We all went into the Tunnel our own way. Billy bounded through it, Tina and Stephen flew, Penelope, Sally and her fellow Descendants flew along on streams of sand while myself, Nigel, Chris and Mary skated along. Nigel had got himself a pair of normal skates, and was therefore the slowest as I couldn't make them go faster.
We reached the exit into Burgess and came out of it, some us stumbling slightly from the sudden slowing down. I looked around the rocks to find that there were still reporters there. Everyone else looked at me quizzically as I looked around nervously, but I motioned for us keep our heads down and move on.
We walked through the woods and our armour did its job in not letting us get too hot in the sticky evening, a trait I was suddenly very grateful for.
We walked for almost an hour from the Tunnel entrance to Pitch's lair. My fellow Descendants of Jack Frost and the Descendants of Sandman approached the hole, I got a sudden feeling of dread looking down the hole, and from the uncomfortable shifting around me I wasn't the only one who felt it.
"Everyone ready?" asked Mary.
"As I'll ever be" I said, while the others gave their positive response.
Mary and Chris looked to me and I formed an ice bridge down the hole. The three of us went down that way as the others flew down. The hole was almost vertical for most of it, but it levelled out at the bottom, becoming horizontal, opening out into a wide cave mouth. We stopped at the exit and looked into the cave.
There were a few Descendants of Pitch milling around, but no more than thirty. The cave rock had been formed into steps and staircases, making it look more homely than the other bases I'd seen, despite the odd angles they were at. Up in the air were hundreds of empty metal cages, what they were there for I didn't want to know.
Mary, who'd seemed to put herself in charge, held up her fingers and counted down.
As she hit zero we shot out of the hole and into the cavern. The Descendants of Pitch dropped what they were doing and we engaged them in combat.
I had probably the best strategy for not feeling sickened by our own attack. I flew around the cave, either sending shards of ice or coming in quickly to nick them between their hastily summoned sand armour, only to disappear once they realised I was there.
I didn't get a lot of attacks thrown my way, and the ones that did I could dodge easily. It seemed to be going smoothly.
That is, of course, when everything went wrong.
Out of the shadows stepped a couple of hundred Descendants of Pitch, all better protected and equipped then the ones were already fighting. Following them were black horse shapes made of sand, around ten of them, each with glowing yellow/amber eyes.
"NIGHTMARES!" I yelled, alerting the others.
Suddenly we were not only hopelessly outnumbered, but out gunned as well. Over the sudden din I could hear Mary giving the order to retreat, but that was quickly quashed as our back up was forced down our escape route, followed by yet more Descendants of Pitch.
Stephen, Tina, Sally and I suddenly had a lot harder time in the air, with more and more attacks getting aimed at us. I stopped trying to get in close and just send shards of ice like guided missiles towards the Descendants of Pitch and the Nightmares.
My armour absorbed most of the attacks that were sent my way, but I could feel it metaphorically cracking under the pressure. As Marcus said, it wasn't designed to take a lot of punishment.
A Nightmare took to the air and flew towards me, its hooves pounding as it was running on the solid ground.
I sent shards of ice at it, which seemed to shrug off as it charged. I send my bridge right to dodge it and rolled my hands over each other. A pillar of ice formed in my hands as I continued to dodge, until it was large enough for me to swing up. I brought it down on the Nightmare's back, the sand collapsing beneath the weight of the ice.
As I hung there for a second to recover, a powerful blast came out of nowhere, hitting me in the stomach and sending me off my ice bridge. I tried to make a new bridge, but was blasted away from it just as it formed.
I fell all the way to the ground and landed with a yelp. My legs had collapsed beneath me and I had fallen on my side, knocking my helmet slightly loose.
I was swarmed by Descendants of Pitch and despite the pain of the fall I did my best to fight them off. However, for every couple I fought off, another four took their place.
I slashed at the ones in front of me and sent up ice spikes to battle those behind me with a stamp of my foot.
They had surrounded me and finally got through my defences, grabbing my arms and lifting
me off the ground.
I struggled against their grip, sending cold shocks towards them, but it didn't seem to do much and I was tired from trying to keep them away. I was carried to a clear spot of the cavern, where Nigel and Tina were already being held.
I got thrown into the circle and before I could even stand up black sand formed around my gloves and around the gap by my elbow and around my feet. I couldn't use my ice blades now, and looking at how outnumbered we were, it wouldn't be a good idea to start a fight.
The Descendants of Sandman were next to be thrown in, quickly followed by Billy and Penelope. Finally they caught Mary, Chris and Stephen and threw them in, holding Stephen in place with black sand so that he couldn't fly off.
What had started as an easy mission had turned into a train wreck. We were surrounded by over two hundred Descendants of Pitch and the remaining Nightmares, who snorted and bucked on the edge of the crowd.
The crowd parted to reveal a familiar Descendant of Pitch, Blondie.
Next to me I could hear Penelope hiss under her breath, "Samuel." So that was his name, took me long enough to find out.
Samuel looked at us and the beginnings of a smug smile appeared on his face.
"Well, looks like it actually worked."
I thought he didn't like villain tropes?
"What worked?" Asked Penelope, not showing a hint of fear in her voice as she stared down Samuel, who stared back just as evenly.
"I suppose I could grant you a final request..." He said. To my surprise Penelope barely reacted to this, still staring at Samuel.
"One of things we all can easily find out is someone's fears, and we quickly found out her fear." He said, pointing to me.
"You were decimating us, so we had to come up with something where we could at least level the playing field, so a little manipulation was in order..."
My expression hardened, so they had managed to convince Pitch to spook me to get the base riled up.
"Although," he continued, looking at each of us, "we didn't expect quite the haul, and our traitor as well."
Penelope spoke again, her gaze having not broken from Samuel's.
"And does Pitch know about this?"
Samuel's expression turned into snarl.
"No, as soon as the plan began to fail he left, as he often does. That's why we needed something like this."
I was confused, then how did that explain the Pitch I fought? Was that actually Pitch? It seemed to be him when I fought him.
Samuel broke his gaze with Penelope and squared his shoulders, clearly not about to take any questions.
"That's enough of revealing what we've been up to, now to business." He turned to his fellow Descendants. "We'll deal with the traitor first."
I made to move to Penelope as she was forced to stand up straight by two Descendants of Pitch, who slashed at the straps holding her back and chest plates in place, sending them crashing to the ground. Before I could get close more strands of black sand wrapped themselves around me and held me in place.
"PENELOPE!" I yelled, my fear for her making my voice pitch rise to shrieking levels.
Samuel stepped in front of her and reached into his pocket, pulling out a sharp shard of pale grey metal and surrounding it in black sand, forming an arrow of sand that was pointed at Penelope's chest. The other members of HOG made moves to her, but they were held back by sand.
Penelope herself seemed strangely calm, as though he had accepted her fate. As Samuel drew back she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
Samuel let the arrow lose and I screamed.
It scythed straight through Penelope's chest like it was butter and only a slight shudder went through her body.
Her body went limp in the arms of her captors and they dropped her unceremoniously to the ground, where she didn't move as her blood began to spread on the ground.
"PENELOPE!"
A dull roar filled my ears as Samuel spoke again, but I couldn't hear him. I just stared at Penelope's body, a maelstrom of emotions I couldn't even name bubbling up inside me.
I could feel movement as people moved away from me, but I didn't know why, all I could feel was the pain inside and the rising power.
Rising power?
I could feel pressure building up within me, some of it being released in various places, such as my feet and where my blades would usually form. I could feel ice rushing down my bonds as the pressure continued to build. The more it built the blurrier my eyesight became and less I could hear, until all I could see was white, and all I could hear was a dull roar.
HOG and the Descendants of Pitch drew back from the Descendant of Jack Frost. Something was happening to her.
Frost enveloped her armour, bursting through the sand on her arms and feet and down the strands of sand holding her in place.
The temperature dropped dramatically as ice spread rapidly from her feet and up the walls. Everyone scrambled away, several of them remembering all too well what happened last time Jackie lost control. Even the Nightmares let out whinnies and reared up.
Stephen gasped a wind whipped up around her; he was the only one here who could control wind, how come Jackie suddenly could?
The frost from her visor appeared to glow in the dim cave, giving off a ghost like light.
All around her on the walls enormous icicles burst where the ice had spread, each the size of a bus and all of the tips pointing to her.
There was a sound akin to that of a muted explosion and ice seemed to explode from her very body, covering the entire cavern in a blast of white. Everyone covered their eyes for fear of blinded by the brightness that was coming from Jackie's ice explosion.
Once the light had faded Nigel looked past his hands and felt horror at what he saw.
Every single Descendant of Pitch had become an ice statue, there was no distinction at where the person began and the ice stopped.
His eyes were drawn to the girl in front of him, who was standing stock still, as if she wasn't aware of what just happened. The frost had disappeared from her armour, but that didn't do much to reassure Nigel.
In a smooth movement Jackie fell backwards, hitting the floor with a clang and sending her helmet skittering away as the impact knocked it off her head.
... I know, I'm an arsehole. *Grins evilly*