"No please! Stop!"
"Shut it up! SHUT IT UP, THIS INSTANT!"
A white light overhead was blinding.
"Please don't! I-Who are you?!"
"Doctor, the arms –"
"Tie them down! This metal table is strong enough."
The metal was cold.
"Who are you people?! Where am I!?"
"We have to begin the tests. Before P–"
"Aaaah!"
Tooth cried out but no one really heard her because she had been gagged.
She had tried not to think about being in that worst case scenario but somehow the image, so real and frightening, popped into her head.
Then again, getting kidnapped from a hotel with a bag over your head and being in a speeding car for what feels like hours only to find out you're in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere, does that to a person.
Her purplish-pink eyes shot all around the room like a scared hummingbird. Her hands were bound tightly behind her back and her feet were tied too. She had tried earlier to get up and peek out a dirty window but she fell and her long skirt tangled around her legs and made it hard to move again.
It also didn't help that a long black rope was tying her bound wrists to the concrete wall behind her.
With an angry glare, the princess gave the locked door across the room a shaky huff.
She knew there would be guards outside, standing watch in case she did anything or anyone tried to get in. But the question was who were they guarding her for? And why?
Princess Thia was no threat to anyone and her island was so tiny, not many people even knew who she was, let alone that she was a princess.
What would they want with her?
Or worse, her kingdom?
As she furiously tried to twist around again, she heard muffled voices drifting through the air vents above her.
Two French guys and an Englishman were having a loud conversation from somewhere far away.
Tooth didn't speak French but with her gift, she understood. She clambered backwards up the wall behind her as best she could and craned her neck to hear.
"...with me and I would sooner..."
"...7...it's sooner gone than..."
"Zut alors! Stef...one tooth so I—"
"ENOUGH!" she heard the deep, English voice yell.
Tooth flinched but there was no shringar on her forehead to bang against it. It had fallen off before she arrived.
She continued to listen as her heart pounded under her sari's blouse and her makeup was sticky around her eyes.
She really needed some gum to chew.
"That plane...I NEED...! And if it is NOT delivered—"
"Non sir! NON—!"
When someone gave a bloodcurdling scream and Tooth screamed behind the cloth.
Was he... dead? She would surely be next!
Tooth bravely tried to hold back her stinging tears as she collapsed against the wall.
A princess did not cry.
But after everything she had gone through, she officially hated being one.
...
Meanwhile, outside the breeze around the warehouse grew more blustery.
Pitch's men were patrolling the warehouse wearing their creepy gas masks with the yellow goggles. It helped them to see better in the dark for anything that moved but so far everything was okay.
Except for the loud whistling of the wind in their complink earpieces.
One guard was actually busy giving a bearing to another when the wind got so loud. His voice buzzed into the mic.
"Sorry? Repeat that?" one guard asked the other.
"I said –scchzzz- turning –scchzzz- and a –scchzzz– nothing to my –scchzzz!"
"Man, your end is terrible. Speak clearer or move."
"I didn't –schhzzz– you nee –scchhzzz– oh damn, this wind –scccchzzzzzzz!"
The guard reached up and switched channels to another guard but his was making the same whooshing noise from the wind. He decided to shut it off for the time being.
"I don't get paid enough for this," he muttered to himself and readjusted his gun in its holster.
"I thought you didn't get paid at all."
The new voice from behind made the guard spin around but then the wind gave a particular large burst of speed and made him stumble back a bit from his high post.
When he took two steps back, Jack stabbed him in the leg from behind and threw him over his shoulders, sending him flying over the guard rail to the ground below.
When he looked back, he rubbed an eye and began moving silently to the nearest door.
He kept the same mantra pounding through his head.
I'm coming for you, Pitch.
...
No one spotted Jack as he masterfully used his stealth training to the best of his ability.
Spying on people? Piece of cake.
Avoiding the cops? Child's play.
Infiltrating a crime lord's hideout crawling with heavily armed guards and highly trained hitmen?
Jack resisted the urge to grin impishly as he hung upside down below a grated floor as one goon walking over him didn't see him.
When the guard turned, he silently flipped himself over and moved in the other direction.
Heh, yeah no problem.
Wherever he'd learnt to do this job, he still didn't know. But all he knew was that they trained them really well.
It relieved him slightly too since he'd been trying to follow up on the dead 'ELF's note about Pitch for almost a month. The tooth clue was still a mystery to him but he decided that he'd confront Pitch about it...that or break him until he did.
No other criminal had survived a falling out with Jack when he chased him.
But just because he knew Pitch Black was far more nefarious, didn't mean he doubted his own strength and smarts to play it right.
When he found the boiler room, Jack kneeled up beside the door then fished a lock pick out of his pants. He glared as he carefully picked the easy-to-break-into door and exhaled calmly when the door didn't squeak.
Then with a quick look behind him, he crouched inside.
After fleeting his gaze around the dark room, he safely moved to the main thermostat. It was large and controlled the entire heating and for the warehouse.
He smirked.
As his ungloved fingers twitched, he twisted the knob.
...
Tooth felt all her goosebumps rise across her skin. She squirmed uncomfortably in her tangled skirt and tried to get her legs under her and away from the vent's mouth.
It suddenly got freezing!
...
Jack ran a hand through his hair.
When he felt the AC blow cold air into his brown bangs, he stood up and walked out of the room.
He tightened his leather glove on his left hand as he strode back down corridor to another hallway. When he reached the guardrail at the corner, he paused and took a step back into the shadows.
As he became one with them, Jack narrowed his eyes and looked down to the ground floor.
"Pitch," he spat under his breath.
The tall, lanky man, with his spidery black hair and almost grey skin was walking across the cement. His hands were firmly placed behind his back in his signature posture. Several of his hitmen were surrounding him, wearing their ghoulish yellow-goggled gas masks.
Jack wasn't scared in the slightest, but he was perturbed by the sight.
Down below was the man he'd been trying to track for almost a full year! It made his blood boil to see Pitch so calm and wearing that hideous smile he always sported on his face.
When Pitch stopped the men to bark out some quick orders, Jack leaned forward the tiniest bit to eavesdrop.
"Make sure that tooth is kept under lock and key, Hugo. Am I clear? Or you will end up just like Stefano. Another broken horse for me to...put down, so to speak."
When he snickered, Jack's jaw tensed. Those yellow eyes were so bright from way up high.
"Yes, I understand."
Pitch nodded and began to continue.
"Oh and such a forgetful mind I have under such fun conditions! I believe it is now time for us to send word to the other Nightmares about col–"
"Agent, your newest mission...eyes, huh?...most of ours don't...where to start?"
Jack pulled back and nearly slammed into the wall behind him. He tensed at the last minute then gritted his teeth.
Another broken memory.
Jack rubbed his eye again, silently cursing as he tried to understand to rest of Pitch's plan.
But it was nearly impossible.
"–Moscow. Flight 7. We've been following him for weeks so we are certain."
Pitch gave him a twisted smile and raised a pale, bony hand to pat his henchman on the back. But when the man flinched, Pitch stopped midway and pretended to catch air through his fingers instead. He sighed gratefully.
They finished talking and were already walking out of earshot.
Jack tightened his gloved fist, frustrated that, yet again, he'd missed a chance to beat Pitch to a shitty pulp.
But he knew Pitch wouldn't leave just yet. If anything he was returning to a room to finish up some more evil schemes before he left the country again and headed back to his real homebase.
He would sneak again and get him alone in that room. Jack made sure of it.
But first, now that he knew, he had to steal the tooth Pitch already had in the warehouse! Whatever they were, he knew needed to stick a wrench in Pitch's plan.
And since no one even knew Jack existed, that would be ten times more fun.
A boot suddenly appeared around the corner and Jack's subconscious instantly kicked in.
When the guard spotted him, he was already raising his weapon and lifting a finger to his ear complink.
"Tar–" but a huge burst of wind from the air conditioning vent beside him blurred out his words. As he was momentarily cutoff, Jack took the opening and grabbed for his throat. He brought him hard against the concrete wall and the guard coughed but it wasn't loud enough over the sound of the vent.
With quick hands, Jack turned the weapon on the guard and pushed its sharp end through his bulletproof vest. It was with such brute strength that the guard stood there shocked before he collapsed silently against the wall.
Jack pulled off his gas mask.
...
Two hitmen were walking side-by-side on patrol when a third guard approached them. They were puzzled at first since he didn't seem to be wearing a vest or carrying a weapon. He talked to them through his complink under his mask.
"Bathroom break," he said nonchalantly. "You know how much time it takes to unbuckle all that off."
They both nodded understandingly, their yellow goggles moving up and down like ghostly lanterns against the dark.
"Kinda cold in here too," he remarked. "Maybe I'll also grab a coat."
"Okay, so go back to your post now and get them."
"Sure," Jack raised his eyebrow under the mask. "Or maybe I could just borrow yours."
"What do y–" But Jack had already moved forward and side kicked them both. When they tried to catch themselves, the air vent above them blew wind so hard against them, they tumbled back. The echoing was drowned out by the whooshing sounds.
When they struggled to get up, Jack had already yanked their weapons out of their hands and kicked them into the boiler room.
Now he could play.
Realizing their guns were gone, both guards prepared to take him on. They both thought two beefy guys like them could take down one shorter, skinnier man.
They threw punches, but Jack's reflexes were faster. He jerked left when one punched right and knocked out one of the goggle lights in his masks. And when they tried a combo approach together, Jack weaved in between them.
His legs were long and his muscles flexible and when he passed through them, he grinned.
Jack pulled a long cord from one of the men's belts used for grappling and stretched it out behind him. When he turned, he used the long piece to tie one guy's wrists and the other's neck together. Then with controlled momentum, he twisted back in front of them and brought his foot down on the cord. It yanked the two of them down to the ground.
One guard broke his neck.
Jack didn't waste time afterwards. After they were left on the floor, with only one writhing and gasping in pain, he bolted down the hallway and disappeared into the shadows.
By the time the warehouse went on alert, Jack had already taken out seven more men.
He jumped them from the shadows and used his quick feet and agile body to avoid making noise.
But they never saw him coming and going.
...
"What?!"
Tooth flinched as the guard outside her door screamed.
"Well who is it?! You don't know?...If Pitch finds out th– Oh they moved him? To the sub-basement, why the hell...Oh damn...Fifteen are dead!?"
Tooth's breathing grew erratic.
Who was in the warehouse? Who was killing all of the men? Wait...
Pitch was here?
That meant Pitch Black, the British terrorist, had kidnapped her?!
She knew who he was. He was considered a crime lord and put on the international wanted list for years.
But no one had ever caught him. And now here she was in the middle of his hideout surrounded by his men, and a new killer on the loose.
A killer...she fumbled with her tied-up wrists again anxiously and her bangles jingled loudly.
What if he was another criminal? Some other evil rival coming to kill her instead? Like another crime lord maybe or hitman? She continued to listen.
"Well don't worry! The to–"
"Sig? Sig, what's wr– "
Tooth screamed behind her gag as a loud boom was heard and their gurgled voices stopped.
She waited for more. For the door to smash open or gunshots to go off.
But...nothing. There was only silence on the other end.
That was until the vent above her opened up and blew all this frigid air into her face.
"Mmmfhmmm!" she cried behind the cloth as the wind blew all her hair out of its bun. It tumbled around her shoulders.
When the whooshing stopped, she opened her eyes and found a figure dressed in all black, kneeling directly in front of her.
When the eerie yellow goggles turned up to face her, Tooth went deathly still.
She failed to notice how he stopped himself from lunging at her at the last second.
...
Jack froze as he stared through the yellow goggles.
It wasn't Pitch's tooth they were guarding.
He let his tight fist drop at his side and his knife clattered on the ground beside him.
The game just got a little more complex.
Chapter's soundtrack: "Winter Hunter ft. Fiona Bevan (Bare Noize Remix)" – The Living Graham Bond