Nonexistent (Rise of the Guardians)

17. Final Battle

So I FINALLY got back around to this story and cobbled together this last chapter. I tried to resolve the loose ends since this story won't be continued, but I have started a rewrite that doesn't completely break the lore of the original stories.

Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy this last chapter. It's extra long for the finale! (But I did very little proofreading so forgive any errors please. I'm just glad I finally finished this story!!)

My nightmare slipped into one last shadow, and during the time that it took for us to teleport between, the foreboding feeling that we had been following for the past couple of hours became even stronger. We emerged in the familiar town of Burgess, where Jack and I had been holed up only a few days ago.

When I opened my eyes and my vision cleared, my blood turned once more to ice. Even in the black of night, I could see the immense cloud of nightmare sand gathering above the trees and the tops of the buildings on Main Street. The cloud encompassed the entirety of the small town, flashes of lightning and odd cracks of light rumbling in its dark mass. My mare stopped short when she saw the multitude of nightmares converging on one house in particular. My stomach sank. That's Jamie's house.

I almost spurred my mount forward but stopped myself as I once again realized I had no powers. "Okay," I muttered, "we need a game plan." My mare looked back at me quizzically before landing on the ice of a frozen pond. Nostalgia gripped me for a moment at the sight of the area, but I shook myself out of the sadness that threatened to overwhelm me in favor of an analytical mindset.

"Okay, I can't tear the nightmares apart or blast them away with the wind because I can't use the wind anymore," I muttered, sliding off of my nightmare's back to pace across the ice nervously. The thunder crackled in the distance. My nerve endings burned with anxiety.  "Aah ok, I have no weapons or anything that I can use against them," frustrated, I dragged my hands down my cheeks, breathing sharply out of my nose.

An idea struck me. I pulled my hands away from my face, staring at my shadow-blackened hand scrutinizingly. I remembered the surge of power that I felt when I attacked Pitch with a tendril of solidified shadow. It had felt powerful, it had felt right. But it had also hurt. And when I had dropped the shadow, the black marking had traveled up my arm further, almost touching my elbow before it faded to match my skin tone.

A flash of light crackled in the distance. Electricity buzzed through the air, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I was out of time and out of options. I held out my hand, pointedly ignoring the tremors in my fingers, and tried to focus my energy the same way I used to with the winds. A very spindly wisp of shadow solidified at the end of my arm, wriggling feebly before dissipating. I groaned, frustrated, and watched as the tendril reappeared, stronger this time. I channeled my feelings of anger, sorrow, and loss into the shadow, and it grew stronger, slicing back and forth through the air like a whip.

I grinned in grim satisfaction despite the sadness that gnawed at the edges of my mind. I had a weapon, and it was just like Sandman's.

"Come on, girl." I scrambled back onto my nightmare's back, adjusting my position. "We have a villain to stop."

With a determined snort, my nightmare surged across the pond, leaping upwards and climbing high above the trees in moments. We galloped furiously towards the roiling cloud of sand, dodging the equine monsters that plunged at us from every corner. I swung my shadow whip at the passing nightmares, slashing through them with a fury I never even knew I had. Watching the sand dissipate and fall to the ground gave me a grim sense of satisfaction, knowing that each monstrous horse I brought down was taking some of Pitch's power away fueled me in my onslaught.