Work Text:
Pitch stumbled his way into the workshop, dragging shadows away from the desiccated bodies of North’s elves. Yetis lay slumped on the floor and across machinery, weapons still in hand where they fell. Sandy bumped into an elf, making its tiny hat jingle and Pitch whipped around to stare at him.
The former Star Captain grimaced and lifted himself to float on a cloud of dream sand. The two warriors inched their way towards North’s private workroom, carefully avoiding any shadow Pitch couldn’t draw to himself. Pitch’s breath hung in the air, a vapor trail behind them, showing them the way out.
As they neared the cracked door to the workroom, Sandy grabbed Pitch’s robes and pointed to his ear and then the door. Pitch froze and craned his ears to listen. The familiar sound of a blade scraping across wood echoed through the eerily silent workshop.
Sandy conjured a baseball bat out of his sand and Pitch pulled his scythe from the shadows. They crept towards the workroom door and Pitch melted through the shadows into the room. He barely caught glimpse of the door slamming and Sandy’s terrified face before the shadows grabbed at him with cold hands.
“Hello, Pitch.” Jack Frost spoke from his spot at North’s bench. “I wondered when you’d show up.”
“Jack, let me go.” Pitch gulped at the sight before him. “Whatever this is, I can pull it out of you.”
The youngest guardian looked up from his work and Pitch flinched at the look on his face. “Why would I want you to do that? My work is bringing fear to the world. I thought you’d appreciate it.”
He dropped the bloody knife with a dull thud on the bench. Pitch swallowed and wriggled his fingers free from the shadow’s grip, pushing his own darkness towards the door. Jack stalked towards him, staff gripped loosely in his bloody, shadow-dipped hands. The crook of the staff lifted Pitch’s chin and he felt frost dance across his jaw.
“This isn’t you, Jack.”
“I think it is. This is what you offered me, isn’t it? Fear and cold, working together!” The spirit laughed, eyes glinting slate grey in the faint light of the moon from the windows. “Are you jealous, Pitch? Jealous I finally embraced the darkness and I’m still more powerful than you?”
“No, no, my friend, I am not jealous. I’m afraid.” Jack circled back to the workbench, still listening, but eager to get back to his work. Pitch slid his shadows closer to the door, ignoring the squelching of the knife carving into flesh. “I’m afraid of you and whatever is powerful enough to change you this way.”
The door to the workroom rattled in its frame. Jack huffed and slammed the knife down, the shadows drawing deeper around the door. Pitch caught a single glimpse of golden sand seeping through and turned his eyes back to Jack.
“You need to stop, Jack.”
“I really don’t.” He dug his knife deeper and slid it to widen the mockery of a smile. “Besides, this is just practice.”
He conjured a cleaver out of ice, swung it high, and brought it down. Pitch looked away as North’s head rolled away on the bench, his face carved up. Jack lifted his prize by the hair and brought it to hold next to Pitch’s head.
“Hmm. He had more meat on his bones. I think I’ll have to get more creative with you.”
The door slammed open, and Sandy launched a net of dream sand at Jack. North’s head went flying as Pitch broke free of his bonds and lent his own shadows to containing the guardian. Moonlight poured into the room, casting Jack in stark relief, his own corrupted shadows wriggling against the cage.
Tooth dashed in, Jack’s memories in hand and forced her hands through the bars to make her young friend touch them. Pitch slipping on the pooling blood from North’s body, felt paws grab and steady him as he wove his shadows tighter around Jack. Aster, his own face flayed and scarred with Jack’s handiwork, held him firm as Tooth and her fairies did the same for Sandy.
North’s horrific smile watched on from the floor, lidless eyes staring up at the moon as they fought to purge the corruption from their friend.