Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians. I make no profit from this work of fiction.
Special thanks to snowing-in-the-spring-time – reviews are greatly appreciated! I know it's probably odd for someone to tell you that they're glad you hate a character, but given she's the villain, I'm very glad she's loathsome.
My apologies for the lateness of this chapter. I was caught up in notifying a published author of the plagiarism of their work by an individual on this site who has seen fit to leave the stolen content, even after the true author of the pieces asked them to remove it directly. Since I'm actually writing these chapters every day, not just posting them one by one, some of my time normally devoted to writing went into that endeavor.
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The children seemed to be frozen in place behind him. Jack was quite certain that they were too terrified to move. Staring into Annis' sole eye, he considered the actions available to him without risking any harm to the children. Grasping his staff tightly, he raised the glowing shepherd's hook. Calling to the wind, the white-haired guardian created a squall of flurries, aiming the wintry storm directly at her. Evil laughter echoed in the nearly empty street. With her palm facing upward, she waggled her fingers at him. Her talons clacked against one another as she closed her hand about the falling flakes.
"What's she doin'?" The girl who had been slipping on the snow peered into the darkness even as she wrapped her arms about herself in an attempt to stay warm against the sudden blizzard.
"How should I know?" Pulling hard on her elbow, the boy who had helped her to her feet moments before attempted to drag her away from the scene. Stepping back from the witch without taking stock of his surroundings proved to be a mistake. He tumbled into the third of their group causing all three to tumble into a heap on the frosted ground.
Annis' cackle grew in volume, silenced only when she stopped to take a deep breath before opening her hand. Her fingers seemed to uncurl slowly, though Jack was almost certain the retarded speed was a trick of his mind. Her exhalation was deliberate and measured, the breeze blowing across her palm and displacing the flakes echoed on a much larger scale as the ice wielder's blizzard turned on him.
"You forget yourself, Guardian. I have consorted with the wind longer than you've existed!"
The howl of his long-trusted confidant conveyed its discontent with the situation even as it deposited a large volume of the frigid flurries on Jack. Where the breeze normally caressed his face, this bitter gale bit at his skin, its chill causing his pale skin to quickly become even more wan. The clacking of teeth behind him reminded him of the severity of outcome of this battle.
"She sucks their life away." Bronwen's words seemed to come to him from nowhere. Serving to strengthen his resolve, the white-haired spirit quickly formed a high wall of ice separating Annis from the group. Holding his staff towards the wall, he reached another hand behind him, drawing the cold from the ground under the children into himself. Directing the cold through the shepherd's crook, he watched as the edges of the wall he had created began to curve outward and back.
Turning his head slightly to the children, he surveyed the area, making note of the massive amount of snow and ice still on the ground. "Can you get to the street?"
"Yeah, I think so." The voice had come from the bottom of the pile.
"Good. Wait for me there." His tone brooked no argument. The seriousness of their predicament was not lost on the young mortals. Though they could choose to take their chances on escaping without his aid, the possibility that all three of them would successfully escape the evil seeking to consume their souls was slim. The decision to wait on the spirit offering them aid was an easy one to reach.
"Okay."
The girl sitting at the top of the pile scrambled off of her friends, offering a hand to the boy who had been sandwiched in the middle. As he helped his friend to stand, he could not refrain from asking, "Who're you talking to?"
Shaking his head, Jack knew he could not worry about one child's non-belief at that moment. Reaching his left hand out towards the exposed snow and ice, he focused on drawing its frigid energy into him and channeling it through his staff. Slowly, the edges of the wall continued to curve out towards the witch. Her cackling could still be heard even over the howling of the winds she directed at them.
The two who could clearly see the guardian grabbed their friend's hands, dragging him to the street as patches of ice began to thaw, revealing the pavement beneath. "Can't you see him?" The girl was panting as she extended her arm, pointing at the youngest guardian.
"You won't defeat me, Jack!" Punctuating her words with a cackle, the witch continued to force the wind to carry the snow towards the wall of ice in front of her.
Sweat trickled down his brow with the effort he was expending. Slowly the top of the wall began to curve, the sides rising to meet it. He had never attempted to use his gift in this manner. The process of melting the products of winter was counter-intuitive. He was more than willing to pursue this attack, though. Her taunt did not escape him, and the ice-wielder made a valiant effort at keeping the strain he felt from permeating his voice as he responded. "I'll settle for slowing you down."
For the first time since she had begun blowing his tempest back at him, Annis looked about herself. The wall at which she had been projecting the winter wind had grown. She found herself encased in a prison of ice and snow as the three growing walls met each other behind her. Her angry yell was captured by the dome Jack had made. Thickened by the ice and snow she had been hurling towards it, the front where the guardian stood merely cracked with her shouts. Not able to immobilize her and aware that the ice dome would not hold the older spirit for long given her talons, the ice wielder quickly created an ice slide over to the children.
"You okay, mister?"
Waving off their concern as he approached, he slowed only long enough to hook the collar of the boy who could not see him, dragging the unbelieving boy onto the path he was creating.
"C-cold!"
"Cripes sake, Alfie! You can't see him, but you watched that ice form a ball 'round the witch same as we did. Least you can do is not whine about the way he's getting us away from her!"
Jack chuckled at the girl's cheek. "Which way is home?" Though he would never pass up an opportunity for mischief under normal circumstances, the guardian had a duty to be pragmatic. Even when Jamie could not see him, he had saved the boy from harm. He would do no less for these children, regardless of their belief.
"Two blocks up, turn to the left." The guardian nodded to the girl, calling once more to the wind to help speed their journey. Within moments they had made it to the turn, Jack curving the ice slide around the corner at a speed that would have caused most cars to crash. Alfie squeaked slightly in shock. The boy had been studiously watching the dome, so he was the first to see Annis clawing her way free, her sharp talons having finally breached the wall.
"Where?" His tone was sharper than he intended, but the girl did not seem to mind Jack's brusqueness. Leaning over his shoulder, she pointed to a two story brownstone whose front door was wide open. Adults were standing in the street in front with lanterns, no doubt planning a search of the neighborhood for the missing children.
Angling the slide to the ground, the guardian landed the group at their parents' feet. Turning sharply, he placed the butt of his staff against the pavement. The radiant blue glow which normally suffused the shepherd's crook whenever he called on the ice and wind was brighter than it had ever been. Even when he had battled Pitch astride his nightmare, he had not felt so much energy course through his being.
"H-how?" One of the stunned parents managed to stutter out one word as the children landed on the pavement. Another offered a hand up to each child in turn. Alfie was the last to stand, staring steadfastly at the glowing figure not fifty feet from his aunt's front door.
"Who is that?" The other two children turned, following the line of his arm to find him pointing at the guardian.
"The ice king, you wazzock. He's the one what brought us here. See him now, do you?"
"Iris! I've never heard you speak to anyone in such a way!"
"Mum, I've good cause! This plonker could've got us all killed. 'Play in the snow after dark' was it? An' with Annis showing up!"
The collective gasp of the adults rang out through the street serving to momentarily distract the guardian. The subject of their discussion took full advantage of his lapse of concentration, squeezing through the gap in the ice wall he had created to span the width of the street.
"Out of time, Jack dear."
"Inside! Inside now!" The adults were trying to gather the children to them quickly while using their bodies as shields between the young mortals and the witch who sought to consume them. Calling the wind to her side, Annis upset their efforts. Utilizing a strong gale, she swung the brownstone's door closed. One of the children had scrambled up the steps and into the entryway mere seconds before the gust knocked him from his feet. Landing on the hardwood floor of the foyer, the breath left his lungs in a painful huff, forcing him to take time to recover his strength before reaching for the doorknob to open the portal once more.
The delay in making the home accessible to the other two only served to increase Annis' delight. Her mirthless laughter echoed through the neighborhood. A slight breeze blowing past their faces, the frightened mortals shivered as the snow began to swirl around them, keeping them from seeing that the door was once more ajar.
Taking quick stock of the situation, Jack knew that he would need to resort to drastic measures in order to save the children. His face was a mask of fury, the anger coursing through him a reminder of the time that he had thought Sandy had been swallowed up by Pitch's evil. His tactics in that battle had been completely foreign to him. Mischief making had been taken to an entirely new level when he had frozen the nightmare sand.
The ice wielder knew he could not freeze the wind she was using to cause the confusion and facilitate her approach to the group. Recognizing that he had no direct means to attack her other than fisticuffs – which would certainly result in her repulsing him into the air with a blizzard, Jack shook his head in disgust. From the corner of his eye, the wall of ice he had created made him pause. Turning to take it in fully, he gave a firm nod before jabbing his staff once more onto the pavement. A spectacular glow surrounded him as he raised his left hand, forcing the monolithic wall to rotate.
Watching him, Iris had not been as quick as she needed to be in scrambling up the steps. Annis' hand wrapped firmly about her ankle, jerking the girl back down the two steps she had manged to climb. Her hands scraped against the pavement as she tried to catch herself. Her mother's shrill screams filled the air, the audible terror echoed in her own core. Focusing on the hand pulling her closer to her imminent death, Iris clawed at the blue skin surrounding her ankle. She realized her folly in not accounting for the other hand when it backhanded her, forcing her face up to the sky.
Finally able to look into the girl's eyes, the witch smiled. Her lips stretched thin over her sharp teeth, a deep, throaty chuckle escaped her. "You're mine now."
Iris felt herself slipping from her body as the words left the evil spirit's mouth. Her mother's horror-filled wails dimmed. She fancied she could see her soul as the black mist seemed to enter Annis' gaping maw. Her heart beat slowed in her chest. Ears ringing, she tried to reach her hand up in protest, but the limb would not respond to her brain's sluggish commands.
"I don't think so."
As suddenly as the feeling of suffocating death had come over her, it left. Iris watched with widening eyes as a solid wall as high as the brownstones and as wide as their street slammed into the witch. Shocked by the sudden change and completely oblivious to their savior, the adults scrabbled to get Iris into the house. Allowing herself to be hoisted into the air, she called out a hearty thanks to the guardian just before the door slammed shut on the two spirits still in the street.
The children jockeyed for the best position at the single window, staring out into the dark in an attempt to see the outcome. Exhausted from the near-miss, the parents insisted that the group move away from the panes, insisting that it was possible the evil spirit could find her way into the house if they made themselves known to her.
Once they were no longer watching him, Jack allowed his fatigue to briefly overwhelm him, slumping to his knees in the snow. Breathing deeply, the mischievous guardian attempted to regain the energy for which he was best known. Several minutes of silence gave him cause to think that Annis had gone off to lick her wounds. She would certainly not be seeking his company any longer, but he would need to be certain to make the effort to ferret her out each night.
Clapping from the shadowed doorways forced Jack back to his feet. The sound was slow and deliberate, filled with disdain. He recognized it even before its author stepped into the light of the moon.
"Oh, well done, Jack. Hitting her with a wall? Don't you think that was a bit much?"
"Pitch."
The nightmare king affected a mock bow. "At your service."
"What do you want?"
Shadows gathered about their master, shrouding him in darkness even as he stood under the full light of the moon. His teeth glistened as he smiled malevolently. "Why, just you, Jack."
The youngest guardian had expected an attack from nightmare sand, or for one of the darker spirit's ebony horses to appear and force him to use the ice and wind to fend it off. A shadow coiling around his ankle hardly seemed believable. Shaking his leg in an attempt to dislodge the offending tendril, he was sufficiently distracted from the right cross Pitch delivered. It connected squarely, sending him back to his knees. The taller spirit's hand grasped Jack's white locks tightly, forcing his head back.
Cerulean blue eyes widened in fear as the nightmare scythe appeared in Pitch's hand. The sound it made as it arced through the air sent shivers sliding up the younger spirit's spine. Cringing as the blade connected with his hand where he clenched his staff tightly to him, he felt his energy draining. Pitch's voice echoed in his head as his conscious awareness wavered.
"Always wondered what this'd be like."