constant storm raged as they passed through the desolate wasteland. Because of their legendary status, they couldn't feel the sheer, painful cold attacking them as they went. But it was guaranteed to bring any living thing to its knees in seconds. Definitely keeping everything at an arm's distance to say the least.

Eventually they found a small gathering of Jack's magic concentrated in an area out in the open. This was definitely the portal. They stepped toward the cluster and entered, to be greeted with a terrifyingly empty yet confined space. Shielded from the howling winds outside, the air in this place was thin and stale.

There was no furniture, and the walls and floor were sheen and solid, almost slippery, with no signs of knicks or scratches on any of the surfaces. It was dark, with no windows and only a few magical light sources scattered down a long hall.

This was especially concerning, considering that Jack was a man with his own, loud and outrageous tastes in where he likes to reside. But this place was devoid of any life whatsoever. For the first time in a long while, they were a little scared of what this could possibly mean, and what they could really be dealing with. Their perfect reflections in all the surfaces around them showed this in their faces.

Father time however took a deep breath and began making his way down the hall, as mother nature followed suit.

As they went, they looked into the adjacent rooms in hopes of finding jack. The rooms had no doors, only archways, that gave view to an even greater expanse of nothingness beyond. After a minute of traveling, they caught sight of a brightly lit archway at the end of the hall. They keep silent, and go towards the only bright light in the place. And they reach the room and stick their heads inside to find

Jack?

Someone was standing with their back to them as they frantically worked on something on the only table in the whole place. This room was a far cry from the rest of the prison like home they just ventured through, but not in a wholesome welcoming way.

There were mini snowdrifts piled in the corners of the room, giant icicles hung from the ceiling making the room seem more crowded than it already was. With stacks of random ice formations started on the ground, and a large pile of broken ice shards in one specific corner of the room. Right under a huge, scratched mark on the wall.

The walls in every other area, however, were thickly coated with many layers of frost, creating a textured effect one could feel. And the floors and the table itself were all scratched to hell.

When the figure moved into the right position, they could see miniature abstract ice sculptures of varying sizes and an entire ice globe haphazardly thrown on the desk.

This was not a workshop anymore.

This was suited to be more of a madhouse than anything.

And no madhouse would be complete with its occupant.

The figure frantically working at the table looked enough like Jack from afar. Wearing the same suit, he always wore, but something was different.

The suit looked almost too solid and hard to wear, cracks formed at the joints to allow for movement, but it was completely iced over.

And his breath could be seen from behind his silhouette, constantly going and much lighter in color than previously seen.

Something was very very wrong. Both mother nature and father time could sense it when they entered ever so carefully. Alarm bells were going off, the magic in the atmosphere was vastly unstable and erratic, to match its icy wielder.

Eventually Mother nature spoke up

"Jack?"

When he turned around to face them, nothing could have prepared them for what they saw.

Just like the back, his entire suit had been completely frozen over in a thick layer of ice, slightly diluting the original color it had been, now more white than navy. And again, fissures in the ice formations had broken open to allow for movement in the joints.

But his skin, even when not using his powers, was permanently a more saturated shade of blue than normal. His fingers, nose and cheeks had turned a sickening shade of black and formed in odd patches on the areas. Bringing him closer to the visage of a dead man back from the Icey grave, more than actually looking like Jack Frost.

His breath was always visible and leaking sparkling ice magic from it without him seeming to notice or care. Even his hands, usually very steady and sure, were now plagued with a noticeable tremor. The beginnings of a shiver. Almost as if his own body was struggling to endure such magic usage and low temperatures.

His own body magically collapsing from the inside out.

Mother nature and father time gaped in abject appall at what has taken place here. Before they can say anything however, jack intervened

"Mother nature! Father Time! Good to see you! How have you been! Please come in come in, have a seat, stay awhile! It's been too long since I've - ive - ive had proper company, and I wasn't going to show you what I've been working on just yet but since you're here anyway, I guess now is as good a time as any, huh?", he exclaimed, before rushing over to pull each of their arms into the room further.

Jack was known to be extroverted, sure even excitable on occasion. But this is a new level of "excitable".

He was rambling, and stumbling over his words, like he was having difficulty getting them all out as fast as he wanted. His smile was wider than ever and unwavering, but was attached to a frenzied body that gave it all away. Almost as if he hasn't even noticed what has been happening to him.

Once they were fully in the little room, he summoned perfectly made intricate ice chairs out from the ground. Almost a little too fast.

"Please please have a seat! Stay awhile. I just gotta finish up this one little detail and then I'll show you. Everything is still a little work in progress", he blurted out, before turning right back to the table in the middle of the room.

Mother nature and father time did not take the seats. They remained firmly in place as they watched the spirit seemingly almost forget their presence as soon as he acknowledged it. Slowly becoming more engrossed in his work yet again.

The miniature ice sculpture he was working on was in every sense of the word, perfect. In fact, a little too perfect. It was completely white and opaque; its edges were sharp enough to cut skin on a brush of the hand and it was far too cold for anyone else to even touch.

He began to continue tampering with diamonds.

Until father time decided to break the silence once again,

"Jack, what is going on? These global temperatures are far lower than they should be, and no one can seem to even get a passing glimpse of you, just what are you doing?" he brought up. He tried composing himself, and still believed that he could talk some sense into jack.

"What am I doing?" Jack chimed in. He craned his head back towards the two.

"I'm doing my job! It's great, winter has never been more successful, my season is practically bleeding efficiency!"

He tried to turn back to the table again, before father time caught his shoulder with his staff and turned back toward them again. Catching him off guard, he stood silently in place facing the two other legends.

"Jack, what about all the human and animal lives you've taken? You are killing arctic animals", father time interjected. Hoping to blunt force some sense into the scatterbrained spirit.

"Oh! Those. Well, ya know, they obviously weren't strong enough to survive in the conditions, I mean, that's not my fault. If anything, that's on mother nature, with all the 'survival of the fittest' junk. But they are, beautifully perfectly preserved I might add", Jack explained, completely nonchalantly and fully skipping over the killing humans bit.

"Jack this is not what we wanted! You're killing human beings, you're killing wildlife, you are single handedly plunging the earth into another ice age!" Mother nature pleaded. She didn't like using it, but the mom voice was the only thing that probably had a chance at getting through to him at this point.

Jack stared at her incredulously.

This isn't making sense.

"But-but-but, I- if, this has to be what you wanted right? I mean, this is too hot, this is too cold, I mean, you gotta give me something here!", he uttered. Almost on the brink of shouting right back at her.

Snow started gently falling from the ceiling, as Jack frantically looked around the room, fidgeting even more than they thought possible. Trying to find some kind of rational explanation or thought in the sea of his own delusional ones.

"Jack there has to be a balance to these things -" Mother nature started gently explaining. She put her hand out to grab Jack's shoulder, but she was quickly cut off by Jack's hand smacking hers out of his vicinity.

"So-so you don't, you don't like me when I do my job and you don't like me when I don't do my job?! What, what do you want from me then! What on earth could you possibly want from me?! What do you want me to do?!" He screamed.

Icicles shot up from the floor flying toward the two figures, but were ricocheted away when they came close enough.

The howling wind and white out conditions they thought they had escaped from were starting to reappear inside the little room. Jack had his hands on his head, trying to defend his own efforts to himself.

"What are you talking about? All of this couldn't have been for nothing right? You - you gotta give me another chance, I still have so much left to prove! I can still be somebody! This, this has to be some kind of cruel, sick joke!", he continued muttering to himself as the conditions in the room only worsened.

He sank further and further into endless mania and panic before their eyes; until mother nature and father time realized they had a new problem.

They hadn't predicted such a downward spiral in his mental state. Jack hasn't been alright in quite some time, but this was truly disastrous.

They came in with a plan to confront Jack about his behavior and maybe reason with him, only to find that he can barely hold it together enough to hear what they have to say.

Now they are completely unprepared, faced with an out-of-control winter legend, and no plan for how to even temporarily contain this whole mess.

But probably worst of all, as mother nature watched listlessly as jack quickly paced back and forth in front of her; In all of the unfortunate transformations he has undergone as of late, what made her more sick than anything else,

was that he still had the same eyes