Chapter Text
There was a certain awkward tension in the air, almost as thick as the stench of Abyssal blood. Mother Nature pointedly ignored everyone as she began walling up the place where the crypt had been with a tangle of brambles. Muck dripped off her dress, and the alligators followed her around like a pack of faithful puppies. Pitch settled himself on what passed for solid ground, a smirk slowly spreading across his face.
"Well, isn't this an interesting turn of events. Been making friends, my dear girl?"
"I'm starting to discover that friends are not to my taste," Mother Nature replied waspishly, making Pitch laugh.
"How 'bout we focus on the important stuff?" Bunnymund suggested in that too-bright way that meant someone was likely to have a boomerang buried in their forehead in the very near future. "Like the fact that the Greater Abyssals are waking up."
Sandman nodded emphatically. His tiny hands were curled into fists, and his broad face was torn between fierce determination and horror.
"I'd been keeping them asleep until now." Pitch watched Mother Nature instead of the Guardians. She stepped back from the brambles, lowering her arms, and watched as it withered and died with a small curse. "Sadly, I am not the man I once was."
The brambles collapsed in a pile of dead vegetation. Mother Nature kept her back to everyone as she raised another batch for thorny plants. These died a much quicker death, and the guiding force of all nature let loose a string of oaths that made the swamp around her boil.
"Can't say I'm surprised," said Toothiana without a trace of sympathy. "Trying to take over the world must be very tiring."
Pitch glowered at her from his relatively dry spot. "Six hundred years of being completely forgotten is tiring. At this point, I think I'm rather beyond 'tired'."
"They smelled blood in the water." The swamp started to frost over, foul blood freezing solid under Mother Nature's direction. She glanced first at the Guardians, then turned a longer, harder look on Pitch. "You were weakened and wounded, and now they'll be coming for you until you're dead or powerful enough to force them back."
"Is not metaphor I find to my liking," North noted. Bunnymund gave Mother Nature a dark look, and as Jack glanced around he could tell that they had all reached the same conclusion about what she had to be thinking.
"And just what is it you plan to do about that, my dear?" Pitch asked. There was a disturbing light dancing in his eyes that made Jack's skin crawl. "Feed me with your hunting beasts? Perhaps we could follow the old bandit again," he sneered at North, "as he terrorizes some unfortunate merchant? I recall you thought that was great fun. You certainly didn't approve of my last plan."
Mother Nature kicked at the frozen edge of the tainted swamp, apparently satisfied that it was solid. "I haven't decided, but I'm sure I can come up something better than reducing the whole world to a state of mind destroying terror."
Sometimes, there was really nothing you could do but stand back and let things happen. As Pitch Black surged to his feet and Mother Nature continued to give him that hard look, Jack realized that this was something that had been waiting to happen for a very long time.
"Six hundred years," Pitch repeated with a hiss, "I had to watch while the world worshiped at the alter of hope, and wonder, and dreams." He pointed the end of his broken pike at the gathered Guardians, the knife glinting in the faint light. "While I was relegated to being a figment of the imagination! It was me who kept them alive before that lot. Me and my fear!" The shadows beneath the willows writhed, reaching out to Pitch. "But that wasn't good enough for the Man in the Moon! Couldn't have the little darlings afraid! I was taking back what was mine, and it would have worked!"
Mother Nature's tone was as frosty as the ground she stood on. "Then what? Nothing can survive in a permanent state of fear, not for very long. Eventually, the body just stops. In the end, you would have wiped out everyone, just like the Abyssals! Who would have believed in you then?" She slogged through the muck until she was inches away from Pitch. "Your plan was insane, and six hundred years ago, you'd have agreed with me!"
Far above, clouds began to roll in, blocking out the sunlight while a harsh wind whipped through the willows.
"I did everything I could to help you, but you have forgotten your duty! You have forgotten your place! You have forgotten yourself!"
Thunder punctuated the pronouncement, and Mother Nature gave Pitch a shove that sent him sprawling, much to his obvious surprise.
"You still have the tooth?" she asked, glancing at Toothiana out of the corner of her eye. She didn't entirely look away from Pitch, and vines writhed in the damp ground around him, ready to lash him down if he made any unwise moves. Toothiana flew closer, showing the iron box still in her hands.
"Thought you said it was a bad idea?" Jack couldn't resist asking.
"Oh, I still think that. But now I don't think there's much choice left."