Chapter VI: Jack Frost

Jack was stuck there helplessly in the Titan's grip, not even able to get his arms free. He knew with each second he was getting closer and closer to the Titan's mouth, yet to him it felt like time just stopped completely. Too many things were going on in his mind at once. "Is this what it's like to die?" "Maybe I'm already dead and my life is flashing before my eyes?" "Is this fear?" So many things had him questioning exactly what was going on.

Memory after memory passed until it finally stopped at one person; Emma, his little sister. One memory stopped among all others.

"Jack, Jack, get uuup." said the voice of Emma from Jack's memory. "We have to go! Rapunzel's sick and we agreed to help Sophie take care of her, remember? Come onn, get up, get up." Jack's head started to hurt. That's when he realized he wasn't dead yet; he hurt too much to be dead.

"Emma?" Despite knowing this was all some sort of dream, Jack still tried to reach out to Emma's voice. "I can't see you."

"No more foolin' around, Jack. Let's go to Sophie's. Rapunzel needs us. She can't do this on her own!"

After hearing that, Jack started to snap back into reality. "Rapunzel needs us!" "She can't do this on her own!" those words continued to echo in Jack's mind. "Rapunzel.." he said quietly.

Jack finally snapped back into reality completely, shouting "Rapunzel!" the moment he did.

When he came to, the sun was shining brightly in his eyes. It nearly blinded him, causing him to squint. "Ugh.." he groaned as he moved his hand up to block the sun out of his eyes. It took him a few seconds to realized his arms were now free, if he could recall, he could hardly move them before. Finally, he understood he wasn't being held captive by a Titan anymore.

"Hey." said a voice.

Jack felt behind him and realized he was resting against a tree, then looked over to the direction where the voice came. "Hans?"

"Looks like you came to." said Hans.

"Wasn't I just?" Jack said, not bothering to finish his sentence.

"About to be eaten by a Titan? Yeah." Hans replied. "It took you a while to come back after you went into the forest. I tried calling out for you, but you didn't respond. So I decided to go in and look for you. By the time I found you, well, you were nearly Titan food."

"Wait, what happened to the-" Jack stopped once he looked to the other side of him and saw the Titan's lifeless body evaporating on the ground. "Titan.."

"I took it down. You were lucky I went in to look for you, really. Any second later and you wouldn't be here right now." Hans replied.

Jack tried to stand up but his entire body was completely sore. "Gah.." he trembled before sitting back down. "I don't remember being this sore before the Titan got me."

"Yeah... Sorry about that." Hans scratched the back of his head a bit, "You see..since I had to take down the Titan, I didn't have any chance to catch you on your way down with the Titan, so you hit the ground a little hard." Hans fixed his posture and the tone in his voice changed to more of a serious one. "Why didn't you call out for help? When I got to you, you were just staring at the Titan with no emotion whats so ever. It's as if you completely accepted death then and there."

"I don't..remember any of it. I completely lost consciousness, I think."

"Well, whatever happened, don't do it again. I may not be part of your group, but I know your friends wouldn't be able to handle me going back without you pretty well."

"Yeah.." Jack sighed a bit.

"Anyway, you've taken enough of a beating for one day. We should head back to the gates and set a signal for Elsa and the rest to come back, if they're not there already." said Hans while walking up to Jack and holding his hand out to offer help getting him up.

"Yeah, you're right." Jack took Hans' hand and pulled himself up. Once he got up he started walking over to his horse. "Ah, Lunabelle, you're still here." he said as he placed his hand on the muzzle of his horse.

"You don't need help getting on your horse, do you?" said Hans jokingly, getting up on his own horse.

"No, I got it, thanks." Jack went to the side of his horse and pulled himself up. Once he got up, he noticed something missing. "Where's my gear?"

"It broke off when you hit the ground after your fall. It's over there if you really think it's worth dragging along, but it's pretty damaged, and we should only worry about getting you to the gate."

Jack looked over at his maneuver gear for a few seconds. "No, I guess we can leave it. I'll get a new one once we get back."

"Right." Hans replied.

"Hey, Hans."

"Hm?"

"Thanks. I'm not ready to die yet, so thanks for saving me. I guess."

"Heh. You owe me one, then. Maybe you can help me get a date with that Anna girl." Hans replied then continued "or, maybe we can be friends. I mean, I don't really have any, uh, I mean.. It's just pretty lonely in Survey Corps, you know? But you always seem to have a good time with your friends, and Anna's always with Elsa. It would be kind of nice to be accepted in someone's group, or something."

Jack laughed a bit. "I never realized how awkward you could be."

Hans looked away and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. You could just say no."

"No, no. I'd be glad to, really. I owe you one, don't I? Besides, I think you'll get along well with everyone."

Hans smiled a bit before he gave a nod.

Jack was completely fine with all of this. Besides, he always liked making new friends.

Hans and Jack started to head their way towards the gates, keeping an eye out for Titans along the way. Almost there, Jack noticed his body temperature was dropping quickly. He could start to see his breath. "It's freezing." he said, his voice trembling a bit.

"What? It's nice out here. You must have hit your head pretty hard." Hans replied, shaking it off.

"Yeah..." said Jack, only loud enough for himself to hear. Jack's head started to get extremely fuzzy, but he kept focus the best he could until they got to the gates.

After half an hour they were finally getting closer to the gates; close enough to see them.

"What the.." said Hans as they got closer.

The closer they got the easier it was to see, and what they saw were the gates completely broken down. Rubble and parts of the walls were everywhere on the ground, dust made it hard to make clear exactly what was going on. When they finally got close enough and past thicker parts of dust, they noticed some Titans going into the Wall, where many other Titans already were.

"What the hell is going on?!" Jack shouted, questioning if he was still dreaming or not. But it was all too real to ignore.

"We have to get in there." said Hans.

All they could hear from outside the gates were screams from the civilians inside the wall. Jack and Hans easily managed to make their way in, and couldn't see any other Military members in sight, but they knew they couldn't stay around. Jack had to get a new maneuver gear.

Hans and Jack managed to make it to the storage where all their weapons were held. From what they could tell, not many Titans have gone inside the wall yet, so the destruction must have happened recently. Jack ran inside and grabbed 3D maneuver gear and a few swords and ran back out to Hans.

"I'm going to go look around for any Military Police. you should stay around here and take down whatever Titans you can, and find your friends." said Hans, running out of sight before Jack could even agree with his plan.

They left the horses where they were, since they weren't going to be much help in this situation. Jack used his maneuver gear to glide him up to the top of the nearest building so he could get a better view on what was going on.

"What the hell happened here?" he questioned before running off to another building.

"Elsa, look at the smoke!" said Anna.

Elsa looked over in the direction Anna was pointing, which happened to be the direction of their village.

"No.." Elsa whispered to herself. "We have to go! Stop gathering everything and head to the wall, now!" Elsa said while getting on her horse and dashing off in the direction of the smoke. Anna and Rapunzel followed behind her shortly after.

Rapunzel's heart began to race. She wasn't sure what was going on but this situation felt all too familiar for her to feel comfortable. On their way back, something shiny caught the side of Rapunzel's eye and she commanded Maximus to a stop. Elsa and Anna were already so far ahead that they didn't notice Rapunzel wasn't right behind them.

Rapunzel knew she had no time to waste but there was a weird feeling in her gut that made her get off her horse and run to where she saw something.

Once she got to it she saw it was just damaged maneuver gear. She mentally kicked herself for stopping for such a dumb reason, until she noticed something else. She knelt down and turned the gear over a little and let out a quiet gasp when she noticed the painted moon on the gear. "No.. Jack.." without thinking of the situation, her eyes started to tear up. She fell to her knees and covered her face, letting out a few tears. "There's no way.." her heart began to ache and she wanted to scream but stopped herself. "No.. Jack wouldn't die here. There's just no way." she said to herself, trying to convince herself that Jack was still alive.

Rapunzel looked around and finally noticed a Titan's body evaporating. There was hardly any of it left, so she knew it was taken down some time ago. "Jack.." Rapunzel got back up and ran to Maximus with little hope. She followed the smoke and tried to catch up with Elsa and Anna the best she could.

By the time Elsa and Anna reached the wall, they noticed Hiccup and Merida just got there too.

"What's going on?!" said Elsa.

"W-we don't know, we just got here!" Hiccup replied

"We saw the smoke, an-" said Merida, getting cut off.

"We're going in and figuring out what's going on. I'm going on ahead. Anna, come with me." Anna agreed and they both ran inside the gates on their horses. Rapunzel finally caught up to everyone.

"Punzie!" Merida shouted. "Come on, they need us in there."

Everyone was finally inside the wall. The three got off their horses and tried running around to figure out what caused all of this. Though, once again, there was something on Hiccup's mind that was bothering him, but he decided to keep it to himself for now. He knew he couldn't bring it up in a situation like this.

"I'm going to go look for Jack!" Rapunzel said, running ahead.

"What are you talking about?! Hopefully he's still outside-" Hiccup's words were cut off by Rapunzel.

"No. He's in here. I know he is." said Rapunzel, convincing them and trying to convince herself as well. In almost no time at all she was already out of the two's sight.

"What do we do?" Merida asked.

"What we're suppose to do. Stop as many Titans as we can." said hiccup.

Merida gave a nod and they both ran in the same direction, heading deeper inside the wall.

Jack was running around taking out Titan after Titan with ease. He was ranked number 1, after all. He must have taken out about five Titans by now but it didn't seem to make a dent. There were still so many of them walking around and destroying everything in their reach.

Jack's body was still getting colder by the second. It was almost unbearable to move at all. "There's no way I can rest right now. There's no way I'm letting anyone's families be destroyed by these monsters."

He kept trying to tell himself that, but his body felt really heavy. He could no longer run. "Shit." he kept swearing from his misery.

His body kept slowing him down until he could no longer walk. He dropped one of his swords without realizing. By the time be could reach down to pick it up, he heard footsteps, fast ones. He's heard this sound before, very recently, too. It was another crawler.

Jack tried to move his body quicker to reach the sword. Once he was an inch away from grabbing it, the crawler comes charging and grabs ahold of Jack in a second.

The crawler was running so fast that the only way to stop was to forcefully crash itself into the nearest building; which it did. The side of the building that was hit was now destroyed, and Jack almost passed out from everything that happened, but he forced himself to keep focus.

The crawler grabbed on to Jack's body with one hand, and one of Jack's arms with the other. The crawler inched Jack closer and closer to its mouth, about to take a bite of Jack head-first.

Jack was still holding on to his second sword which was in the hand of his free arm. He quickly dashed it up and jammed it in between the Titan's teeth and mouth which made the Titan's mouth unable to shut.

The titan still tried to force it's mouth shut, but Jack used all the strength he could to keep that from happening. The titan then started to pull on Jack's body, stretching him a bit. The pain and strength Jack was forcing out of himself almost made him pass out.

Rapunzel was running about when she finally noticed someone about to be eaten by a titan. The closer she got, she realized it was Jack.

"J...Jack!" she shouted and started to run quicker to him. She pulled her swords out and was about to use her 3D maneuver gear to get to the back of the crawler and take it down by cutting a nape into the back of its neck.

Before Rapunzel could do this, she noticed Jack's body being almost ripped apart. She could hardly handle the sight, but kept running anyway. Right as she was about to get behind the Titan, she saw Jack passed out from the pain, and the Titan was able to move the sword away and close its mouth on Jack's body within a second. There was blood everywhere.

"JACK!" Rapunzel screamed as loud as she could before she finally reached the Titan and cut the nape into the back of its neck. There was a blinding bright light that made Rapunzel unable to see for a few seconds, causing her to lose her balance on her maneuver gear and tumble to the ground, landing on her side. Pieces of glass dug into her arm, but that didn't matter to her.

She forced herself up and turned to where she last saw Jack, but the light was still shining bright and she couldn't see a thing. There was a loud noise beyond it but she tried to block everything that was happening out and began running toward the light anyway. Tears covered her sight more than the light did.

When she finally got where the crawler and Jack just were she started wiping the tears away and looked around. all she could see was blood and the crawlers body slowly evaporating.

"N-no.. No, please.." Rapunzel's tears would not stop falling at this point. She fell to her knees and her hands fell to the ground to hold herself up. Her hands were now covered in Jack's blood. "No...No.." Everything was a nightmare to her. Her heart ached so bad and her breathing became heavy. She was crying so hard at this point that she couldn't even manage any words to escape her lips.

She started to fall forward a little more but didn't notice until she hit something. She didn't think anything of it, though, not until it moved. "Jack?!" she shouted hopelessly looking up in hopes to see Jack's face, but with no such luck, she saw something else instead.

There was a Titan standing right before her. Her heart nearly stopped when she noticed but she got up quickly and stepped back. The Titan had white hair, and the eyes looked to glow a light blue. some parts of the body looked like it were covered in armor of ice.

Rapunzel quickly stepped back until she backed up against a building. She was terrified but didn't want to run anymore. She didn't want to leave Jack; she couldn't.

The Titan started to walk away in a different direction; heading deeper into the town. Rapunzel let out a deep sigh of relief, assuming the Titan didn't notice her. Seconds after she remembered everything that just happened. Her legs started to shake and couldn't hold herself up anymore, so she once again fell to the ground. Staring lifelessly at Jack's blood that pooled in front of her.