Meanwhile…everyone got lost on the way followed by blizzard blowing from the north.
“What is going on? There’s no storm when we were outside of the forest earlier,” Vine wondered.
Martha turns her head at him.
“Have you ever faced a winter spirit before? If you notice a severe storm blowing all of a sudden when you enter specific area, it means that a winter spirit is near. But…only malevolent or mischievous spirit would cause this kind of storm. Father Frost’s presence never caused a snow storm due to his role as benevolent and non-aggressive spirit,” she explained to him.
“The young lass is right. The boy was mischievous despite his role as spirit of winter,” Father Frost said.
When the blizzard subsides, they see Jack sleeping on a large tree stump when they heard footstep behind them.
“Who’s that?” Vine whispered.
The shadow figures from afar become clearer and reveal Alice with a familiar figure.
“Roy?” Martha whispered.
Alice shakes her head silently.
“Not Roy. It’s Phoenix, he took control of him. Brother Roy was sick and Phoenix couldn’t just stand idly so he decided to possess Roy in his sick condition to help us,” Alice explained with soft voice.
“You sure that with you taking over, that burning aura of yours would help him quickly recover once you free yourself from him?” Martha asked quietly.
“He will. I assure you that,” Phoenix said.
Krampus slowly approaches Jack Frost and examined the boy.
“Hrmm….,” he growled softly.
“What’s wrong?” Alice asked him.
“I sense an intimidating aura emanating from him. Did the boy absorb the power of darkness by accident?” Krampus wondered as he reached out his hand closer to examine the boy.
“Either that or somebody gave him the power in the shape of essence to make him powerful but as Jack Frost wasn’t an expert in harnessing darkness, he got influenced directly by the essence instead,” Alice guessed.
“Ugh…,” Jack Frost mumbled in his sleep with a painful look on his face.
“He’s hurt. It must be too powerful for the boy,” Phoenix stated
Alice gave a pity look on her face.
“Poor spirit. Somebody must pay for doing this to him,” she said.
Just as Alice said that, Jack Frost suddenly shook awake but with a very angry face.
“Oh dear…he’s gone out of control!” Martha said.
“Let’s hurry and snap him back to his senses,” Vine said.
“Raggh! It’s you, I won’t let you tell me what to do again. Father Frost!” Jack Frost shouted angrily.
“Did he just suddenly…? But we haven’t said anything to him,” Vine wondered.
“Madness. The power has driven him into insanity,” Phoenix stated.
“My boy, forgive me for my failure. I have failed you,” Father Frost told him.
“He’s right, Jack! Please, forgive him this time,” Alice said.
“After what he did? He always told me off for every mistake and prank I did during the lesson for the last 10 years. Why should I forgive him?” Jack Frost said.
Jack Frost suddenly feel a terrible pain after saying it
“Gah! It hurts a lot!” he said.
Alice could see the aura coming from the essence grow bigger.
“The essence is getting powerful—(Gasp),” before Alice could finish her sentence, Jack Frost summons a wide path of icicles from the ground straight at her.
Alice dodges away out of shock.
“Jeez! That shocked me so much…” Alice patted her chest several times to calm down.
Martha stepped up.
“We can’t talk to him while the essence is affecting him like this,” she said.
Phoenix opens his fire wings.
“Try and evade this! Ha!” Phoenix shot his fire feathers in a wide area.
Jack Frost manages to avoid the feathers but one of them hit the back of his leg.
“Aghh!” he instantly fell to the ground from his flight.
“Hyaaah!” Alice runs to him with her knife in right hand.
A large black mass suddenly bursts from Frost and pushes her away before she can get close, causing her land on the ground hard.
“What the?” Martha said.
“Ow…,” Alice slowly gets back on her feet.
“Hrmm…the darkness prevented her from physical contact,” Krampus said.
Krampus opens his mouth and charges the fire in his mouth.
Marta stops Jack Frost’s movement with her magic and Vine generates blue fire around his right foot.
“Blue flame kick!” Vine flew up and hit Frost with the side kick.
Krampus unleashes a large flaming breath on Frost and Marta releases the binding magic from him.
“AHHHH!!” Frost screamed in pain.
He falls on both knees with several fire burning on his hair and left arm.
“Grr…,” he growled while panting.
Everyone was shocked to see the boy
“It doesn’t have any effect on him??” Vine said in shock.
“It did but I think it was the darkness that kept him alive,” Marta said.
Jack Frost summons a hail, causing everyone to run around in pain.
“Hail!? Ow, ow, ow!” Alice gave a shocked face before covering her head from the falling ice blocks.
“Yikes! What is this? I have never seen this kind of weather before,” Vine said in his panic state.
“It’s called Hail, a rain of ice blocks that get bigger after some time,” Alice answered Vine.
Marta’s magic creates a barrier on everyone including herself to block the hail.
“You won’t hurt us this time!” she exclaimed.
“Glacial Eruption,” Father Frost casted.
“You’re being predictable, old man!” Jack Frost said as he keeps avoiding the ice crystals burst from the ground.
“I got you! Bind!” Alice casted a binding magic more powerful than Martha’s in her right hand and throw it toward Frost.
While avoiding the ice crystals, Jack Frost got caught by the binding magic.
“Where did this come from? AHH!!” Jack fell straight to the ground.
Jack Frost tried to move but the magic binds him even more.
“You tried to move, that magic will go even tighter to point of suffocation,” Martha explained Alice’s magic.
“I’m sorry about this. Phoenix!” Alice said to Jack Frost before commanding Phoenix for last resort.
Everyone lifts the spirit in standing position and bring him closer to Phoenix.
“Heat Wave!!” Phoenix opens his wings and unleashes a wave of high-temperature air on Frost.
Everyone sees the spirit of winter screams from the intense heat and the hail stopped when Jack falls unconscious to the ground.
“That must be painful,” Alice said.
Father Frost quickly runs to Jack Frost and tried to heal him. Krampus forcefully pulls the essence of darkness out from the boy and give it to Alice.
“Is this…?” Alice questioned.
“Essence of Darkness…. Boy, for a tiny essence of this, it gives a destructive power,” Martha said in awe.
“But why? Why is it so hard to control?” Vine wondered.
“I can guess that it’s the same thing as every negative feeling we have,” Alice said.
Vine looks at both of them with a confused face.
“For example…can you control or hold your sad feeling for your parent’s death, Vine?” Martha asked Vine to help answer his curiosity.
“No…” Vine answered quietly.
“Then that’s that. It’s a proof that negative feeling is harder to control than positive feeling. I can’t let go of my anger or even sadness and the thing we can do is hold, controlling is harder than holding them,” Martha said.
“Bottling up feeling or keeping your feeling to yourself is easier than letting such feeling go before it explode. It’s almost like that. That’s why anyone who use darkness always called bad or evil because they don’t want to learn how to control the negative feeling inside them so they use the darkness to release all of those feelings onto others. Instead of giving a positive effect, it gives a negative effect to them and others. Sad but this place is the same as Night realm or any other world. The darkness they used is destructive,” she continued.
As soon as she absorbs the essence by grasping it, flashback of memories appears in her mind much to her surprise.
“You look like you just saw a ghost,” Marta said to Alice about her expression.
“It gave me a memory of someone. Memories of the owner and the person in it… I think I ever saw him but forgot where. Either way, the essence is tame so we can use it anytime. Ask me and I will lend the essence to you,” Alice said.
“Just be careful when one of us want to use it. The essence could take control of us just like Jack Frost if we dropped our guard,” Martha said.
Vine raises an eyebrow.
“How so?” he asked.
“Never underestimate the power of darkness, boy,” Phoenix replied.
ns 15.158.61.44da2
