Chapter Text
Pitch Black drew himself up slowly, gathering the tattered shreds of his dignity and pride around him like armor. "I don't need your pity." A strange, almost ridiculous thing to hear from a tattered, mud stained shade, but some part of him clearly remembered what he had once been and he clung to that like a drowning man.
Toothiana's knuckles were white around the iron box, "Good thing you haven't got it." Bunnymund nodded emphatically, coming to Toothiana's side. Jack squirmed in between them, joining Mother Nature.
"It doesn't have to be like this."
Pitch sneered down his nose at Jack. "Oh? And what could it be like? Shall I become the Guardians' pet monster, perhaps? The stick to your carrot?" He loomed over Mother Nature. "And you. What gives you the right to interfere after refusing to involve yourself for so long?"
Lightning crashed, knocking Pitch off his feet and back into the muck. He groaned weakly, trying to rise once more before his body gave up and he collapsed. The stench of burnt vegetation overpowered the tainted abyssal blood. "A hundred years ago, that would have barely phased him." Mother Nature lifted the Boogeyman as easily as a bundle of sticks and carried him to the sleigh.
It took Jack a few moments to find his words; his ears were ringing, and lights continued to flash in front of his eyes. "You're kinda terrifying."
"Only just now noticing?" Bunnymund quipped. Sandman settled beside Pitch in the back of the sleigh, helping Mother Nature lay him down so that the ancient spirit's head rested in his lap. Mother Nature smoothed Pitch's hair back, her expression almost tender.
Toothiana landed lightly near the front of the sleigh, clearly unwilling to get any closer to Pitch than she had to. "He has to choose to take the memories," she pointed out. "I can't force them into him, assuming-"
"Assuming there are any memories to take. I haven't forgotten." Mother Nature glared at the frozen bit of swampland. "I need to find something to clean this up."
Jack poked at the jagged edge of the frozen swamp with the butt of his staff. "Looks pretty solid to me. Not like it'll leak."
It was Bunnymund who responded. "Just freezing it won't keep the taint from spreading. It'll get into the ground, into the air, the rain, the people. There were plants that could just... eat it up, but they were destroyed when Pitch burned his way through the universe."
"Most," Mother Nature corrected. "Not all. Father insisted we keep some in the family garden, just in case. I took them with me when I fled." She folded Pitch's hands together on his chest, then draped the blanket over him. "I can keep him in my sanctuary, for a while at least."
North turned his attention to his reindeer, heavy brows furrowed as he did his best to soothe them. "We cannot depend on whatever you are planning with Pitch. Not with these horrible things coming."
"Too right," Bunnymund insisted, eyes distant as he remembered long ago horrors.
"So what do we do?" Jack demanded.
North stroked the flank of one of the reindeer with a thoughtful hum. "We plan, and we prepare. Bunny, Sandy, you remember these things best. You tell us everything, and we watch the dark places-"
"And I'll see what can be done with Pitch," Mother Nature added. "I might still have some relics from the Golden Age that may be of use, and I can rally some of the other nature spirits. We must hang together, or we will all hang separately."
Bunnymund hopped into the sleigh while Jack helped Mother Nature in. She kept one hand on Pitch as if to reassure herself that he was actually there, and she let Jack hold the other one.