Jack Frost: Thawed

Chapter 4

Thanks to @Damien036 for giving me the idea to include a Guardian of Trust! 

"Come back inside, Jack, after all, that's no way to treat your fellow Guardian now, is it?" It was. It was him. My eyes widened, and I found it hard to stay in the air. It was him. Or, more specifically, it was me. From 1,300 years ago. Jackson Overland. When he nodded at me, I fell from the sky. I ended up being caught by myself. His brown hair, brown eyes and natural light, but not pale, skin tone, brought back memories. He held an old stick in his hand, and the image of my sister hooked in its curved end haunted me. I screamed, my hands over my mouth. Another Guardian of Fun?
"No." I looked up starkly. 
"What?"
"I'm not another Guardian of Fun."
"Y-you can hear my thoughts?" 
"We've all got our quirks." He gave me that lopsided smile I gave to Mum the day I died. The image of Mary running toward the hole in the ice, her voice shouting my name as I sank deeper and deeper into the frozen lake, the feeling of the adrenaline as I saved her, it was all too much. "Jack..."
"It's weird how we're the same person, yet you call me by my name."
"What else am I supposed to call you, Jackson?" He flinched as he felt my pain. 
"Don't call me that. Don't ever call me that. You're Jackson Overland, I'm Jack Frost. There's a difference. Even our centres are different."
"Do you even know mine?"
"I know it's not fun."
"Did you mean that to mean it's not enjoyable, or my centre's not the Centre of Fun?" 
"The second one."
"I thought so."
"Wait, what is your centre?"
"Trust."

I took a step away from myself. Hiccup, who had been quiet the entire time, chose now of all times to speak up. 
"I remember you!"
"Excuse me?" Jackson now looked thoroughly confused. 
"I said-"
"I heard you."
"So why did you-"
"I-" He looked full to blow up on Hiccup (Thor only knew what his powers were), then he looked at him with a pain-filled glance, his eyes the size of dinner plates. "Hiccup?"
"In the flesh." Jackson had tears in his eyes as he looked him up and down. 
"You look... different."
"Well, 1050 years can do that to ya."
"No, I mean... when you died, you were..."
"Sick?"
"Yeah." Hiccup must have remembered something, because he looked like his world was ending. 

A muffled shout of pure terror from Jackson made us all turn around. His eyes were wide in fear, a grey hand around his mouth. I aimed my staff at Pitch, but when that snarl spread across his lips, I froze. 
"Come, Jack. Come back to me. You don't want Hiccup to suffer for your mistakes, do you?" As if to demonstrate, Hiccup's hands were bound behind his back, the bonds slowly burning away at his wrists like acid. Hiccup screamed in pain. A black tape spread across his mouth, and his shouts were muffled by the nightmare sand. Toothless prepared a shot at Pitch, but Hiccup shook his head frantically. There was a flash of darkness, and Jackson was gone. 
"NO!" Bunny's scream rang in my head, echoing as I tried to drown out the waking nightmare that was Pitch Black. Bunny ran toward Pitch, who stopped him with a way-too-tight bond of black rope. Bunny refused to scream or squirm. He didn't even try to fight. He knew it would make the pain worse. 

"Jack, look. Your friends, if they can even be called that, are trying to help you." The false pity in his words made me feel sick. 
"W-what do you mean?"
"They hate you, Jack. They were never your friends!" The amount of loathing poured into the last word disgusted me. "They knew your greatest fear all along! They're right, they are my enemies, but they're yours too. Think about it; 300 years, all alone. The only time they come to you is when they want your powers. They only want your power, Jack. They don't want you. Look at you! I mean, who would? They never accepted you. They don't now, and they never will. Come with me, Jack, where at least I don't lie to you. I let you know you're unwanted. They're letting you stay here through their tolerance of you. What happens when that wears thin?"
"I-I'm alone. Again."

Bunny struggled in his bonds now, tears brimming his eyes.
"Don't listen to him, Jack! He's lying! We accept you! You're a Guardian!"
"No, I'm not." Bunny looked at me in fright. "I'm sorry Kangaroo, Hic. I failed you all. I'm sorry!"

I took Pitch's outstretched hand, and in an instant, I was in the Nightmare Kingdom again. It was cold here. Not the type of cold I like, but the sort of cold that tells you an evil presence is somewhere near. Or, in my case, everywhere near. Jackson hung from chains near me, and my breath caught in my throat. "Jack!" I pressed my finger to my lips frantically. He cocked his head, and I facepalmed. Flying up to him with shivers crawling up and down my spine (remember the thousand years Pitch put him through, he would know!) 
"You're not allowed to talk!"
"..." He looked at me desperately, and I shook my head. 
"It's over."

Next thing I knew, I was on the ground, a stab wound in my stomach making me wince. I didn't out the blade embedded in what little flesh there is left in my abdomen. Pitch kicked me across the room, and Jackson winced. Pitch brought a huge pickaxe above his head, and Jackson looked frantic. He tried to get out of his chains, only to have them tighten around his wrists. He screamed. 
"NO!" I held my head low,  unable to look at Pitch. 
"Did you just say something, Jack?" I felt a pain in my stomach as Pitch's hand connected with it. Jackson dropped down from his bonds silently, sneaking up on Pitch. When he was close enough, a huge blast of fire hit Pitch from the back, and the image of the smouldering Nightmare King is not one I want to remember. A memory box drops from Pitch's hand, and I gasp when I see Hiccup's face on it. The flames get too close to me, and I black out, falling through the now empty pit of nightmares. 

*JACKSON'S P.O.V.*

I did it! Pitch was gone! But when I heard a shriek from Jack, I realised my mistake. I had gotten a Winter spirit way too close to an open flame. Jack falls to the flames being fed by the nightmares. Running toward him with inhuman speed, I catch him before his fate is resigned to that of Pitch. As I jump, again, inhumanly, to the window, the other Guardians gasp in shock around me. I look down, and I immediately see what's wrong. Jack's staff, his life source, is on fire. The frost on it is turning to water that runs down my pant leg in streams. Jack's hair is turning brown, and his skin is darkening. My eyes widen. He's becoming human? No. That was bad. His body wouldn't be able to handle the age of it, that had only been prolonged through magic. Now that magic was leaving him. Jack whimpered in my arms, and I felt guiltier than the day I left Mary. (Jackson/Jack's sister). We were from two different timelines. In mine, I saved Mary successfully, and we both lived to tell the tale. Manny saw me as a worthy adversary for Pitch, and decided to make me Jackson Overland (I kept my name), the spirit of summer. In his, he died saving her, and Manny decided to reward him with a second chance at life. 

Jack gritted his teeth, and with a final burst of energy, he froze over his staff. The Guardians and I were all blown back by the sheer force of that one blast. When the haze went away, we all saw why Pitch was so easily defeated. 

And it wasn't good.