Peter wrinkled his nose. There was an uneasy feeling in his stomach and the sickening suspicion that he had again forgotten something significant. Irritated, his gaze slid over Smee and Mullins, turned to concern at the sight of Sitara, then swung back to annoyance. He could not allow himself to be distracted or hoodwinked now.
"Save your lies, Hook!" he hissed, therefore.

Hook's beard twitched as his lips pulled the smirking grin further apart.
"Oh, it's no lie and no trick," Hook spoke with bottomless smugness. He smeared each word with black venom, pronouncing it stretched and pleasurable as if it were the sweetest nectar.
"An old friend of both of us was kind enough to give me directions"; Hook's eyes flashed maliciously at this, and Sitara's gaze went to Hook, eyes widened and full of terrible forebodings ... that were to come true.
"It took a little convincing... but she proved most accommodating. She told me everything. About your thirst for revenge, the pretty star at your side..."
He glanced at Sitara before the glowing dots fixed on Peter again. The dull light from them cast eerie shadows in the rotted features of pale flesh.
"She told me about this place. And about how you would warn the filthy savages about us ..."

Hook reached into his coat pocket, and immediately Peter's muscles tensed. What dirty tricks had the stinking stockfish cooked up now! His heartbeat tightened and drummed restlessly.
Was it a gun? Was Hook going to shoot at him again?
Peter tried to reckon with everything, already planning evasive possibilities. Perhaps he could hide behind the vines and roots and approach unseen?
But when Hook raised his hand, all color drained from Peter's features, and his mouth went dry.

Between the long, musty fingers lay Tinkerbell's pale and limp body. The little fairy looked terrible, her light almost entirely extinguished. Her hair was stringy and caked with golden blood - HER blood, for the delicate wings, had been torn from her back. Her head hung limply on her body, swaying powerlessly from side to side as Hook moved, and Tink seemed barely able to keep her eyes open. The ringing from her was so quiet that even Sitara could scarcely hear it, although she was much closer than Peter.

Peter could only see the state of the fairy, the dying glow, and recognized his friend immediately. At that moment, his features slipped away. All good intentions, his caution, and all his thoughts glided from his imaginary grasp and shattered like glass on the rock.

"I'm afraid your warning won't reach the savages..." purred Hook like a cat demonstrating its superiority over a mouse in a game it had already won. "The rest of my men will see to it thoroughly that this plague is wiped from the face of the island," he assured, twirling Tink in his hands as if still pondering the usefulness of his source of information.
"Be that as it may," the pirate made a throwing-away motion with his hook-handed hand, "let us return to our negotiation. I want the star ... and you don't seem to take me seriously enough."
Hook formed a feigned pout, then turned his hand and dropped the fairy from his hands like trash.

Her tiny body dropped like a stone and hit the hard stone floor in front of the pirate. Gasping, the little creature jerked and rolled to the side, obviously fighting faintness and pain. The little fairy sounded heartbreaking as she reached for Peter's help, and her face was soaked with tears and despair.

"Hook ... wait! Please!" yelped Sitara, but the captain did not heed the star's plea.

Instead, Hook placed his boot over her, his gaze on Peter's face as he pressed the hardened leather sole deeper.
"I'm afraid you leave me no choice, Pan, but to emphasize my point."

The star and Peter heard the crack and crunch as Hook crushed the delicate body beneath his boot like an insect. A brief cracking sound, the kind that came from accidentally stepping on a bug or a snail shell. Then the soft ringing stopped all at once.

From now on, the air seemed to be charged with a thousand sparks - and the explosion was inevitable. Shock paralyzed Sitara and Peter for a breath, leaving them staring at the horror image. A mixture of crushed flesh, golden blood, and offal spilled from under Hook's boot, the sight of which instantly made Sitara taste bitter bile and feel nauseous in her throat.

Beside her, Smee gasped and saw the man's eyes widen so that it looked like they were about to pop out of his skull. His mouth was open, and a tremor ran through the gaunt man.

The water of the distant falls rushed, an ominous rumble from the mountain reached them in the cave, and somewhere startled animals screeched. An oppressive and wordless silence, without being genuinely soundless, overlaid solely by the roar of heartbeats and rushes of blood in the ears.

It was the moment before an explosion dragged on and was followed by a tremendous bang. A few heartbeats before Peter realized that what he was seeing there was reality and Tinkerbell was dead - then, with a roar of sheer fury, Peter shot down into the depths. Between falling and tumbling, he pulled out his dagger and aimed it at Hook's black heart of corrupted starlight.

Hook, with his sharp features over the blank skull and his mocking smile, immediately drew the magic saber. The blade glowed menacingly in the dim light of the cave. With his wild mane of hair and hardened expression, Peter lunged at Hook like a raging animal. He thrust, again and again, from all sides and with a fierce force that gave him pain and anger. Peter's nimble movements and quick reflexes enabled him to dodge Hook's deadly blows, but he couldn't seem to land a solid blow himself.

"I must say, Pan, you look very determined today. But we both know how this ends. You'll never be able to beat me," Hook provoked, twirling the glowing saber toward Peter.

The blow narrowly missed Peter this time, and the enchanted blade whizzed past his chest. Whirring, it cut through leaves and spider webs without resistance, leaving a long bloody cut across Peter's body.

"Is that the best you can do? You'll have to try harder than that if you want to defeat me!" taunted Hook, lashing out again at Peter, from whom he usually got cheeky remarks back.

But the prodigal was utterly blinded by anger. He didn't even seem to feel it and didn't reply to the provocations but lunged toward his mortal enemy with another roar. The pirate stepped back but quickly regained his footing and lunged again. At that exact moment, Peter dived under the swing of Hook's saber to narrowly avoid the blow and countered with a swift thrust straight into its belly.

The captain had not expected this. The prodigal's dagger dug deep into his body, sinking the edge into it ... but he felt no pain, nor did he bleed.
"You cannot defeat me!" the pirate wailed and was about to sneer further when Peter lashed out and buried his bare fist in Hook's face. Caught off guard, the pirate stumbled and fell to the ground, where Peter pounced directly on him.

Peter thought of nothing but Tinkerbell and the Darlings and his lost ones. Of their faces, their blank eyes, and their faces in expressions of terror. Pain pressed into Peter's knuckles, which had cracked open and were smeared with the black brew of Hook's blood. The undead had dropped the saber to shield his face with his arms, but Peter's wrath was merciless.

"The captain needs your help! Quick!" Smee gasped, yanking on Mullin's arm. Mullin did not need to be told twice. He grabbed the star by one arm, and his fist drove with iron hardness against the woman's skull, sending her to the ground.
"Watch the bitch!" barked Mullins, already rushing forward to decide Peter and Hook's fight.

Punch after punch thundered down on Hook. He struck the pirate repeatedly without coordination while tears blurred his vision. Then Mullin's fleshy fingers grabbed him and pulled him back.

The pirate put him in a headlock so that he could not free himself, and the pirate captain scrambled to his feet. His face was a single mass of burst flesh and blood. Black and red streaks mingled with the flesh hanging off his cheek while his eyes glowed red. The saber clanked as the hook-handed man picked it up from the ground and gripped it with determination.

Peter's chest rose and fell under heavy breaths. His heart beat so violently in his chest that it seemed to leap out of it as if it wanted to continue where Peter had stopped and struck Hook down.

But the captain approached Peter and took a deep breath. The two had clashed countless times before, but this time something was different. The atmosphere was heavy with the momentous foreshadowing of the end of the fight that had been going on for ages. And the winner seemed already decided.

Wordcount: 1.502 Words