Chapter Text
The whole of the keep rattled with the coming of the Greater Abyssal. The shadows continued to resonate with Pitch's mad laughter, but the Nightmare King himself didn't lower his weapons as he watched the Guardians with narrowed eyes. His lips peeled back from his teeth in a parody of a smile. "You know..." he purred. "I don't have to out run that thing. I just have to out run one of you."
It was Bunnymund who growled "No good deed goes unpunished," as Pitch took off like a bat out of hell. "Go!"
"What the hell was that?" Jack demanded as Bunnymund herded him back the way they had come. Sandman threw up a series of dream sand bars in their wake, and Toothiana darted ahead, easily keeping up with Pitch while flying well out of reach of his makeshift weapon.
Sand didn't stop a Greater Abyssal; it barely even slowed it down. It burst through the walls on their trail, great eyeless head raised as it let loose another roar that shook the masonry. Jack made the mistake of turning to look; his feet shot out from under him and the breath left his lungs as he looked upon the single most unnatural thing in existence. It simply should not be -- the way it twisted itself to fit through the smaller corridors when it couldn't be bothered to just break the walls, the noises it made, even the way it's skin rippled -- it was all horribly, mind destroyingly wrong.
North grabbed Jack by the hoodie and kept him moving. "Don't stop!" he barked.
All Jack wanted to do was curl up into a ball and gibber. Luckily for him, wiser heads prevailed -- and North was more than capable of hauling someone as small and light as Jack without actually slowing down.
"I'll stuff you down the beast's gullet!" Pitch howled, swatting at Toothiana just outside the open gateway home. She kept well out of the reach of his pole arm, managing to look like she'd like nothing better than to pick Pitch up and drop him on the rocks until he was a shadowy smear.
"Time to go!" North bellowed, charging forward with the force of an oncoming train. The Abyssal was still twisting it's way after them, caught up in the last trap Sandman managed to throw up over the already broken doorway. Bunnymund tossed a handful of exploding eggs over his shoulder, and the beast let out a whine made ears bleed. Toothiana tumbled from the air clutching her head, and Pitch's efforts to grab her smacked her right through the gate, back to the real world.
"We can't leave him," Jack managed to say, despite his face being half pressed against the fur collar of North's coat. It was probably the first semi-sane, rational thought he'd been able to form since first setting eyes on the Greater Abyssal. North was already half way through the gate, but Jack was still able to catch Pitch around the throat with the crook of his staff. Pitch made a strangled noise as he was dragged along, and Bunnymund kept throwing his exploding eggs as Sandman threw up another wall of sand over the gate.
They hadn't really given any thought to things like needing to close up the gate after them.
The feted, hot air of the swamp came as a shock after the cold of the Nightmare Realm, helping Jack shake off the lingering effects of seeing the Greater Abyssal.
The alligators were kind of a surprise too.
At least they weren't trying to eat the reindeer, but they were looking at the Guardians like there was going to be a great deal of biting in the near future.
Mother Nature was standing ankle deep in the swamp, looking like the wrathful goddess she was.
Pitch made a strangled noise, untangling himself from Jack's staff and staggering away from the gateway, nearly falling into the alligators. Mother Nature moved through them as easily as if she was crossing a floor, catching him before he fell. Lightning arced down, splitting one of the willows.
"Be aggro later, we've got a beastie on our tail."
North let Jack drop on the steps of the crypt and helped Bunnymund grab the stone door from where it was sinking in. Toothiana unhitched the reindeer, still a little wobbly from the blow she'd taken.
The stone doorway shattered even as North and Bunnymund tried to fit the old door over it, knocking them both backwards and into the midst of the alligators; the animals, at least, had the good sense to flee -- including North's reindeer, who dragged Toothiana along with them.
The Greater Abyssal snapped it's massive jaws as it writhed and twisted, trying to squirm it's way through the gate. A long, slimy tongue wrapped around Jack, trying to draw him into the rows and rows of teeth. Slime and unnatural flesh froze, and Jack shattered the tongue with a few swift blows of his staff and some quick chopping from North's swords. Foul blood poured from the ruined tongue, and the beast howled horribly. Sandman caught it up in great sand ropes, and Bunnymund threw more exploding eggs into the open mouth, but the Abyssal continued to shrink, pushing further through the gate and into the world.
Thick, thorny vines joined Sandman's ropes, contracting with the beast's thrashing, the thorns digging into rubbery flesh. Thunder rumbled overhead; it was the only warning the Guardians got to get out of the way before a column of lightning lanced down, frying the Abyssal until it stopped twitching. The beast dissolved in the weak daylight that managed to filter through the dissipating clouds, and the vines started digging through the masonry of the crypt, speeding along the inevitable decay until there was nothing left standing.
Jack shuddered and turned to thank Mother Nature, but the words dried up in his throat.
Mother Nature was belly down in the swamp, one hand extended to direct the writhing vines. Pitch Black was laying protectively on top of her, teeth bared. He used his broken pike to lever himself upright, one hand held out to pull her with him. He put himself between the nature spirit and the Guardians, a hand ghosting briefly over her hair to pick out the willow leaves that clung there.
Mother Nature deliberately pulled herself away, glaring at the dark blood tainting the swamp. "This place is unclean now. It'll be centuries before... was that what I think it was?"
"The Abyssals are starting to wake up," Pitch Black confirmed, no longer laughing.