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Growing Pains	By : Kylee_Phoenix Category: +M through R > Rise of the Guardians Views: 3193 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians or The Guardians of Childhood Series, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 6
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            Jack felt a sense of camaraderie with Kozmotis rise within him. The fearlings that had taken control of the General were keeping him trapped inside of his own body and had been keeping him there all this time. He wanted to find a way to free him, but how? Could Kozmotis take back control of his own body? Maybe if Jack could find the right words. . .
            "Let him go, fearlings. What use is he to you now? All you want is the body, right? The physical vehicle to travel around in, to do all of your evil."
            Pitch smiled.
            "Oh he is of far more use to us than that. He knows many things, and we need his knowledge, but we also need his spirit. Without his spirit, the physical body is of no use to us. It is his will that we use to wreak havoc on this world."
            Jack shook his head.
            "This is not the Pitch Black, Nightmare King that I met eight years ago. He was afraid of being alone. He was just one being with one awareness. It was manipulative and dark, but it was a coherent whole. Now, you are many beings shoved into one body. How much longer can you actually stand to be locked in there together, aware of each other?"
            Jamie realized what he was doing and tried to think of a way to help him. It was a battle of wits. Jack was encouraging Kozmotis to fight his jailers back for control of his own body, and he was aiding the General by confusing the horrors, breaking their focus, possibly pitting them against each other.
            Pitch smiled cruelly, and it was a chilling expression.
            "You don't understand, do you, Jack?" Jamie felt something change in the cavern. Shadows shifted slightly, but when he turned his head, everything was still. Jack and Jamie both rushed to their feet. Jamie's hand was poised above the bag of sand, ready to send up the distress call.
            "There's no separating the elements that make me who and what I am. Kozmotis Pitchiner, General of the Galaxies, is long since dead, though his spirit remains. It is he who is afraid to be alone with us. It is he who brought little Jackson Overland to our attention. It gave him joy to watch you, so we killed you. We twisted the joy into something dark and obsessive when you were brought back."
            Pitch laughed and Jack gasped, shaking his head.
            "Manny was just trying to make it right." Jack gritted his teeth. "You took my life from me. I never grew up because of you. I forgot my sister until she was long dead. . ."
            "That's right. I followed you all those years and fed on your pain. I planned to make you my partner, Jackie. Cold and dark, remember? We would have been such a team, you and I."
            He smirked.
            "But I have something new, don't I? Something that belongs to you. Something it would hurt you to lose."
            Jamie felt cold hands grabbing him from behind, dragging him back and away from Jack.
            "Sit, Jamie boy." Whatever had been gripping him, now formed into a black chair which forced him to sit and restrained him to it.
            "Let him go, Pitch!"
            Pitch ignored Jack's demands, calling another night mare to quickly restrain Jack as well. It pushed him back, knocking his crook away and pinning him against the wall.
            "My, my how you've grown, Jamie." A lecherous smile wrapped across his face like a hand over a mouth. "I'm tempted to take you for a spin myself."
            Pitch walked over to Jamie, caressing his cheeks with cold fingers. It was not the same pleasant, chilly sensation of Jack's hands. Pitch's touch felt like the brush of death, empty and lifeless. Jamie shuddered.
            "Get your hands off of him!"
            Jack struggled against the night mare's grasp, but the more he fought it, the tighter it became.
            Pitch smirked.
            "So possessive already. When's the wedding?" He taunted them, and even though Jamie knew it was just purposely hurtful words to goad Jack into anger, he felt the sharp sting of the implication.
            Jack's anger grew to rage as he realized that Pitch had just been playing with them all along. It had all been misdirection. They'd become comfortable around him. They'd even pitied him, wanted to help him. It was all part of the game.
            "Ah, the star crossed lovers, Little Jamie and Jackie Frost. The world out there is so cruel to two boys who love each other, but what about a boy and a winter spirit? One of you will never age, never die, and the other will be nothing but dust in 80 years. How will it be, then?"
            Jack shook his head, trying to think of something he could do in this situation and finding himself being flooded by so many complex and competing emotions.
            "It's hard to be alone, isn't it Jack, but it's so much harder to know that someone out there loves you and you can't have him."
            "Don't listen to him, Jack. I want to be with you. . . " Jamie's eyes were bright and wide, and as Jack looked into them, Jamie spoke the words that broke his heart. "I love you, Jack."
            Pitch stepped between them, and it was honestly a relief to Jack, not to be staring into those brown eyes, faced with all that longing and feeling. He slunk up to Jack, pressing himself into the winter spirit. Those long, lifeless fingers took Jack's chin, and Pitch whispered into Jack's lips.
            "You know why you can't have him, Jack. You're too noble not to have realized that already."
            The cruel truth of Pitch's words sunk in deep and fast. He felt a single tear form in the corner of his eye and freeze before it could fall.
            "Why?" He asked pitifully. "Why would you set us up like this?"
            Pitch laughed, and it was a dark sound filled with cruel mirth.
            "Because it was fun."
            He eyed Jack, then, and all the mirth was suddenly gone. His grip on Jack's chin became rough and bruising.
            "And because someone that I offered the world to, companionship, a place at my side as a ruler of this world, a chance to never be alone again, threw it back in my face like it was nothing. Like I was nothing."
            "Dark and cold," he said, looking Pitch in the eyes.
            Pitch released Jack's chin, putting his hands against the wall on either side.
            "I offered you everything I had, everything I could, but it wasn't enough for you."
            Jack snorted.
            "You offered me a chance to rule people with fear, but you knew that wasn't what I wanted. You knew I would never take that offer. Fear and darkness? Why would I want that?"
            Pitch closed his eyes.
            "As I said, it was all I had. It is all I have, ever since you and the other Guardians left me down here to rot and die in my own fear and misery."
            "It's what you deserved," Jack spat at Pitch.
            Pitch slapped Jack hard across the face, and it took his breath away. Jamie began to protest, but Pitch signaled the night mare restraining him to gag him as well.
            "You are qualified to judge me, Jack Frost? You, who are a mere 300 years old, and have barely seen anything of this wide universe that exists just beyond your reach, stand before me and deign to judge me, the former General of the Galaxies?"
            Jack regarded him with nothing but ire, refusing to give him any kind of respect. Pitch continued, disdainfully.
            "I have seen things that you could scarcely imagine, things that would burn you, little boy. Things that would scar you, down to your fun little core. You are a mere child compared to me. You have lived but a few breaths to my long years, and you know what I have realized in all of that time?"
            He and Jack remained in a standoff of cold stares until Pitch spoke again.
            "There are no heroes or villains, Jack. Only those who choose to do nothing and those who do what needs to be done." He smiled. "And that is coming directly from my days as Kozmotis."
            Pitch finally backed off, and Jack felt like he was able to breath again. He glared at the Nightmare King, and chanced a glance over to Jamie to make sure that he was alright. He was quiet because of the gag but still fighting to free himself of the chair.
            "I know which kind of person you are, Jack. I've seen it with my own eyes. That is why I know that you will choose to do the right thing when I tell you what I have to offer you."
            "I'm not making any deals with you, Pitch."
            Pitch smiled.
            "That's why I'm going to make you an offer that you can't refuse." He waved a hand over to Jamie. "I will free your friend, unharmed and blissfully unaware of these pesky little dreams he's been having or the feelings that grew from them. His memory will be reverted to what it was a year ago, before my night mares sent visions of you dancing in his head."
            Jack knew Sandy and the other Guardians would be on their way soon. If he could pretend to bargain with Pitch, it might buy the time they needed.
            "In exchange for what?"
            Pitch grinned, pleased.
            "In exchange for you staying down here, with me, for the rest of eternity."
            Jack's already pale face became paler. The idea of it horrified him, and even though he wasn't actually planning on giving Pitch anything he wanted, his reaction was not faked or forced.
            "I'm not asking anything of you that you can't give me, Jack. I realize you'll probably never love me. I'm not very lovable. Just that you stay with me and keep me. . . company, ease the burden of loneliness in this prison."
            The emphasis Pitch put on the word "company" accompanied by that same lecherous smile from earlier made it all too clear to Jack exactly what Pitch wanted from him. He was visibly disgusted, but this only seemed to amuse Pitch now.
            "You are asking me to be imprisoned with you, away from all of my friends," he looked at Jamie. "Away from the people that I love."
            Pitch nodded.
            "Yes, that, in exchange for Jamie being spirited away and tucked back into his bed, safe and sound and not remembering anything about you that will bring him pain."
            Jack had to admit Pitch's proposition, at least on Jamie's end, was tempting. Jamie would hate that he was even considering it, but part of Jack was still not convinced that he and Jamie being together could end with anything but tears, possibly sooner than they might imagine.
            Could Jack live with the fact he'd made a deal with Pitch, though?
            The chair that Jamie was in shifted into a night mare, though the gag still stayed in place, and Pitch crossed the room to lean in and whisper something in the creature's ear that Jack could not hear.
            "You know what to do." He straightened and waved his hand dismissively. "Off with you now, little Jamie. Dream of all things pretty," he said mockingly, with a measure of disgust. "But not Jack." He smiled wickedly. "He belongs to me now."
            "I didn't agree! I never said yes!"
            Pitch laughed, loud and long, as if he'd just heard a very funny joke.
            "You've obviously never played this game. You see, it doesn't matter what you want, only what I want. I may offer you choices, but it's only for the fun of watching you struggle with them." He smiled wickedly. "You don't have a choice, Jack. You never did. Not when I killed you. Not when Tsar brought you back. Not now. Not ever. You're just a pretty toy to play with. A toy we've all passed around. Good guys, bad guys, it's all the same in the end."
            Pitch laughed cruelly, dissolving into cackles of evil glee.
            Jack shook his head.
            "The other Guardians will come for me. They're on their way right now."
            Pitch's hand shot out, and he grabbed Jack by the throat.
            "Oh, I'm aware of that, but by the time they've arrived, it will be too late. We're going to join forces and have fun together, just like I wanted, and they won't suspect a thing because I'll look exactly like you."
            Jack's eyes grew wide as he struggled against Pitch's grip, and the Nightmare King poured himself in a strong wave of black liquid shadows into Jack's body.
            There was nothing physical left of Pitch. He'd been a shifting pool of darkness for so long that only the will of Kozmotis truly remained to give him shape, and though it may have slightly resembled the former General of the Galaxies, there was nothing else left of Kozmotis but his memories and his trapped soul.
            The newly possessed Jack shook himself off, a determined and darkly gleeful look in his eyes. He picked up the winter spirit's staff and gave it a try, relishing the new magic, more power at his fingertips. Now he controlled both dark and cold.
            "Time to pay our little Jamie a visit." He smiled. "After all, he's not a boy anymore."
            Somewhere inside his own tortured mind, Jack screamed.
- 6
- 7
- 8
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Growing Pains