Chapter 10

Barely Avoiding a Disaster

Jack Frost smiled as he watched the young boy he was currently playing with, Danny, put the finishing touches on the snowman they had been making together. So far it was shaping up to be a good day in the winter spirits opinion. Even though his fellow guardians were busy worrying about Pitch's supposed return and what the nightmarish Boogeyman might do next, Jack was unable to find himself half is concerned as they obviously were. The Guardian of fun chuckled slightly before nonchalantly flicking a bit of snow into the young boy's face causing him to laugh innocently before he took a few steps back to inspect the now finished snowman.

"Looks pretty good Danny, I think you got a real talent for this." He said with a warm smile that was so much of a contradiction to his ice and snow based powers.

"Really? Thank you!" Danny said with a joking bow. "I can't wait to… show my… au…ntie." The boy began to lose his balance and suddenly seem to become extremely drowsy and he proceeded to fall over unconscious into the fresh, powdery snow.

"Danny?! Hey Danny are you all right?!" Jack immediately became concerned and carefully picked up the boy and try to browse by shaking him gently. But in spite of this he wouldn't wake… Needless to say that Jack that there was something very wrong with this situation. And his feelings would only end up being confirmed by what happened next.

"Put him down right now demon!" The raging voice of woman cut through the frigid air like a sword imbued with very fires of hell itself. Jack looked up, only to see Artemis standing in the doorway of her home. Her hellish red eyes were transfixed on the spirit and it was no mistaking the utter hate burning so fiercely behind them!

"You can… you can see me?" Jack asked as he suddenly took notice of the drawing board she held tightly in one hand and a massive red black cobra that was wrapped around his shoulders like some sort of shawl; a shawl that was bearing its fangs at him in an intimidating way.

"I said get away from the boy!" She commanded again and this time Jack complied carefully laying Danny back down and holding up his hands in order to show that he was not a threat.

"I wasn't going to hurt him! We were just-" of course Jack never got to finish that sentence because just then the angry woman charged at him, extended her arm and loosed a wave of searing flames right at him! Jack barely managed to get out of the way in time before she got close enough and successfully punched him in the chest with all of her strength! He cried out as he felt the sheer strength of the blow knocked all the wind out of him and that was coupled with the excruciating addition of the flames that were still burning around her forearm! Not only was the pain severe, but part of his hoodie caught fire and began to burn him, thankfully though he managed to get a grip on himself and put the flames out before he sustained any type of serious injury or before the whole thing was ruined… Still he now had a big hole in it that showed through to the now scorched skin underneath…

"Bad timing Frost, but with my new friend here I doubt there would ever be a good time for you to show up." Pitch commented as he seemed to suddenly appear from the shadows of a nearby tree. He seemed calm enough but judging by the way he was glancing at Artemis who was charging another flaming attack he was right on the border of being nervous and alarmed.

"New wha-?" Jack didn't even get a chance to finish his sentence before he had to dodge another wave of searing flames, only this time he lashed out with a frigid blast of his own. The ice wave collided hard with Artemis, freezing her left leg to the ground while a large cluster of ice had formed around most of her abdomen, chest and right arm. Of course after a few raging moments the angry woman summoned the flames to melt away the ice. It only took a few seconds, but the flames for some reason seemed far less intense even though their wielders wrath had certainly not dissipated. Jack did not get a chance to dwell on this for long, considering that while he had been distracted by the writer Pitch had manifested an all too familiar scythe from his Nightmare Sand and proceeded to lash out at the confused winter spirit. Artemis only added to the difficulty of the situation by launching off several more volleys of burning flames at poor Jack! It was becoming disturbingly apparent that Jack wasn't going to win this fight, so he did the only thing he could think to do…

He retreated…

"Oh no you don't!" Artemis snarled racing after him, but Jack took to the air just in time to avoid a sputtering flame blast that she sent after him… dodging that was one thing, he didn't get the opportunity to dodge the blast of Nightmare Sand that Pitch sent after him! It collided with him hard in the back and knocked him right out of the sky a good ways away from his assailants. He hit the ground hard, but he managed to get to his feet and start running as fast as he possibly could.

"Get back here!" She snapped as she tore after him; Jack tried again to get airborne but another flame blast slammed right into his back while a bolt of Nightmare Sand tore straight threw his shoulder. Jack screamed out in agony before managing to whirl around and unleash a powerful wave of ice at his assailants before he landed on the ground once again. He was able to see however that his latest retaliatory attack had at least managed to send the woman flying into Pitch, knocking them both back… for the moment at least.

Jack had barely managed to stand up again when someone suddenly clamped a hand over his mouth!

At first he tried to struggle but within moments an unusual freezing sensation suddenly began to tear through his body like he had just been stabbed with a white hot blade! Jack had no idea what was going on but given the circumstances he had every reason to believe he was still in danger and even though his body felt as though he was suddenly gripped with rigor mortis. It was then that some sort of cloth was pulled around him, completely enveloping his entire body. The cloth felt cold but in a way that just felt… wrong; and it was thin enough that Jack could see through it.

"Hold your tongue boy, they cannot see you now." A low, voice said in a somewhat annoyed manner. This voice made Jack stop moving altogether. He didn't recognize the voice but there was something about it that froze the preverbal blood in his veins. It sounded like a combination of fingernails on a blackboard and a dying man's death rattle.

Everything was eerily silent for several long minutes before Artemis raced out into the clearing that Jack could still see clearly through the fabric. She looked around frantically, rage… and tears… were clearly shining in her blood red eyes. Nyoka her serpent was still tightly curled around her neck and wherever its master looked the snake was looking in a different direction. No doubt to double the chance of finding her target. But both she and her hellish pet looked straight at where Jack was currently concealed and neither saw him. So at the very least this stranger apparently really was helping him.

"Murderous Demon!" Artemis screamed wrathfully up at the sky when she realized that Jack Frost had escaped. "I will find you! I'll find you and make you suffer!"

"He got away didn't he?" Pitch muttered in an annoyed tone as he continued to brush a few lingering flakes of snow and ice out of his hair from when Jack had blasted him. Artemis didn't respond she just stood there trembling as her anger continued to run its course. The Boogeyman sighed, walked up to Artemis and swatted her upside the head. This action was so unexpected that it actually managed to distract the young woman from her rage.

"Hey!" She snapped, angry about the swat.

"Congratulations, now he's going to go off and warn the other Guardians! And you know he's going to bring them all straight to your doorstep!" He growled.

"Don't worry, I've got a plan." Artemis grunted coldly. "I almost had him, almost had my hands around his scrawny little neck!"

"This isn't one of your books so don't embellish your success in this fight. You didn't do that well… you've still got a lot of work to do on developing your power and skill with using it." An uncomfortable silence fell between them. As the rage and hate steadily bled out of Artemis's body Nyoka made a soft hissing sound before rubbing against the side of her face in an attempt to give some comfort to its master. "Oh, and your godson is still lying face first in the snow back in the front yard of your house."

"Oh shi- Danny!" Artemis squeaked horrified that she'd forgotten about him. And immediately she started racing off in that direction while being careful to shout a particularly loud. "Damn you Pitch!" As she ran. The Boogeyman just rolled his eyes before following after his human companion, starting to feel a bad headache forming.

The being that was holding Jack still waited for several moments after Pitch and Artemis had left before finally releasing his grip on the teenage spirit. Jack immediately scrambled away from stranger before turning to face him… But he quickly wished he hadn't for as it turns out he was looking at the one spirit all others instinctively feared and respected for at some point he had claimed their lives.

He was looking at none other than Death himself…

It turns out that the traditional drawings of a Grim Reaper were in fact completely accurate. Death was a tall and imposing skeletal figure cloaked in black robes that almost entirely hid his body, only exposing his bony hands and just the faintest glimpses of his skull like face. And then of course he also carried a large wooden rod that could easily pulled out into his legendary scythe. A weapon that was said to have been crafted from the wood of a hemlock tree and the blade forged in the very fires of hell itself.

For a while silence hung in the air like a lingering mist, only to be broken when Death turned away from Jack and began to walk away. "Tell Sandman that the abilities of the Magic Artist have indeed awakened and that yes it is as bad as he fears." The ghoulish figure narrated apparently no longer concerned about the winter spirits presence. But his words succeeded in snapping Jack out of his stupor.

"Wait!" He called after the darker spirit, surprisingly getting him to stop in his exit. "That woman, why is she working with Pitch? How can she throw fireballs, and… why is she after me?"

Death remained eerily still and silent for what felt like an eternity to the Guardian of Fun. He was just about to ask something else when he saw that her turn and look back in his direction but Jack remained unable to see the face concealed within. "All that I will say is that you have brought her wrath on yourself." He said calmly and in a voice deprived of any emotion. "You already know the answer to who she is and why she hunts you. But you just don't want to see it." And with that he continued on his way but before Jack could ask him any further questions he proceeded to vanish right before Jack's eyes.

Left with far more questions than answers, Jack Frost was left with little choice other than to high tail it as fast as he could back to the North Pole…

Although he had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to explain this to his fellow Guardians!

Yes, I know, I passed my original deadline by almost an entire month and a half and I'm really sorry about it. Like I stated before I have been preoccupied with another fanfic that I am writing and it's really winding down and getting near the end and I admit that I been a little obsessed with finally getting it done. So yeah I'm sorry about that… Now I know this chapter was a bit shorter than the others and what I had originally planned… but with as late as the updates are I just wanted to get it done and out, signaling that updates will finally be coming again.

And with that I leave you with that note, and as always please remember to Read and Review! ^_^