The next day, the Guardians assembled to the globe room. All felt the same. Sad, and guilty. Still, they needed to fight Jack. And like Manny had warned, he was going to use their positions as a family against them.
So, they did the only thing they could. They put their walls up. They covered themselves in their hardest shells. They would NOT let this… creature get to them. It hurt them so, so much to call their Jack this. It would hurt even more to fight him.
But… he was a danger now. He wasn't even Jack. He was a stranger.
"My friends." North greeted solemnly. The others nodded their heads in greeting.
"Are we ready?" North asked.
All of them hesitated.
Finally, Sandy nodded his head.
"As I'll ever be." Bunny said.
"L-let's do this." Tooth said.
"Everyone, to the sleigh." North said in his usual jolly tone, although all the Guardians could see it was obviously forced.
"Do you have the staff?" Bunny asked.
North pulled it out. "Yes."
"Then let's get going." Bunny said.
They all went to the sleigh (Bunny hesitantly), and it took off.
The journey to the woods in Burgess was quiet. But that was ok. Nobody had anything to say anyway. When they finally got to the woods, they prepared their weapons and got out of the sleigh waiting for Jack.
They didn't have to wait long because only thirty seconds after they got out, and distanced themselves from the sleigh, dark clouds filled the sky and Jack and Pitch emerged on their own dark sand clouds.
The Guardians looked at Jack. He was almost unrecognizable. The corruption from the fearlings had already altered his looks, but now, instead of his hoodie and trousers, he was wearing dark armor, black pants, and a simple black velvet cloak.
"Ah look son." Pitch said smiling maniacally. "Looks like our friends decided to come back."
Jack smiled evilly. "How nice dad. What should we do with them?"
"Jack," Tooth said quietly "What's happened to you?"
Jack laughed. "Jack? Oh please, don't call me that. My name's Ice Shadowfrost. But since I'm so polite, and since that's a mouthful, just call me Ice."
Pitch's cleared his throat. "Uh, son, how about we show them our newest creations?"
Ice nodded his head and whistled. In a second, the Guardians were surrounded by blue and black nightmares.
"Guardians!" Ice called gleefully. "Meet the new, and improved, nightmares!"
The Guardians tightened their grips on their weapons.
"These beauty's" Ice continued "are tougher, faster, and slippery…er." He grinned. "Nightmares" the nightmares turned to look at him.
"Attack."
Then it all broke loose. The nightmares charged at the Guardians. The stood their ground and fought the nightmares. Jack was right. These nightmares were tougher. Still destructible, but the guardians needed to put more force in their weapons to annihilate them.
Pitch and Ice, -now on the ground- stood behind the whole thing. Pitch summoned more nightmares, Ice dropped the temperature and added the ice to the nightmares to strengthen them.
The Guardians fought the nightmares, but no matter how many they destroyed, more came.
"We need to separate Ice and Pitch!" Tooth yelled.
"Tell us something we don't know." Bunny said back hitting a few nightmares with his boomerangs.
"You're right! Bunny, and Sandy, you separate them, Tooth and I will fight the nightmares-AH" he yelped when a nightmare almost bit him. He quickly slashed it.
"Go!" he yelled.
Sandy grabbed the staff and he and Bunny and dodged the nightmares and went over to the nightmare family. Bunny handled Pitch while Sandy battled Ja-Ice.
Slowly, they were able to separate them. However, getting the staff to touch Ice's head was nearly impossible. He just didn't stay still enough for the staff to touch him.
Until of course, Bunny kicked Pitch right in the stomach causing the Boogeyman to yell out. Ice froze (no pun intended. Seriously that one is terrible) for a minute to look at his father. It was only for a few seconds, but that was enough for Sandy to throw Ice off guard and touch his head with the stone on the staff.
Ice immediately gasped and slowly sunk to his knees and soon fell to the floor.
Without Ice, Pitch didn't have the strength to make strong nightmares, and the Guardians soon had every nightmare defeated.
Pitch's face took a look of fear before he smiled evilly. "You know even if you defeat me, you'll still have to deal with my son." He smirked when North (almost unnoticeabley) flinched at the last word.
"We have a plan how to… deal with him" North said.
"You're not scared." Pitch stated. "you're sad. You don't want to lose your precious winter spirit. Well guess what, you already had. You lost him the minute you let your guards down and I was able to get to him. He's mine now. My son. Don't worry though, I'll still care for him. I'll still love him even though he's changed. Which is a lot more than what you're doing."
Even though the Guardians didn't show it, that stung. A lot. They already felt horrible about needing to pin Jack in Antarctica. Why did Pitch have to rub it in, and make them feel worse?
Finally, Tooth spoke up. "He is not our Jack. He probably doesn't even remember us. He is a Prince of Nightmares who is as bad as you if not worse. He needs to be stopped." It had been a long time since Tooth had used that tone. It was the tone of a queen.
She flew up. "I believe you should be a little more scared for yourself Pitch." She continued. "I know you're scared. The nightmares are around here. Nobody here is scared. The look on your face tells everything." She was right. Pitch's face took a look of fear after the third sentence, and rouge Nightmares were around him and the Guardians.
Pitch gasped and tried running away but the Nightmares were too fast and they grabbed him. "NO!" he yelled, "NOT AGAIN!" he tried clawing the ground but it was no use. Within seconds Pitch was dragged back to his lair with the entrance being re-hidden.
Before the Guardians could even relish that small victory, they heard a gasp.
Ice, who was still being held down by Bunny, despite his weakness had managed to keep his eyes open and saw the whole thing.
"NO!" he yelled. With the last of his strength, he pushed Bunny and the stone off. As soon as the staff left his head, he felt his strength slowly come back. He crawled over to the hole where the rouge nightmares had taken his father.
"DAD!"
He was gone. Well. For the next few centuries or so.
He turned to the Guardians with a hateful glare. His hand started to glow but before he could send an ice blast, he was grabbed again by Bunny.
As he struggled to get out of the grip, he saw the others approaching him with the staff.
Moving completely on instinct, he kicked a rock on Bunny's foot then stepped on it causing the rabbit to cry out in pain and loosen his grip just enough for Ice to escape and start flying.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Bunny hopping on one foot and the Guardians approaching him with concern. Bunny just nodded his head and (a little) shakily put his foot back down.
"Everyone! To the sleigh!" he vaguely heard North say.
Very quickly, he took off his armor and cape to revel a normal black Jacket underneath. (How he was able to put that and a shirt on from under all that armer without overheating, we will never know)
He thought about his options. He could go and fight back. But even though he was powerful, the Guardians were also pretty powerful due to thousands of believers and could still defeat him if they tried hard enough.
Ever since he has completely become the nightmare prince, he has not had one believer. It turned out, the kids believed in Jack Frost. Not Ice Shadowfrost. Therefore, the guardians had a power advantage.
Plus, they had the stone which gave them another advantage. They could most likely beat him and place that stupid stone on his head winning the battle.
He could run for it, but the blasted sleigh was pretty fast so they might catch up to him. Even if he did manage to get away the stupid rabbit was practically a bloodhound. They'd find him. Even if Aster did come alone, Ice was still a weak from lack of belief, the staffs effects, and the Nightmare making earlier tired him out.
Pretty much any way he went there would be a lose-lose. Well he thought I'm doomed.
Alright Ice think. Weaknesses. Everyone has them. Ice thought to himself. Well there's the rabbit and the mention of his race… but there are three other unaffected guardians so that's not going to work.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the sleigh going after him. Moving quickly, he hid behind a rather large cloud.
Most weaknesses were from fear, right? So… what were the Guardians afraid of? It now occurred to him that he didn't know.
This was hopeless. Unlike Pitch, he could not tell what people were scared of. He knew when people were scared but he didn't know what frightened them.
His mind wandered back to Pitch's last words before he was grabbed by the nightmares.
"You're not scared." Pitch had said. "you're sad. You don't want to lose your precious winter spirit."
His mind concentrated on those words. He understood the words just fine. He knew they could help him he just didn't know how. Finally, he got an idea. It was very risky and he could be brought down easily if it failed.
But on the other hand, it might just get him away and give him the fear he needs making him more powerful and defeating the Guardians.
Still hiding behind the clouds he made his voice loud and booming and started to talk.
"Looking for me?" he asked mockingly. His voice bounced around so the Guardians could not tell where the voce was coming from.
"Ice!" Bunny shouted, "Show yourself!"
"Oh, please." Ice said, "Then we wouldn't have any fun"
Ice saw as Bunny pulled out his boomerangs, Sandy pulled out his whips, and Tooth raised her wings.
"Alright, alright" he said, chuckling a little, "Before you 'Guardians' take me down, let me tell you a story.
Ice took a silent deep breath. If this worked, he could keep the guardians down long enough for him to spread fear around the world and become even more powerful.
Or, it could have him be defeated and held in some place for the next dozen centuries or so.
OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT TOOK SO LONG! I'M SO SORRY. My free time has went bye-bye on me and I suddenly can't spend 30 minutes on my laptop. One the bright side, the battle scene (also the second to last scene) is finished! Please tell me what you think. Who wants a sequel? Until next time flowers!
Reviews for reviews
KitoH: I did didn't I? I'm so glad you like my Bunny scene! I had a lot of fun writing it!
Guest: I may save our precious Jackie or I may not. Thou will have to find out! I may consider doing a sequel or trilogy. Another thing. (clutches ribbon to chest) Hey you can't take back awards! Lastly, I'm pretty sure Sandy did have quite a laugh. Probably a good thing he's a mute XD
NoXVZhuusox: I'm happy you're interested :D Yeah, I'm not overly proud of Jack's new name but I really wanted it to be as original as possible. Like Pitch's old name into his new name. That was pretty clever. If you like, every time you see the name Ice, you can just imagine it being a different name. ;)
Kittentje: (blushes at the compliments) Thanks a lot! My favorite relationship is also Jack and Bunny's brotherly one ;) You'll just have to see if Jack will turn back or not :D I'm so happy you like this so much!
