Hey, guys! I'm so sorry about being so late; I've had a lot of graduation parties to go to, then graduation itself, then Senior Week at the beach, and so I haven't had much time at all to write. Thankfully, though, I'm here now, so as usual, let's get right to the reviews!

Thanks so much to WinterCrystal1009 (I...no, it's not based on that XD Kinda just wanted a method of bringing Jack's aquaphobia into this AU lol. And hey, connecting the dots is good! Now he's got more motivation to stay strong through this so he can live to tell the other Guardians what's about to go down! ;), Loftcat27, and Rhapsoddity (Hey, I remember you! Welcome back! :D I saw your other review on RFL and just wanted to say, thank you so much, your enthusiasm really means a lot! :) for reviewing!

Also, as a side note, I did go back and make a couple of edits on two previous chapters. It's nothing major, just a few extra details in Chapter 14 to make things flow better, as well as a brief note in Chapter 13 confirming that Zephyr is okay and being taken care of! Like I said, nothing too crazy, just a few things I felt I should add. Also...

WARNING: THIS IS WHERE THE JACK TORTURE STARTS. IT'S NOT REALLY THAT GRAPHIC YET, AND I'M NOT EVEN SURE THAT IT WILL BECOME TOO BAD, BUT I'D LIKE TO GIVE A BIT OF A HEADS UP ANYWAY, JUST IN CASE

With that being said, on with the chapter!

Chapter 15: Underwater

From the Journal of Arios Fletcher

Because I am unsure of how to properly process my recent thoughts and feelings in their raw form, I have decided to transcribe them here, so as to hopefully make sense of my current mental state.

For several years now, I have lacked a certain sense of...control, so to speak. I often find myself irritable and riled up, to the point where I will snap at my sister and ridicule my father. Admittedly, I am unsure as to how I feel about this...I know that it is not what I would have done in the past, and yet currently, I am unable to feel regret for my words and actions. Oddly enough, I almost seem to relish the unease that I cause my family with my anger. It...strengthens me.

I believe that the most concerning thing about this is that I am unconcerned with this fact.

I have not confided in my father about how I am feeling, though I have overheard him theorizing that my drastic change in demeanor was due to the trauma of witnessing my mother's death firsthand. It is not an entirely unfounded theory, as it is true that that night marked the beginning of my change, but I cannot help but feel as though there is something more at play.

I seem to perpetually feel the presence of a knot of anxiety in the pit of my stomach, and my distrust of those around me seems to have increased tenfold. In addition...I feel the need to share my paranoia with others. Already, Sera and Ferran of the council, as well as many others, have fallen victim to the fear. Shiro, Rayla, and my father have proven stubborn...as have others still. I do not know why I feel the need to convince them to succumb to fear, but instinct tells me that my survival depends on it.

Perhaps I would have ultimately been able to do it if they hadn't come. The human cripple and the boy who claims to be a Guardian, of all things.

The very word makes my skin crawl…

At the very least, I am grateful for the Fear that their arrival invoked in many of the others, even those I had failed to convince before. Yet something tells me that their influence must not be allowed to continue…

...why am I thinking like this? Why am I grateful for fear? Why...why do I so badly want to hurt that Guardian? To...to make him suffer? To make him fear? To break him and all of the others?

…

…

...what's happening to me?

()()()()

If Jack had currently been capable of coherent thought, he would have wondered how the water he was submerged in had gotten so hot without visibly boiling. Perhaps a product of some sort of strange magic, he would have supposed. He would have then attempted to get at least his head out of the water by grasping the chains attached to his wrist and trying to pull himself up.

However, as it so happened, due to his sudden lack of oxygen, scalded skin, and the artificial fear the Fearling sent coursing through him, he was most certainly not currently capable of coherent thought.

Thus, he panicked.

The boy thrashed about beneath the water's surface, fruitlessly fighting to free himself. His eyes were squeezed shut tightly, but his mouth was open in a barely audible scream of pain, which only allowed more of the searing liquid to enter his lungs. The chains attached to his shackles had gone slack, allowing him to at least lower his arms (though the shackles around each wrist were fused together so that he could not separate his hands), but the weight of the metal prevented him from kicking his way up to the surface.

It only took a few seconds for Jack to feel sure that he was going to die.

On the contrary, however, it seemed as though the Fearling planned on keeping his promise to keep Jack alive. After no less than fifteen seconds that felt more like fifteen eternities under the water, Jack's chains went taut and he was unceremoniously yanked back up to his previous position hanging above the pool.

Almost instantly, the young sprite fought to clear his lungs of the scalding hot water, coughing violently and roughly rattling about on the chains. As he desperately choked and spluttered, the Fearling cackled with pure, twisted glee.

"Wonderful, wonderful!" he exclaimed happily, grinning widely. "Only the first little underwater trip and your fear is already building quite nicely!" The monster's happy grin melted into a smug smirk. "You're going to be an even better power source than I expected. Who knows? Perhaps we'll even be able to develop a few extra phobias in you while we're at it! Wouldn't that be fun? You would know...you said you're the Guardian of Fun, correct?"

Instead of answering the question, Jack glared mutely in the Fearling's direction once he had regained some of his composure. The only response to the creature's words he offered was a hushed, somewhat raspy, "D-Damn...m-monster...g-go to h-hell..." His heat-assaulted throat burned as he spoke, but he tried to ignore the pain as much as he possibly could for now.

He had no doubt that there would be plenty more like it in the near future.

The Fearling merely snorted slightly in amusement. "How rude," he said, rolling his topaz-yellow eyes. He reached for the lever once again. "It seems to me that you need to be taught some manners, Guardian."

This time, Jack was at least somewhat prepared for what was about to happen to him. He took as deep a breath as he possibly could as he plummeted back into the water, but the shock from the heat drew a rather unsuccessful gasp from his throat, leaving him once more without air as his body tried fruitlessly to expel the water from his lungs.

At this point, the boy had to force himself to acknowledge that any attempt to bring himself back up to the surface would doubtlessly fail. All he could really do was curl up on himself, shut his eyes tightly, and pray to all things holy that the Fearling wouldn't change his mind about keeping him alive.

A-Although… Jack thought miserably. If more of this is all that I have to look forward to...perhaps death would be kinder…

Mere moments after the thought had crossed his mind, Jack banished it immediately. He would not let himself cave to the dark creature's cruel tactics, especially not this early on. It was only a matter of time before his absence from New Iskald was noticed, and someone came looking for him. He would only need to bear the pain for a short amount of time.

Or so he told himself. Truthfully, he harbored an awful suspicion that the Fearling had already taken steps to prevent help from coming. He wasn't sure what methods might have been used, but he knew that whatever they were, they were most certainly designed to make life much worse for Jack, and maybe even for Simon as well.

Still, he had to retain the hope that he would escape from the Fearling's clutches soon. After all, he seemingly had no way of actually taking action to get himself out of...wherever the Fearling had taken him. Not for the first time in his life, Jack found himself completely helpless.

Thus, for the time being, with his wrists locked together and his magic smothered, hope was all he could hold onto.

After what felt like an even longer stretch of time than the first, Jack was once again roughly pulled back out of the pool. He took full advantage of his time in the air, ensuring that he coughed up as much water as he possibly could before the Fearling decided to pull the lever again.

"Ah, your helplessness is just adorable, if I'm being quite honest," the Fearling taunted him with a smirk. "A Guardian of Childhood reduced to nothing but a waterlogged child gasping for air. And by what? A blow to the head and some magic-sealing shackles? Ha! Pathetic...absolutely pathetic."

It was becoming increasingly more difficult for Jack to ignore the creature's scorning, but he forced himself to hold his tongue. He refused to give the Fearling any more to work with than he already could take. Besides, he would need to conserve his strength if he was going to endure his current situation for long.

Soon, the Fearling seemed to once again grow bored of merely insulting the young Guardian, and so the accursed lever was pulled once more, dropping Jack into the pool for the third time.

The cycle continued for what could have only been a few minutes, but felt like several hours of being suffocated and scalded in the burning hot pool, then gasping for air in anticipation of being dropped once more. Ultimately, by Jack's count, he hit the water a total of seventeen times.

By the end of it all, the boy was, quite frankly, exhausted. His lungs burned from the liquid constantly filling them, his arms and back ached from the force of repeatedly being pulled back up to his hanging position, and all of his skin was raw and stinging from the heat of the water. His clothes were waterlogged, adding to the weight that his weary arms were forced to continue to support-as such, he had managed to kick off his boots some time ago, but he had no way of doing the same for his soaked tunic.

Through the entire process, the Fearling never stopped laughing and taunting him, energized by the Fear that Jack fought fruitlessly to repress. How the hell am I going to get out of here…? he thought numbly, trying to ignore the anxious lump in his throat. With my hands tied and my magic gone...what am I supposed to do? Damn it...even as an immortal Guardian, I'm so goddamn useless…

Not for the first time, he cursed himself for so foolishly falling into the Fearling's trap.

"I notice that you've been awfully quiet over there, Guardian," the Fearling commented with a smirk in Jack's direction. "No bluster? No telling me I'll never get away with this? Not even any begging for mercy? Nothing at all?"

Jack said nothing, merely spitting out the last of the water left in his mouth. Even if he had wanted to answer, he wasn't sure that his burned throat would even permit speech. Thus, he kept his mouth firmly shut.

The Fearling rolled his eyes. "For the self-proclaimed 'Guardian of Fun,' you certainly don't know how to have any," he scoffed. "Or at the very least, you seem determined to deprive others of it."

Once again, Jack did not respond.

The young sprite's silence only made the dark creature chuckle. "Ah, well...even if you're no fun, at least your Fear is easy to draw out," he said nonchalantly. "Oh, it's so clear how much you've suffered over the years...I bet your broken spirit would provide me with plenty of energy even without any coaxing!" The Fearling laughed. "Of course...I need all the strength I can get if I'm going to help the Nightmare King return and bring this tsardom to its knees, so...well, you know how it is."

If the Fearling's intention had been to discourage Jack, then it had not been a successful attempt. If anything, his final comment only served to strengthen the boy's resolve.

I cannot allow myself to fall here… he told himself silently. As it stands, I am the only one who knows of this Fearling's intentions...I don't know how, but I must endure long enough to escape in whatever way I can. This monster has made the mistake of talking far too much...I need to relay his plans to the other Guardians at any cost.

"However," the Fearling drawled, shaking Jack from his thoughts. "I must admit, I'm growing bored of simply doing the same thing over and over and over again...what do you say we change things up a bit, hm?" The creature smirked and put a hand on the lever. "You just relax down there until I need you again, alright?"

Jack's eyes widened, and he only barely managed to suck in a deep breath before he was once again sent plummeting into the pool beneath him. The sting of the heated water on his already-raw skin seemed almost familiar at this point, but said familiarity didn't stop him from wincing sharply in pain, practically curling in on himself underwater.

All I can do now… he thought numbly, eyes squeezed shut tight. ...is wait for him to pull me back up...

Unfortunately, Jack's air supply did not last long enough for him to experience that moment. When the Fearling finally did yank his limp form back up to the surface, the boy had already fallen unconscious.

Yikes...our Jackie boy's having a rough time, and it's only going to get worse from here...either way, hope you enjoyed! Don't forget to leave a review and tell me what you think, and I'll see you guys next time!

'Til then, Sapphire316, out.