"Ugh my head!" Jack groaned. When he sat up and opened his eyes, he took note of the cage made out of pure ice that he was trapped in. It was barely large enough for him to adjust himself to either a kneeling, sitting, or fetal position, but not much else. He couldn't help it, but the sheer beauty of the ice he was trapped in took his breath away!
Within each bar of ice in front of him, intricate patterns swirled in and around themselves, some of them having abstract, kaleidoscope-like shapes, while others formed more realistic images...a large majority of the non-abstract imagery being patterns of a particular feline.
"Magnificent, isn't it?" a voice from behind asked. Jack turned his head and finally understood why this spirit took to the name Lynx. His eyes, which were just a little too close together for a former-human-turned-spirit, also tilted upward and away from each other. His nose sat a little too low down his face and his ears had a slightly unnatural pointiness to them that he just couldn't quite figure out if that truly was due to an uncanny act of nature or if he had somehow manipulated those himself. And the thick black and gray fur cloak he wore matched nearly identically to that of a lynx cat...that is if he skinned one that was three times the size of a normal one.
"I apologize for the unorthodox means of gaining your attention," Lynx said. "I must give Mother Nature credit. It was no small feat to find you in the middle of that desert, really quite genius on her part. And what a pity that you were without your staff, too. That gift from MiM was a truly remarkable work of craftsmanship." He shook his head in disappointment, almost mourning the fact Jack did not bring it with him...making the young winter spirit all the more glad he listened to North. Last thing he needed was this psycho gaining access to another weapon.
Lynx continued, "When everyone begins to feel cold they immediately cower away from it into little alcoves and hovels with fire and other sources of heat to melt it away. But nobody ever stays outside to admire the true beauty that the cold can bring. The intricate delicacies of nature that everyone is so quick to throw away. Even other spirits don't seem to get it. At least, they don't get it quite like you and I do. Isn't that right, Jack Frost?"
"How-how do you know my name? And how did you know about my staff?" Jack asked dubiously. Lynx shrugged. "It's truly not that difficult to figure out. You're the biggest winter spirit out there! Who doesn't know your name? At least, until you're forgotten once again. Oh I don't mean that as an insult in the slightest! You and I, we are a lot more alike than Mother Nature would ever let you think."
Jack quickly changed his mind about not having a weapon. He wished now more than ever that he had his staff. "We are nothing alike," he argued. Lynx raised an eyebrow. "Oh, no?" he asked. "As I tell you my story, stop at any time if you hear anything that sounds different from yours. Once upon a time, I was a human. Had a family I cared for, loved and devoted more than anything in the world. Then my demise came and I became a spirit, losing all connections with them forever. Roamed the world on my own for centuries, trying to figure out who or what I was, what my purpose in life was, when I met my first spirit besides myself...Mother Nature. Well, I finally had a purpose again, a new family with Mother Nature and all the other spirits...but then they turned on me because they didn't understand me."
As much as that stung Jack to think back to when he first became close with the Guardians, that tragic Easter morning when they all lost faith in him, the young winter spirit refused to take the bait. "You murdered those spirits you called friends," he pointed out, but Lynx merely shook his head.
"Is that what they told you? No, Jack Frost, I never murdered anybody. Yes, seven of my old companions perished, but it was at the persistence of Pitch Black, Mother Nature, and Sanderson that they suffered. Why do you think it is that, out of ten spirits who were against me, only those three managed to survive?
"Was it because those three were somehow stronger than the other seven? Do they imply that they were superior to my seven comrades who fought honorably in a war? No, Jack Frost, I never murdered my friends. They were slain in a fair, honorable battle while those three cowered behind, simply waiting for their next move while my seven comrades stepped up, ready for a full-frontal attack."
Jack scoffed in disbelief and muttered, "And why should I believe you? You don't know me and I don't know you."
"Perhaps you shouldn't," Lynx admitted. "At least, you shouldn't anymore than you'd believe the other three survivors. How well do you know your comrades, know their stories? Do you know their stories as well as or even better than you know mine? What of their past have they opened up to you about?"
Before Jack responded, a rustling from the other side of...well, wherever he was...alerted both of the winter spirits. Lynx clapped both hands together and cheered, "Oh wonderful! Our other guest has woken up once again."
A sickening feeling formed at the pit of Jack's stomach and he didn't want to turn around to see this other "guest," but something told him he already knew who it was. On the ice-covered ground, he saw a large pile of bright, fiery red hair lying limp and lifeless next to a dagger made completely of ice. Jack covered his mouth in shock as he tried to brace himself, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw next.
In a similarly structured cage as his own, Amberlynn remained huddled in an upright fetal position, trying to warm herself. Her hair had been roughly chopped off her head so that not a single strand of hair extended past her ears, which were no longer pale but rather a bright red color slowly starting to veer toward a purplish hue from the cold. Her lips already wore a blue tint and her pale face looked almost gray. While he noticed she wore winter clothing, she was soaking wet from head to toe, and the clothes only further trapped the cold that was seeping into her bones.
"Don't you see what you are doing to her?!" Jack screamed. "Let her go! You're killing her!" Lynx stopped in his tracks, inches from Amberlynn's cage, and turned to look at the Guardian of fun. "Don't you understand? She is a threat to us, our way of life. How can people appreciate the beauty that cold can bring if there is always someone in our way melting everything in our path? I am merely eliminating an obstacle for us to live as we should be able to live."
"You're 'merely' crazy, is what you are!" Jack spat at Lynx. Lynx's cold, unfeeling smile quickly soured into a sneer. "Very well, Jack Frost," he muttered. "If you are not an ally, then you clearly are also an obstacle that must me eliminated as well. But your time will come soon enough. At the moment you're simply a thorn in my side now. But first, there is one thing I must do."
Lynx reached over the pile of hair to pick up his dagger. Once he successfully retrieved it, he reached into Amberlynn's cage and sliced her winter coat in half. He said to the summer spirit, "I'm sorry darling, but I'm afraid you won't be needing this any longer."
Without further ado, he tossed aside the dagger and with both hands on one piece of the coat, ripped the first half clean of Amberlynn's body. The thin layer of ice that had formed between her coat and next layer of clothing shattered as the coat was ripped off, sending a chill down Jack's spine at the immense pain that must have put Amberlynn through, but she only grimaced rather than screamed. After flinging that piece of the coat to the ground, he walked around to the other side of the cage and did the exact same thing. This time a low, icy, guttural scream erupted out of her throat. Her lips, which Jack did not realize were all but frozen shut together, cracked as she opened her mouth and drops of blood began dripping from the corners but almost immediately froze before they barely reached her chin.
"Huh, so your vocal chords do still work," Lynx muttered, sounding disappointed. Turning his attention to Jack, he explained, "This young woman has quite the mouth on her, did you know that? Beautiful voice, really, but I could not listen to such foul language coming from such a pretty face, whether it was in English or in Welsh. The cursing sounds almost more offensive in Welsh, don't you think Jack Frost? Or did you never bother to learn the mother tongue of your 'friend' over here?" That time Jack actually lowered his head in shame for, no, he never bothered to learn any language other than English.
Sensing this, Lynx continued, "It's truly quite a pity on your part, then. The poor lass has just about lost all ability to speak her second language. Did you know that was possible? Many multilingual folks will have a 'brain fart,' as the mortals say, and they won't be able for the life of them to remember particular words in whatever language they did not grow up knowing. I'm afraid poor Amberlynn Sommers, here, has far reached that point and has only spoken to me for the last couple hours in Welsh...that is, until her foul mouth became a problem for me and I needed to temporarily silence her."
A couple hours?! Jack thought, horrified. How long has Amberlynn been trapped here? He muttered, "You sick, twisted, sociopathic son of a bitch when I get out of here-"
"You know, if my namesake were after a canine species rather than feline, I wouldn't completely argue with you on that point-" Lynx interrupted. "As for you getting out, well I wouldn't recommend that for your comrade's sake. Take a closer look at the setup of her new home and I'm sure you'll see why."
As Jack peered out to look around her cage, he saw that the two were connected by a pulley system of some sort. Below Amberlynn's cage remained a hole large enough for her cage to fall through should Jack try to escape.
"Aren't you interested to learn what lies at the bottom of that hole?" Lynx asked. Without waiting for a reply he answered, "It is what remains at the bottom of your cage, also. Humans think they have figured out this magical number, called absolute zero, that determines when all molecular movement will cease. Well, as the spirit who controls all forms of liquid, I can assure you that number is absolutely not the case.
"This water, which resides beneath you two, I have manipulated to fall 100 degrees centigrade below that of the hypothesized absolute zero. Have you ever felt 'absolute zero,' Jack Frost? No spirit on this earth would be able to survive it. Both of you can escape this prison quite easily, really. But neither one of you would while the other is incapacitated because of the fate that awaits the one who was not so fortunate to escape in time. That is why your friend has allowed herself to remain captive for as long as she has, because you were not easy to wake up."
"You made one fatal flaw in this plan," a deep voice growled. "You successfully pissed me off."