Hello! Sorry for being dead for a week, I was in Poland! Specifically the Carpathian mountains, tracking large carnivores, wolves, lynx, bears, that kind of thing. It was exhausting, because we were trekking up to 14km a day in snow and mud and it turned out my work boots were not appropriate for scaling snowy mountains, so I was slipping and sliding down the mountains on my bum for the first couple of days. After that most of the snow had melted, so it was a little easier.

And I was in the 'easy' unfit group. The other group were scaling near vertical surfaces, I'm not too bothered by it, except they actually saw a bear track!

And before someone corrects me, saying that bears hibernate during the winter, it's not true hibernation. Bears wake up periodically in the winter, wander a bit for some food and got back to bed. So it's perfectly reasonable for a bear to roaming around in December.

Anyway, reviews.

Not So Eloquent: Why are you reading this in the middle of history? Speaking as someone who admittedly isn't in compulsory education anymore and loves history, you should be paying attention! Although I do find the idea of quietly fangirling in the middle of a lesson quite funny XD

Pitch has it all planned out this time. He's learnt that he needs to deal with HOG and the Guardians in order to truly beat the Guardians. So by taking all of HOG and the Guardians and trying to deal with them at the same time makes things more efficient. Such a shame he missed one who's going to single handedly screw it all up.

Well, the chapters going up on DA are from the next arc, so you can either have a mass reading session on there to catch up with this arc, or wait until Howling Shadows is finished here and read all of the next arc. I imagine they'd finish at roughly the same time. Or you can completely ignore the chapters and have a look at the extra stuff. Most of it will go up on both sites, but the art can only stay on DA.

I'm really glad you think that. I did work hard on this, but as they say, you are your harshest critic.

Okay, long intro is long, let's get on with the story!

The first thing I noticed was the lack of floor.

I started to fall, screaming, but then I lurched to a stop as there was a sudden blast of wind from beneath me which pushed me up.

I hung there with my arms outstretched. I opened my eyes and saw that I was still holding Jack's staff. I imagined that was why I was hanging in the air.

"Well, aren't you full of surprises." I said, turning my head to look at the staff.

I looked around for the, well, Palace was the only way to describe it. I quickly found it through a gap in the towering rock face and tried angling myself towards it.

The staff seemed to understand what I was after and started slowly floating towards it, which was followed by a blast of wind which sent me flying forward in a sudden burst, then suddenly stopping. I was now hovering above a pink platform, and then I wasn't hovering.

I fell out of the sky with a yell and landed flat on my stomach on the platform, the air shoved out of my lungs. I lay there for a few minutes, gasping like a landed fish, then I managed to lever myself into a sitting position, sucking in air through my teeth as my wrist complained.

I slowly stood up and eyed the staff warily; it seemed as though flying was something I'd have to learn, and I didn't have time right now.

So instead of relying on unsteady flying I formed an ice bridge and skated off the platform and to the main Palace. It was huge, but the main area seemed to be huge platform, surrounded by seven enormous pillars. There were other platforms scattered around the place, surrounded by walls with a gold, ornate lattice pattern.

As I got closer I could see the signs of struggle here. Black sand and shimmering feathers were scattered everywhere, along with what looked like claw mark scrapes and few more ominous paw prints.

The Palace looked in poor shape; the pink colour was faded and the gold decoration was tarnished and cracked. In its prime it must be beautiful, but now it seemed more like a shadow of what it was meant to be.

There were various green shapes on the platforms, but as I got closer I realised they were Toothiana's Mini Fairies. All grounded and weak. There was movement from them, so I guessed they were still alive, but they weren't in great shape.

I suddenly started as I heard voices and I looked around to find the source. After a few seconds I realised that they were coming below me, so I landed carefully on a platform and looked down.

On the ground below were the five Guardians and five Heads of HOG, all ten bound up with black sand against the wall complete with gags, no doubt due to Jason's call to me. The Heads were on the left wall and the Guardians on the right, with a body of water between them.

My gaze however, focused on one figure that strode confidently between them.

I felt a shot of fear bolt through my stomach and turned to hide behind a pillar to get my breathing under control. Pitch, Pitch Black was actually here, and I would have to get past him to free the others. I'd had enough trouble with his Descendants, how was I going to be able to handle the Bogeyman himself, alone?

I swallowed my fear and looked back down at Pitch and his captives, trying to work out the best strategy for handling this. That's when I noticed something odd.

All of them were looking at Pitch who was walking in front of them with barely disguised fear, which is what confused me. Why would they, the Guardians, be so afraid of Pitch? The Heads I could understand, but not the Guardians.

Even stranger, Pitch was talking to the air.

"Well, I see that everything's in order here. I'll leave you to it you, Lupine and I'll get back to see how my Descendants are handling those pigs."

I frowned, Pitch's voice didn't sound like I remembered it. Now it sounded more, suave, I guess.

With that Pitch disappeared into a shadow. I let out a sigh of relief and once I'd recovered myself I jumped down from the platform, catching myself on an ice pillar. It lowered me to the ground and I walked towards the Heads and Guardians.

"Hey, long time no see!" I called, trying to dispel my own fear with a show of confidence.

I saw Toothiana's eyes widen in shock, but she seemed to be looking behind me, rather than at me. Looking at the others I also saw the same worry in their eyes.

"What?" I asked, looking behind me.

"There's nothing-Oh!" I realised. The paw print and the moon's message clicked together.

"I get it. The Big Bag Wolf is behind me, isn't it?"

One look at their faces told me that, yes, the Big Bad Wolf was behind me. I turned around to see, nothing.

Chances were that if I freed the Guardians then it would attack, whilst it couldn't affect me, it could affect them. They were weakened by the lack of belief, and might not be able to hold their own.

So in order to defend them, I'd need to believe in the Big Bad Wolf.

I folded my arms, knocking myself in the helmet with Jack's staff as I did so. I let out a sigh and adjusted my position slightly, then closed my eyes and tried to think. I managed to believe in the Guardians by remembering what the meant to me and what they represented.

So what did the Big Bad Wolf represent?

My first thought was Little Red Riding Hood, then Three Little Pigs. I couldn't help but smirk at that last one.

"Oh, the irony of what springs to mind when I think Big Bad Wolf." I said, chuckling to myself, the lack of sleep was starting to get to me.

"Okaaay." I said, opening my eyes and beginning to pace. I wasn't going to be able to get the others out until I could see the wolf, or Lupine as I realised Pitch had called him. Going back to my previous line of thought, the only thing I could really think up was being afraid of the forest.

I sighed and lifted my visor so I could rub my eyes beneath my glasses as I tried and failed to hold back a yawn. I was really tired.

"This isn't working." I said, shaking my head in defeat. I started to send ice up the walls to free the Heads and Guardians, when I heard a crash behind me.

I spun and got into a defensive stance, both arms close and facing forward with blades out, with Jack's staff held awkwardly in my back hand. A portion of my ice bridge had been shattered, and there were no signs of how it happened.

"...What the...?"

I took a cautious step forward, my eyes scanning the area. As I turned to properly scan the area it occurred to me exactly what that was.

The Big Bad Wolf proving his existence.

Once that thought had entered my brain I felt hot breath on the back of my helmet.

I froze and turned around, to be greeted by a huge black wolf with glowing red eyes. Its shoulder easily stood at my head height, so its head was lowered to glare at me.

"...I stand corrected." I said, backing up slowly.

"Who are you?" Snarled Lupine, "Speak human! Before I tear you to shreds!"

I reached the body of water as I backed away, which began to freeze the instant I touched it.

"Well, um." I stumbled around for a witty answer, while holding back another yawn. The longer I stood on the water the further the ice went, if I stood here too long then the whole body of water would freeze solid.

Lupine had already gotten tired of waiting for me to answer and lunged at me.

I rose up on an ice pillar into the sky, out of his way as he lunged past it.

He snarled up at me as I dropped my bag and put down the staff carefully on top the pillar, hopefully out of the way.

With that I stepped towards the edge, pushed up my visor and said.

"I'm Jacqueline Davies, The Human Order of Guardian's most powerful Descendant of Jack Frost!" I did my best to sound confidant, and not like I needed a good night's sleep.

The wolf snarled to himself as he walked around to the front of the pillar.

"Curse that fool Pitch! He told me he had caught every member of the damn Order!"

"Strange, there aren't many Descendants of Jack Frost; I didn't think he'd miscount. The more you know I suppose."

"Of course it would be one of you lot." I could have sworn I heard him say, but before I could say anything he looked back up at me, snarling.

"Enough talk! Your rescue attempt has failed human! Come and face me and I'll give the mercy of swift death!"

"Did you miss the part about being the most powerful? And how do you know that you weren't part of my plan?"

"How could you possibly know about me and my involvement, I haven't been seen in centuries!"

"That's for me to know and for you to never find out."

Lupine snarled "Enough of your words, fight me!"

"As you wish, don't say I didn't warn you."

From where I stood I allowed pillars of ice to rise beneath Lupine without moving myself.
He yelped as he was taken off his feet.

Spikes of ice appeared in the air and rained down on him, causing him to yelp again and dance away. He glared up at me and yelled.

"Coward! Come down here and fight me yourself."

"I am fighting you myself; it's a technique I developed."

"Come down here and face me! I'll beat into you the meaning of the word battle!"

"Oooh, fighting words from the large dog."

Lupine only snarled in rage, the volume so loud that the stone pillars around me began to shake.

I jumped free of the ice pillar as it also shook, allowing an ice bridge and skates to form. I skated down a bit to face the giant wolf below me.

"You want a proper fight then?" I asked, moving into a defensive position, pulling my visor back down and checking my ice blades.

"Let's do it."

Only Jackie would be this cocky when sleep deprived and facing down an immortal who could rip her to shreds.

Something I want to note about Lupine, I'm not fond of his design, but there's a couple of reasons for that.

One, less is more. I don't think a character design has to be complex to be threatening, sometimes being fairly normal is unsettling enough, the uncanny valley if you will.

Two. As you can probably tell from the into to the this chapter, I love wolves, they're my favourite animals and it drives me nuts when people write about them in a bad light. Especially in something like 'The Grey'. Oh goodness, that film drives me up the wall with how it portrays wolves, it's completely inaccurate! And as much as I love Doctor Who, the episode where the whole planet becomes a forest and the zoo animals escaped also bothered me. The zoo animals wouldn't do that!

Okay, breathe, I'm going on a tangent. Sorry, incorrect animal behaviour in fiction is one of my pet peeves, especially involving canids.

Anyway, the reason why my first OC immortal is the Big Bad Wolf is simple, I couldn't think of any other children's bad guy.

Anyhoo, I've ranted long enough. Shapeshifter out.