Morning came quicker than Pitch would have wished. He was running on about half an hour of sleep, and although he was a spirit he still needed to sleep every now and then. Since he was defeated his sleep schedule looked more like the heart monitor of a dying man. He was lucky if he even got half an hour sometimes, but he could sleep when he was ruling the world. Until then he would work until every part of plan was perfect and there was no way he could fail, and even then he might keep working. He was perfecting his 'Jack attack' plan (Which he would never call it that in front of his subordinates.) When a quick knock sounded itself against the door. Pitch looked up from his writing, his shadow reading glasses laying against the edge of his nose.
"Come in." He drawled, moving his hand in an exaggerated 'open the door' movement even though he knew whoever was on the other side of the door couldn't see it. A nervous looking Thomas peeked around the door, before walking in and towards Pitch's desk.
"Y-you asked t-to see me sir?" Thomas stuttered out, Pitch noticed that despite his fear levels being almost all the way down, Thomas was still stuttering like a five year old meeting his parents friends. Lacking the energy to be truly aggravated with him, Pitch just motioned for Thomas to sit down in the shadow chair across from him. Thomas hesitantly sat down, watching Pitch like a cornered animal. Pitch smirked. Thomas truly did think that Pitch was going to attack him, but his fear levels were down and he was tense which meant that Thomas was prepared to strike out if necessary.
"Now now Thomas, no need to be so tense. Your my second in command right now, I wouldn't replace you so easily." Pitch allowed himself to laugh, hoping it would ease the tension in the room. His laugh was like smooth velvet, and though Thomas still kept himself on edge he was ready to listen to Pitch.
"Alright then. As soon as Aztec gets here we will round up the rest of the soldiers and head out. She has been out all night watching the creatures guarding Jack. When they trade shifts, she will kill the new guards and come back immediately. We will have six hours when she arrives to destroy Jack Frost." Thomas looked confused, and Pitch noticed that he had started to develop more facial features. Thomas now had the beginnings of shadowy eyebrows and a small lips that were still barely wisps of darkness.
"Oh yes, Aztec is that little nightmare that I called in here yesterday. She demands to go by Aztec, and for a little pony she is quite demanding." A ghost of a smile crossed Pitch's face but it didn't quite reach his eyes. A neighing at the door interrupted anything Pitch might have wanted to add to his explanation and Aztec nudged the door that Thomas had left cracked, open. Despite her small stature compared to the rest she made up for it in arrogance. She strutted up to Pitch's desk and whinnied loudly, shaking her mane. Pitch stood and walked out of the door beckoning for the two shadow beings to follow.
"Thomas. Go grab the others. Meet me here in five minutes, tell them to prepare for battle." Pitch waited next to Aztec, who only came up to about his waist.
Thomas ran back to the 'barracks' where rest of the Shadows were still sleeping. They had been up all night playing poker, and had tired themselves out making new insults to use against whoever was beating them in poker.
"G-guys, you have t-to wake up!" Thomas shouted, the others shadows jumped up at the shouting.
"Wha's goin' on?" They slurred, still tired from the night before. They looked around unti lthey saw it was Thomas shouting.
"Oh god Thomas, why didja' wake us up you stupid shit?" They groaned before falling back onto the floor, preparing to go back to sleep.
"Yeah Thomas, your so damn stupid. We all just got to bed, we knew you had a stutter but we didn't know you were retarded too." Thomas' upper lip curled in resentment.
"I-I got you a-all up b-because General P-itch says we are a-attacking Jack. Right n-now." When Thomas had managed to spit out the whole sentence the entire troop was back up on their feet and barreling over Thomas to get out to the mine's exit.
Thomas frowned deeply and ran to try and catch up with them. They had only been recently created and Thomas was already the butt of everyone's jokes. He caught up with the group where Pitch was waiting and was already filling them in on the situation.
"We all will use the shadows to make our way to Jack's home." Pitch looked a sight. Although earlier he may have seemed like he was exhausted now he was like the epitome of energy. His pupils seemed to have doubled in size and an insane grin had spread itself onto his face. Whoever this Jack Frost man was about to be blindsided by the most terrifying man to exist. Truly Thomas could say that as shadows have been around since the beginning of time, he had been brought into many different forms and been different each time, depending on who summoned him and for what. Thomas had no memory of his past shadow lives and looking at Pitch now made him glad he didn't. Even in his future shadow forms he was sure he would remember this terrifying, blood thirsty look.
"Everyone grab onto one another." Everyone linked hands and as soon as Pitch laid his hand on one of their shoulders they were surrounded by cold snow and dark.
They only had to trek through the snow for a moment before they came into view of a magnificent waterfall. It was moving slowly due to the amount of ice that was falling off of it. Most of the water had frozen as it was going down to create a sort of shield around the mountain of snow it had cascaded off of.
"Behind the waterfall is where he resides." Pitch growled in a feral tone.
"Thomas you will follow me. You five follow me in and the rest of you guard the outside. No one gets in or out." Pitch grabbed a hold of all six of them and they appeared directly into Jack's ice home. For a cave it definitely wasn't what any of them were expecting. The ceilings and walls were in-cased in ice, making everything look white, even the furniture was sculpted from ice. Pitch took notice that there was just a couch, a shelf with a few decorations on it and a bookshelf, that was surprisingly full. He never took Jack for the reading type, but soon that wouldn't matter. Jack wasn't in the main room which meant all that was left was a small room to the left of the ice wall. The room had no door and pitch made quick to shush the shadow soldiers he had allowed to accompany him. They couldn't risk anything stopping them from eliminating this threat. If Jack Frost wasn't taken out he could cost them the entire war between the light and the dark. They snuck into the room, Pitch leading the group into the darkened room. The moment he stepped into the room he knew something was wrong. The air was eerily still and not even a step could be heard, not until it was too late. Jack jumped out of the shadows and onto Pitch, throwing punches out left and right. Pitch, who was slightly taken aback grabbed Jack's wrists to stop him from struggling.
"Grab him!" He called out to the others, they tried to grab onto his legs to hold him still but he managed to kick them off. Jack, who still managed to keep his staff in his hand, used it to freeze Pitch's hands. Pitch recoiled, giving Jack just enough time to drop to the floor and roll out of the room. He scrambled u pas fast as he could, the nightmare king and his men hot on his trail. For the second time that day Jack was tackled down. He kept struggling against the shadows who were punching and kicking at him, he was bleeding and he was sure that more than one thing was broken but he kept fighting. He managed to knock one of them back into his shelf with an ice blast but after that a taller shadow man who actually had a face, well part of a face, snatched the staff from his now bleeding hand. But it was too late. The shadow man he'd knocked into the shelf knocked down one of North's snow globes. The globe opened up and his assailants who had been temporarily distracted by the sudden light in the ice room had loosened their grip. When Jack gave all mighty jolt forward, all but one of them let go. Pitch was no stranger to battle and wasn't letting go for his life. Which is how they ended up through the portal and into the main hall of North's workshop. Now that the playing field was evened, Jack lunged at Pitch full force. He aimed directly for Pitch's face, hoping that somehow he could manage to incapacitate Pitch.
Pitch was barely even phased by Jack's punches. In the previous wars Pitch had endured much more than petty punches from some ice spirit who had lost his way to channel his power. Through all the yelling and screaming Pitch finally noticed that there were elves scrambling out of the room to call for help. He had been seen and he needed to end this soon.
Pitch picked up Jack by his neck and slammed him against the wall continuously. North, who had heard all the commotion came running to see what was happening, and couldn't believe what he was witnessing. Pitch was attempting to murder Jack.
"Stop!" Exclaimed North as he ran towards Pitch. Pitch glanced up and halted his actions. That same old crazed grin on his face. Blood was splattered all over both Pitch and Jack. Though if North would have to guess he could easily see that it was mostly Jack's blood. That thought did not make this situation any better. Pitch knew he was cornered. North knew he had tried to kill...Pitch looked down at the limp frost spirit on his arm...probably killed Jack and he would tell all the guardians. He wasn't strong enough to take on the guardians yet. He could still make it out of this if he did some quick talking.
"I'll stop alright, for one month. I'm going to keep Jack with me for one month, and at the end of that month you will have to decide whether you will give up in this war or whether you want your precious ice spirit, safe and sound." He used the shadows to take both him and Jack back to his hideout. Leaving North standing in his workshop with a horrified expression.
Pitch arrived at the hideout, only to be surrounded by his shadow soldiers asking if he was alright. Their eyes...Or what would have been most of their eyes if they had formed yet, landed on the unconscious boy that Pitch had held up by his shirt collar. Pitch looked over at the boy with a frown. This certainly did cause a kink in the plans.
AN- Wow I'm sorry, this chapter sucked but please review anyway. Reviews keep me motivated so I can get a new chapter out. Usually as long as I get reviews I can pop out a chapter a day, sometimes more. Oh and gothgal00 the pairing will be blackice...So far that I can see (But when I planned this out Thomas wasn't in this either I kinda just made him up on the spot)
Thanks to gothgal00, pandy334, and my good friend Chezaru for reviewing! (If you all can't tell I suck at writing action scenes and scenes in general)