To say that Gunza's castle was huge would be an understatement. Jack had seen Jamie and the neighborhood kids playing Breath of the Wild, and it felt exactly like one of the labyrinths. Every turn felt like it directed him back to places he had already been. Either that, or every room and corridor looked identical to the last. There were no torches that lined the walls. The only light was the blue glow emanating from his crook. He moved as fast as he could, dodging around vultures if they happened to appear. A left turn lead him to a spiraled staircase going down down down.
At the bottom was a narrow corridor barely wider than Jack's shoulders. It stretched far away. If not for the tiny speck of light at the end, Jack would have assumed it was a dead end.
That must be the stone chambers.
He silently flew through the corridor, the light getting bigger and bigger and-
"SKWAAA!"
He froze. A loud cawing bounced off the walls sending a shiver down his spine.
"SKWAAA SKWA SKWAAAA!"
'What the hell is that?!' Jack though, searching for the source of the noise.
A few steps behind him, the caws lead to an ordinary looking section of the corridor's walls. He was sure that whatever was behind this part of the wall was making all the noise. A quick glance at the floor revealed that a small area of the wall was open, blocked off by four metal bars that barely reached his ankles. Another distressed caw came from behind them. Jack crouched down to his hands and knees, peering inside. A dim light from inside revealed a tiny, compact cell. On the floor of the cell was a round-topped cage, and inside the cage was a large, black bird.
An uncomfortable shiver pricked up and down his arms. It was a raven. Jack knew that it wasn't possible, and yet a troubled feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. The raven stared at him through beady, black eyes. The image of Thana's scythe striking its owner, the flood of ravens bursting into the sky, and Gunza's toothy grin played over and over in his head. Jack shook his head and stood, tearing back down the hall. The caws never came again, but its echoes kept bouncing around in his head.
At the end of the corridor, a thin doorway opened up into a tall chamber made from cold, damp stone. Metal, ball-shaped cages hung off of chains from the ceiling. More large cages shaped like pyramids sprouted from the walls and the floor. The light that Jack had seen earlier came from a massive fire brazier built into the center of the floor. The entire room felt like a sauna. Deeper into the chamber, Jack could make out the figures of Pitch in one cage, and Idyss in another. However, a cage on the ceiling caught his eye, when a rustle caused a bright green feather to fall to the ground.
"Tooth?" he called out, careful of nearby vultures. From the cage, a blue and green face poked out from between the bars.
"Jack!" The tooth fairy called cheerily. At her sudden out-burst, Pitch and Idyss looked up towards him.
"Well!" Pitch shouted brazenly. "It's about time you showed up, Frost!"
"What happened? How did you guys get caught?" Jack stepped inside, his forehead already beginning to bead with sweat.
"They were waiting for us." Idyss said from the wall. "As soon as we stepped out from Anubis' realm they were on us like… well like…"
"Pigeons on bread?" Jack offered the Sheepdog. Idyss stared at him before breaking into a smile.
"Yeah! Exactly like that!"
"Oh come on. You were gonna say 'like a pack of dogs' and you know it."
Jack whirled around. Above the door he had come in through, the Easter Bunny sat in a cage jutting out from the wall. The winter spirit found himself staring at the floor.
"What are you two doing here?" Jack startled himself. His voice came out directly, the normal joking manner gone. At first he didn't mean it, but he found himself continuing. "I thought you were insistent that Pitch was the bad guy. Now you all of a sudden believe me?"
Faces of guilt touched the other guardians.
"We're sorry, Jack." Tooth said sincerely. We should have at least listened to you at first. But in our defense you never really told us. And now we know so we came to help."
"I told Bunny."
Tooth went quiet and glanced at the Easter Bunny. He was glaring at the ground.
"I didn't just tell him. He was there. When the Hela appeared and happily confessed to being the cause of this chaos, when she declared a literal war against humanity, when she killed her own companion?!" Jack was yelling now. He stared directly into the eyes of the Easter Bunny and everything that had been weighing on his shoulder poured out through the flood gates.
"You told me to get over it, called me crazy and then on top of it all, you abandoned me!" Bunny's image blurred. "The only person who came remotely close to believing me was Sandy. And all he did was look me in the eyes! I don't care that you're sorry, or that you're here now. If you'd considered what I had said from the beginning then we wouldn't be in this mess! Ambrose would be safe, and Thana would still be alive!"
Jack's face grew hot. He instinctively threw his hand over his eyes when he felt them sting with tears.
"I know I messed up last time." Jack finally spoke again. "And I know that I've messed up hundreds of times before that. Sometimes I still question why I'm even a Guardian. It doesn't feel like I fit in with you guys at all."
"You are one of us, Jack!" Tooth grasped the bars of her cage. "The man in the Moon didn't just randomly pick you out of a hat, you're one of us for a reason!"
"Forget the Man in the Moon." Bunny cut in. "You're one of us because you belong with us. We're a team and you are part of it."
"Then why is it that up until now I've been doing this alone?"
The Guardians fell quiet. Tooth looked distraught while Bunny was mentally smashing the cage with his paws. The dungeon was completely silent. Even the raven from down the hall was quiet.
Pitch cleared his throat.
"Well, I for one am over being locked in a cage. So if you're done kicking yourself and everyone else in the emotional gut I think its time to let us out."
Jack took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes again.
"Where's Edri? Wasn't he supposed to join you guys?"
"That was the plan." Pitch sighed. "But either he has no way to break the barrier into this realm, or Gunza's shadows already took care of him. But where's your death buddy? Or did you fail in convincing the only other immortal moody teenager?"
"Cassius is here he's just-" Jack choked on his words. "...distracting the Hela," he said slowly.
Pitch and Idyss gave each other sideways glances, and awkward air of silence hung over them.
"We need to get to the roof as fast as we can. Cassius should be waiting there for us."
"And then what?" Pitch asked. "Are we expecting to just show up, slap some cuffs on her and that's it?"
"Cassius said he would bring her. He's on our side. If you had seen him before, you'd believe me in a heartbeat." Jack rolled his eyes. "I've never seen a depressed shut-in so readily want to go outside."
"A depressed shut-in rules an entire realm of the dead?" Bunny asked in ridicule. Jack ignored him.
"Pitch, can you shadow portal us up?" He asked hurriedly. The Boogeyman shook his head.
"The sheer force of evil is sucking at my magic. If I wanted I could maybe open one outside the realm. But that would be it."
"Bunny?"
The rabbit shook his head. "Same story. Can't seem to find a tunnel here. Can't get out either."
"Then we'd better start moving," Idyss said, axe in hand.
Jack jumped over to Pitch's cell and stared at the bars, confused.
"There's no lock."
"When the vultures put us inside they just shut the door." Idyss said. "Probably a magic seal."
Jack experimentally pulled at the door. Nothing. "I'll be back." Jack jumped back towards the dungeon's entrance. He floated slowly throught the corridor, wary of the raven's cage when he passed it.
"Hey Cassius… you around" Jack whispered, hoping the Hades somehow heard.
Frost, you need to hurry up. I don't know how long I can keep Gunza occupied.
Jack held himself back from saying something in liu of the situation.
"I need a feather."
What?
"The vulture's feathers. I'm looking for a dropped one on the floor or something."
You wont find one. Shadows are careful because they know how much power their feathers would hold.
"Wonderful… so what do I do now? The others are trapped in magic, sealed cages inside a furnace dungeon. I need a feather to get them out."
You need to corner a shadow and take enough for each cage.
"Why couldn't you have designed stupider birds?"
Do you have any idea how messed up things would be if there were keys to Hell just lying around?
"A hell of a party, that's for sure," Jack mumbled to himself.
Cassius' voice faded away. Jack peered back up the spiraling staircase. If he was going to collect 4 feathers, he needed to get them quickly and with the least amount of noise as he could. Despite battling them with Thana on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, Jack was terrified by the thought of hundreds of them filling up the corridor, trampling into the furnace dungeon and surrounding him like wolves on a sheep. A quiet "click… click… click…" came from above and Jack's finger began to buzz.
The shadow took its time, making sure to touch every stair down. No skipping. Its body swayed unbalanced on its talons. Hunched over and hidden under an ugly burlap sack of a cloak. The clicking of talon on stone echoed down down down. The shadow reached the final step and turned its head in a slow left-to-right. A minute passed. Two minutes before it decided to progress down the corridor. Its shoulders brushed up against the walls. The shadow stopped again, a foot from the bars of the raven's cage, knelt, and peered past the bars. Then it froze.
Jack gingerly stepped out from his hiding place beneath the last curve of the stairs and floated over to the shadow, frozen from a well aimed shot from his crook. He exhaled heavily and grabbed the shadow's sleeve. Jack was surprised by how heavy the cloak was. He pulled it back revealing the edges of greasy, black feathers. Jack quickly pulled 4 of them and turned towards the furnace. His eyes drifted back towards the crouched shadow, and then to the raven's cage. He bit his lip, and quickly took another one. He pressed it to the missing lock and the bars disappeared. Almost immediately, the raven burst out from inside, zipping away up the stairs.
Taking it as his que, Jack sprinted back to the furnace dungeon. He jumped up first to Tooth and used each feather one by one to unlock the cages.
The five raced up the spiraling stairs. A fresh image of the rooftop appeared in Jack's mind like before and the winter spirit directed them through the maze of halls. Each shadow that lingered too close was quickly taken care of. The truth was, Jack was blindly leading them. He knew where he needed to go just as when he found the dungeon. But what lurked behind every door, turn, and step was a threat through and through.
Finally, after what felt like running in circles, they reached a wooden trapdoor in the ceiling of what appeared to be a massive bedroom. Probably Gunza's. One by one, they pushed the door open and climbed through. Jack grabbed Pitch's sleeve and held him back before he could.
"I need you to leave." Jack said abruptly.
"Are you out of your mind?!" Pitch ripped his arm away. "What could possibly be accomplished by sending me away?"
"Pitch, if you can open a portal to outside the realm, then you can bring us back up."
"Frost, if I leave now then you're one man down and, might I add, a pretty powerful man.
"If we end up in a serious battle then we're going to need all the help we can get. If you go now then you can bring them before it turns to the worst!"
"You're going to need me up there."
"You're right. We will but," Jack took a deep breath and looked at Pitch right in the eyes. "Please, I need you to do this. Trust me."
Pitch sighed. "You realize that if I come back too late, this all would have been for nothing? The stake of the entire world is in our hands now."
Jack nodded and watched as he began to disappear.
"Pitch," he called out, grabbing the Boogeyman's gaze. "Thank you."
It was deeper than a regular thank you. And Pitch understood that perfectly. He nodded and disappeared. Jack looked at the trapdoor, swallowed, and climbed through.
